Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) (11 page)

“Yeah, that fits. Lucille Marie rides horses, competes in horse shows—she won some kind of trophy out in the Hamptons three years ago—and Brandon, the older boy, plays chess. Competitive chess. The little one danced in
The Nutcracker
this Christmas.”

“A family of high achievers,” Barbara mused, “and Uncle God, the Bowery bum.”

“Bum?” I said. “Now you’re hurting my feelings.”

“I’m just saying how they’d think of it,” Barbara said. “You’re not a bum. You just think not drinking is no fun.”

“Isn’t it?”

“And when you do drink, you can’t function.”

“Not so hot,” I admitted. “Sounds like a bum to me.”

“Are we having fun yet?” Jimmy chipped in.

“He doesn’t mean that,” Barbara told me. “He just says it all the time because it’s in the ACOA handbook.” There is no handbook for adult children of alcoholics. But I knew what she meant.

Barbara got off the crosstown bus at Lexington Avenue, shaking her head as she did every time over the inconvenient demise of the bus stop at Park Avenue. The Christmas lights strung overhead across East 86th Street every year had been dismantled, to her disappointment. But on Lex, shop windows still glittered, hoping to lure buyers for their unsold holiday stock. She had meant to take the subway down to the Sixties, but she decided to walk. The air held a hint of January thaw. The city smelled and looked less wintry than it had, if not springlike yet. All traces of the last big snow had vanished. Since the last act of even the most spectacular blizzard in the city consisted of raggedy mounds of blackened, icy snow liberally stained with bright yellow dog urine barring the egress of cars unfortunate enough to be parked on the street when it snowed, she wasn’t sorry.

She window shopped her way down the crowded avenue, content to look without covetousness. She and Jimmy had celebrated the holidays to satiation point. He had introduced her years ago to the Christmases he’d never had: mysterious, artfully wrapped packages heaped under the tree, a fresh cut evergreen bristling with tinsel and hung about with minor works of art, and peace, if not on earth, at least in the family. She had chipped in the secular Jewish American’s Chanukah: a menorah, a present every night for the eight nights of the holiday, and abundant potato latkes made from scratch with the traditional blood sacrifice produced by knuckles scraped as the raw potatoes were grated.

Emily Weill’s address in the Sixties must be between Lexington and Park, so if she cut a block west she would have to retrace her steps. She decided the change of pace was worth it. To her disappointment, the holiday displays on the parklike medians had also been removed. But the broad street with its massive residential buildings felt peaceful in spite of the flocks of yellow taxis zipping past. Without the distraction of commerce and passersby, she began to think about her mission and felt nervous for the first time. Worst case scenarios played in her head. What if she couldn’t find the house? What if nobody answered the door? What if Emmie slammed it in her face? It was absurd to let such minor social concerns frighten her, but what she called codependency magnified them to the point of dread. Anybody in Al-Anon, she thought, would understand, but anybody outside it would think she was nuts.

A childhood incident flashed through her head. With program people, she had become almost apologetic because her family had been so loving. Her memories were so benign compared to those of Jimmy and Bruce and almost everybody she knew these days, between the program and her work. But children didn’t need trauma to agonize. She had been shy. Too shy to venture down the block alone to sell Girl Scout cookies to the neighbors, she had panicked at the thought of having to confess to her Brownie troop leader that she had sold none. So her mother had stuffed her into the cocoa brown uniform, clapped the felt beanie on her head, and escorted her from door to door. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old, since Brownies “flew up” to become green-clad Scouts at nine or ten. Her mother had been part of the problem as well as part of the solution—a paradox that had recurred often in the many years since. She must remember to tell her therapist. She had a visceral memory of the terror with which she had climbed each stoop and pushed the bell. When the lady of the house appeared—one of the not yet dying breed of housewives—her mother would push her forward and say, “This little girl has something to say to you.” Well, if she couldn’t think what to say in her first attempt at sleuthing, she could always try, “Would you like to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies?”

She had no trouble finding the number. The block itself had a vast luxury apartment building on the Park Avenue corner, a high-rent florist at the corner on Lex, and a row of well-kept brownstones in between, along with a trio of short, slim Federal-style architectural gems and a couple of broader white stone townhouses. It was precisely the kind of street she liked to venture down from time to time, pretending for a brief period that her life had gone quite differently. The address she wanted was an impeccable little carriage house three stories high, the brick sandblasted so that not one speck of urban grit adhered to it. The single entrance sat level with the street: a heavy hardwood door gleaming with what might be hand-rubbed oil and a brass knocker bright with polish in the shape of a lion’s head. The windows sparkled like a diamond-hung grande dame at a charity ball.

“I feel inferior already,” Barbara said to the door, then glanced around to make sure no one had heard. No one had. This kind of block discouraged pedestrians.

Through a diamond pane in the door, Barbara could see another door to the right and a flight of carpeted stairs going up straight ahead. Two brass bells, the lower one labeled “Doctor’s Office,” glinted invitingly. Barbara rang the upper one.

Butterflies fluttered in her abdomen as she waited for some kind of response, half hoping no one would come to the door. Afraid they wouldn’t. Afraid they would. Afraid of whoever it might be. Afraid of making a fool of herself. Codependency was irrational. Did she think she’d get demerits? What was the worst that could happen? Why on earth had she volunteered to do this? Why didn’t she just walk away? She rang again.

Peering through the glass, she saw someone clattering down the stairs, or at least moving at a rate that would have been clattering if the carpet hadn’t been so thick and the front door so heavy. It looked like a child or, rather, a young boy. He was tall enough to peer through the glass, putting them eye to eye. She leaped back, thinking too late that if there had been a stoop, she would have fallen off backwards. Making eye contact through the glass from a slightly safer distance, she produced a sickly grin that she hoped made her look harmless. Two locks that sounded as if they meant business clicked, and the door opened about a foot, leaving a heavy chain in place. The boy’s face peered through. Oh, help! she thought. Curtain going up.

“Hi. Do you think I could speak to your mother? Um, it’s personal.”

The boy looked at her, evidently trying, like any sophisticated New York child, to assess whether she might be a Jehovah’s Witness. He appeared to be about fourteen, rather frail in build with pale, smooth skin, very fine mouse-brown hair, and dark brown eyes with startlingly long lashes. His small mouth was sculpted in an old-fashioned bow shape that made him look sweet and faintly epicene.

As he and Barbara stared at each other, a woman’s voice wafted down the stairs.

“Brandy? Who is it?”

“I’m not sure, Mother,” he called back. The term struck Barbara as oddly formal and very East Side. Anyone she knew would have said Mom or Ma. “Uh, wait a minute.”

Barbara flapped her hands out to indicate she wasn’t going anywhere. He ran up the stairs. After a period of whispers and muttering, he came running down again.

“What is it about, please?”

“It’s, um, personal.” She felt excruciatingly embarrassed. How did Lord Peter Wimsey do it? They probably took one look at his aristocratic face and told him anything he wanted to know. “It’s, um, about her brother.”

A look she couldn’t read flitted across his face. He whirled and galloped up the stairs again. More muttering. Then Barbara heard the upper door close. A woman appeared on the landing above. She descended the stairs at a dignified pace.

“Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Weill?”

She had the same fine hair and sweetly sculpted mouth as the boy. She wore a white silk blouse that looked as if it wouldn’t dare to show a stain or wrinkle and a beautifully fitting charcoal gray suit in a soft, finely woven wool from undoubtedly expensive sheep. Diamond studs, big enough to emit a significant twinkle but not big enough to call vulgar attention to her ears, framed an oval face touched with perfect, almost imperceptible makeup. Her well-sculpted legs were swathed in equally near-invisible panty hose, her feet clad in black leather pumps that looked as if they would rather have died than become scuffed. Barbara marveled not only at the outfit, but that she had evidently put it on just to hang out at home. When Barbara hung out at home, she wore sweats and bunny slippers. Thoroughly rattled, she had only one coherent thought: If she didn’t say something fast to explain and justify her presence, she would sink through the sidewalk and into the ground right there on the spot.

“Mrs. Weill, I’m so sorry to bother you. I was—that is, I’m a friend of your brother.” Well, she could have been. And God wasn’t around to contradict her. “I hope you don’t mind. If I could just talk to you a few minutes? I’m really very sorry.” Always sorry, Barbara thought, whether or not it’s appropriate. Sorry when somebody steps on my foot or cuts me off in traffic. Emmie Weill looked puzzled but not unapproachable or too terribly surprised. Belatedly, Barbara realized that for once her apology was appropriate. She was offering the woman condolences for her brother’s death. “I’m
very
sorry about Godfrey, very. Oh, I’m Barbara Rose.”

“That is kind of you. Would you care to come in, Ms. Rose?” She slipped the chain off the door.

Yes!
“Thank you so much.” Barbara took a giant step across the threshold before either of them could change her mind. As they climbed the stairs, it occurred to her that if Emmie knew God had been in and out of AA, she was likely to think Barbara was probably a fellow alcoholic. And how do you feel about that? she asked herself, posing the counselor’s favorite question. Like most clients, she found it hard to say.

Ten minutes later, she sat perched on the edge of a tapestry-covered wing chair, sipping Earl Grey with lemon from a translucent porcelain cup. In the other hand, an inch or two below the cup, she held a saucer. Barbara could not remember the last time she had had tea in a cup that had a saucer. She would have liked to turn it over and read the label, but she had higher priorities than satisfying her curiosity. For whatever reason, Emmie was willing to talk to her, and she didn’t want to screw it up.

“Guffy was always wild,” Emmie said. “Guffy was my name for him. I couldn’t pronounce ‘Godfrey’ when I was small. Even as a child, he seemed to have no brakes. He was always going too far, dreaming too ambitiously, taking too many chances. He discovered drinking in prep school, and I’m afraid he started going too far with that at once. Unfortunately, the family didn’t have the means to stop him.”

“You mean he had his own resources?” If Barbara knew one thing from reading too many novels, it was that the upper classes considered it rude to talk openly about money.

“Well, yes.” Emmie sounded apologetic, as if it were Barbara who was bound to think her rude. “I’m afraid there was a great deal of bitterness in the family about that.”

“Bitterness?”

“Guffy was my grandfather’s favorite, and my sisters especially were afraid that he was squandering resources that they felt should eventually go to them. Guffy was unlikely to marry, you see, so of course he had no direct heirs.”

“And you?” Barbara asked. Why was God unlikely to marry? Could he have been gay after all? Or did she mean because of the alcoholism? Alcoholics did marry, as twenty-eight million children of alcoholics could attest.

“I didn’t care about that,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears. “It was wrong of them to put pressure on him like that! Even if he did threaten to—but I’m sure it was only teasing. He knew how to agitate them, and I’m afraid it amused him. But it was wrong of them to give up on him. I couldn’t bear to turn my back on him completely. He had done some things that were unforgivable. Utterly unforgivable. My husband forbade me to see him again. I knew—for the children’s sake—but—I’m sorry.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief edged with lace. Probably hand knotted by arthritic little old ladies in some French village, Barbara thought. And there I go, dealing with embarrassment by getting judgmental.

“It must have been hard for you.” It wasn’t difficult to project what one school of therapy called unconditional positive regard. Emmie was obviously a nice woman, and she was in a lot of pain.

“The first time he tried to stop drinking, he invited me to a family weekend at the facility. It was a lovely place in Minnesota.”

Barbara nodded. Minnesotans in recovery called their state the treatment capital of the United States.

“They said I had to stop enabling.” Barbara had heard this many times in her counseling career, in tones ranging from indignant to self-flagellating. She had said it herself when Jimmy first got sober. “I only wanted to help him!” Emmie sounded distressed and frustrated, although her voice was so gentle that the words lacked force, like a spent wave on a beach. “I only wanted to see him! He was my brother, and I loved him. And now he’s gone!” She blew her nose hard on the elegant handkerchief. The tears ran freely, and so did her mascara, not lightening her lashes appreciably but leaving, Barbara thought distractedly, what Jimmy called “little Boris Karloffs” under her eyes.

“Emmie,” she said impulsively, “would you like to go to a meeting?”

It was three in the morning, and I wanted a drink. I sat on the kitchen floor with a bag of potato chips and a box of Oreo cookies in my lap. I had thought maybe I could resist the booze by substituting junk food. Now I couldn’t stop eating, but I still wanted a drink. One, and then another and another and another. I was doing what I was supposed to do. I went to a meeting every day. I even sat down and listened a lot of the time. I admit I hadn’t raised my hand to speak yet. It wouldn’t go up. One of the temp agencies I’d visited had said they were quite sure they’d be able to call me with something within a day or two. So I didn’t have to worry about where the rent or my cigarettes would come from. I even made an appointment with the dentist. Recovering alcoholics always say their teeth were fine until they got sober.