Eight Million Ways to Die (37 page)

Was there any point in carrying a gun I seemed unable to fire? I couldn't see any, but I put it in my pocket anyway.

I went downstairs and bought a paper, and without thinking too much about it I walked around the corner and took a table in Armstrong's. My usual corner table. Trina came over, said it had been a long time, and took my order for a cheeseburger and a small salad and coffee.

After she headed for the kitchen I got a sudden flash of a martini, straight up and bone dry and ice cold in a stemmed glass. I could see it, I could smell the odor of juniper and the tang of a lemon twist. I could feel the bite as it hit bottom.

Jesus, I thought.

The urge for a drink passed as suddenly as it had come on me. I decided it was a reflex, a reaction to the atmosphere of Armstrong's. I'd done so much drinking here for so long, I'd been eighty-sixed here after my last bender, and I hadn't crossed the threshold since. It was only natural that I'd think of a drink.

It didn't mean I had to have one.

I ate my meal, drank a second cup of coffee afterward. I read my newspaper, paid my check, left a tip.

Then it was time to go over to St. Paul's.

The qualification was an alcoholic version of the American Dream.

The speaker was a poor boy from Worcester, Mass. who worked his way through college, rose to a vice-presidency at one of the television networks, then lost it all drinking. He went all the way down, wound up in Los Angeles drinking Sterno in Pershing Square, then found AA and got it all back.

It would have been inspiring if I could have kept my mind on it.

But my attention kept straying. I thought about Sunny's funeral, I thought about what Chance had told me, and I found my thoughts wandering all over the whole case, trying to make sense out of it.

Damnit, it was all there. I just wasn't looking at it right.

I left during the discussion, before it was my turn to speak. I didn't even feel like saying my name tonight.

I walked back to my hotel, fighting the urge to stop in at Armstrong's for a minute or two.

I called Durkin. He was out. I hung up without leaving a message and called Jan.

No answer. Well, she was probably still at her meeting. And she'd go out for coffee afterward, probably wouldn't get home until after eleven.

I could have stayed at my own meeting until it ended, then gone to coffee with some of the others. I could join them now, as far as that went. The Cobb's Corner where they hung out wasn't all that far away.

I thought about it. And decided I didn't really want to go there.

I picked up a book but couldn't make sense out of it. I tossed it down, got undressed, went into the bathroom and ran the shower. But I didn't need a shower, for Christ's sake, I just had a shower that morning, and the most strenuous activity I'd had all day was watching Chance working out with weights.

What the hell did I need with a shower?

I turned the water off and got dressed again.

Jesus, I felt like a caged lion. I picked up the phone. I might have called Chance but you couldn't just call the son of a bitch, you had to call his service and wait for him to call back, and I didn't feel like doing that. I called Jan, who was still out, and I called Durkin. He wasn't there either, and once again I decided against leaving a message.

Maybe he was at that place on Tenth Avenue, unwinding with a couple of belts. I thought about going over there and looking for him, and it struck me that it wasn't Durkin I'd be looking for, that all I wanted was an excuse to walk through the door of that bucket of blood and put my foot upon the brass rail.

Did they even have a brass rail? I closed my eyes and tried to picture the place, and in an instant I was recalling everything about it, the smells of spilled booze and stale beer and urine, that dank tavern smell that welcomes you home.

I thought, You've got nine days and you went to two meetings today, a noon meeting and an evening meeting, and you've never been closer to a drink. What the hell's the matter with you?

If I went to Durkin's boozer I'd drink. If I went to Farrell's or Polly's or Armstrong's I would drink. If I stayed in my room I'd go crazy, and when I went crazy enough I'd get away from those four walls and what would I do? I'd go out, to one bar or another, and I'd drink.

I made myself stay there. I'd gotten through the eighth day and there was no reason why I couldn't get through the ninth. I sat there and every now and then I looked at my watch and sometimes a whole minute went by between looks. Finally it got to be eleven o'clock and I went downstairs and hailed a taxi.

There's a midnight meeting seven nights a week at the Moravian Church on the corner of Thirtieth and Lexington. The doors open about an hour before meeting time. I got there and took a seat, and when the coffee was ready I got myself a cup.

I didn't pay attention to the qualification or the discussion. I just sat there and let myself feel safe. There

were a lot of newly sober people in the room, a lot of people who were having a hard time. Why else would they be there at that hour?

There were some people who hadn't stopped drinking yet, too.

They had to put one of them out, but the others didn't make any trouble.

Just a roomful of people getting through one more hour.

When the hour was up I helped fold the chairs and empty the ashtrays. Another chair folder introduced himself as Kevin and asked me how long I'd been sober. I told him it was my ninth day.

"That's great," he said. "Keep coming back."

They always say that.

I went outside and signaled a passing cab, but when he cut over and started to brake I changed my mind and waved him off. He gunned his engine as he drove away.

I didn't want to go back to the room.

So instead I walked seven blocks north to Kim's building, bluffed my way past her doorman, let myself into her apartment. I knew there was a closetful of booze there but it didn't bother me. I didn't even feel the need to pour it down the sink, as I'd done with the bottle of Wild Turkey earlier.

In her bedroom, I went through her jewelry. I wasn't really looking for the green ring. I picked up the ivory bracelet, unfastened the clasp, tried it for size on my own wrist. It was too small. I got some paper towels from the kitchen and wrapped the bracelet carefully, put it in my pocket.

Maybe Jan would like it. I'd pictured it on her wrist a few times--

at her loft, during the funeral service.

If she didn't like it she didn't have to wear it.

I went over, picked up the phone. The service hadn't been disconnected yet. I supposed it would be sooner or later, just as sooner or later the apartment would be cleaned and Kim's things removed from it.

But for now it was still as if she'd just stepped out for a moment.

I hung up the phone without calling anyone. Somewhere around three o'clock I got undressed and went to sleep in her bed. I didn't change the linen, and it seemed to me that her scent, still faintly discernible, constituted a presence in the room.

If so, it didn't keep me awake. I went right off to sleep.

I woke up bathed in perspiration, convinced that I'd solved the case in a dream and then forgot the solution. I showered and dressed and got out of there.

There were several messages at my hotel, all of them from Mary Lou Barcker. She'd called just after I left the night before and a couple of times that morning.

When I called her she said, "I've been trying to reach you. I would have called you at your girlfriend's but I couldn't remember her last name."

"Her number's unlisted." And I wasn't there, I thought, but left it unsaid.

"I'm trying to reach Chance," she went on. "I thought you might have talked to him."

"Not since around seven last night. Why?"

"I can't get hold of him. The only way I know is to call his service--"

"That's the only way I know."

"Oh. I thought you might have a special number."

"Only the service."

"I've called there. He always returns his calls. I've left, God, I don't know how many messages and he hasn't called me back."

"Has that ever happened before?"

"Not for this length of time. I started trying him late yesterday afternoon. What time is it, eleven o'clock?

That's over seventeen hours. He wouldn't go that long without checking with his service."

I thought back to our conversation at his house. Had he checked with his service in all the time we were together? I didn't think he had.

Other times we'd been together he called in every half hour or so.

"And it's not just me," she was saying. "He hasn't called Fran, either. I checked with her and she called him and he never returned her calls."

"What about Donna?"

"She's here with me. Neither of us wanted to be alone. And Ruby, I don't know where Ruby is. Her number doesn't answer."

"She's in San Francisco."

"She's where?"

I gave her a brief explanation, then listened as she relayed the information to Donna. "Donna's quoting Yeats," she told me. " 'Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.' Even I can recognize that. Apt, though.

Things are falling apart all over the place."

"I'm going to try to get hold of Chance."

"Call me when you do?"

"I will."

"Meanwhile Donna's staying here and we're not booking any tricks or answering the door. I already told the doorman not to let anybody come up."

"Good."

"I invited Fran to come over here but she said she didn't want to.

She sounded very stoned. I'm going to call her again and instead of inviting her to come over I'm going to tell her to come over."

"Good idea."

"Donna says the three little pigs will all be hiding in the brick house. Waiting for the wolf to come down the chimney. I wish she'd stick to Yeats."

I couldn't get anywhere with his answering service. They were happy to take my message but wouldn't disclose whether Chance had called in recently. "I expect to hear from him shortly," a woman told me,

"and I will see that he receives your message."

I called Brooklyn information and got the number for the house in Greenpoint. I dialed it and let it ring

for a dozen times. I'd remembered what he'd told me about removing the clappers from the bells of his telephones, but I thought it was worth a check.

I called Parke Bernet. The sale of African and Oceanic art and artifacts was scheduled for two o'clock.

I had a shower and a shave, had a roll and a cup of coffee and read the paper. The Post managed to keep the Motel Ripper on the front page, but it took some stretching to do it. A man in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx had stabbed his wife three times with a kitchen knife, then called the police to tell them what he'd done. This normally would have rated two paragraphs on the back page at the most, but the Post put it on the front page and topped it with a teaser headline that wondered, did the motel ripper inspire him?

I went to a meeting at twelve-thirty and got to Parke Bernet a few minutes after two. The auction was being held in a different room from the one where the sale lots had been displayed. You had to have a sale catalog to get a seat, and the catalogs cost five dollars. I explained I was just looking for someone and scanned the room. Chance wasn't there.

The attendant didn't want me to hang around unless I bought a catalog, and it was easier to do that than argue with him. I gave him the five dollars and wound up registering and getting a bidder's number while I was at it. I didn't want to register, I didn't want a bidder's number, I didn't want the goddamned catalog.

I sat there for almost two hours while one lot after another went under the hammer. By two-thirty I was fairly certain he wasn't going to show but I stayed in my seat because I couldn't think of anything better to do. I paid minimal attention to the auction and looked around every couple of minutes for Chance. At twenty to four the Benin bronze was offered for bids and sold for $65,000, which was just a little higher than the estimate. It was the star of the sale and quite a few bidders left once it had been sold. I hung on a few minutes longer, knowing he wasn't coming, just trying to grapple with the same thing I'd been grappling with for days.

It seemed to me that I already had all the pieces. It was just a question of fitting them together.

Kim. Kim's ring and Kim's mink jacket. Cojones. Maricon. The towels. The warning. Calderon. Cookie Blue.

I got up and left. I was crossing the lobby when a table full of catalogs of past sales caught my eye. I picked up a catalog of a jewelry auction held that spring and leafed through it. It didn't tell me anything. I put it back and asked the lobby attendant if the gallery had a resident expert on gems and jewelry. "You want Mr. Hillquist," he said, and told me what room to go to and pointed me in the right direction.

Mr. Hillquist sat at an uncluttered desk as if he'd been waiting all day for me to consult him. I gave him my name and told him I wanted some vague approximation of the value of an emerald. He asked if he could see the stone, and I explained that I didn't have it with me.

"You would have to bring it in," he explained. "The value of a gem depends upon so many variables.

Size, cut, color, brilliance--"

I put my hand in my pocket, touched the .32, felt around for the bit of green glass. "It's about this size," I said, and he fitted a jeweler's loupe into one eye and took the piece of glass from me. He looked at it, went absolutely rigid for an instant, then fixed his other eye warily upon me.

"This is not an emerald," he said carefully. He might have been talking to a small child, or to a lunatic.

"I know that. It's a piece of glass."