Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

“Of course.”

“I smelled the scotch when he opened the bottle and poured the drink. And it struck me that I hadn’t smelled it on his breath when he let me into the apartment. We shook hands, our faces weren’t all that far apart. I’d have smelled it if it had been there to smell.”

“If the man hadn’t been drinking,” she wondered, “why would he say he had?”

“I have no idea.”

“I could understand if it was the other way around. People do that all the time, especially if they think the person they’re talking to might have a judgment on the subject. He knew you didn’t drink so he might assume you disapprove of others drinking. But you don’t, do you?”

“Only when they throw up on my shoes.”

“Maybe he wanted to impress you with the gravity of the situation. ‘I’m not much of a drinker, I never have more than one a day, but this creep with the poisoned pen has me so rattled I’ve had a few already and I’m about to have another.’”

“‘And then I’ll stop, because stress or not I’m no rummy.’ I thought of that.”

“And?”

“Why would he think he needed to do that? He just got a death threat from a guy with maximum credibility. Will’s been all over the front pages for weeks, and so far he’s batting a thousand. And here you’ve got Adrian Whitfield, a worldly man, certainly, and one professionally accustomed to the company of criminals, but all the same a far cry from a daredevil.”

“You wouldn’t mistake him for Evel Knievel.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said, “because when all is said and done he’s a lawyer in a three-piece suit, and the chances he takes tend not to be physical in nature. Of course he’s going to take a letter from Will seriously. He doesn’t have to prove it to me by pretending to have had drinks earlier.”

“You don’t suppose...”

“What?”

“Could he have been a closet teetotaler?”

“Huh?”

“You said he poured a drink in front of you. Are you sure he actually drank it?”

I thought about it. “Yes,” I said.

“You saw him drink it.”

“Not in a single swallow, but yes.”

“And it was whiskey?”

“It came out of a scotch bottle,” I said, “and I got a whiff of it when he poured it. It smelled like booze. In fact it smelled like a single-malt scotch, which is what it claimed to be on the label.”

“And you saw him drink it, and you smelled it on his breath.”

“Yes to the first part. Did I smell it on his breath afterward? I don’t remember one way or the other. I didn’t have occasion to notice.”

“You mean he didn’t kiss you goodnight?”

“Not on the first date,” I said.

“Well, shame on him,” she said. “I kissed you goodnight, on our first date. I can even remember what you had on your breath.”

“You can, huh?”

“Whiskey,” she said. “And moi ”

“What a memory.”

“Well, it was memorable, you old bear. No, what I was getting at, I know there are people who drink but try to hide it. And I wondered if there might also be people who don’t drink, and try to hide that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Why does anybody do anything?”

“I’ve often wondered.” I thought about it. “A lot of us maintain our anonymity to one degree or another. There’s a longstanding tradition against going public about being a member of AA, though lately that’s getting honored in the breach.”

“I know. All these Hollywood types go straight from Betty Ford to Barbara Walters.”

“They’re not supposed to do that,” I said, “but it’s your own business to what extent you stay anonymous in your private life. I don’t tell casual acquaintances unless I have a reason. And if I’m at a business meeting and the other fellow orders a drink, I’ll just order a Coke. I won’t issue an explanation.”

“And if he asks if you drink?”

“Sometimes I’ll say ‘Not today,’ something like that. Or, ‘It’s a little early for me,’ if I’m feeling particularly devious. But I can’t imagine pouring a drink and pretending to drink it, or keeping colored water in a scotch bottle.” I remembered something. “Anyway,” I said, “there were the liquor store records, the deliveries he’d had over the past months. They confirmed that he was just what he claimed to be, a guy who had one drink a day on the average.”

“He was ill,” she said. “Some kind of lymphatic cancer, wasn’t it?”

“It metastasized to the lymph system. I believe the original site was one of the adrenals.”

“Maybe he couldn’t drink as much as he used to. Because of the cancer.”

“I suppose that’s possible.”

“And he was in denial about his health, wasn’t he? Or at least he wasn’t telling people about it.”

“So?”

“So maybe that would lead him to pretend he was more of a drinker than he was.”

“But the first thing he did was tell me he wasn’t much of a drinker.”

“You’re right.” She frowned. “I give up. I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it, either.”

“But you don’t give up, do you?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

Over dinner she said, “Was Glenn Holtzmann a drinker?”

“Not that I ever noticed. And where did that question come from?”

“Your dreams.”

“You know,” I said, “I’m having enough trouble making sense out of the thoughts I have while I’m awake. What was it Freud said about dreams?”

“‘Sometimes it’s only a cigar.’”

“Right. If there’s any connection between Glenn Holtzmann and the liquor Adrian Whitfield didn’t have on his breath, I’m afraid it’s too subtle for me.”

“I was just wondering.”

“Holtzmann was a phony,” I said. “He betrayed people and sold them out.”

“Was Adrian a phony?”

“Did he have some secret life besides practicing criminal law? It doesn’t seem very likely.”

“Maybe you sensed that he was hiding something about himself.”

“By pretending to be more of a drinker than he was. Or at least by pretending to have had more to drink on that one night than he had.”

“Right.”

“So my unconscious mind immediately made the leap from him to Glenn Holtzmann.”

“Why?”

“That was going to be my next question,” I said. “Why indeed?” I put down my fork. “Anyway,” I said, “I think I figured out what Glenn Holtzmann was trying to tell me.”

“In the dream, you mean.”

“Right, in the dream.”

“Well?”

“‘Too much money.’”

“That’s it?”

“What did we just say? Sometimes it’s only a cigar?”

“Too much money,” she said. “You mean like the line about a cocaine habit is God’s way of telling you you’ve got too much money?”

“I don’t think cocaine’s got anything to do with it. Glenn Holtzmann had too much money, that’s what made me dig deeper and find out about his secret life.”

“He had all that cash in the closet, didn’t he? How does that apply to Adrian Whitfield?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then—”

“Sometimes it’s only a cigar,” I said.

I don’t remember any dreams that night, or even a sense of having dreamed. Elaine and I went home and finished what we’d started in her shop, and I slipped right off into a deep sleep and didn’t stir until dawn.

But there had been a thought nagging at me before we went to bed, and it was still there when I woke up. I took it out and examined it, and I decided it wasn’t something I had to devote my time to. I had a second cup of coffee after breakfast and considered the matter again, and this time I decided it wasn’t as though there were too many other matters with a greater claim on my time. I had, as they say, nothing better to do.