Lawrence Block - A Walk Among the Tombstones

”I’m not just going through the motions.”

”No, I realize you’re giving it your best shot. I just wondered if you figured there was much chance it would pay off.”

”There’s a chance,” I said. ”I don’t know how good it is. I didn’t start out with a lot to work with.”

”I realize that. You started with next to nothing, the way it looked to me. Of course you’re looking at it from a professional standpoint, you’re going to see it differently.”

”A lot depends on whether some of the actions I’m taking lead anywhere, Pete. And their actions in the future are a factor, too, and they’re impossible to foresee. Am I optimistic? It depends when you ask me.”

”Same as your Higher Power, huh? The thing is, if you come to the conclusion that it’s hopeless, don’t be in a rush to tell my brother, huh? Stay on it an extra week or two. So he’ll think he did everything he can.”

I didn’t say anything.

”What I mean—”

”I know what you mean,” I said. ”The thing is, it’s not something I have to be told. I’ve always been a stubborn son of a bitch. When I start something I have a hell of a time letting go of it. I think that’s the main way I solve things, to tell you the truth. I don’t do it by being brilliant. I just hang on like a bulldog until something shakes loose.”

”And sooner or later something does? I know they used to say nobody gets away with murder.”

”Is that what they used to say? They don’t say it much anymore. People get away with murder all the time.” I got out of the car, then leaned in to finish the thought. ”That’s in one sense,” I said, ”but in another sense they don’t. I don’t honestly think anybody ever gets away with anything.”

I was up late that night. I tried sleeping and couldn’t, tried reading and couldn’t, and wound up sitting in the dark at my window, looking out at the rain falling through the light of the streetlamps. I sat and thought long thoughts. ”The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” I read that line in a poem once, but you can think long thoughts at any age, if you can’t sleep and there’s a light rain falling.

I was still in bed when the phone rang around ten. TJ said, ”You got a pen, Glenn? You want to get one, write this down.” He reeled off a pair of seven-digit numbers. ”Better write down seven-one-eight, too, ’cause you got to dial that first.”

”Who will I get if I do?”

”Woulda got me, was you home first time I called you. Man you harder to get than lucky! Called you Friday afternoon, called you Friday night, called you yesterday all day and all night up until midnight. You a hard man to reach.”

”I was out.”

”Well, I more or less ’stablished that. Man, that was some trip you sent me on. Ol’ Brooklyn, it go on for days.”

”There’s a lot of it,” I agreed.

”More than you’d have a need for. First place I went, rode to the end of the line. Train came up above ground and I got to see some pretty houses. Looked like an old-time town in a movie, not like New York at all. Got to the first phone, called you. Nobody home. Went chasin’ out to the next phone, and man, that was a trip. I went down some streets that the people looked at me like, nigger, what you doin’ here? Didn’t nobody say anything, but you didn’t have to listen real hard to hear what they thinkin’.”

”But you didn’t have any trouble.”

”Man, I never have trouble. What I do, I make it a point to see trouble ’fore trouble sees me. I found the second telephone, called you a second time. Didn’t get you ’cause you wasn’t there to be got. So I thinkin’, hey, maybe I’m closer to some other subway, on account of I am miles from where I get off the last one. So I go into this candy store, say, like, ’Can you tell me where the nearest subway station is?’ I say it like that, you know, you woulda thought you was hearin’ an announcer on TV. Man looks at me, says, ’Subway?’ Like it not just a word he don’t know, it a whole concept he can’t get his mind around. So I just went back the way I came, man, back to the end of the Flatbush line, ’cause at least I knew how to do that.”

”I think that was probably the closest station anyway.”

”I think you right, ’cause I looked at subway map later an’ I couldn’t see one closer. One more reason to stay in Manhattan, man. You never far from a train.”

”I’ll keep it in mind.”

”I sure was hopin’ you be there when I called. Had it all set, I run the number by you, say, ’Call it right now.’ You dial, I pick up an’ say, ’Here I am.’ Tellin’ you about it now it don’t seem all that cool, but I couldn’t wait to do it.”

”I gather the phones had the numbers posted.”

”Oh, right! That’s what I left out. Second one, the one way to hell an’ gone out Veterans Avenue?

Where everybody look at you real strange? That phone did have the number posted. The other one, Flatbush an’ Farragut, it didn’t.”

”Then how’d you get it?”

”Well, I resourceful. Told you that, didn’t I?”

”More than once.”

”What I did, I call the operator. Say, ’Hey, girl, somebody screwed up, ain’t no number here on the phone, so how do I know where I callin’ from?’ An’ she say how she got no way to tell what the number is of the phone I’m at, so she can’t help me.”

”That seems unlikely.”

”Thought so myself. Thought they got all that equipment, you ask them a number at Information an’ they can say it about as fast as you can ask it, so how come they can’t give you the number of your own phone? An’ I thought, TJ, you fool, they took out the numbers to fuck up dope dealers, an’ here you go soundin’ just like one. So I dial 0 again, on account of you can call the operator all day long an’ never spend no quarter, it a free call. An’ you know you get somebody different every time you call. So I got some other chick, an’ this time I took all the street out of my voice, I said, ’Perhaps you can help me, miss. I’m at a pay phone and I have to leave the number with my office for a call back, and someone defaced the phone with spray-painted graffiti in such a way that the number is impossible to make out. I wonder if you could possibly check the line and supply it for me.’ An’ I ain’t even through sayin’ it when she’s readin’ off the number for me. Matt? Oh, shit.”

The recording had cut in to ask for more money.

”Quarter ran out,” he said. ”I got to feed in another one.”

”Give me the number, I’ll call you.”

”Can’t. I ain’t in Brooklyn now, I didn’t happen to con nobody out of the number for this particular phone.” The phone chimed as his coin dropped. ”There, we be all right now. Pretty slick, though, way I got the other number. You there? How come you ain’t sayin’ nothing’?”

”I’m stunned,” I said. ”I didn’t know you could talk like that.”

”What, you mean talk straight? ’Course I can. Just because I street don’t mean I be ignorant. They two different languages, man, and you talkin’ to a cat’s bilingual.”

”Well, I’m impressed.”

”Yeah? I figured you’d be impressed I got to Brooklyn an’ back. What you got for me to do next?”

”Nothing right now.”

”Nothin’? Sheee, ought to be something I can do. I did good on this, didn’t I?”

”You did great.”

”I mean, man didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to find his way to Brooklyn an’ back. But it was cool how I got the number out of that operator, wasn’t it?”

”Definitely.”

”I was bein’ resourceful.”

”Very resourceful.”