Lawrence Block - A Walk Among the Tombstones

“He didn’t.”

“No, I guess not. It bothered me to lie about it. It didn’t bother me that I did up the dope. I wouldn’t do it in front of him and I wouldn’t have done it just then if I’d known he was coming over, but it don’t hurt anybody, least of all me, if I do up a bag of dope once in a blue moon.”

“Whatever you say.”

“He said once a month? To tell you the truth, I doubt if it’s that much. My guess would be seven, eight, ten times a year. It’s never been more than that. I shouldn’t have lied to him. I should have said, ‘Yeah, I been feeling like shit, so I got off, and so what?’ Because I can do it a few times a year and it never comes to more than that, and if he has one little taste he’s got the whole habit back and they’re stealing his shoes when he nods out in the subway. That happened to him, he woke up on the D train in his socks.”

“It’s happened to a lot of people.”

“Including you?”

“No, but it could have.”

“You’re an alcoholic, right? I had a drink before you came over here. If you asked me I’d say so, I wouldn’t lie about it. Why did I lie about it to my brother?”

“He’s your brother.”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. Oh, shit, man. I’m worried about him.”

“Nothing you can do at this point.”

“No, what am I gonna do, drive through the streets looking for him? We’ll go together. You look out one side of the car for the fuckers who killed my wife and I’ll look out the other side for my brother. How’s that for a plan?” He made a face. “In the meantime I owe you money. What did we say, twenty-seven hundred?” He had a roll of hundreds in his pocket and counted out twenty-seven of them, which pretty much depleted the roll. He handed the money to me and I found a place to put it. He said, “What now?”

“I’ll stay with it,” I said. “Some of what I try will depend on where the police investigation leads, but—”

“No,” he cut in, “that’s not what I mean. What do you do now? You got a date for dinner, you got something doing in the city, what?”

“Oh.” I had to think. “I’ll probably go back to my room. I’ve been on my feet all day, I want to take a shower and change my clothes.”

“You plan to walk back? Or will you take the subway?”

“Well, I won’t walk.”

“Suppose I drive you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He shrugged. “I have to do something,” he said.

In the car he asked me the location of the famous laundromat and said he wanted to have a look at it. We drove there and he parked the Buick across the street from it and killed the engine. “So we’re on a stakeout,” he said. “That’s what it’s called, right? Or is that only on TV?”

“A stakeout generally goes on for hours,” I said. “So I hope we’re not on one at the moment.”

“No, I just wanted to sit here for a minute. I wonder how many times I drove past this place. It never once occurred to me to stop and make a phone call. Matt, you’re sure these guys are the same ones who killed the two women and cut the girl?”

“Yes.”

“Because this was for profit and the others were strictly, uh, what’s the word? Pleasure? Recreation?”

“I know. But the similarities are too specific and too striking. It has to be the same men.”

“Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why me?”

“Because a drug dealer makes an ideal target, lots of cash and a reason to steer clear of the police. We discussed that before. And one of the men had a thing about drugs. He kept asking Pam if she knew any dealers, if she took drugs. He was evidently obsessed with the subject.”

“That’s why a drug dealer. That’s not why me.” He leaned forward, propped his arms on the steering wheel. “Who even knows I’m a dealer? I haven’t been arrested, haven’t had my name in the papers. My phone’s not tapped and my house isn’t bugged. I’m positive my neighbors don’t have a clue how I make my money. The DEA investigated me a year and a half ago and they dropped the whole thing because they weren’t getting anyplace. The NYPD I don’t even think they know I’m alive. You’re some degenerate, likes to kill women, wants to get rich knocking off a drug dealer, how do you even know of my existence? That’s what I want to know. Why me?”

“I see what you mean.”

“I started off thinking I’m the target. You know, that the whole thing begins with someone looking to hurt me and take me off. But that’s not true, according to you. It starts with crazies who are getting off on rape and murder. Then they decide to make it pay, and then they decide to go after a drug dealer, and then I’m elected. So I can’t get anywhere backtracking people I know professionally, somebody who maybe thinks I screwed him in a transaction and he sees a good way of getting even. I’m not saying there aren’t any crazy people dealing in the product, but—”

“No, I follow you. And you’re right. You’re the target incidentally. They’re looking for a dope dealer and you’re one they know of.”

“But how?” He hesitated. “There was a thought I had.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Well, I don’t think it makes much sense. But I gather my brother tells his story at meetings, right? He sits up in front and tells everybody what he did and where it got him. And I assume he mentions how his brother makes his living. Am I right?”

“Well, I knew Pete had a brother who dealt drugs, but I didn’t know your name or where you lived. I didn’t even know Pete’s last name.”

“If you asked him he would have told you. And how hard would it be to get the rest? ‘I think I know your brother. He live in Bushwick?’ ‘No, Bay Ridge.’ ‘Oh, yeah? What street?’ I don’t know. I guess it’s farfetched.”

“It seems it to me,” I said. “I grant you you’ll find all kinds at an AA meeting, and there’s nothing to stop a serial killer from walking in the doors. God knows a lot of the famous ones were alcoholic, and always under the influence when they did their killing. But I don’t know of any of them that ever got sober in the program.”

“But it’s possible?”

“I suppose so. Most things are. Still, if our friends live here in Sunset Park and Peter went to Manhattan meetings—”

“Yeah, you’re right. They live a mile and a half from me and I’m trying to have them chase into Manhattan in order to hear about me. Of course when I said what I said I didn’t know they were from Brooklyn.”

“When you said what?”

He looked at me, the pain stitched into his forehead. “When I told Petey he ought to stop running his mouth about my business at his meetings. When I said maybe that’s how they got onto me, that’s how they picked Francine.” He turned to look out the window at the laundromat. “It was when he drove me to the airport. It was just a flare-up. He was giving me grief about something, I forget what, and I threw that in his face. He looked for a second as though I just kicked him in the pit of the stomach. Then he said something, you know, indicating it washed right over him, that he wasn’t going to take it seriously, he knew I was just spouting out of anger.”

He turned the key in the ignition. “Fuck this laundry,” he said. “I don’t see a lot of people lining up to make phone calls. Let’s get out of here, huh?”

“Sure.”

And, a block or two farther along: “Suppose he kept mulling it over, brooding on it. Suppose it stayed on his mind. Suppose he wondered if it was true.” He darted a glance at me. “You think that’s what sent him out looking to cop? ’Cause I’ll tell you, if I was Petey, that just might do it.”

Back in Manhattan he said, “I want to go by his place, knock on his door. You want to keep me company?”