Lawrence Block - A Ticket To The Boneyard

During the discussion an older fellow named Frank, sober since the Flood, said there was one prayer that had served him well over the years. "I say, 'God, thank you for everything just the way it is,' " he said. "I don't know what good it does Him to hear it, but it does me good to say it."

I raised my hand and said I'd come close to a drink that afternoon, as close as I'd ever come since I got sober. I shied away from going into detail, but said I'd done every possible thing wrong except take the drink. Someone else responded to that, saying that not taking the drink was the only thing any of us absolutely had to get right.

Toward the end there was an announcement of Toni's memorial service, to be held in one of the big rooms at Roosevelt Hospital at three Saturday afternoon. Several people had mentioned Toni during the sharing, speculating on what might have caused her suicide and relating it to their own lives.

There was more speculation along those lines afterward at the Flame. It made me uncomfortable. I knew something they didn't know and wasn't willing to fill them in. It felt curiously disloyal to Toni to let her death pass as a suicide, but I didn't know how to set matters straight without causing more of a stir than I wanted and making myself too much the center of attention in the process. When the conversation stayed on that subject I thought about leaving, but then someone switched to another topic and I relaxed.

The meeting broke at ten, and I spent about an hour drinking coffee at the Flame. I stopped at my hotel to check for messages, then walked back out to the street without going upstairs.

I was early for my meeting with Danny Boy. I walked uptown, taking my time about it, stopping to look in store windows, waiting for lights to change even in the absence of oncoming traffic. Even so I reached the corner of Eighty-first and Amsterdam ahead of schedule. I walked a block past the place on the avenue, crossed the street, and planted myself in a doorway across from Mother Goose. I stayed there in the shadows and watched people go in and out of the place, keeping an eye on other activity on the street at the same time. On the southeast corner of the intersection, three people were standing around, heroin addicts waiting for the man. I couldn't see that they had any connection with Mother Goose, or with me.

At 12:28 I crossed the street and entered the club. I stepped into a dark narrow room with a bar along the left-hand wall and a coat room on the right near the door. I handed my coat to a girl who looked to be half black and half Asian, took the numbered plastic disc she gave me in return, and walked the length of the bar. At its end the room opened up to twice its width. The walls were brick, with sconces providing muted indirect lighting. The floor was tile in a pattern of red and black checkerboard squares. On a little stage, three black men played piano, bass and drums. They had short hair and neatly trimmed beards and they all wore dark suits and white shirts and striped ties. They looked like the old Modern Jazz Quartet, with Milt Jackson gone around the corner for a quart of milk.

I stood a few feet from the end of the bar, scanning the room, and a headwaiter glided over. He looked as though he could have been a fourth member of the group onstage. I couldn't see Danny Boy, my eyes hadn't adjusted to the lighting, but I asked for Mr. Bell's table and he led me to it. The tables were set close together, so it was a narrow serpentine path he led me on.

Danny Boy's table was at ringside. There was an ice bucket on the table, a bottle of Stolichnaya resting in it. Danny Boy wore a vest boldly patterned in vertical stripes of yellow and black; otherwise his attire matched the band and the headwaiter. He had a tumbler of vodka in front of him and a girl at his right. She was a blonde, her hair cut in an extreme punk style, long on one side, cropped close to the skull on the other. Her dress was black, and cut to show a lot of cleavage. She had one of those greedy little hill-country fox faces, the kind you get growing up in a house with three or four broken cars permanently installed on the front lawn.

I looked at her, then at Danny Boy. He shook his head, glanced at his watch, nodded to a chair. I sat down, having been informed that the girl was not the person I'd come to meet, that the person in question would be along in a little while.

The set lasted another twenty minutes, during which time no one at our table said a word, nor was there any audible conversation at the surrounding tables. From where I sat the crowd looked to be about half black and half white. I saw one man I recognized. He'd been a pimp when I first knew him, and since then he'd gone through what you could call a mid-life crisis, I suppose, and re-emerged as a dealer in African art and antiquities, with a shop on upper Madison Avenue. I'd heard he was doing well, and I could believe it. He'd always done superbly as a pimp.

When the trio left the stage, a waitress came over with a fresh drink for Danny Boy's companion, something in a tall glass with fruit and a paper parasol in it. I asked if they had coffee. "Just instant," she said apologetically. I told her that would be fine and she went off to fetch it.

Danny Boy said, "Matt, this is Crystal. Crystal, say hello to Matthew."

We said hello to each other, and Crystal assured me it was a pleasure to meet me. Danny Boy asked me what I thought of the group and I said they were fine.

"Piano player's special," he said. "Sounds a little bit like Randy Weston, a little like Cedar Walton. You can hear it especially when the other two sit out and he plays solo. He played one whole set solo the other night. Very special, very tasteful."

I waited.

"Our friend'll be along in about five minutes," he said. "I thought you might like to come early and catch a set. Nice place, wouldn't you say?"

"Very nice."

"They treat me right. And you know me, Matthew. Creature of habit, when I like a place I'm there all the time. Every night, or pretty near."

The coffee came. The waitress set it down and hurried off with drinks for somebody else. They didn't serve during the set, so they made up for it by working feverishly during the breaks. A lot of the customers ordered two or three drinks at a time. Some, like Danny Boy, had a bottle on the table. That used to be illegal, and very likely still is, but it was never a hanging offense.

Danny Boy poured more vodka into his glass while I stirred my coffee. I asked what he knew about the person we were waiting for.

"Meet him first," he said. "Look him over, hear him out."

At one o'clock I saw the headwaiter coming our way with a man in tow. I knew he was the fellow we were waiting for because he was all wrong for the club. He was a thin white man wearing a houndstooth sport jacket over a navy-blue corduroy shirt, and he looked out of place in a room full of black men dressed like bank vice presidents. He appeared to feel out of place, too, and he stood awkwardly with one hand on the back of his chair. Danny Boy had to tell him to sit down a second time before he pulled the chair back and sat on it.

As he sat down, Crystal got to her feet. It must have been her cue. She smiled all around and threaded her way among the tables. Our waitress came over right away. I said I'd have more coffee, and the new arrival ordered a beer. They had six brands on hand and the waitress named them all. He looked irritated by the need to make a decision. "Red Stripe," he said. "What's that?" She told him it was Jamaican. "That's fine," he said. "Bring me one of those."

Danny Boy introduced us, first names only. His was Brian. He put his forearms on the table and looked down at his hands, as if to make sure that his nails were clean. He was about thirty-two, with a lumpy round face that looked to have taken its share of punches over the years. His hair, a dark blond, was going thin in front.