David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 2

The guy who saved my life was a wino himself and he was smart enough not to talk any more until I got the blockbuster down. It took a little while because like I say I got something wrong with my throat and I got to kind of sip, but I held that goblet in two hands and I kept on sipping and didn’t put it down till it was empty. I could feel the stuff flowing through me nice and warm every inch of the way. Down the hatch, into the lungs, out into the arms and hands, into the belly and right down to the groin and the legs and the numb feet. In thirty seconds by the clock my hands that had been fluttering like the tassels on a strip-dancer’s brassiere were steady.

The man tugged at his old dog and dragged him up the bar toward me. The blind dog walked stiff like a zombie in one of those horror films they show at the all-night picture houses.

“Feel better?” the man asked.

I nodded. “Mister,” I said, “you ought to get the medal they hand out for lifesaving.”

He chuckled, or kind of cackled rather. He waved his dirty paw at the bartender, put money on the bar, said, “A bird can’t fly on one wing. What’s your name, son?”

“Jack,” I told him. Nobody ever gives their right name on Skid Row and that was what they called me when they called me anything. As Suds filled up the glasses, I said, “You must have just come into an inheritance.”

“Not yet,” he said, “but I’m about to do so. Today, I think. A friend of mine is very ill. High blood-pressure. Heart disease. Partial paralysis. And it’s all complicated by old age and chronic alcoholism. I’ve been watching her closely. I’m a doctor, you know, even though they took my license. The slightest shock will carry her off. I don’t expect her to last the day.” He gulped at his wine and looked happy.

A thousand guys you meet on Skid Row expect to inherit a fortune any given minute. I didn’t take this character seriously. But I was hurting and he was buying, so I was willing to let him talk.

“She leaving you her money?” I asked.

He thought it over. “Well, not exactly,” he said. “She hasn’t any money. I’ve kept her alive for a long while now. I’m a doctor, even if they took my license. I let people impose on me, you see. So now I live on city charity and an occasional handout from my brother. I never could refuse poor, suffering people who wanted prescriptions for sedatives — goof balls, you know. One girl killed herself with an overdose. And another girl talked me into performing an illegal operation. I almost went to jail. I was too softhearted to practice medicine. We may as well have another one. I just cashed my relief check. And if the old lady dies today I’ll have plenty.”

Suds filled them up. The man said, “You can call me Doc, Jack. Doc Trevor, that’s my name. This old woman’s name is Marge. Marge Lorraine. It was a famous name once, but you wouldn’t remember, you’re too young. She was an actress. Booze and age and sickness got her. When she was still young enough she became a street-walker to get her booze. Then she hit Skid Row and the lousy bums would make her dance and kick her heels up so they could laugh at her. That’s the only way she could get booze. And she was old then, Jack. Old enough to be a grandmother. To think that she’d been a fine actress once, with her name up there in lights.”

He couldn’t stand the thought of it and drank down the wine in his goblet.

“I used to see her in the joints, kicking her heels up for the stinking bums so she could get a drink to stop the hurting. I couldn’t stand it. She was old enough to be my mother. I remembered how I used to worship her up there behind the footlights when I was a kid. One night I took her home with me to the coldwater flat I’ve got in a tenement on Hester Street. She’s been there ever since, a couple of years now. I was interested in her complication of diseases. It’s a miracle she’s alive at all. I don’t have money for the drugs she needs, but a little booze, a little food, what medicines I can buy, they’ve kept her alive. The main thing that’s kept her alive, though, is this old dog here. His name is Pasteur. I found him when he was a pup. He was homeless, like the old woman was, so I took him to my flat. That was seventeen years ago. Most dogs don’t live seventeen years. Pasteur’s like the old woman. Old and sick and useless. Everything the matter with him but he keeps on living somehow. He gives the old woman courage. She figures so long as the dog can live, the shape he’s in, she can live, too.”

He said, “It’s what they call ‘Identification’ in psychology. She identifies herself with the dog, you see. You interested in psychology, Jack?”

“I used to be,” I told him. “I used to be interested in lots of things. Right now I’m only interested in another drink.”

He waved his dirty hand and got the beakers refilled again. “Psychology,” he said. “If the booze or life or something hadn’t got me a long time ago, I’d do a paper about the old woman and the dog for the medical society magazine. When Pasteur feels good and gets the idea he’s a pup again and frisks a little, the old woman feels good, too. When he’s sick and moping and whining, she’s that way. High blood-pressure affects a person’s eyesight. She isn’t blind yet, but she can’t see too well. Her eyes started going about the time the dog developed cataracts.”

“It’s too bad he’s blind like that, poor old dog,” I said.

“He doesn’t mind too much,” the doc replied. “Dogs don’t go much by their eyes anyway. It’s the nose with them. The nose and ears. Pasteur can still do tricks, even. Watch him.” He snapped his fingers. “Sit!” he said. “Sit up, Pasteur!”

The old dog scrambled to his feet and tried to balance himself on his rump and you could tell it hurt him like hell. It was like an old man with rheumatism trying to do a handspring. The doc kept barking, “Sit! Sit up!” and he seemed to be enjoying himself because this old dog was the only thing on earth would take orders from him. The dog finally managed to sit up on his rump, kind of swaying. “Good boy,” said the doc. “Pasteur knows lots of tricks. The old woman claps her hands when she sees him do them. He’s just learned a brand new trick. We’re going to show the old woman when we get back, aren’t we, Pasteur?”

“Please don’t make him do any more tricks for me,” I said. “He’s too old for tricks. It hurts him, sitting up like that.”

“You don’t understand the psychology of the old,” the doc answered. “Pasteur loves doing tricks. It makes him feel important. When the old cease to feel important, they know they’re useless, and that’s when they start to die.”

I didn’t want him to make the old dog do any more tricks, so I tried to change the subject. I said, “If this old lady hasn’t got any money, how you going to inherit any money when she dies?”

“Insurance,” said the doc. “When I got her things from the place they’d put her out of before she moved in with me, I found an old insurance policy. It was made out to her daughter, the only policy she had that hadn’t lapsed. The daughter walked out when Marge got to be a lush and Marge has never heard from her. Doesn’t even know if she’s alive. But one way or another, she’d kept the payments up right to the year before. It was an annual premium and it was due again. I got her to sign some papers from the insurance company making me the beneficiary and I’ve been paying the premium ever since.”

“Is it for a lot of money?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “Not much, or I couldn’t pay the premium on it. But it’s a lot for guys like you and me. Two grand.”

“What makes you think she’s going to die today?” I asked.