Ross Thomas: No Questions Asked

Eddie was one of those persons who make a lot of tourists loathe New York. His was the elbow that dug into them in the subway. His back was what they saw getting into the taxi that they knew was theirs. And his was the voice that promised them twenty-year-old blondes, but delivered forty-five-year-old hookers instead.

After ten years of diligent effort Eddie had almost given up trying to hustle me. But not quite. I think he thought of me as a worthy opponent who put him on his mettle. If you wanted a service performed, such as having your dog walked or somebody’s arm broken, Eddie would do it or get it done. If you needed a broad, booze, dope, or a desert lot, Eddie would sell it to you. For a price he would lie to your boss, stall the collection agency, or even get you a cab, which is what I had in mind when I got off the elevator carrying my suitcase.

“I want a four-bit cab,” I told him as he took my bag.

“Whaddaya mean four bits? That’s all you ever tip.”

“And that’s the kind of cab you always hail. You know, the kind with the broken shocks, the ripped upholstery, and the driver who speaks nothing but Kurdish.”

“We like to kid a little this morning, don’t we? Where to?”

“La Guardia. Eastern shuttle.”

“Washington, huh? You always get in trouble when you go to Washington.”

“Not always. I didn’t get in trouble that time I took my son down to see the cherry blossoms.”

“How is he? I ain’t seen him in a while.”

“He’s okay.”

“What is he now, ten?”

“Yeah. Ten.”

“You know what I hear? I hear his new daddy took a real bath in the market. That’s what I hear.”

“I’ve sort of been worrying about that,” I said. “He must be down to his last thirty or forty million.”

We were outside on Forty-sixth by now and Eddie was using his fingers to whistle up a cab, but I could see that his heart wasn’t in it yet.

“Your ex really done all right for herself, didn’t she, I mean by leaving you and marrying what’s-his-face with all that dough?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He probably doesn’t pick up his pajamas either.”

Eddie gave another whistle through his fingers and then turned to me with his usual sly and crafty look. “I sent the eviction letter up with your lawyer this morning.”

“I forgot to thank you for it, didn’t I? How long have you known, six months?”

“Nah. Just a couple of months. Maybe three.”

“You can certainly keep a secret, Eddie.”

“I tipped off a couple of people. Y’know, the ones who’ve took care of me good.”

“Well, I’ve tried not to fail you. I’ve tried terribly hard.”

“Yeah, shit. Well, these people I tipped off, I sort of helped them find a new place, y’know?”

“You’re not only generous, you’re sweet.”

“Yeah, well, I thought maybe you’d want me to sort of help you out. I know a place that’d just suit you down to a T. Over on West Fifty-sixth. Hell of a nice place. One bedroom, big living room, air-conditioned.”

“How much?”

“Not bad. Not bad at all. Six twenty-five a month.”

“I don’t mean how much for the rent. I mean how much for the key?”

Eddie shrugged, spotted a cab, and gave another blast through his fingers. The cab started nudging its way through the traffic toward the curb. “Well, you know how these things work,” he said. “You gotta grease a few palms.”

“How much key money, Eddie?”

“Seeing how it’s you, only three grand.”

“Forget it.”

“Think it over,” he said as he put my bag in the front seat and turned with his hand out. I put two quarters into it.

“I don’t have to think it over,” I said. “But just out of curiosity, who owns the building, your brother-in-law?”

“Nah,” Eddie said and smiled. “I do.”

To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever written a song entitled “April in Washington,” and it’s not hard to understand why. It was April 15, a little after one in the afternoon, when I arrived at National Airport and took a cab to the Hay Adams hotel. It was a warm, even balmy, day, and scores of government workers were still picnicking out of their brown bag lunches in Lafayette Square.

When I came out of the hotel two hours later the temperature had dropped twenty-five degrees, it was threatening to spit snow, and the talkative cab driver I got told me that they were thinking of closing the government offices early.

“They’re just thinking about it though,” he said. “By the time they make up their mind it’ll be five o’clock and there’ll be six inches of snow on the ground.”

“Is that what the weather forecast says?”

“Nah. That’s what I say. We didn’t used to have weather like this in this town. Only in the past two or three years. Before that we used to have pretty good weather. You know what I think caused it?”

“What?”

“Watergate.”

“That’s a thought.”

“Way I figure it, Watergate got people all steamed up, I mean it really affected the temperature of their bodies, and all this steam had to go someplace, so it went up and made clouds and so that’s why we got a lot more rain and snow now than we used to.”

We were going east on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a new building that I hadn’t seen before appeared on the left. It seemed to cover an entire block. “What’s that?” I asked.

“That there?” the driver said. “That there’s the new FBI building. Guess who they named it after?”

“Bobby Kennedy.”

“Nah. J. Edgar Hoover. You know what he really was, don’tcha?”

“No. What?”

“He was the biggest fag in town, that’s what he was. Jack Kennedy found out about it, and that’s why Hoover had him shot down there in Dallas.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

The driver nodded gloomily. “You drive a cab in this town and keep your ears open, you learn a lot of things.”

We reached the First Street Southeast entrance to the Library of Congress without any more bulletins from the driver. “I wonder what they really do in there?” he said, eyeing the old building with what seemed to be faint suspicion.

“I think they lend books,” I said.

“You know what I hear they got in there?” he said. “I hear they got the world’s biggest collection of dirty books, but they won’t let nobody but Congressmen or government big shots check ’em out.”

“What a pity,” I said, handed him the fare, and started to get out of the cab.

“You wanna know something else?”

I turned back to look at him. He was staring up at the Library with a moody expression. “I bet I ain’t read a book in twenty-five years.”

“It hardly shows at all,” I said, got out of the cab, and went in search of a Mr. Hawkins Gamble Laws III, who was going to tell me all about a book that had been borrowed without permission and wouldn’t be returned until somebody came up with a quarter of a million dollars.

I asked a couple of tweedy gentlemen with short beards and thoughtful expressions where I could find the Rare Book Division. One of them turned out to be from Paris, judging from his accent, while the other volunteered the information that he was from Italy, Bologna to be exact, and had been working at something interesting, which I didn’t quite catch, in the Hebraic Section of the Orientalia Division for the last twenty-one years. We had a nice little chat about that, and then I went off on my own, armed with their directions, and got lost only twice, probably on purpose, because the Library of Congress is an interesting place to wander around in. I especially liked the main reading room with its high ceiling, hushed atmosphere, and dedicated scholars, who were looking into things that I had the feeling I would like to know about.