Lawrence Block - Eight Million Ways to Die

"Not specifically, maybe, but you could talk about what you're going through and the way it makes you feel. That might help more than you think, Matt."

"I don't think I could do it. Hell, I can't even say I'm an alcoholic. 'My name is Matt and I pass.' I could phone it in."

"Maybe that'll change."

"Maybe."

"How long have you been sober, Matt?"

I had to think. "Eight days."

"Gee, that's terrific. What's so funny?"

"Something I've noticed. One person asks another how long he's been sober, and whatever the answer is, the reply is, 'Gee, that's terrific, that's wonderful.' If I said eight days or eight years the reaction'd be the same. 'Gee, isn't that great, isn't that terrific.' "

"Well, it is."

"I guess."

"What's terrific is that you're sober. Eight years is terrific and so is eight days."

"Uh-huh."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Sunny's funeral is tomorrow afternoon."

"Are you going?"

"I said I would."

"Are you worried about that?"

"Worried?"

"Nervous, anxious."

"I don't know about that. I'm not looking forward to it." I looked into her large gray eyes, then looked away. "Eight days is as long as I've gone," I said casually. "I had eight days last time, and then I drank."

"That doesn't mean you have to drink tomorrow."

"Oh, shit, I know that. I'm not going to drink tomorrow."

"Take someone with you."

"What do you mean?"

"To the funeral. Ask someone from the program to go along with you."

"I couldn't ask anyone to do that."

"Of course you could."

"Who? There's nobody I know well enough to ask."

"How well do you have to know somebody to sit next to them at a funeral?"

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Would you go with me? Never mind, I don't want to put you on the spot."

"I'll go."

"Really?"

"Why not? Of course I might look pretty dowdy. Next to all those flashy hookers."

"Oh, I don't think so."

"No?"

"No, I don't think so at all."

I tipped up her chin and tasted her mouth with mine. I touched her hair. Dark hair, lightly salted with gray. Gray to match her eyes.

She said, "I was afraid this would happen. And then I was afraid it wouldn't."

"And now?"

"Now I'm just afraid."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Do I want you to leave? No, I don't want you to leave. I want you to kiss me again."

I kissed her. She put her arms around me and drew me close and I felt the warmth of her body through our clothing.

"Ah, darling," she said.

Afterward, lying in her bed and listening to my own heartbeat, I had a moment of utter loneliness and desolation. I felt as though I had taken the cover off a bottomless well. I reached over and laid a hand on her flank, and the physical contact cut the thread of my mood.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello."

"What are you thinking?"

She laughed. "Nothing very romantic. I was trying to guess what my sponsor's going to say."

"Do you have to tell her?"

"I don't have to do anything, but I will tell her. 'Oh, by the way, I hopped into bed with a guy who's eight days sober.' "

"That's a mortal sin, huh?"

"Let's just say it's a no-no."

"What'll she give you? Six Our Fathers?"

She laughed again. She had a good laugh, full and hearty. I'd always liked it.

"She'll say, 'Well, at least you didn't drink. That's the important thing.' And she'll say, 'I hope you enjoyed it.' "

"Did you?"

"Enjoy it?"

"Yeah."

"Hell, no. I was faking orgasm."

"Both times, huh?"

"You betcha." She drew close to me, put her hand on my chest. "You'll stay over, won't you?"

"What would your sponsor say?"

"Probably that I might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb. Oh, shit, I almost forgot."

"Where are you going?"

"Gotta make a phone call."

"You're actually calling your sponsor?"

She shook her head. She'd put a robe on and now she was paging through a small address book. She dialed a number and said, "Hi, this is Jan. You weren't sleeping, were you? Look, this is out of left field, but does the word Ricone mean anything to you?" She spelled it. "I thought it might be a dirty word or something. Uh-huh." Then she listened for a moment and said, "No, nothing like that. I'm doing crossword puzzles in Sicilian, that's all. On nights when I can't sleep. Listen, you can only spend so much time reading the Big Book."

She finished the conversation, hung up and said, "Well, it was a thought. I figured if it was a dialect or an obscenity it might not be in the dictionary."

"What obscenity did you think it might be? And when did the thought happen to cross your mind?"

"None of your business, wiseass."

"You're blushing."

"I know, I can feel it. That'll teach me to try to help a friend solve a murder."

"No good deed goes unpunished."

"That's what they say. Martin Albert Ricone and Charles Otis Jones? Are those the names he used?"

"Owen. Charles Owen Jones."

"And you think it means something."

"It has to mean something. Even if he's a lunatic, anything that elaborate would have to mean something."

"Like Fort Wayne and Fort Smith?"

"Like that, maybe, but I think the names he used are more significant than that. Ricone's such an unusual name."

"Maybe he started by writing Rico."

"I thought of that. There are plenty of Ricos in the phone book. Or maybe he's from Puerto Rico."

"Why not? Everybody else is. Maybe he's a Cagney fan."

"Cagney?"

"In the death scene. 'Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?' Remember?"

"I thought that was Edward G. Robinson."

"Maybe it was. I was always drunk when I watched the 'Late Show' and all those Warner Brothers gangsters tend to merge in my mind. It was one of those ballsy guys. 'Mother of mercy, is this the- ' "

"Some pair of balls," I said.

"Huh?"

"Jesus Christ."

"What's the matter?"

"He's a comedian. A fucking comedian."

"What are you talking about?"

"The killer. C. O. Jones and M. A. Ricone. I thought they were names."

"They're not?"

"Cojones. Maricуn."

"That's Spanish."

"Right."

"Cojones means 'balls,' doesn't it?"

"And maricуn means 'faggot.' I don't think there's an E on the end of it, though."

"Maybe it's especially nasty with an E on the end."

"Or maybe he's just a lousy speller."

"Well, hell," she said. "Nobody's perfect."

Around mid-morning I went home to shower and shave and put on my best suit. I caught a noon meeting, ate a Sabrett hot dog on the street, and met Jan as arranged at the papaya stand at Seventy-second and Broadway. She was wearing a knit dress, dove gray with touches of black. I'd never seen her in anything that dressy.

We went around the corner to Cooke's, where a professionally sympathetic young man in black determined which set of bereaved we belonged to and ushered us through a hallway to Suite Three, where a card in a slot on the open door said hendryx. Inside, there were perhaps six rows of four chairs each on either side of a center aisle. In the front, to the left of the lectern on a raised platform, an open casket stood amid a glut of floral sprays. I'd sent flowers that morning but I needn't have bothered. Sunny had enough of them to see a Prohibition-era mobster on his way to the Promised Land.

Chance had the aisle seat in the front row on the right. Donna Campion was seated beside him, with Fran Schecter and Mary Lou Barcker filling out the row. Chance was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a narrow black silk tie. The women were all wearing black, and I wondered if he'd taken them shopping the previous afternoon.

He turned at our entrance, got to his feet. Jan and I walked over there and I managed the introductions. We stood awkwardly for a moment, and then Chance said, "You'll want to view the body," and gave a nod toward the casket.