Lawrence Block - A Long Line of Dead Men

There had been no other women for me since Elaine and I had found each other again, but I suppose it was inevitable that there would be someone sooner or later. The surprise was that the affair wouldn't quit. It was like the Energizer rabbit. It kept going and going and going…

You didn't need a doctorate in psychology to figure out what was going on. I was obviously a father figure to her, and only the least bit more available than the genuine article. For several years back home in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, he had come to her bed at night. He had thrilled her with his fingers and his mouth, teaching her to gasp out her pleasure like a lady, softly, so the sounds would not carry beyond her bedroom door. He taught her, too, to please him, and by the time she went off to college she had become skilled beyond her years.

And still a virgin. "He would never put it in," she said, "because he told me that would be a sin."

While she and I had not drawn any such line, in other respects our relationship echoed what she'd had with Daddy. Although she had originally made the first overtures, giving me to understand that she was available to me, since then she had initiated nothing. She never called my home or office. I always called, asking if she felt like company, and she always told me to come over.

We were never together outside her apartment. We never walked down the street side by side, or had a cup of coffee together. One night Elaine and I stopped at Armstrong's after a concert at Lincoln Center, and Elaine spotted Lisa in the crowd at the bar. It was Elaine who had introduced me to Lisa and her husband; the two women had met at a class at Hunter College. "Isn't that Lisa Holtzmann?" she'd said, nodding toward the bar. I looked and agreed that it was, but neither of us suggested going over and saying hello.

In her apartment, in her bed, I could shut out the world. It was as if those rooms on the twenty-eighth floor existed somehow outside of space and time. I would shuck off my life like a pair of boots and leave it at the door.

I suppose it wasn't much of a stretch to say she was like a drug or a drink to me. I'd thought fleetingly of calling the liquor store, reached for the phone, and called her instead. The connection wasn't usually that clearly wrought. I would find myself thinking of her, and wanting to be with her. Sometimes I resisted the impulse. Sometimes I didn't.

I rarely went to her more than once a month, and during the winter there'd been a stretch of almost three months when I'd never even reached for the phone. Shortly after the first of the year I thought of her and thought, Well, that's over, feeling a curious mixture of sadness and relief. Early in February I called and went over there, and we were right back where we'd started.

Afterward we watched the sunset. It must have been around nine. The sunsets were coming later every day now, with less than a week to go until Midsummer Eve.

She said, "I've been working a lot. I got a great assignment, six covers from a paperback western series."

"Good for you."

"The hardest part is reading the books. They're what they call adult westerns. Do you know what those are?"

"I could probably guess."

"You probably could. The hero doesn't say, 'Shucks, ma'am.' "

"What does he say?"

"In the one I just finished he said, 'Why don't you get shed of that petticoat so I can eat that sweet little pussy of yours.' "

"How the West was won."

"It's shocking," she said, "because you think you're reading Hopalong Cassidy, and the next thing you know somebody's getting fisted behind the corral. The hero's name is Cole Hardwick. That's pretty straightforward, don't you think?"

"One gets the point."

"I'm doing a different western scene for each cover. The two constants are guns and cleavage. Oh, and Cole Hardwick's weathered face in the foreground, so you'll know right away it's another book in the series." She extended a hand, ran her forefinger along my jaw. "I almost used this face," she said.

"Oh?"

"I started sketching, and what came out began to look curiously familiar. It was a great temptation to leave it. I wonder if you'd ever have seen one of the books, and if you'd have recognized yourself."

"I don't know."

"Anyway, I decided you're not right for it. You're too urban, too streetwise."

"Too old."

"No, Hardwick's pretty grizzled himself. Look, there goes the sun. Will I ever get tired of sunsets? I hope not."

The show was even richer once the sun was down. A whole rainbow of colors stained the Jersey skyline.

She said, "I've been seeing somebody."

"Somebody nice, I hope."

"He seems nice. He's an art director for an in-flight magazine. I showed him my book and he didn't have any work for me, but he called me the next day and took me to dinner. He's nice-looking and fun to be with and he likes me."

"That's great."

"We've had four dates. Tomorrow we're going to have an early dinner and see Eleven Months of Winter at Playwrights Horizon. And then I suppose I'll sleep with him."

"You haven't yet?"

"No. A couple of, you know, lingering kisses." She clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "When you called, my first thought was to tell you not to come over today. And then I said I didn't want to do anything, and how long did that last? Half a minute?"

"Something like that."

"I wonder what it is with us."

"I've wondered myself."

"What happens if I start sleeping with Peter? What will I say when you call?"

"I don't know."

" 'Come on over,' I'll say. And afterward I'll feel like a whore."

I didn't say anything.

"I can't see myself sleeping with two men at once. I don't mean literally at the same time, I mean-"

"I know what you mean."

"Having a relationship with Peter, and still going to bed with you. I can't see myself doing that. But I can't imagine saying no to you, either."

"Daddy stuff?"

"Oh, I suppose so. When you kissed me there was a split second when I could taste liquor on your breath. Of course that was just memory. He never came to my room without liquor on his breath. Did I tell you he was in treatment?"

"No."

"Well, Minnesota. Land of ten thousand lakes and twenty thousand alcoholism-treatment centers. The doctor was concerned that his liver was enlarged and sent him for treatment. My mother says he's not drinking anything now but a little beer with meals. I don't suppose that will last."

"It never does."

"Maybe his liver'll blow up and he'll die. Sometimes I wish that would happen. Does that shock you?"

"No."

"And other times I want to pray for him. That he'll stop drinking and, and, I don't know what. Get better, I guess. Be the father I always wanted. But maybe he already is the father I always wanted. Maybe he was all along."

"Maybe."

"Anyway, I don't know how to pray. Do you pray?"

"Once in a while. Not very often, though."

"How do you do it?"

"Mostly I ask for strength."

"Strength?"

"To do something," I said, "or to get through something. That kind of strength."

"And do you get it?"

"Yes," I said. "I generally do."

I showered before I left her place, then got to the basement of St. Paul's in time for the last half hour of the meeting. I raised my hand and said that I'd thought of drinking earlier. "I was looking out the window at the liquor store across the street," I said, "and I thought how easy it would be to call them up and tell them to send over a bottle. I've been sober a few years now, and I don't get thoughts like that very often, but I'm still an alcoholic, and I've stayed sober this long by not drinking and by coming here and talking about it. And I'm glad I'm sober, and I'm glad I'm here tonight."

Afterward I joined a few of the others at the Flame. I ate a hamburger and drank a glass of iced coffee. I got home a little before eleven.