Lawrence Block - A Long Line of Dead Men

"Everything's great."

"You still seeing the other one?"

"Now and then."

At first I hadn't told him about Lisa, but not for fear of his disapproval. He knows Elaine, and I didn't want to burden him with something I had to keep secret from her, especially if it was something that would end in a couple of weeks. When it didn't, when it went on and on, I talked about it.

"The last time I saw her," I said, "I started out wanting a drink. I called her instead."

"Well, if those were the two choices, I'd say you picked the right one. I don't know that the relationship has much of a future, but I watched a PBS special last night on the greenhouse effect, and you could say the same thing about the human race. She's not likely to try to break up your marriage, is she?"

"I'm not married."

"You know what I mean."

I nodded. "She's just there," I said. "She never calls, and when I call she says to come over."

"Sounds like the answer to a prayer," he said. "Do me a favor, will you? Find out if she's got a sister."

We sat a long time over dinner and arrived a few minutes late for the Big Book meeting at St. Clare's. Afterward I walked Jim home, then kept going to Grogan's Open House at Fiftieth and Tenth. Mick Ballou owns the place, although you won't find his name on the license. He has a farm in Sullivan County, a couple of hours from the city, and another man's name is on the deed. He has a couple of apartments around town, too, and drives a Cadillac Brougham, but for the record he doesn't own a thing. When they finally make their RICO case against him, they'll be hard put to find anything to confiscate.

I'd intended to drop by Friday night, but spent the evening on the Upper East Side instead, saving souls for sobriety. Now, two nights later, the saloon was almost empty, with three old men sitting in silence at the bar and two others sharing a table. Burke, behind the bar, told me out of the side of his thin-lipped mouth that the big fellow wasn't expected.

I stayed long enough to drink a Coke and watch a little of the game on ESPN, the Brewers playing the White Sox, with a lot of players on both teams hitting the ball into the seats. But I wasn't paying any real attention, and when my glass was empty I went home.

Wally Donn called first thing in the morning. "I could use you a couple or three days this week," he said. "You up for it?"

"I'm in the middle of something," I told him.

"Keeping you busy?"

It wasn't, not really. There wasn't much I could do until we had our big meeting at Gruliow's Tuesday afternoon.

I said, "Suppose I call you Wednesday morning? Or late tomorrow afternoon, if I get the chance. By then I'll have a better idea of how I stand."

"I really need you today," he said. "You call me Wednesday, I might not have anything for you. But call and we'll see."

I could have gone in that day, for all the work I wound up doing. I made my usual call to Forest Hills and was not all that surprised when nobody answered. I had already decided that Mrs. Watson was out of town, and was beginning to wonder what I could possibly ask her if she ever turned up again.

Sometime after lunch I went over to Elaine's shop, intending to spell her, but she wasn't there; TJ, cool and professional in his preppy outfit, was minding the shop for her. I sat around talking with him for half an hour, during which time he sold a pair of bronze bookends to a stoop-shouldered man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. The man offered thirty dollars, then forty, then said he'd pay the full fifty-dollar sticker price if TJ would forgo the sales tax. TJ stood firm.

"You're tough," the man said, admiringly. "Well, I'm probably paying too much, but so what? Ten years from now when I look at them on the shelf, will I even remember what I paid?" He handed over a credit card, and TJ wrote up the sale and did what you have to do with the card as if he'd been doing this sort of thing for years.

"They're really nice," he said at last, handing over the wrapped bookends. "All said, I think you got yourself a bargain."

"I think so, too," the man said.

Over dinner I gave Elaine a play-by-play description of the transaction. " 'All said, I think you got yourself a bargain.' Where do you suppose he learned to talk like that?"

"No idea," she said. "How come he got full price? I told him he can cut any price ten percent to make a sale."

"He said he knew the customer would pay the full fifty if he just held firm."

"Plus the tax?"

"Plus the tax."

"I guess shilling for the three-card monte dealers teaches you something. I guess if you can buy and sell on Forty-second Street you can buy and sell anywhere."

"Evidently."

"But it still amazes me when he turns the language on and off. Is it possible he's actually a middle-class kid and all the street jive's an act?"

"No."

"That's what I figured. But you never know, do you?"

"Sometimes you know," I said.

Jim Shorter hadn't called. I tried him after dinner and got no answer. I went over to St. Paul's. The woman who spoke had very strong opinions on everything. I left on the break and went over to my hotel room and sat there looking out the window.

I'd taken off Call Forwarding as soon as I came in. I was trying to make this automatic, and to put it on again automatically when I left. I picked up a book and read for a while, then put it down and looked out the window some more. And the phone rang, and it was Shorter.

"Hi," he said. "How's it going?"

"Just fine," I said. "How about yourself?"

"Well, I didn't drink yet."

"That's great."

"And I was at a meeting," he said, and told me where he'd gone and more of the speaker's story than I needed to know. We talked AA for a few minutes, and then he said, "And what about your investigation? How's that going?"

"It's sort of stalled."

"Tomorrow's the big day, isn't it?"

"The big day?"

"You know, when you get together with everybody and find out where you go from here. Do you suppose the killer'll be there?"

"There's a thought. I don't know for sure that there is a killer."

"Hey, Matt, I discovered Watson's body, remember? Somebody sure as hell killed him. I mean, he didn't do that to himself."

"A single killer," I said. "As I said, I don't know for sure that there is one, and if there is I have no reason to believe he's a member of the group."

"Who else would it be?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what I think- but where do I get off having an opinion? Forget it, you don't want to hear this."

"Sure I do, Jim."

"You sure? Well, I bet it's one of the members. Some guy whose life looks picture-perfect on the surface, but underneath it's a mess. You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Are all of them coming tomorrow?"

"Most of them. A few can't make it."

"If you were the killer," he said, "and if somebody called a meeting like this, would you go? Or would you say you couldn't make it?"

"Impossible to say."

"I'd go. How could you stay away? You'd want to hear what they were saying, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so."

"You better get a good night's sleep," he said. "Tomorrow you're going to be in the room with the killer. Do you think you'll be able to sense anything?"

"I doubt it."

"I don't know," he said. "You were a cop a long time. You've got the instincts. That might keep him away."

"My instincts?"

"Knowing that you're going to be there. Unless, you know, he wants to be face-to-face with his adversary. What do you think?"

"I think you've been watching too much TV."

He laughed. "You know what? I think you're right. Where's this going to happen tomorrow? Somebody's office?"

"I really can't say, Jim."

"But it's in Manhattan, right? Sorry, I'm sticking my nose in, and I don't mean to."