Lawrence Block - Hope to Die

He returned to his desk, picked up a letter opener, brass, with a handle of green malachite. "I had a patient who molested all four of his children, three girls and a boy," he said. "I had another who embezzled a quarter of a million dollars from his employer to finance an enthusiasm for sports gambling and cocaine. Neither of them went to jail. I suppose the work I do might benefit a criminal, an ex-inmate, but none has ever come to me." He started to add something, then drew himself up short and looked at his watch.

"It's ten minutes of two," he said. "I really can't spare you any more time. No one could have known the gun was there. No patient of mine ever saw it. If there's nothing else…"

"You've been very helpful," I said. "I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time. Unofficially, let me just say that I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Then I won't," he said, and gave me a wintry smile. I can't say he looked too worried. We shook hands, and he showed me to the door.

It was drizzling when I left Nadler's office, but not enough to make me sorry I'd left the umbrella home. We had a concert that evening and I wanted to fit in a meeting first, so I walked through the raindrops to Broadway and took the subway down to the Village. There's a storefront on Perry Street that's been leased to an AA group for twice as long as I've been sober. Back when I came in they used to hold two or three meetings a day there, and now they run pretty much continuously from early morning to late at night. I got there halfway through one meeting, went out for coffee when it ended, and came back for a little more than half of the next one. I heard a lot of the neurotic self-absorbed drivel that Seymour Nadler had to listen to all day, and I wasn't getting paid, either. But when I walked out of there I was sober.

T J called in, reporting that no one had questioned his performance as a deputy inspector for the Department of Buildings, City of New York, Borough of Brooklyn. He'd had no trouble finding the house on Meserole Street, but said he'd have felt more comfortable in that part of town if he'd stayed with the camo shorts. There were Dumpsters here and there and a lot of renovation going on, so the neighborhood was evidently in the process of improving, but it looked to him like it had a ways to go.

He'd met Peter Meredith, and three of his four housemates, and he'd report at length face to face, but for now he'd summarize it by saying Meredith might not have gained weight since Kristin saw him last, but it didn't look as though he'd lost any, either, and he wasn't about to fit into Jason Bierman's shirt and jeans. And two of the other people he'd met were women, and the other man was black, and, while we'd never actually spelled it out, he more or less assumed our mystery dude was of the Caucasian persuasion.

That left one member of the team he didn't get to see, I told Elaine, and another visit from the same buildings inspector might arouse suspicions. But he had the name of the missing man, and we could figure out some way to check him out.

"I know it's never a complete waste," she said, "but it sounds as though he had a long trip for nothing."

"That's what I said. He said it wasn't that long a trip, and he got to see a part of town he hadn't known before. Besides, it wasn't for nothing."

"Because you get to rule these people out."

"That's only half of it. He got paid. They believed he was a genuine buildings inspector, and evidently they'd had dealings with the breed before, or knew someone who had. So, when he kept hanging around, wanting to look at one thing after another to no particular purpose, Peter Meredith took him aside and slipped him a hundred-dollar bill."

"And of course T J took it."

"If he hadn't," I said, "I don't know what I would do with him. Yes, of course he took it. It would have spiked his whole act to turn it down, and on top of that it would have contravened a fundamental principle."

" 'When they give you money, put it in your pocket.' "

"That's the one."

We ate at home and walked up Ninth to Lincoln Center. It was raining in earnest by the time we set out, so we might have taken a cab, but the rain made it impossible to get one. It was only half a dozen blocks, and we both had umbrellas, and stayed dry under them.

The concert featured a Belgian pianist who performed on a Mozart piano, which was evidently some intermediate stage in evolution between a harpsichord and the modern piano. The program notes told me more than I cared to know about the differences and similarities involved. The Mostly Mozart orchestra provided accompaniment, and what they played was certainly easy to listen to.

And, in my case, easy not to listen to, because I couldn't keep my mind on it. I kept playing different conversations through my mind- with Nadler, with Kristin Hollander, with my police contacts in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I ran switches on the scenario I'd spun out for Kristin ("Scudder's variations on the Third Man Theme") until they became a dream I couldn't wake up from, or a song I couldn't get out of my head.

At intermission Elaine asked me if I wanted to go. "You're not squirming in your seat," she said, "but your mind's miles away, isn't it?"

I said I'd stay. The festival had only a week to run, and we had tickets for two of the remaining concerts. She'd be taking a friend to one of them, and then there'd be the last night, and eleven months before we did it again. It was early, and Danny Boy's day was just starting. It wouldn't hurt me to sit back and let them play beautiful music for me, whether I listened to it or not.

A Ninth Avenue bus pulled up just as we were leaving. The rain had lessened and she said she'd walk, and I said either she'd take the bus or I would walk with her.

She said, "And then turn around and walk all the way back to Seventy-second Street?"

"So take the bus," I said, and she did.

Poogan's is on Seventy-second east of Broadway, a dark little hole in the wall with precious little to recommend it, as far as I'm concerned, aside from the frequent presence of Danny Boy Bell. I've known him for years- Elaine was sitting at his table the night I first laid eyes on her. I'd say he hasn't changed, that he looks exactly the same, but I know that can't be true. He was around twenty-eight when I met him, and looked much younger. He still looks young for his years, but there are more of them, and it shows.

Back then he looked like nobody else in the world, and that hasn't changed. He's African-American, a term I don't tend to use much, but it fits him better than "black," which doesn't fit him at all. Danny Boy's a true albino, his skin whiter than white, his hair colorless, his eyes pink and light-sensitive. Even in the summer, he manages to see about as much daylight as an overly cautious vampire.

Nights, he generally holds court at one of two places where the lighting and sound are both muted. Mother Blue's, farther uptown, has live music and a more upscale salt-and-pepper clientele; Poogan's, with a tasteful if eclectic jukebox, is a little more raffish. At either place he takes his usual table and waits for people to come join him. Some bring him information and others take information away with them. If this is the Information Age, Danny Boy's up to date- information is his stock in trade.

I nursed a Coke at the bar while he chatted with a woman who looked too chubby to be a working girl, but who, dressed and made up as she was, could hardly be anything else. She was an overstuffed kewpie doll fresh out of a Stephen King novel, but any sense of malevolence was dispelled by her obvious jollity. She laughed with good humor, and at the conclusion of the interview she stood up, leaned over, and kissed Danny Boy smack on the mouth. She laughed again and strode out of the place, and when she passed me I got a whiff of her perfume. It was as demure and understated as everything else about her.