Lawrence Block - When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

"Billie," she said, "do you know how you can tell that Mr. Scudder is a gentleman?"

"He always removes his lady in the presence of a hat."

"He is a bourbon drinker," she said.

"That makes him a gentleman, huh, Carolyn?"

"It makes him a far cry removed from a hypocritical scotch-drinking son of a bitch."

She didn't speak in a loud voice, but there was enough edge to her words to shut down conversations across the room. There were only three or four tables occupied, and the people sitting at them all picked the same instant to stop talking. For a moment the taped music was startlingly audible. It was one of the few pieces I could identify, one of theBrandenburg concertos. They played it so often there that even I was now able to tell what it was.

Then Billie said, "Suppose a man drinks Irish whiskey, Carolyn. What does that make him?"

"An Irishman," she said.

"Makes sense."

"I'm drinking bourbon," she said, and shoved her glass forward a significant inch. "God damn it, I'm a lady."

He looked at her,then looked at me. I nodded, and he shrugged and poured for her.

"On me," I said.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Matthew." And her eyes started to water, and she dug a fresh tissue from her bag.

She wanted to talk about Tommy. He was being nice to her, she said. Calling up, sending flowers. But it just wouldn't do if she made a scene around the office, and he just might have to testify how he spent the night his wife was killed, and he had to keep on the good side of her for the time being.

But he wouldn't see her because it wouldn't look right. Not for a new widower, not for a man who'd been virtually accused of complicity in his wife's death.

"He sends flowers with no card enclosed," she said. "He calls me from pay phones.The son of a bitch."

"Maybe the florist forgot to enclose a card."

"Oh, Matt.Don't make excuses for him."

"And he's in ahotel, of course he would use a pay phone."

"He could call from his room. He as much as said he didn't want the call to go through the hotel switchboard, in case the operator's listening in. There was no card with the flowers because he doesn't want anything in writing. He came to my apartment the other night, but he won't be seen with me, he won't go out with me, and- oh, the hypocrite.The scotch-drinking son of a bitch."

Billie called me aside. "I didn't want to put her out," he said, "a nice woman like that,shitfaced as she is. But I thought I wasgonna have to. You'll see she gets home?"

"Sure."

First I had to let her buy us another round. She insisted. Then I got her out of there and walked her around the corner to her building. There was rain coming, you could smell it in the air, and when we went from Armstrong's air conditioning into the sultry humidity that heralds a summer storm it took some of the spirit out of her. She held my arm as we walked, gripped it with something on the edge of desperation. In the elevator she sagged against the back panel and braced her feet.

"Oh, God," she said.

I took the keys from her and unlocked her door. I got her inside. She half sat, half sprawled on the couch. Her eyes were open but I don't know if she saw much through them. I had to use the bathroom, and when I came back her eyes were closed and she was snoring lightly.

I got her shoes off, moved her to a chair,struggled with the couch until I managed to open it into a bed. I put her on it. I figured I ought to loosen her clothing, and while I was at it I undressed her completely. She remained unconscious throughout the operation, and I remembered what a mortician's assistant had told me once about the difficulty of dressing and undressing the dead. My gorge rose at the image and I thought I was going to be sick, but I sat down and my stomach settled itself.

I covered her with the top sheet, sat back down again. There was something else I'd wanted to do but I couldn't think what it was. I tried to think, and I guess I must have dozed off myself. I don't suppose I was out for more than a few minutes, just time enough to lose myself in a dream that fled from me the minute I opened my eyes and blinked it away.

I let myself out. Her door had a spring lock. There was a dead bolt you could engage with the key for extra security, but all I had to do was draw the door shut and it was locked, and reasonably secure. I took the elevator down and went outside.

The rain was holding off. At the corner ofNinth Avenue a jogger passed, running doggedly uptown against what little traffic there was. His T-shirt was gray with sweat and helook ready to drop. I thought of O'Bannon, Jack Diebold's old partner, getting physically fit before blowing his brains out.

And then I remembered what I'd wanted to do at Carolyn's apartment. I'd been planning on taking away the little gun Tommy had given her. If she was going to drink like that and get depressed like that, she didn't need to have a weapon in the bedside table.

But the door was locked. And she was out cold, she wasn't going to wake up and kill herself.

I crossed the street. The steel gate was drawn most of the way across the front of Armstrong's, and the white globe lights over the front were out, but light showed from within. I walked over to the door, saw that the chairs were on top of the tables, ready for the Dominican kid who came in first thing in the morning to sweep the place out. I didn't see Billie at first, and then I saw him at a stool at the far end of the bar. The door was locked, but he spotted me and came over and let me in.

He locked the door again after I was through it, walked me over to the bar and slipped behind it. Without my saying anything he poured me a glass of bourbon. I curled my hand around it but didn't pick it up from the top of the bar.

"The coffee's all gone," he said.

"That's all right. I didn't want any more."

"She all right?Carolyn?"

"Well, she might have a hangover tomorrow."

"Just about everybody I know might have a hangover tomorrow," he said. "I might have a hangover tomorrow. It'sgonna pour, I might as well sit in the house and eat aspirin all day."

Someone banged on the door. Billie shook his head at him, waved him away. The man knocked again. Billie ignored him.

"Can't they see the place is closed?" he complained. "Put your money away, Matt. We're closed, the register's locked up,it's private-party time." He held his glass to the light and looked at it. "Beautiful color," he said. "She's a pisser, old Carolyn. A bourbon drinker's a gentleman and a scotch drinker's- what did she say a scotch drinker was?"

"I think a hypocrite."

"So I gave her the straight line, didn't I? What's it make a man if he drinks Irish whiskey?An Irishman."

"Well, you asked."

"What else it makes him is drunk, but in a nice way. I only get drunk in the nicest possible way. Ah, Jesus, Matt, these are the best hours of the day. You can keep your Morrissey's. This is like having your own private after-hours, you know? The joint empty and dark, the music off, the chairs up, one or two people around for company, the rest of the world locked the hell out.Great, huh?"

"It's not bad."

"No, it's not."

He wasfreshening my drink. I didn't remember drinking it. I said, "You know, my trouble is I can't go home."

"That's what Thomas Wolfe said, 'You Can't Go Home Again.' That's everybody's trouble."

"No, I mean it. My feet keep taking me to a bar instead. I was out inBrooklyn, I got home late, I was tired, I was already half in the bag, I started to walk to my hotel and I turned around and came here instead. And just now I put her to sleep, Carolyn, and I had to drag myself out of there before I fell asleep in her chair, and instead of going home like a sane human being I came back here again like some dim homing pigeon."