Lawrence Block - Everybody Dies

"He's at peace now," Elaine said.

"He was at peace all along," I said. "He was a pretty peaceful guy. He wasn't happy all the time, for that you pretty much have to be a moron, but he was good at taking things in stride. You were right before. She's a hard woman to like, our Beverly."

"I think she loved him."

"And he loved her. It wasn't always smooth sailing for the two of them, but they made it work. I think I'll go to a meeting."

I put on a sport jacket, a Harris tweed with elbow patches she'd picked out for me. I'd tried it on earlier, and it was a better fit over the holster than the blazer.

"Heavier than your windbreaker," she said, rubbing the sleeve, "but it doesn't zip up. Will you be warm enough?"

"I'll be fine."

"Take an umbrella. It's not raining yet but it will before the night is over."

I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it and took the umbrella. "I may not be back till late," I said.

"I won't wait up," she said. "But call anytime. I'll let the machine screen the calls, so stay on the line and give me time to answer."

"I will."

She squeezed my arm. "And don't you dare get killed," she said.

There's a meeting every weeknight at my home group at St. Paul the Apostle. A home group is like family, and I wanted to be there, but it was too soon to face a lot of shared memories of Jim and questions about what exactly had happened to him. In a small town I'd have had a problem, but I was in New York and had dozens of meetings to choose from.

I caught the IRT at Columbus Circle and got off at Ninety-sixth and Broadway. The meeting was in the church basement- they very often are- and I got there a few minutes early and helped myself to a cup of coffee. I didn't know anybody there, and I was just as glad. I wanted to be in a meeting, but I didn't want to talk to anybody.

At eight o'clock the chairman opened the meeting. He had somebody read the preamble and then introduced the speaker, a woman who looked like a young suburban matron with two kids and a golden retriever. She told a harrowing story, mostly drugs but with plenty of booze in it, told of rapes at knifepoint while trying to score smack in Harlem, told of trading blow jobs for hits on the crack pipe in Alphabet City hell-holes. She was two years sober now and she had her life back. She also had HIV, and a T-cell count that was not so hot, but so far she was otherwise asymptomatic and she had high hopes.

"Anyway," she said, "I've got today."

During the break I put a dollar in the basket and had another cup of coffee and a stale oatmeal cookie. There were some announcements- the annual dinner dance six weeks away, some openings on the outgoing speakers' list, a member in the hospital who'd appreciate calls. Then the meeting reopened for a round robin.

If I'd known it was going to be a round robin I probably would have gone somewhere else. I grew oddly tense as my turn approached. I suppose I knew I ought to say something, and knew too that I didn't want to.

"My name is Matt," I said, "and I'm an alcoholic. Thanks for your qualification. It was very powerful. I think I'll just listen tonight."

Matt the Listener.

"Matthew Scudder," Danny Boy said. "First I heard you were dead. Then I heard you weren't. Logic told me that both of these reports could not be true."

"Where would we be without logic?"

He smiled and pointed to a chair, and I pulled it back and sat down. When the meeting ended I'd walked downtown on Amsterdam and looked for him at Mother Blue's. When I didn't find him there I walked the rest of the way to Poogan's Pub, on West Seventy-second. He was at his usual table, with a bottle of iced vodka in a hamper next to him and an unconvincing transsexual in the seat opposite him. She used her hands a lot while she talked, and what she said had Danny Boy laughing.

I drank a Perrier at the bar while she talked and gestured and Danny Boy laughed and listened. I didn't think he'd noticed me, but at one point he looked my way and caught my eye. A little later the TS stood up- she was tall enough for basketball- and extended a hand. It was a bigger hand than any woman ever sported, with long nails painted a bright blue. Danny Boy took her huge hand in his small one and pressed it to his lips. She whooped gaily and flounced away, and then it was my turn.

Seven nights a week he's at one place or the other, sitting at the table they reserve for him, listening to music (live at Mother Blue's, recorded at Poogan's), chatting up the Girlfriend of the Month, and brokering information. After the bars close- and both of his places stay open as late as the law allows- he's apt to hit an after-hours club uptown.

But he gets home before the sun comes up, and stays put until it goes down. Danny Boy Bell is African-American, and the cumbersome phrase fits him better than black, because in point of fact he's whiter than white, an albino with white hair and pink eyes and pale, almost translucent skin. Sunlight's dangerous to him, and any strong light bothers him. What the whole world needs, he has often said, is a dimmer switch.

I sat where the TS had been sitting, and Danny Boy picked up his glass of iced vodka and told me he was glad I was alive.

"So am I," I said. "Exactly what did you hear?"

"What I said. First the word came that you'd been gunned down in a restaurant. Then the bush telegraph ran a correction. It wasn't you after all. It was somebody else."

"A friend of mine. I left the table and the shooter made a mistake."

"And didn't know it until later," he said. "Because he must have reported a successful mission in order for your name to be in the first word that hit the street. Who was your friend?"

"Nobody you would have heard of."

"A square john?"

"A fellow Perrier drinker."

"Oh, and that's how you knew him? A close friend?"

"Very."

"I'm sorry to hear it. On the other hand, Matthew, I'm glad you're not on my list."

"What list is that?"

"Just an expression."

"It's a new one on me. What kind of list?"

He shrugged. "It's just something I did awhile back. I sat down and started writing down a list of everybody I could think of who was dead."

"Jesus Christ."

"Well, he might or might not belong on the list, depending on who you talk to. Same goes for Elvis. But this particular list was limited to people I'd known personally."

"And you wrote down their names."

"It sounds stupid," he said, "and I think it probably was, but once I got started I couldn't seem to stop. I got pretty compulsive about it. I'd think of a name and I'd have to write it down. It was sort of like the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, except those guys got a wall, not some pages in a notebook. And they had something in common. They all died in the same war."

"And the others were all friends of yours."

"Not even that. Some of them I couldn't stand and others were people I just knew to say hello to. But it was a trip, Matthew. One name would lead to another, and it was like dominoes tumbling over in your memory. I found myself remembering people I hadn't thought of in years. Neighbors from when I was growing up. My pediatrician. A kid across the street who died of leukemia, and a girl in my fifth-grade class who got hit by a car. You know what I realized?"

"What?"

"Most of the people I know are dead. I guess that happens when you've been around long enough. I once heard George Burns say something like that. 'When you're my age, most of your friends are dead.' Or words to that effect. The audience laughed, and I've never been able to figure out why. What's funny about it? Does it seem funny to you?"

"Maybe it was the way he said it."

"Maybe. And now he's dead. George Burns. But I never met him, so he's not on my list. And neither are you, because your heart's still beating, and I'm glad to know it."