Lawrence Block - Everybody Dies

It was still raining when I left, so I passed up the outdoor pay phones for one in a coffee shop on Sixth Avenue. I dialed my own number, waiting for the machine, and Elaine picked it up on the first ring.

"That's a surprise," I said. "I thought we were screening our calls."

"Oh, hi, Monica," she said. "I was just thinking about you."

I felt a chill, and tensed my stomach muscles as if in anticipation of a blow. I said, "Are you all right?"

"Oh, never better," she said. "I could do without the rain, but other than that I've got no complaints."

I relaxed, but not entirely. "Who's there with you?"

"I was going to call," she said apologetically, "but then these two friends of Matt's dropped by. Did you ever meet Joe Durkin? Well, he's married, so forget it."

"You're good at this," I said. "But that's not the Monica I know. She's only interested if they're married."

"Yeah, he's kind of cute," she said. "Hang on and I'll ask him… My friend wants to know your name and if you're married."

"Don't get too cute or he's gonna want to talk to me."

"He says his name is George, and the other is classified information. But there's a ring on his finger, if that means anything." She laughed. "You'll love this. He says he's working undercover and it's part of a disguise."

"Yeah, I love it," I said. "How long are they likely to hang around, do you have any idea?"

"Oh, gee," she said. "I really couldn't say."

"Anybody call?"

"Yes."

"But you don't want to say the names, so just answer yes or no. Did Mick call?"

"No."

"TJ?"

"Uh-huh, a little while ago. You know, you really ought to get back to them."

"I'll call him."

"There was something else I had to tell you, but I can't think what it was."

"Somebody else called?"

"Yes."

"Feed me the initials."

"Absolutely, baby."

"AB?"

"Uh-huh. That's right."

"Andy Buckley?"

"I knew you'd understand."

"Did he leave a number?"

"Sure, for all the good it does."

"Because he left it on the machine and you don't have it handy. Never mind, I can get it. If those two get on your nerves, tell them to get the hell out."

"My sentiments exactly," she said. "Look, sweetie, I have to go now. And I'll tell Matt what you said."

"You do that," I said.

I knew Mick would know Andy's number, so I tried him first on his cell phone. When it went unanswered I tried it again in case I'd dialed wrong, and after six rings I gave up.

Bronx Information didn't have a listing for an A or Andrew Buckley, but I'd figured the phone was probably in his mother's name, and there were two Buckleys listed on Bainbridge Avenue. I wrote down both numbers, and when I called the first a youngster said, "Naw, that's the other one. Next block up and 'cross the street."

I called the second number and a woman answered. I said, "Mrs. Buckley? Is Andy there?"

He picked up and said, "Yeah, Mick?"

"No, it's Matt Scudder, Andy."

He laughed. "Fooled me," he said. "She said, 'A gentleman for you,' and that's what she always says when it's the big fellow. Just about anybody else, she goes, 'It's one of your friends.'"

"The woman knows quality when she hears it."

"She's a pistol," he said. "Listen, have you talked to Mick lately?"

"No, I haven't."

"I thought I'd hear from him but I haven't. Where's he staying, do you happen to know?"

"I don't."

"Because I want to switch cars with him. What I did, I went down and got his Cadillac out of the garage, and I don't want to park it on the street. That's fine with the bucket of bolts I drive, but a car like that parked out in the open is what the fathers call an occasion of sin for the kids around here. It's in front of my house right now, and I gave a kid from down the block twenty bucks to watch it, and you want to know what I'm doing? I'm sitting in the window watching him."

"I think Mick wants to hang on to your car," I said. "He said his is too visible."

"Oh, yeah? Fine with me, only I thought we were supposed to switch. You got his cell phone number?"

"He doesn't seem to give it out."

"I know, he just uses it when he can't find a pay phone. You want to know, what I think is he lost the number of his own phone and doesn't know how to find it out. Hey, don't tell him I said that."

"I won't."

"Let's you and I stay in touch, huh? I'll call you if he calls me, and you do the same. I mean, I'm sitting tight here and that's cool, but I wish I knew what was going on."

"I know what you mean."

"You up for anything? You want me to drive you anywhere?"

"You should have asked me sooner. I just got back from Williamsburg."

"You don't mean Williamsbridge, do you?"

"No, I mean Williamsburg in Brooklyn."

"'Cause the Williamsbridge neighborhood's just the other side of the Bronx River Parkway, though I can't think why you'd want to go there. And neither could you, obviously, because you didn't. Why Williamsburg, and what did you do, take the Williamsburg Bridge? They been fixing that thing forever."

"I took the L train."

"You should have called me. You know what I think I'll do? I think I'll put Mick's car back in the garage before my twenty bucks runs out and it gets swiped by the kid I hired to watch it. But I'm serious, you want a ride, gimme a call. There's always a car I can take."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"And keep in touch," he said. "What happened the other night…"

"I know."

"Yeah, you were there, weren't you? Stay close, Matt. We got to watch each other's back, next little while."

I caught TJ in his room and met him at the Starbucks on Broadway and Eighty-seventh. He was already there when I arrived, sitting at a table with an iced mochaccino, wearing black jeans and a black shirt with a pink necktie an inch wide, all topped off with a Raiders warm-up jacket and a black beret.

"Had to stop and change clothes," he said, "an' I still beat you here."

"You're greased lightning," I said. "What did you change out of that was less appropriate than what you've got on?"

"You don't think this here's appropriate? For where we goin'?"

"It's fine."

"It's as appropriate as that sad old zip-up jacket of yours. What I had on earlier was camo pants and my flak jacket, and that was very appropriate for where I was at, but not for Mother Blue's."

"And where was that?"

"Flushing. See a girl I know."

"Oh."

"What you mean, 'Oh'? I was on the clock, Brock. I was gettin' the job done."

"How so?"

"Girl's got a black daddy, Vietnamese mama. Her face tends to break out. Wasn't for that, she could be a model. Girl is seriously fine lookin'."

"Vietnamese…"

"You got it. She had a brother was in Born To Kill, an' she used to know all those dudes. Guy who shot up the bar Sunday was Nguyen Tran Bao. Very violent cat, what she said, but we already knew that."

"I don't know," I said. "He seemed like such a nice quiet boy."

"He did his robbery and assault bit at Attica, an' when he came back he wasn't exactly rehabilitated. Matter of fact, he was hangin' out with a white dude he got to know upstate, and the general impression was the two of them was doin' bad things."

"A white dude."

"Very white, and what you call moon-faced."

"The bomb thrower."

"What I was thinkin', Lincoln."

"Did she happen to know his name?"

He shook his head. "Only way she knew what Goo been up to since prison is she made some phone calls. She pretty much lost touch with BTK when she moved out of Chinatown."

"Goo? Is that what they call Nguyen?"

"What I call him, 'cause it a whole lot easier to say. Anyway, I be callin' her tomorrow, see if she found anybody could come up with a name to go with his face. Even if she can't, we got Goo's full name an' we know where he went to college."