Lawrence Block - Everybody Dies

"The bomb thrower, that would be."

"That's right. And I've got a sketch of one of the two men who mugged me."

"They were the ones mugged, by the time it was over."

I let that go. "I've got a sketch," I said, "but so far no one's recognized it. There were a lot of things I might have done today, but I had to spend it at home taking care of TJ."

"Why, for the love of God? Hasn't he managed for years taking care of himself?"

"Oh, of course, we haven't talked since then. How could you know?"

"How could I know what?"

"He was shot last night," I said.

"Fucking Jesus," he said, and hit the brake pedal. A car behind us braked hard, and the driver leaned on his horn. "Aaah, fuck yourself," Mick told him, and demanded to know what had happened.

I told him the whole story. I broke it off when we got to McGinley amp; Caldecott, resumed the narration after we'd stowed the car in its parking space and made our way down the stairs and through the narrow aisle to the office. He poured himself a drink, and from a table-model refrigerator he produced a can of Perrier.

"They didn't have bottles," he said. "Only the cans. It should be all right, don't you think?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine. I've been known to drink tap water in a pinch, as far as that goes."

"Nasty stuff," he said. "You don't know where it's been. Get on with it, man. You left him for dead, the black bastard?"

"He was on his way out. He couldn't have lasted long. It was black comedy, now that I think about it. The two of us stood there snarling 'fuck you' at each other. I can't swear to it, but I think those were his last words."

"I wouldn't doubt they're the last words of more than a few of us."

I told him how TJ'd been shot, and how I got him home. "I put a gun to the cabdriver's head," I said, "and at the end of the ride he gave me his card and said to call him anytime, any hour of the day or night. I love New York."

"There's no place can touch it for people."

When I was finished he sat back in his chair and looked at the drink in his hand. "It must have gone hard when you turned to the boy and saw he'd been shot."

"It was strange," I said. "I'd just been shot twice myself and watched the bullets bounce off. And I'd shot back and my bullets didn't bounce off, and I felt as though I was in charge of the world. Then I turned around and the bottom fell out, because while I'd been feeling like the master of the universe TJ's blood was oozing out between his fingers, and I didn't even know what was going on."

"He's a son to you, isn't he?"

"Is he? I don't know. I've already got sons, two of them. I wasn't around much when they were growing up and I don't see much of them now. Michael's out in California and Andy's in a different place every time I hear from him. I don't know that I've installed TJ in their place, but I suppose he's a sort of surrogate son. To Elaine, certainly. She mothers him, and he doesn't seem to mind."

"Why should he?"

"I don't know that I act like a father to him. More like a crusty old uncle. Our relationship's fairly ritualized. We joke around a lot, trade good-natured insults."

"He loves you."

"I suppose he does."

"And you love him."

"I suppose I do."

"I never had a son. There was a time I got a girl in trouble and she went off and had the baby and put it up for adoption. I never heard if it was a boy or girl she had. I never cared." He drank some whiskey. "I was young. What did I care about children? I wanted only to be left alone, and she went off and had the child and gave it away, and I heard no more about it. Which was as much as I cared to hear."

"It was probably best for the child."

"Oh, of course it was, and for the girl, and for myself as well. But every now and then I'll find myself wondering. Not what might have been, but just wondering how the wee one turned out, and what sort of a life it had. Night thoughts, you know. Nobody has such thoughts in the light of day."

"You're right about that."

"For all I know for certain," he said, "it may not have been my child at all. She was an aisy sort of a girl, if you know the word."

"Same as easy?"

"I'd say it's the same word, but there's a softer sense to it when you say it the Irish way. An aisy girl. She swore it was me put her in the club, but how could she be sure? And how could I?" He looked at my can of Perrier and asked me if I wanted a glass for it. "You can't drink water straight out of a can," he said, and found a clean tumbler in a cupboard, and poured the water into it for me, and assured me it was better that way.

"Thanks," I said.

"Years later," he said, "there was another one I got in the family way, and I never heard about it until she told me she'd got rid of it. Had an abortion, you know. Jesus, that's a sin, I told her. I don't believe that, says she, and if it is then the sin's on me. Why didn't you tell me, says I. Mickey, says she, to what end? You weren't about to marry me. Well, she was right about that. You'd only have tried to talk me out of it, says she, and I'd already made up my mind. Then why tell me at all, says I. Well, says she, I thought you'd want to know. I'll tell you, man, women are the strangest creatures God ever put on the earth."

"Amen," I said.

"There's a saying, or mayhaps it's the words of a song. It holds there are three things a man must do in the course of a lifetime. Plant a tree, marry a woman, and father a son. Well, I've planted trees. In the orchard, and then I put in a great windbreak of hemlock, and I planted horse chestnut trees along the drive. I don't know how many trees I've planted, but I'd call it a fair number." He lowered his eyes. "I never found a woman I cared to marry. And never fathered a child. Even if it was my baby she had, it takes more than that to make a true father of a man. So I'll have to be content with my trees."

"Then again, your life's not over yet."

"No," he said. "Not yet."

A little later he said, "You killed the man who killed your friend. Good for you."

"I don't know if it was good for me. It was better for me than it was for him, I'll say that much."

"I wouldn't have left him breathing, myself. Even if it was his last breaths he was taking. I'd have put one more bullet into him to make sure."

"It never occurred to me. I wasn't planning on killing him."

"How could you not? He killed your friend."

"Well, I've killed him now, and Jim's still dead. So what difference did it make?"

"It made a difference."

"I wonder."

"What the hell were you going to do? Pay him two thousand dollars and shake his bloody hand?"

"I wasn't going to shake hands with him. And I wasn't going to pay him the money. I was going to stiff him."

"And then turn your back on him and walk out the door? How did you expect him to take it?"

I was silent for a moment, thinking long thoughts. Then I said, "You know, maybe I set it up, and set myself up in the bargain. I didn't consciously intend to kill him. When I walked in there and saw him I couldn't even manage to hate him. It'd be like hating a scorpion for stinging you. It's what they do, so what else can you expect from him?"

"Still, you'd grind that scorpion under your heel."

"Maybe it's not a good analogy. Or maybe it is, I don't know. But I wonder if I knew all along that I was going to kill him, and if I stage-managed things to give myself an excuse. Once he drew on me, I had permission. I wasn't murdering him, I wasn't executing him. It was self-defense."

"And it was."

"Not if I made him draw."

"You didn't make him draw, for Jesus' sake! You offered him money."

"I told him I had the money on me, and I let him know I was the man he was supposed to kill. Isn't that baiting the trap? If I wanted to keep him from drawing on me, all I had to do was walk in there with a gun in my hand. I had every chance in the world to get the drop on him and I didn't take it."