Дональд Уэстлейк - A Good Story and Other Stories

“I’ll bring you two. Sit down, I’ll be right back.”

Andy hurried away to the kitchen, and Charlie looked at the living room. It was full of cheap furniture, overstuffed armchairs and a huge sofa and seven or eight end tables and a bunch of table lamps and floor lamps, like a corner of the Salvation Army store. It was a funny kind of place for Andy to be living in.

Andy came back with the beer, gave one to Charlie, then sat across from him and said, “Boy, it sure brings up old times, Charlie, seeing you again.”

“Here’s to old times,” said Charlie.

“Right.”

Charlie tasted the beer and it was great, cool and delicious, tickling his throat. He remembered all the nights in stir, dreaming about a cold can of beer and one thing and another.

Andy was saying, “What are your plans, Charlie?”

“Take it easy for a few days,” Charlie told him. “Then get back into the old groove. Think Corsi’ll put me back on the payroll?”

Andy looked surprised, “Didn’t you see Corsi upstate?”

“Upstate? You mean in the pen?”

“Sure. He went up about a year ago. There was some big stink about unions, there was Congressmen all over the place, and Corsi wound up in the big house.”

“I didn’t know about it. Who’s taking over while he’s gone?”

“I don’t know who’s running things now. I guess the combine’s pretty well broken up.”

“Aren’t you working any more?”

Andy laughed. “You been out of touch, Charlie. I quit the racket over two years ago. When I got married.”

Charlie stared at him. “Married?”

“Sure. It was due, Charlie. I had to settle down some time. It’s a good thing I did, or maybe them Congressmen would have been breathing down my neck, too.”

“Do I know her?”

“I don’t think so. Her name’s Mary. It used to be Mary Paulzak.”

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think I know her.”

“She’s out shopping now, over to the A&P on Ninth. She’ll be back in a little while.” He got to his feet. “Come on, I’ll show you something.”

Charlie followed him through the apartment to a bedroom. Andy opened the door and stood aside for Charlie to look in. Andy’s face was grinning and proud.

Charlie looked in. There was a crib in there, and a kid in the crib. He was sound asleep.

“It’s a girl,” Andy whispered. “Her name’s Linda.”

“That’s great,” said Charlie.

They walked back to the living room and Andy said, “Another beer?”

“No, I really gotta get going. I still got to find a place to live.”

“Stick around and meet the little woman.”

“I’ll come back,” Charlie told him. “In a day or two.”

“You really got to rush?”

“I’m flat. I got to get to the bank before it closes.”

“Okay, then. I’ll see you later, Charlie.”

“Sure.”

“I’m in the phone book. Give me a ring when you’re settled.”

“Sure.”

“I work the four-till-midnight shift, so I’m not home evenings. Except Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“What are you doing now?”

“I drive a cab.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll see you around.”

“Sure thing, Charlie. It was great to see you again, boy.”

“It was great to see you, too, Andy.”

Charlie went downstairs and outside to the pavement. He looked both ways, but he didn’t see any cabs, so he started to walk. He went by the police station and the grammar school, and he felt kind of empty. This wasn’t the way he’d figured it.

He got a cab after a while and went over to the bank. He took five hundred out of the account, bought a copy of the Times, and went apartment-hunting. He found a pretty good place, up in the Seventies, on the east side. There was a self-service elevator. He was on the fifth floor, a two-room apartment with a private bath and a kitchenette, and windows looking out from the bedroom to the back of the apartment buildings on the next street over.

There was a fire escape back there, and he was glad. Fire escapes made good exits when there were people you didn’t like at the front door.

He left the apartment, after paying the landlord two months’ rent, and walked down to the drugstore on the comer. He called the phone company and arranged to have a telephone put in, then called a couple of people he knew, girls, but strangers answered the phone each time, telling him he had a wrong number, there was no one there by that name.

It was getting late. He had dinner in a restaurant and then went down to Corsi’s office. Usually, in the old days, the office didn’t open till seven or eight o’clock at night, and there were guys coming in or going out until one or two in the morning. The office was in a crummy little building on Lafayette Street, way down, so Charlie took another cab. He thought for a second when he climbed in that the driver was Andy, but it wasn’t.

There was nobody at the office. The lettering on the door said MYRON GREENBLATT, Import-Export. He left the building and walked over a block to Manny’s where the guys used to hang out all the time.

Manny was still there, behind the bar, looking as though he hadn’t come out from there since the last time Charlie’d seen him. He was exactly the same, short, bald, with a bullet head and no neck and thick pale lips that never smiled. He saw Charlie and said, “Hi. You’re back.”

“I’m back,” said Charlie. There were four or five guys draped on the bar, but he didn’t know any of them. “Beer,” he said.

Manny gave him the beer, gave him change for the five Charlie put on the bar, and said, “Haven’t seen you around for a while.”

“Four and a half years.” Charlie told him.

“That long? You look good. You put on some weight.”

“Some. Where’s all rhe guys?”

“The old bunch? Gone. Here and there. Up the river. Married. Moved on.”

“Nobody’s left?”

“I guess not.” Manny shrugged. “Every once in a while I see a face from the old days. Like you, tonight.”

“What happened?”

Manny shrugged again. “Some of the guys quit, got married, went to work. Some of them got hooked in that big Congressional investigation. Then we had a clean-up campaign and some of them moved out of town. Off to Chicago or Dallas or St. Louis or Reno or somewhere. New people came in. Things change fast.”

“Who’s running the bookies now?”

“Beats me. It’s a different kind of crowd comes in here now. The cops took to watching the place.”

A name came to Charlie. He said, “Sally Morrisey around?”

Manny shook his head. “She don’t hustle no more. She’s married.”

“Married?”

“I heard a guy say they make the best kind of wife.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You want another beer?”

“No. I... I got some people to see.”

“I’ll sec you around,” said Manny.

“Sure thing,” said Charlie.

He left the bar and walked along, aimlessly, trying to remember names and faces and people. Somebody had to still be around, somebody who could fill him in, tell him who the boss was now, where to find him, how to get back into the old groove.

A prowl car slid to a stop beside him and a cop got out of the right-hand door. He said, “Okay, buddy, hold on a minute.”

Charlie stopped and looked at him. He knew the cop, but he couldn’t remember the name.

The cop said, “Charlie Lambaski!” and he looked pleased.

“Hi,” said Charlie.

“When’d you get out?”

“Just today.”

The cop looked him over. “Jail must have agreed with you,” he said. “You put on some weight.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie.

“You walked across the street against the DON’T WALK sign back there,” said the cop. “That’s why I stopped you.”