Martin Amis - Night Train

I hang fire till the kid dreams up some chore for himself in back. Then I stride the length of the room. Everyone says I like to dress as a beat cop. As the beat cop I once was. But my jacket is black cotton, not black leather or sateen. And I wear black cotton pants, not the issue serge. And no nightstick, flashlight, radio, hat, gun. The man’s wearing cowboy boots under his slacks. Another giant. Americans are going through the roof. Their mothers watch them grow, first with pride, then with panic.

“You Arn Debs?”

“Who the fuck wants to know?”

“The law,” I said. “That’s who the fuck wants to know.” And I opened my jacket to show him the shield pinned to my blouse. “Are you here to meet Jennifer Rockwell?”

“Maybe and maybe not. And fuck you whichever.”

“Yeah well she’s dead,” I told him. And I made a quelling gesture with my raised palms. “Easy now, Mr. Debs. This is going to go just fine. We’ll sit in the corner there and talk this thing through.”

He said quietly, “Get your damn hand off of me.”

And I said quietly, “Okay. You want to come and listen while I call the house? Do your wife and daughter know about Jennifer and you? Do they know about that spot of pain you had in August ‘81? With what’s her face—September Duvall? That was a rape beef, wasn’t it. Copped to Agg Assault. This was when you were still living up in Fuckbag, Nebraska. Remember?

“Eric?” I called to the barman. “Let me have a Virgin and a double Dewar’s for the gentleman over at my table.”

“Right away, Detective Hoolihan. Right away.”

What I’m looking at here, I think (and he’s sitting opposite me now, crowded into the nook by the window, with a hollow duck practically perched on each shoulder), is a semireformed shitkicker, in a good tweed coat and twills, who likes to get it wet at both ends whenever he’s out of town. Table for two booked at the French restaurant upstairs. Tex tan, dark glasses ready in his top pocket, and a head of tawny hair he’s real proud of—I’m surprised he’s not called Randy or Rowdy or Red. High, wide, and handsome, with itty-bitty eyes. A card-carrying tailchaser who’s that close to being a fruit.

I said drink up, Mr. Debs.

He said well this is a hell of a turn for the evening to take.

I said so you’re a friend of Jennifer Rockwell’s.

He said yeah. Well. I only met her but once.

I said when?

He said oh, maybe a month back. I make these business trips regular, like every three or four weeks?

Met her on my last trip. February twenty-eight. I remember because no leap year. Met her February twenty-eight.

I said where?

He said here. Right here. At the bar there. She was sitting a couple of stools away and we got talking.

I said she was here alone. Not waiting for anybody.

He said yeah, sitting at the bar there with a white wine. You know.

I said so what were you thinking?

He said to tell you the truth, I thought she was like a model, or maybe even some kind of high-class call girl. Like you get in the better hotels. Not that I was fixing to pay for it. Then we got talking. I could tell she was a nice girl. She wasn’t wearing a wedding band. She married?

I said what did you talk about?

He said life. You know. Life.

I said yeah? What? Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. Look before you leap. That kind of stuff?

He said hey. What is this? I’m answering your questions, okay?

I said you tell her about your wife and kid?

He said it didn’t come up.

I said so you made a date. For tonight.

He said listen. I conducted myself like a gentleman.

Debs went into a thing about the company he works for in Dallas, how they had a guy come down from DC to give a seminar on social etiquette. A seminar on how to avoid sexual-harassment suits. He reminded me that you can’t be too careful, not these days, and he always conducted himself like a gentleman.

I said what happened?

He said I said you feel like some dinner? Here at the hotel? She said I’d like that but tonight’s a problem. Let’s do it next time you’re in town.

I said how come she gave you my phone number?

He said your phone number?

I said yeah. We talked yesterday.

He said that was you? Hey. Go figure. She said it wasn’t her number. Said it was a friend’s number. Said if I called her at home there might be a problem with the guy she lived with.

I said okay, swinger. That’s not how it happened. Here’s how it happened. You were hassling her. Wait! You were hassling her, in the bar, in the foyer, I don’t know. Maybe you followed her out into the street. She gave you the number to get you off her back. You were—

He said that’s not what happened. I swear. Okay, I escorted her out to the cab stand. And she wrote down the number for me. Look. Look.

From his inside pocket Debs produced his wallet. With his big fingers he leafed heavily through some loose business cards: There. He held it up for me. My number followed by Jennifer’s crisp signature. Followed by two exes, crosses—for kisses.

I said you kiss her, Arn?

He said yeah I kissed her.

And he paused. It was gradually dawning on Debs that the momentum had turned his way. He was feeling good again now. What with the fomenting adrenaline, and the double Dewar’s he’d long gotten down himself, as if against time.

“Yeah I kissed her. There a law against that now?”

“With your tongue, Arn?”

He straightened a finger at me. “I conducted myself with the upmost correctitude. Hey. Chivalry ain’t dead. What she die of anyhow?”

Well that’s something. She’s dead. But chivalry isn’t. “Accident. With a firearm.”

“Hell of a thing. All that beauty. And the poise, you know?”

“Okay. Thanks, Mr. Debs.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. That’s it.”

He leaned closer. His breath, over and above the booze, was richly soured with male hormones. He said,

“We talked on the phone last night, I thought you were a guy. Not a little guy either. Somebody my size. People make mistakes. Right? I got real sure you were a woman when you showed me your shield. Give me another look at it. For your information, in my room I got a bottle of Krug in a ice bucket. Maybe tonight ain’t a total wipe. Hey, what’s the rush? You on duty? Come on. Stick around and have a real drink.”

In the old days I would sometimes booze my way through clinical aversion. I used to take the pills that give you epileptic fits if you mix them with alcohol. And I’d mix them with alcohol. It felt like it was worth it. What the fuck. The convulsions only last for a few days. Then you don’t have a problem.

I couldn’t do that now. Mix me with alcohol, and the result would be fulminant hepatic failure. I couldn’t drink my way through that shit. Because I wouldn’t be around.

It’s not too late. I’m going to change my name. To something feminine. Like Detective Jennifer Hoolihan.

For a girl to have a boy’s name, and to keep it—that’s not so unusual. I’ve come across a Dave and a Paul who never tried to pretty things up with Davina or Pauline. I’ve even met another Mike. We stuck with it. But how many grown men do I know who are still called Priscilla?

Here’s something I’ve often wondered: Why did my father call me Mike if he was going to fuck me? Was he a fruit, too, on top of everything else? Here’s something even more mysterious: I never stopped loving my father. I have never stopped loving my father. Whenever I think of him, before I can do anything about it, I feel great love flooding my heart.

And here comes the night train. First, the sound of knives being sharpened. Then its cry, harsh but symphonic, like a chord of car horns.