A Long Line of Dead Men (22 page)

I turned off the set and the phone rang. It was Jim Shorter.

"I hope I'm not, you know, interrupting anything," he said. "But you gave me your card and said to call anytime."

"I'm glad you did," I said. "How's it going?"

"Not so bad. I haven't had a drink yet today."

"That's great, Jim."

"Well, it's early. The day's not over yet. Anyway, there's days when I don't drink at all." And, after a pause, "I went to a meeting."

"Good for you."

"I guess it was good for me. I don't know. I can't see how it could have been bad for me, right?"

"Right. Where'd you go?"

"The same place we went last night. I put a buck in the basket and I had two cups of coffee and a handful of cookies. You can't lose on a deal like that, can you?"

"The price is right."

He told me about the meeting. The crowd was lighter than last night, he said, but he recognized a couple of the same people. He gave me some highlights from the speaker's story.

"I wanted to raise my hand," he said.

"You could have."

"People who'd been sober for less than ninety days were raising their hands and giving their day count and getting a round of applause. I was going to raise my hand and say it was my first day, but I thought, shit, let me wait a few days."

"Whatever you're comfortable with."

"Maybe I'll go again tonight," he said. "Is it okay to go to more than one in a day?"

"You can go all day long," I said. "There's no limit."

"Are you going? Maybe I could check out a West Side meeting, see if there's a difference."

"I'd like that," I said honestly, "but I've got plans tonight."

"Another time, then. How's the case coming?"

"Let's say it's a slow day."

"Well, I won't keep you," he said. "Maybe I'll, uh, give you a call tomorrow."

"Anytime," I said. "I mean it."

I was crossing the lobby on my way home when I remembered I hadn't put Call Forwarding back on. I went upstairs, punched in the code, dialed the apartment across the street, and told Elaine I'd be home in two minutes. "So why call?" she said. "Oh, right. Call Forwarding."

She was already dressed when I got there, wearing the leather outfit she'd modeled for me earlier, along with more perfume and makeup than was her custom. "What I decided," she explained, "is that a dungeon is no place for understatement."

"You don't think people will be exercising a little restraint?"

"I'll forgive you for that," she said, "but only because I love you. You probably want to shower, and your clothes are laid out for you on the bed."

I showered and shaved and put on the pair of dark slacks she'd laid out for me, then walked into the living room holding the shirt. "What's this?" I asked.

"It's a guayabera."

"I can see that. Where did it come from?"

"Yucatan, originally, except I think this particular one was produced in Taiwan. Maybe it's Korea. It says on the label."

"What I mean is-"

"I bought it for you. Try it on. Let me see. Hey, it looks great."

"What are all these pockets for? And all this piping."

"It's the style. Don't you like it?"

"If you'd told me in time," I said, "I could have let my sideburns grow and grown a little mustache. Then, with just the right haircut, I could look like a pimp in a 1940s movie."

"I think you look casual yet commanding. It's a present, incidentally, but you don't have to thank me."

"Good," I said.

Marilyn's Chamber was located in the basement of a warehouse on Washington Street. Meat packagers occupied the premises on either side, and across the street. There was no sign to lead you to the club. The green door was unmarked, with a low-wattage red light bulb just above it. It was ten o'clock when we knocked and were admitted by a young man with dark black skin, a shaved head, a sleeveless black jumpsuit, and a black mask. It was a quarter after one when the same young man opened the door and let us out.

There was a cab cruising down Washington Street and I stepped to the curb and hailed it. I gave the driver our address and sat back, and when Elaine started to say something I interrupted her to suggest that we ride home in companionable silence.

"I'd rather talk," she said.

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Are you afraid I'll embarrass the driver?"

"No, I'm afraid-"

"Because his name is Manmatha Chatterjee. He's from India, home of the Kama Sutra. His people invented fancy fucking."

"Please."

"So he's not going to be embarrassed."

"I am."

"Besides, if he blushed, who'd know?"

"God damn it..."

"I'm whispering," she said, "and he can't possibly hear me, you silly old bear, you. I'll stop. I'll behave. I promise."

She didn't say anything the rest of the way. In our elevator she said, "May I speak now, master? Or do you suppose the elevator is bugged?"

"I think we're safe."

"I had a good time. And I wasn't too warm in the leather."

"You might have been if you kept the top on."

"I suppose. You looked dashing in your guayabera."

"Casual yet commanding."

"I'll say. I'm really glad we went. I'll tell you, it's going to be a while before you see anything like that on television."

"Let us hope."

"What I really loved is how ordinary the people looked. I'm not talking about what they were wearing, but the people themselves. You go expecting extras from a Fellini movie and you run into folks who could host a Tupperware party."

"Some sexual underground."

"But that makes it more exciting," she said, "because it's more real. With the body piercing, everybody was so matter-of-fact. And it all seems so weird, doesn't it? Tribal, primitive."

"And permanent."

"Like tattoos, but more than skin deep. But my ears are pierced, and when you come right down to it, what's the difference between an earlobe and a nipple?"

"I give up," I said. "What's the difference?"

We were in our apartment now. "I don't know," she said, slipping both arms around my waist. "What's the difference between mashed potatoes and pea soup?"

"Anybody can mash potatoes."

"I already told you that one, huh?"

"Many times."

"The old jokes are the best jokes. That was fun, wasn't it? Did you have a good time?"

"Yes."

"Did it upset you when I took my top off?"

"It surprised me," I said. "It didn't upset me."

"Well, with all those tits in your face, I didn't want you to forget what mine look like."

"No chance of that. Yours were the prettiest."

She danced away from me. "Ha," she said. "You're gonna get laid tonight anyway, kiddo. You don't have to lie."

"Who said I was lying?"

"Let's put it this way- if you were Pinocchio, now would be a good time to sit on your nose."

"I'll tell you what else surprised me," I said. "I thought we agreed we weren't going to participate."

"So who participated? Oh, you mean the girl-girl stuff? I didn't think that counted."

"Oh."

"I sort of got into the spirit of things, I guess. Did it bother you?"

"I don't think 'bother' is the right word for it."

"Did it upset you?"

"I'm not sure 'upset' is the right word, either."

"Got to you, huh?"

"Got to me."

"Well," she said, "that's why we went, isn't it? So it would get to us? You old bear, you. You know what I think I'm going to do? I think I'm going to tie you up. You're not going to fall asleep this time, are you?"

"Probably not," I said. "Not for hours."

Paris Green does a nice brunch on Sundays, with tables set up outside under green-and-white umbrellas. We slept late and started the day there. Then Elaine took a cab to the Sixth Avenue weekend flea market to resume the hunt for urban folk art. I had a second cup of coffee and walked back home.

Jim Shorter had called in our absence, leaving a message on the machine. I rang him back and arranged to meet him in an hour at a meeting at Amsterdam and Ninety-sixth. Then I called another Jim, my sponsor, Jim Faber, to confirm our dinner date and decide which Chinese restaurant to favor with our presence.

We wound up at Vegetarian Heaven, on Fifty-eighth a few doors west of Eighth. The restaurant is a flight below street level, and the chambered dining room is cavernous, with no end of booths and tables, most of them empty.

"I'm glad we got here," Jim said. "I've been meaning to try this place but it looks so tacky from the outside. Do they ever do any business? I hope they're heroin importers and this is just a sideline."

"Sometimes they get a crowd at lunch. Elaine loves the place because she can order anything on the menu. Most Chinese restaurants have the same four or five vegetable dishes, and she gets tired of them."

"She could come here forever," he said, paging through the menu. "You want to order, since you're familiar with the place?"

"Sure. What are you in the mood for?"

"Food," he said. "Good food, and plenty of it."

While we ate, I talked about how I'd spent the afternoon, and how an unpromising sidetrack in a difficult investigation had turned into an unintended Twelfth Step call.

"It's not like you," Jim said. "You've never displayed a whole lot of missionary zeal."

"Well, I never figured it was my job to sober up the world," I said. "Early on I wasn't all that sure if I wanted sobriety for my own self, so the last thing I was going to do was try selling it to somebody else. Then, the longer I stayed away from a drink, the more convinced I became that it was none of my goddamn business whether or not other people drank. Maybe the ones who drink are better off drinking. Who am I to say?"

"Your friend Ballou-"

"My friend Mick Ballou drinks heavily every day of his life, and if he ever walked into a meeting there's nobody who would dream of telling him he was in the wrong place. And I'm sure it's affecting him physically and mentally, even if he's not showing it yet. But he's a grown-up, for Christ's sake. He can make his own decisions."

"But with this fellow uptown-"

"I guess I identified with him," I said. "I looked at his life, or what I figured his life must be, and saw how I could have followed a similar path. Anyway, I didn't set out to drag him to a meeting. I just found myself talking about it, and he seemed interested, and open to suggestion."

"I think it's good for you. You're not sponsoring anybody else, are you?"

"I'm not sponsoring him."

"Well, it sounds to me like you are, whether either of you are calling it that or not. I think it'll do you good to be working with a newcomer. Just don't be surprised when he drinks."

"No."

"You can't get anybody sober and you can't keep anybody sober. You know that."

"Sure."

"And I hope you remember the definition of successful sponsorship."

"That's when the sponsor stays sober."

"You're damn right it is. You know, this stuff fools you. You think you're eating meat but you're not. This here is supposed to be what, eel?"

"I think they make it out of soy."

"There'll come a day," he said, "when they make everything out of soy. Chairs, tables, automobiles, hot turkey sandwiches. Everything. But this is supposed to look and taste like eel, and the thing is if it was the genuine article I wouldn't have anything to do with it, because I don't happen to like eel. I think I'm marginally allergic to it."

"You should have said something when I was ordering it."

"But if it's fake eel, what's the difference? I'm not allergic to fake eel. As a matter of fact, I like it."

"Have some more."

"I intend to. Elaine eats like this all the time, huh? I don't mean this stuff, I mean vegetarian. She doesn't even eat fish, does she?"

"No."

"I'd miss meat myself. Everything good with you two?"

"Everything's great."

"You still seeing the other one?"

"Now and then."

At first I hadn't told him about Lisa, but not for fear of his disapproval. He knows Elaine, and I didn't want to burden him with something I had to keep secret from her, especially if it was something that would end in a couple of weeks. When it didn't, when it went on and on, I talked about it.

"The last time I saw her," I said, "I started out wanting a drink. I called her instead."

"Well, if those were the two choices, I'd say you picked the right one. I don't know that the relationship has much of a future, but I watched a PBS special last night on the greenhouse effect, and you could say the same thing about the human race. She's not likely to try to break up your marriage, is she?"

"I'm not married."

"You know what I mean."

I nodded. "She's just there," I said. "She never calls, and when I call she says to come over."

"Sounds like the answer to a prayer," he said. "Do me a favor, will you? Find out if she's got a sister."

We sat a long time over dinner and arrived a few minutes late for the Big Book meeting at St. Clare's. Afterward I walked Jim home, then kept going to Grogan's Open House at Fiftieth and Tenth. Mick Ballou owns the place, although you won't find his name on the license. He has a farm in Sullivan County, a couple of hours from the city, and another man's name is on the deed. He has a couple of apartments around town, too, and drives a Cadillac Brougham, but for the record he doesn't own a thing. When they finally make their RICO case against him, they'll be hard put to find anything to confiscate.

I'd intended to drop by Friday night, but spent the evening on the Upper East Side instead, saving souls for sobriety. Now, two nights later, the saloon was almost empty, with three old men sitting in silence at the bar and two others sharing a table. Burke, behind the bar, told me out of the side of his thin-lipped mouth that the big fellow wasn't expected.