Callahan's Secret (10 page)

I was bursting ~ith the need to ask, and I could not ask, I was afraid to ask, and it must have showed in my. face, at least to a gaze as piercing as his, because all of a sudden his own face got all remorseful and compassionate. My heart sank. It was beyond even his skill- .

“Forgive me, sir,” he said mournfully. “I have kept you waiting for my prognosis. I am old, my mind is full of fur. I will take you, how is it said, off the tender hooks.”

I finished my drink in a swallow, lobbed the empty into the fireplace for luck, and gripped both arms of my chair. “Shoot.”

“You do not want to know, can this guitar be mended. This is not at issue. You know that any imbecile can butt the two ends together and brace and glue and tinker and give you back something which looks just like a guitar. What you want to know is, can this guitar ever be what she was two days ago, and I tell you the answer is never in this world.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply; all the tiny various outposts of hangover throughout my body rose up and throbbed all at once.

Montoya was still speaking. “-trauma so great as this must have subtle effects all throughout the instrument, mi

cmscopic ruptures, tiny weakenings. No man could trace them all, nor heal them if he did. But if you ask me can I, Domingo Montoya, make this guitar so close to what it was that you yourself cannot detect any difference, then I tell

you that I believe I can; also I can fix that buzz I see in the twelfth fret and replace your pegs.”

My ears roared.

“I cannot guarantee success! But I believe I can do it. At worst I will have to redesign the head. It will take me two months. For that period I will loan you one of my guitars. You must keep your hands in shape-for her, while she is healing for you. You have treated her with kindness, I can see; she will not malinger.”

I could not speak. It was Callahan who said, “What is your fee, Don Domingo?”

He shook his head. “There is no charge. My eyes and hands tell me that this guitar was made by an old pupil of mine, Goldman. He went to work for Gibson, and then he saw the way the industry was going and got into another line. I always thought that if he had kept working, kept learning, he mght have taught me one day.” He caressed the guitar. “It is good to see his handiwork. I want to mend her. How daring the neck! She must be a pleasure to play once you are used to her, eh?”

“She is. Thank you, Don Domingo.”

“Nobody here will reveal your secret,” Callahan added. “Oh, and say, I’ve got a jug of fine old Spanish wine in the back I been saving for a gentleman such as yourself-could I pour you a glass on the house? Maybe a sandwich to go with it?”

Montoya smiled.

I swiveled my chair away from him. “Eddie!” I cried. The little piano man read my expression, and his eyes widened in shock and horror. “Aw Jeez,” he said, shaking his head, “aw, naw,” and I left my chair like a stone leaving a slingshot. Eddie bolted for cover, but strong volunteers grabbed him and prevented his escape. I was on him like a stooping falcon, wrapping him up in my arms and kissing him on the mouth before he could turn his. face away. An explosion of laughter and cheers shook the room, and he turned bright red. “Aw Jeer!” he said again.

“Eddie,” I cried, “there is no way I will ever be able to repay you.”

“Sure dare is,” he yelled. “Leggo o’ me.” More laughter and cheers. Then Doe Webster spoke up.

“Eddiç, that was a good thing you did, and I love you for it. And I know you tend to use direct methods, and I

can’t argue with results. But frankly I’m a little disappointed to learn that you own a handgun.”

“I bought it on de way to Ohio,” Eddie said, struggling free of my embrace. “I figger maybe de Wizard don’ wanna get up at seven inna mornin’ an’ drive five hunnert miles to look at no busted axe. Sure enough, he don’t.”

“But dammit, Eddie, those things are dangerous. Over the course of a five-hundred-mile drive. . suppose he tried to get that gun away from you, and it went off?”

Eddie pulled the gun, aimed it at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. There was no explosion. Only a small clacking sound as the hammer fell and then an inexplicable loud hiss. Eddie rotated the cylinder slightly. In a loud voice with too much treble, the gun offered to clear up my pimples overnight without messy creams or oily pads.

It actually had time to fmish its pitch, give the time and call-letters, and begin Number Three on the Hot Line of Hits before the tidal wave of laughter and applause drowned it out. Montoya left off soothing the wounded Lady to join in, and when he could make himself heard, he called, “You could have threatened me with nothing more fearsome, my friend, than forced exposure to ~i radio,” at which Eddie broke up and flung the “gun” into the fireplace.

Eventually it got worked out that Eddie and Montoya would bring Lady Macbeth back to Eddie’s place together, get some sleep, and set out the next morning for Montoya’s home, where he could begin work. Eddie would bring me back the promised loaner, would be back with it by the night after next, and on his return we would jam together. Montoya made me promise to tape that jam and send him Mlupe. What with one thing and another, I finished up that evening just about as pickled as I’d been the night before. But it was happy drunk rather than sad drunk, an altogether different experience, in kind if not in degree. Popular myth, to the contrary, drink -is not really a good drug for pain.

That is, it can numb physical pain, but will not blunt the edge of sorrow; it can help that latter only by making it easier for a man to curse or weep. But alcohol is great for happiness: it can actually intensify joy. It was perfect for the occasion, then; it anesthetized me against the unaccustomed aches of my first hangover, and enhanced my euphoria. My Lady was saved, she would sing again. My friends, who had shared my loss, shared my joy. I danced with Josie and Eddie and Rachel and Leslie; I solved Category iii of Doc’s riddle and swept it without a mistake; I jollied Tommy out of being worried about some old friend of his, and made him laugh; with Eddie on piano and everybody else in the joint as the Raelettes I sang “What’d I Say” for seventeen choruses; for at least half an hour I studied the grain on the bartop and learned therefrom a great deal about the structure and purpose of the Universe; I leaped up on the same bartop and perfonned a hornpipe-on my hands. After that it all got a bit vague and hallucinatory-at least, I don’t think there were any real horses present.

A short while later it seemed to be. unusually quiet. The only sound was the steady cursing of my Pontiac and the hissing of the air that it sliced through. I opened my eyes and watched white lines come at me.

“Pyoir. Stout fellow. No-water fellow~ won’t drink stout. Why don’t you drink, Pyotr? S’nice.”

“Weak stomach. Rest, Jake. Soon we are home.”

“Hope I’m-not hung over again tomorrow. That was awful. Cripes, my neck still hurts.…” I started to rub it; Pyotr took my hand away.

“Leave it alone, Jake. Rest. Tonight I will make sure you take two aspirins.”

“Yeah. You’re the lily of the valley, man.”

A short while later wetness occurred within my mouth in alarming proportions, and when I swallowed I felt the aspirins going down. “Good old Pyolr.” Then the ship’s engines shut down and we went into free fall.

Next morning I decided that hangovers are like sex-the second time isn’t quite as painful. If the analogy held, by tomorrow I’d be enjoying it.

Oh, I hurt, all right. No mistake about that. But I hurt like a man with a medium bad case of the flu, whereas the day before I had hurt like a man systematically tortured for information over a period of weeks. This time sensory stimuli were only about twice the intensity I could handle, and a considerably younger and smaller mouse had died in my mouth, and my skull was no more than a half size too small. The only-thing that hurt as much as it had the previous morning was my neck, as I learned when I made an illadvised attempt to consult the clock beside me on the night table. For a horrified moment I actually believed that I had unscrewed my skull and now it was falling off. I put it back on with my hands, and it felt like I nearly stripped the threads until I got it right. I must have emitted sound. The door opened and Pyotr looked in. “Are you all right, Jake?”

“Of course not-half of me is left. Saved the for last again, eh?”

“You insisted. In fact you could not be persuaded to leave at all, until you lost cOnsciousness altogether.”

“Well, I-OH! My guitar. Oh, Pyotr, I think I’m going to do something that will hurt me very much.”

“What?”

“I am going to smile.”

It did hurt. If you don’t happen to be hung over, relax your face and put a finger just behind and beneath each ear, and concentrate. Now smile. The back of my neck was a knot of pain, and those two muscles you just felt move were the ends of the knot. Smiling tightened it. But I had to smile, and didn’t mind the pain. Lady Macbeth was alive! Life was good.

That didn’t last; my metabolism just wasn’t up to supporting good cheer. The Lady was not alive. Back from the dead, perhaps-but still in deep coma in Intensive Care. Attended, to be sure, by the world’s best surgeon. But she did not have youth going for her-and neither did the surgeon.

Pyotr must have seen the smile fade and guessed why, because he said exactly the right thing.

“There is hope, my friend.” I took my first real good look at him.

“Thanks, Pyotr. Gawd, you look worse than I do. I must have woken you up, what time is it, I don’t dare turn my head and look.”

“Much like yesterday. You have slept the clock ‘round, and I have just finished my customary six hours. I admit I do not feel very rested.”

“You must be coming down with something. Truly, man, you look like I feel.”

“How do ‘you feel?”

“Ub-oddly enough, not as bad as I expected to. Those aspirins must have helped. Thanks, brother.”

Ho ducked his head in what I took to be modesty or shyness.

“You should take a couple yourself.”

He shook his head. “I am one of those people who can’t take asp-“

“No problem, I’ve got the other kind, good for all stomachs.”

“Thank you, no.”

“You sure? What time did you say it was?”

“Normal people are eating their dinners.”

“Their-dinner!” I sat up, ignoring all agony, got to my feet and staggered headlong out of the mom, down the hall to the kitchen. I wept with joy at the sight of so much food in one place. That, same eerie, voracious hunger of the

morning’before, except that today I was not going to make Pyotr do the cooking. I was ashamed enough to note that

he had cleaned up the previous night’s breakner (a compound word fonned along the same lines as “brunch”), apparently before he had gone to sleep.

I designed a megaomelet and began amassing construction materials. I designed for twin occupants. “Pyotr, you old Slo~ak Samaritan, I know you have this thing about not letting people stand you to a meal the next day, and I can dig that, makes the generosity more pure, but I’ve been with you now close to forty hours and you’ve had bugger all to eat, so what you’re gonna do is sit down and shut up and eat this omelet or I’m gonna shove it up your nose, right?”

He stared in horror at the growing pile on the cutting board. “Jake, no, thank you! No.”

“Well, God damn it, Pyotr, I ain’t asking for a structural analysis of your digestion! Just tell me what ingredients to leave out and I’ll double up on the rest.”

“No, truly-“

“Damn it, anybody can eat eggs.”

“Jake, thank you, I truly am not at all hungry.”

I gave up. By that time all eight eggs had already been cracked, so I cut enough other things to fill an eight-egg omelet anyhow, figuring I’d give the other half to the cats. But to my surprise, when I paused to wipe my mouth, there was nothing left before me that I could legitimately eat except for a piece of ham gristle I had rejected once already. So I ate it, and fmished the pot of coffee, and looked up.

“Cripes, maybe you really are sick. I’m gonna call Doc Webster-“

“Thank you, no, Jake, I would appreciate only a ride home, if you please, and to lie down and rest. ‘If you are uptoit….”

“Hell, I feel practically vertebrate. Only thing still sore is the back of my neck. Just let me shower and change and we’ll hit the road.”

I pulled up in front of Pyotr’s place, a small dark cottage all by itself about a half a block from Callahan’s Place. I got out with him. “I’ll just come in with you for a second, Pyotr, get you squared away.”

“You are kind to offer, but I am fme now. I will sleep tonight, and see you tomorrow. Goodbye, Jake-I am glad your guitar is not lost.”

So I got back into the car and drove the half block to Callahan’s.

“Evenin’, Jake. What’ll it be?”

“Coffee, please, light and sweet.” Callahan nodded approvingly. “Coming up.”

Long-Drink snorted next to me. “Can’t take the gaff, huh, youngster?”

“I guess not, -Drink. These last two mornings I’ve had the first two hangovers of my life. I guess I’m getting old.” “Hah!” The Drink looked suddenly puzzled. “You know, now I come to think of it… huh. I never thought.” “And no one’ ever accused you of it, either.” “No, I mean I just now come to realize what a blessed long time it’s been snce I been hung over myself.” “Really? You?” The Drink is one of Pyotr’s steadiest (or unsteadiest) customers. “You must have the’ same funny metabolism I have-ouch!” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Used to have.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “No, I’ve had hangovers. Lots of ‘em. Only I just realized I can’t remember when was the last time I had one.” Slippery Joe Maser had overheard. “I can. Remember my last hangover, I mean. About four years ago. Just before I started comin’ here. Boy, it was a honey-“

“Ain’t that funny?” Noah Gonzalez put in. “Damned if I can remember a hangover since I started drinking here myself. Used to get ‘em all the time. I sort of figured it had something to do with the vibes in this joint.”

Joe nodded. “That’s what I thought. This Place is kinda magic, everybody knows that. Boy, I always wake up hungry after a toot, though. Hell of a stiff neck, too.”