Even the Wicked (38 page)

“You serious?”

“Of course I’m serious,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”

He was a moment taking it all in. “That be why it’s over here,” he said. “So I can fool with it an’ not be disturbin’ you an’ Elaine. You be able to fix it up with them downstairs so I can come up anytime I want?”

“How could they stop you?”

“What you mean? They own the hotel, they stop anybody they want.”

“Not if it’s your room.”

“Say what?”

I tossed him the key and he snatched it out of the air. I said, “I’ve had this place for twenty years, and the rent’s so low I’d be crazy to give it up. But I never use it. I come here maybe once a month to sulk and make free phone calls. What do I need it for?”

“So you givin’ it to me?”

“I’ll go on paying the rent,” I said, “and I’ll be the tenant of record, so that it stays rent-controlled. But they’ll know at the desk that I’m letting you stay here, and Santa Claus was nice enough to them this year so that they won’t give you a hard time.” I shrugged. “I may drop by now and then to make long-distance calls, or to watch you perform miracles on the computer, but I won’t show up without calling first. Because it’s your place now.”

He turned toward the computer, rested his fingers on the keyboard. “Guess you figure I ain’t got no place of my own,” he said.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I’m personally convinced you’ve got six homes of your own, including a penthouse on Sutton Place and a beachfront cottage in Barbados. But I’m a selfish son of a bitch, and I wanted to manipulate you into living right across the street from us.”

“Figured you had a reason.” He was still looking at the computer. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, “You know, I ain’t cried in years. Last time was when my grandmother came home from the doctor’s an’ said she was gonna die. Then when she did die I was real sad, you know, but I was cool with it. I didn’t part with no tears. An’ I ain’t cried since.”

I didn’t say anything.

“An’ I don’t
want
to cry,” he said. “So there’s stuff I’d be sayin’ now, ‘bout you an’ Elaine, an’ how, you know, how I feel an’ all. But I ain’t gonna say it.”

“I understand.”

“‘Cause if I was to try to say it…”

“I understand.”

“But that don’t mean it don’t be real, ‘cause it do.”

“I understand that, too.”

“Yeah, well you real understanding Brandon.” He turned toward me, under control now. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas.”

The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of American Grand Master, a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France, Germany, and Japan. Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.