Eight Million Ways to Die

by Lawrence Block

Page 30

 

  I cant say where it took me because I slept like a dead man. If I dreamed at all I never knew about it. I awoke to the smells of coffee perking and bacon frying, showered, shaved with a disposable razor shed laid out for me, then got dressed and joined her at a pine plank table in the kitchen. I drank orange juice and coffee and ate scrambled eggs and bacon and whole wheat muffins with peach preserves, and I couldnt remember when my appetite had been so keen.

  There was a group that met Sunday afternoons a few blocks to the east of us, she informed me. She made it one of her regular meetings. Did I feel like joining her?

  "I ought to do some work," I said.

  "On a Sunday?"

  "Whats the difference?"

  "Are you really going to be able to accomplish anything on a Sunday afternoon?"

  I hadnt really accomplished anything since Id started. Was there anything I could do today?

  I got out my notebook, dialed Sunnys number. No answer. I called my hotel. Nothing from Sunny. Nothing from Danny Boy Bell or anyone else Id seen last night. Well, Danny Boy would still be sleeping at this hour, and so might most of the others.

  There was a message to call Chance. I started dialing his number, then stopped myself. If Jan was going to a meeting, I didnt want to sit around her loft waiting for him to call back. Her sponsor might not approve.

  The meeting was on the second floor of a synagogue on Forsythe Street. You couldnt smoke there. It was an unusual experience being in an AA meeting that wasnt thick with cigarette smoke.

  There were about fifty people there and she seemed to know most of them. She introduced me to several people, all of whose names I promptly forgot. I felt self-conscious, uncomfortable with the attention I was getting. My appearance didnt help, either. While I hadnt slept in my clothes, they looked as though I had, showing the effects of last nights fight in the alley.

  And I was feeling the fights effects, too. It wasnt until we left her loft that I realized how much I ached. My head was sore where Id butted him and I had a bruise on one forearm and one shoulder was black and blue and ached. Other muscles hurt when I moved. I hadnt felt anything after the incident but all those aches and pains turn up the next day.

  I got some coffee and cookies and sat through the meeting. It was all right. The speaker qualified very briefly, leaving the rest of the meeting for discussion. You had to raise your hand to get called on.

  Fifteen minutes from the end, Jan raised her hand and said how grateful she was to be sober and how much of a role her sponsor played in her sobriety, how helpful the woman was when she had something bothering her or didnt know what to do. She didnt get more specific than that. I had a feeling she was sending me a message and I wasnt too crazy about that.

  I didnt raise my hand.

  Afterward she was going out with some people for coffee and asked me if Id like to come along. I didnt want any more coffee and I didnt want company, either. I made an excuse.

  Outside, before we went separate ways, she asked me how I felt. I said I felt all right.

  "Do you still feel like drinking?"

  "No," I said.

  "Im glad you called last night. "

  "So am I. "

  "Call anytime, Matthew. Even in the middle of the night if you have to. "

  "Lets hope I dont have to. "

  "But if you do, call. All right?"

  "Sure. "

  "Matthew? Promise me one thing?"

  "What?"

  "Dont have a drink without calling me first. "

  "Im not going to drink today. "

  "I know. But if you ever decide to, if youre going to, call me first. Promise?"

  "Okay. "

  On the subway heading uptown I thought about the conversation and felt foolish for having made the promise. Well, it had made her happy. What was the harm in it if it made her happy?

  There was another message from Chance. I called from the lobby, told his service I was back at my hotel. I bought a paper and took it upstairs with me to kill the time it took him to call back.

  The lead story was a honey. A family in Queens- father, mother, two kids under five- had gone for a ride in their shiny new Mercedes. Someone pulled up next to them and emptied both barrels of a shotgun into the car, killing all four of them. A police search of their apartment in Jamaica Estates had revealed a large amount of cash and a quantity of uncut cocaine. Police theorized the massacre was drug related.

  No kidding.

  There was nothing about the kid Id left in the alley. Well, there wouldnt be. The Sunday papers were already on the street when he and I encountered one another. Not that hed be much likelier to make tomorrows paper, or the next days. If Id killed him he might have earned a paragraph somewhere, but what was the news of a black youth with a pair of broken legs?

  I was pondering that point when someone knocked on my door.

  Funny. The maids have Sunday off, and the few visitors I get call from downstairs. I got my coat off the chair, took the. 32 from the pocket. I hadnt gotten rid of it yet, or of the two knives Id taken from my broken-legged friend. I carried the gun over to the door and asked who it was.

  "Chance. "

  I dropped the gun in a pocket, opened the door. "Most people call," I said.

  "The fellow down there was reading. I didnt want to disturb him. "

  "That was considerate. "

  "Thats my trademark. " His eyes were taking me in, appraising me. They left me to scan my room. "Nice place," he said.

  The words were ironic but the tone of voice was not. I closed the door, pointed to a chair. He remained standing. "It seems to suit me," I said.

  "I can see that. Spartan, uncluttered. "

  He was wearing a navy blazer and gray flannel slacks. No topcoat. Well, it was a little warmer today and he had a car to get around in.

  He walked over to my window, looked out of it. "Tried you last night," he said.

  "I know. "

  "You didnt call back. "

  "I didnt get the message until a little while ago and I wasnt where I could be reached. "

  "Didnt sleep here last night?"

  "No. "

  He nodded. He had turned to face me and his expression was guarded and hard to read. I hadnt seen that look on his face before.

  He said, "You speak to all my girls?"

  "All but Sunny. "

  "Yeah. You didnt see her yet, huh?"

  "No. I tried her a few times last night and again around noon today. I didnt get any answer. "

  "You didnt. "

  "No. I had a message from her last night, but when I called back she wasnt there. "

  "She called you last night. "

  "Thats right. "

  "What time?"

  I tried to remember. "I left the hotel around eight and got back a little after ten. The message was waiting for me. I dont know what time it came in. Theyre supposed to put the time on the message slip but they dont always bother. Anyway, I probably threw away the slip. "

  "No reason to hang onto it. "

  "No. What difference does it make when she called?"

  He looked at me for a long moment. I saw the gold flecks in the deep brown eyes. He said, "Shit, I dont know what to do. Im not used to that. Most of the time I at least think I know what to do. "

  I didnt say anything.

  "Youre my man, like youre working for me. But I dont know as Im sure what that means. "

  "I dont know what youre getting at, Chance. "

  "Shit," he said. "Question is, how much can I trust you? What I keep coming back to is whether I can or not. I do trust you. I mean, I took you to my house, man. I never took anybody else to my house. Whyd I do that?"

  "I dont know. "

  "I mean, was I showing off? Was I saying something along the lines of, Look at the class this here nigger has got? Or was I inviting you inside for a look at my soul? Either way, shit, I got to believe I trust you. But am I right to do
it?"

  "I cant decide that for you. "

  "No," he said, "you cant. " He pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger. "I called her last night. Sunny. Couple of times, same as you, didnt get no answer. Well, okay, thats cool. No machine, but thats cool, too, cause sometimes shell forget to put it on. Then I called again, one-thirty, two oclock maybe, and again no answer, so what I did, I drove over there. Naturally I got a key. Its my apartment. Why shouldnt I have a key?"

  By now I knew where this was going. But I let him tell it himself.

  "Well, she was there," he said. "Shes still there. See, what she is, shes dead. "

  Chapter 22

  She was dead, all right. She lay on her back, nude, one arm flung back over her head and her face turned to that side, the other arm bent at the elbow with the hand resting on her rib cage just below her breast. She was on the floor a few feet from her unmade bed, her auburn hair spread out above and behind her head, and alongside her lipsticked mouth an ellipse of vomit floated on the ivory carpet like scum on a pond. Between her well-muscled white thighs, the carpet was dark with urine.

  There were bruises on her face and forehead, another on her shoulder. I touched her wrist automatically, groping for a pulse, but her flesh was far too cold to have any life left in it.

  Her eye was open, rolled up into her head. I wanted to coax the eyelid shut with a fingertip. I left it alone.

  I said, "You move her?"

  "No way. I didnt touch a thing. "

  "Dont lie to me. You tossed Kims apartment after she was dead. You must have looked around. "

  "I opened a couple of drawers. I didnt take anything. "

  "What were you looking for?"

  "I dont know, man. Just anything I ought to know about. I found some money, couple hundred dollars. I left it there. I found a bankbook. I left it, too. "

  "What did she have in the bank?"

  "Under a thousand. No big deal. What I found, she had a ton of pills. Thats how she did this here. "

  He pointed to a mirrored vanity across the room from the corpse. There, among innumerable jars and bottles of makeup and scent, were two empty plastic vials containing prescription labels. The patients name on both was S. Hendryx, although the prescriptions had been written by different physicians and filled at different pharmacies, both nearby. One prescription had been for Valium, the other for Seconal.

  "I always looked in her medicine chest," he was saying. "Just automatically, you know? And all she ever had was this antihistamine stuff for her hay fever. Then I open this drawer last night and its a regular drugstore in there. All prescription stuff. "

  "What kind of stuff?"

  "I didnt read every label. Didnt want to leave any prints where they shouldnt be. From what I saw, its mostly downs. A lot of tranks. Valium, Librium, Elavil. Sleeping pills like the Seconal here. A couple things of ups, like whatchacallit, Ritalin. But mostly downs. " He shook his head. "Theres things I never heard of. Youd need a doctor to tell you what everything was. "

  "You didnt know she took pills?"

  "Had no idea. Come here, look at this. " He opened a dresser drawer carefully so as not to leave prints. "Look," he said, pointing. At one side of the drawer, beside a stack of folded sweaters, stood perhaps two dozen pill bottles.