One Night Stands; Lost weekends

by Lawrence Block

  But this time he would not be put off. He had to know. “What is it? I’ll find out anyway.”

  She let out a sigh. “I guess you had to find out. I…”

  He waited.

  “It’s…horse, Andy.”

  “What!”

  “Horse. Heroin.”

  “I know what ‘horse’ is,” he said. “But what are you doing with it? You’re not an addict, are you?” He couldn’t believe what she had told him, but he knew from the expression on her face that she was telling the truth. Still, it was hard to believe, and he did not want to believe it.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not an addict. I’m what they call a pusher, Andy. I sell the heroin to addicts.”

  For a moment he could not speak. Finally he managed to say, “Why?”

  She hesitated. “Money,” she said. “I make lots of money. And it costs money for an apartment like this, and for good clothes and steak for dinner.”

  “You’ll stop. I’m making enough money for us both, and you’ll stop before you get caught. We’ll get a smaller place somewhere and…”

  “No,” she cut in. “I won’t get caught, Andy. And I want to keep on like this. I like steak, Andy. I like this place.”

  He stared at her. His mouth dropped open and he shook his head from side to side. “No! Sara, I won’t let you!”

  “I’m going to.”

  “I…I can’t pick up any more packages for you.”

  She smiled. “Yes, you can. And you will, because you need me.” She threw back her shoulders so that her breasts strained against the front of her dress. “We need each other, don’t we?”

  He stood up, and the package fell to the floor. He reached for her and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bedroom. And they came together fitfully and fiercely, as though the force of their bodies could erase everything else.

  Later, when he was lying still beside her, she said, “In a way, it’s better that you know. I’ll need help with the business, and you can quit your job and help me. I guess it’s better this way.”

  At that moment Andy began to distrust her. His love slowly dissolved, eventually to be replaced by an ever-increasing hatred.

  The following morning he quit his job. It had never been an especially exciting job, but he had liked it. He liked the office and the people he worked with. He hadn’t wanted to quit.

  But he could never give up Sara. He couldn’t live without her, couldn’t sleep again in an empty bed. She had become a habit, a part of his routine, and he had to have her no matter what.

  The days that followed were hell for him. Sara taught him the business step by step, from pickups and deliveries to actual sales. He learned how to contact an addict and take his money from him. He watched feverish men cook the heroin on a spoon and shoot it into a vein. And he watched Sara refuse a shot to an addict without money, and watched the man beg and plead while his hands twitched and his knees shook.

  He thought he would lose his mind. He argued with Sara, telling her what a rotten thing she was doing, but he couldn’t sway her. He saw her for what she was—cold, mercenary, and ruthless. And in her arms at night, he couldn’t believe that she was the same woman.

  Bit by bit, piece by piece, he learned the business. It became a routine after a while, but it was a routine which he hated. He settled into it, but he had trouble sleeping nights. Time after time he tried to leave her, but it was impossible.

  One night he was siting in the living room, trying to read a magazine. She came over and sat beside him, taking the magazine from his hands. She handed him a brown cigarette, loosely packed. “Here,” she said, smiling. “Smoke this.”

  “What! This is marijuana, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. Smoke it.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  She smiled slowly and ran her hand up and down his thigh. “Don’t be silly. I’ve been smoking pot for a long time now, and it doesn’t hurt you. It makes you feel real fine. Try it?”

  He drew away from her, his eyes searching hers. “I don’t want to become an addict, Sara. I’ve seen the poor fish suffer, and I don’t want it.”

  She laughed. “It’s not habit-forming. I’ve been smoking since I was seventeen, and I just have a joint whenever I want one. You want to stay clear of horse, but this won’t hurt you.”

  He drew a deep breath. “No,” he said, firmly. “I don’t want it.”

  Her hand worked on his thigh, and with her other hand she toyed with the buttons on her blouse. “You want me, though,” she said, huskily. “Don’t you, Andy?”

  She put the cigarette between his lips and lit it, and made him smoke it quickly, drawing the pungent, acrid smoke deep into his lungs. At first he was dizzy; then his stomach churned and he was sick. But she only made him smoke another, and this time the smoke took hold of him and held him, and the room grew large and small and large again, and he made love to her with a thousand voices shrieking warning inside his brain.

  And so marijuana, too, became a part of Andy’s routine. He smoked as an alcoholic drank, losing his worries in the smoke. It was more a habit with him than it was with Sara. He grew to depend upon it, mentally if not physically.

  And he learned things, too. He learned to smoke the joint down to a “roach,” or butt, in order to get the maximum charge from it. He learned to hold as much smoke as he could in his lungs for as long as possible, in order to intensify the effect. He learned to smoke two or three joints in a row.

  At the same time, he learned his business from start to finish. He bargained with contacts and squeezed the last cent from customers, burying his conscience completely. He gained an understanding of the operations of the narcotics racket, from the Big Man to the small-time pusher. Everything he did became part of him, and part of his routine.

  He sat alone in the apartment one day, just after selling a cap of heroin to an addict. He opened a glassine envelope and idly poked the powder with the point of a pencil.

  Horse, he thought. White Horse, the same as the bar where they had met. Valuable stuff. People killed for it, went through hell for it.

  He sat looking at it for a long time, and then he folded a slip of paper and poured some of the powder on it. He raised the paper to his nose, closed his eyes, and sniffed deeply. He drew the flakes through his nostrils and into his lungs, and the heroin hit home.

  It was a new sensation, a much bigger charge than marijuana had given him. He liked it. He threw away the slip of paper, put the heroin away, and leaned back to relax. Everything was pink and fuzzy, soft and smooth and cool.

  He started sniffing heroin daily, and soon he noticed that he was physically aware of it when it was time for a fix. He began increasing the dosage, as his body began to demand more of the drug. And he didn’t tell Sara anything about it.

  His hate for her had grown, but it too became habitual. He learned to live with it. However, when they had a disagreement over the business, he realized that she was standing in the way.

  Andy wanted to expand operations. He saw that, with a little effort and a little muscle, he and Sara could move up a notch and have a crowd of pushers under them. He explained it to her, step by step. It couldn’t miss.

  “No,” she said, flatly. “We’re doing fine right where we are. We make good money and nobody will want us out of the way.”

  “We could make more money,” he said. “Lots more. The cops wouldn’t be able to touch us.”

  “It’s a risk.”

  He shrugged. “Everything’s a risk. Walking across the street is a risk, but you can’t stay on your own block forever. It’s a chance we’ve got to take.”

  She refused, and once again she used her body as a bargaining point. At last he gave in, as always, but the hate was beginning to boil in him.

  A few days later an addict came whining for a shot. Andy saw the way he trembled and twitched, but the spectacle didn’t bother him any longer. He had seen it time and time again, until it was just a part of the day’s wo
rk.

  “Sorry, junkie,” he said. “Come back when you raise the dough.”

  The man begged, and Andy started to push him out the door when a thought came to him. He opened the door and let the man in.

  “C’mere,” he said. “You got a spike?”

  The addict nodded dumbly and pulled a hypodermic needle from his pocket. Andy took it from him and inspected it, turning it over and over in his hand. “Okay,” he said at length. “A shot for your spike.”

  The man sighed with relief, then demanded, “How am I gonna take the shot without a spike?”

  “Take it first; then get out.”

  Andy followed the addict into the bathroom and watched him heat the powder on a spoon. Then he filled the syringe and shot it into the vein in his arm. It hit immediately, and he relaxed.

  “Thanks,” he said. He handed the syringe to Andy. “Thanks.”

  “Get out.” The addict left, and Andy closed the door after him.

  He washed the syringe in hot water, then put some heroin on a spoon. He deftly filled the syringe and gave himself a shot in the fleshy part of his arm.

  It was far more satisfying than sniffing the powder. It was stronger and faster. He felt good.

  As the heroin became more and more a part of his life, he switched to the mainline, shooting it directly into the vein. It was necessary to him now, and he itched to build up his trade until he controlled narcotics in the town. He knew he could handle it. Already, he had virtually replaced Sara. She was the messenger now, while he handled the important end. But she still called the shots, for she still held the trump card. And no matter how he argued, she would simply rub herself up against him and kiss him, and the argument would be finished. So he could do nothing but wait.

  And, at last, he was one day ready.

  He took a long, sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and walked slowly to the bedroom, where she lay reading. She looked up from the magazine and smiled at him, stretching languorously.

  “Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

  He returned the smile, keeping the knife behind his back. “I have news for you,” he said. “We’re expanding, like I suggested. No more small-time stuff, Sara.”

  She sighed. “Not again, Andy. I told you before…”

  “This time I’m telling you.”

  “Oh,” she said, amused. “Do you think you can get along without me?”

  “I know I can.”

  “Really?” She threw back the bedcovers and smiled up at him. “You need me, Andy.”

  He forced himself to look at her. He ran his eyes over the firm breasts, the soft curves of her hips. He looked at her carefully, waiting for the familiar stir within him. It didn’t come.

  “I don’t need you,” he said, slowly. “Look.”

  He held out his right hand, the hand that held the knife. He unbuttoned the sleeve and rolled it down slowly, showing her the marks of the needle. “See? I’m a junkie, Sara. I only care about one thing, baby, and it isn’t you. You don’t show me a thing.”

  But her eyes were not on the marks on his arm. They were on the knife in his hand, and they were wide with fear.

  “I don’t need you at all,” he went on. “I don’t need liquor, I don’t need sex, I don’t need you. You’re just dead wood, Sara.”

  She rose from the bed and moved toward him. “Andy,” she cooed. “Andy, honey.” Her whole body seemed to reach out for him, hungrily.

  He shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “It just won’t work anymore. I don’t care about it. Just the horse is all that matters.”

  She looked into his eyes, and they were flat and uncaring. “Wait,” she said. “We’ll play it your way, Andy. We’ll expand, like you said. Anything you say.”

  “You don’t understand. I don’t need you.”

  “Please!” she moaned. “Please!”

  “Sorry. It’s time for my shot.” And he lowered the knife.

  He moved toward her and she tried to back away, but he kept coming, the knife pointed at her. “No!” she shrieked. And she started to say something else, but before she could get the words out the knife was in her heart.

  A SHROUD FOR THE DAMNED

  SIGMUND OPENED THE DOOR SLOWLY and tiptoed inside. The door squeaked shut behind him as he headed for his room. The night was still and dark and Sigmund was very tired. He wanted to sleep.

  “Sigmund!” He started at the voice.

  She was sitting in the red armchair. At least it had been red once, many years and several owners ago. With the passage of time the color had faded almost entirely away, and in the dim lamplight the chair was an unimaginative gray. And she looked gray in the lamplight, with her hands so busy and her eyes so still. She looked as gray and as shop-worn as the old armchair.

  “Hi, Ma,” he said. “I thought you’d be sleeping.” He smiled automatically and started once again for his room.

  “Sigmund!” The voice caught him, halted him in his tracks, and turned him toward her once more.

  “Come here, Sigmund.”

  He tiptoed at first, until he realized that she was awake and that she had seen him, and he had no reason to walk softly. He crossed to the side of the old armchair and stood there awkwardly, looking down at her, waiting for her to speak.

  “Sit down,” she said. “In the other chair. Sit down so your mother can talk to you. You’re so tall I can’t talk to you when you stand up. You grew fast this last year, Sigmund.”

  He started to protest, started to tell her how tired he was, then gave it up and took the seat across from her. He sat, watching her, and if her hands had not been moving all the while he would have thought that she was sleeping. But her hands moved, quick and sure, and they were as much alive as her eyes were dead.

  “Sigmund,” she said at last, “you were out late.”

  He looked away. “It’s not so late.”

  “Late,” she said, firmly. “You should come home early and be with your mother. Then maybe you could wake up mornings. It’s not good you should sleep so late in the mornings.” He didn’t say anything. He started to tap his foot on the floor, slowly and rhythmically, but after a few experimental taps the foot stopped by itself.

  “You know what I’m doing?”

  “Knitting,” he said.

  “Smart boy. And do you know what I’m knitting?”

  He shook his head, desiring only to end the conversation and crawl into his warm bed. But she had no one else to talk to, and she seemed so horribly alone, always looking desperately and methodically for something which was no longer present.

  “You don’t know,” she said, accusingly. “In the old country you would know, but here…” She shrugged briefly and left the sentence dangling, unfinished.

  Here we go, he thought. The old country bit again. You’d think she was still living there.

  “It’s a shroud,” she said. “You know what’s a shroud for?”

  “Yeah. It’s for when someone dies.”

  She nodded. “To wrap them. In the old country, when a person died he was wrapped in a shroud before they buried him. It was to keep out the spirits.”

  He looked at her hands and watched the long knitting needles flash back and forth. All right, he thought. But so what?

  “Not here,” she continued. “Not in this country, where they bury a man in a suit. Does it make sense? A suit? This will keep out spirits?”

  He didn’t answer, nor did she wait for an answer. “Your father once said that a person who made shrouds and grew food would never grow hungry. You understand?”

  He didn’t, but nodded anyway.

  “Because,” she said triumphantly, “if people lived, he sold food, and if they died, he sold shrouds. You understand?”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  “But not in this country. Here they bury men in suits. Here a boy sixteen years old thinks just because he’s tall he can stay out all night. It isn’t right that children should come home so late.”

  H
e sighed. “Look, Ma. Listen a minute, will you? People don’t buy shrouds here and you can’t grow food in a crack in the sidewalk. You know what I mean?” His voice rose involuntarily and he lowered it.

  “Ma, we have to eat. You can’t sell your shrouds, and we have to eat. I brought money for you.” He pulled some bills from his pocket and held them out to her.

  She closed her eyes and silently refused the money. “Where did you get it, Sigmund?”

  He looked away. “I got it. What’s the difference where?”

  She darted a look at him, and for an instant there was life again in her eyes. Then they were dull once more, dull and flat and tired. “You stole it,” she said. “You are a thief.”

  He tightened his hands into fists and remained silent.

  “My son is a thief. My son Sigmund stole money. A thief.” And then she too was silent…

  The silence came over him like a dark woolly blanket, more accusing than anything she could say. He had to break it. “Ma,” he said at last, “don’t you understand? Don’t you?”

  “I understand only that you are a thief.”

  “We need the money to live. You won’t let me quit school and get a job…”

  “A boy should go to school,” she said.

  “And you won’t let me take a job on Saturdays…”

  “No son of mine will work on the Sabbath.”

  “And you won’t take the relief money…”

  “Charity,” she broke in. “Charity I don’t want.”

  “And you don’t have a job. So I have to steal, Ma. What else can I do?”

  She didn’t seem to hear his question. “I would work,” she said slowly. “I would have a job. No one will hire me, not in this country.”

  Her eyes closed then, and only her hands moved. It was the same argument, the same words that Sigmund had heard a hundred times in the past. Either he would be a thief or she would go hungry, it was that simple.

  He stood up and walked quietly to the kitchen. He took the lid from the cookie jar and noted that only a handful of change remained. She could spend it well enough, even if she never took it directly from him or acknowledged the source of the money. He grinned sadly and placed the bills in the jar.