In the morning, I woke up first, freezing cold and with a bitter grinding headache. I finished the wine and felt better, somewhat warmer, and the headache fuzzier.
From there, it all blended in together. I got in a couple of fights, and once I went to a place in New Jersey late at night where the bars opened at five. I threw up in the H & M tubes.
Until one morning I woke up in a great gray metal box. The sides of the box were all incredibly far away. The top of the box kept coming closer and then receding. Other human beings were in the metal box with me, making small and ghastly noises.
I don’t know how long I lay on the floor before I realized I was in a room and not a box, nor how much longer before I realized I was in a jail. In the drunk tank.
First time crept, and then it leaped up and flew a while on wide black wings. I tried to count to sixty, to get in my mind how long a minute should be, but when I started to count my brain scraped against the inside of my skull and I cried out because I thought I was going to die. A lot of people grumbled and shouted at me to be quiet. I rolled over on my stomach and pressed my forehead against the cold floor and waited.
It did finally lessen, and I could sit up. And then I could stand, and take stock of myself.
My shoes were gone. So was my wallet. So were my raincoat and my suitcoat and my tie. So were my watch and belt and high school ring. So was my glass eye.
I found an empty bit of wall to sit and lean against, and dozed and wept and by the time a jailer came and opened the clanging door and called my name, the worst was over. I was empty, in every way.
I followed him to a small narrow room with a wooden table and four wooden chairs. Johnson stood up from one of the chairs, and the jailer went away.
We looked at each other. Johnson said, “You get it all out of your system?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been looking for you. I thought you might wind up here. I’ve had a friend of mine here keeping an eye out for you.”
“What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“What date?”
“The twenty-fifth. Of October.”
One day less than two weeks. “It took me a while, didn’t it?”
“I guess you had a lot to get over.”
“I guess I did.”
“You feel strong enough to go for a walk?”
“Where to?”
“My place first. Get you cleaned up.”
“They stole my eye, Johnson.”
“We’ll get you another one.”
He shepherded me like a strayed child. He lived in a ratty apartment on West 46th Street, west of 9th Avenue. I told him the hotel and the name where he could find my suitcase. While he was gone, I showered and shaved. Looking at myself in the mirror, when I started to shave, I got a shock. My face was gaunt and filthy, hair and beard shaggy, the empty eye socket a grim dull red.
When Johnson came back, I was wearing his robe. He brought me an eye patch, till I could get another eye. I dressed out of the suitcase, and then he came over with a bottle of Gordon’s gin, only two or three shots gone from it. “Do you want some?”
I shook my head. “Not now. Try me in a couple of weeks. I’ll be ready for social drinking then.”
“It’s all over, then.”
“Yes, it really is.”
“All right. I’ve got something for you.” He returned the gin bottle to his dresser drawer, under the shirts, and came back with a small envelope. “Two hard types came to the office Friday before last. They said this was for you. If I ran across you anywhere, I should give it to you. I got the feeling I should make an effort to run across you.”
I took the envelope and ripped it open. Inside, there were five one hundred dollar bills. And a note: “No hard feelings, L.G.”
Johnson watched my face. “Well?”
“I don’t get it.” I showed it to him.
“You don’t know anybody named L.G.?”
Then I got it. Lake George. “I know now,” I said. “Never mind.”
“They’re telling you they won’t bother you, is that it?”
“Let’s flush that note down the toilet or something.”
“Shall I burn it, like Secret Agent X 7?”
“I think you ought to.”
He did. Watching it burn in the ashtray, he said, “Do you remember your talk with Winkler?”
“Who?”
“Detective Winkler, of New York’s finest.”
“I talked to him?”
“You wanted to confess to half the killings in the United States. A couple of racketeers named Ganolese and Kapp, and some old lawyer out on Long Island, and I don’t know who all.”
“I did?”
“Winkler says it was a real wild story, except you refused to give any names except of the people you killed.”
I looked around the room. “Then why am I here? Why didn’t he lock me up?”
“Officially, Ganolese and Kapp aren’t even missing. No bodies, no murder weapons, no witnesses. Officially, the lawyer died of a heart attack. It said so on the certificate. Winkler says I should tell you not to come bothering him with any more wild stories.” He grinned at me.
“They don’t care.”
“Not about people like Kapp and Ganolese. Not even a little bit.”
I stood up and walked around the room and stretched. This was the other side. I came through, and this was the other side.
Johnson emptied the ashtray. “One thing more,” he said. “I was looking for you anyway, even before those hard types showed up. Two days after you called me the last time a guy hired me to find you. Arnold Beeworthy, his name is. You mentioned me to him. He said you were supposed to call him back about six weeks ago.”
“I forgot about him.”
“Tomorrow, why don’t you take a run out there and say hello?”
“Okay.”
I slept on his sofa. In the morning, I spent two hours being fitted for a new eye. I paid for that out of the five hundred, and gave the rest to Johnson. He didn’t want to take it, but I told him he was being paid by the guys who beat him up.
In the afternoon, I took the subway out to Queens. Beeworthy grabbed me the minute he saw me and stuck me in front of the tape recorder. We stopped for dinner and went back at it and didn’t quit till midnight. I slept in the guest room. The next morning, he drove me into Manhattan to get my suitcase from Johnson. When we got back, Sara was listening to the tape and crying. Arnie told her to cut that out and make us some coffee.
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