Eight Million Ways to Die ms-5

by Lawrence Block

  And what the hell was I going to do with him?

  Call the cops? And hand them what? No evidence, no witnesses, and the guy on the ground was the one who'd sustained the damages. There was nothing good enough for a courtroom, not even anything to hold him on. They'd rush him to the hospital, fix him up, even give him his money back. No way to prove it was stolen. No way to prove it wasn't rightfully his.

  They wouldn't give him the gun back. But they couldn't hang a weapons charge on him, either, because I couldn't prove he'd been carrying it.

  I put his roll of bills in my own pocket, took out the gun that I'd placed there earlier. I turned the gun over and over in my hand, trying to recall the last time I'd handled one. It had been a while.

  He lay there, his breath bubbling through the blood in his nose and throat, and I crouched at his side. After a moment or two I stuck the gun into his ruined mouth and let my finger curl around the trigger.

  Why not?

  Something stopped me, and it wasn't fear of punishment, not in this world or the next. I'm not sure what it was, but after what seemed like a long time I sighed and withdrew the gun from his mouth. There were traces of blood on the barrel, glowing like brass in the soft light of the alley. I wiped the gun on his jacket front, put it back in my pocket.

  I thought, Damn you, goddamn you, what am I going to do with you?

  I couldn't kill him and I couldn't hand him to the cops. What could I do? Leave him there?

  What else?

  I stood up. A wave of dizziness came over me and I stumbled, reached out, caught onto the wall for support. After a moment the dizziness passed and I was all right.

  I took a deep breath, let it out. I bent down again and grabbed him by the feet, dragged him some yards back into the alley to a ledge about a foot high, the top frame of a barred basement window. I stretched him out across the alley on his back with his feet up on the ledge and his head wedged against the opposite wall.

  I stamped full force on one of his knees, but that didn't do it. I had to jump into the air and come down with both feet. His left leg snapped like a matchstick on my first attempt, but it took me four times to break the right one. He remained unconscious throughout, moaning a bit, then crying out when the right leg broke.

  I stumbled, fell, landed on one knee, got up again. Another wave of dizziness hit me, this one accompanied by nausea, and I clung to the wall and gave myself up to dry heaves. The dizziness passed, and the nausea, but I still couldn't catch my breath and I was shaking like a leaf. I held my hand out in front of me and watched my fingers tremble. I'd never seen anything like that before. I'd faked the shaking when I took out my wallet and dropped it, but this shaking was perfectly real, and I couldn't control it by force of will. My hands had a will of their own and they wanted to shake.

  The shakes were even worse on the inside.

  I turned, took a last look at him. I turned again and made my way over the littered pavement to the street. I was still shaking and it wasn't getting any better.

  Well, there was a way to stop the shakes, the ones on the outside and the inner ones as well. There was a specific remedy for that specific disease.

  Red neon winked at me from the other side of the street. bar, it said.

  Chapter 21

  I didn't cross the street. The kid with the smashed face and broken legs was not the only mugger in the neighborhood, and it struck me that I wouldn't want to meet another one with drink in me.

  No, I had to get to my home ground. I was only going to have one drink, maybe two, but I couldn't guarantee that was all I would have, nor could I say with assurance what one or two drinks would do to me.

  The safe thing would be to get back to my neighborhood, have one or at the most two shots in a bar, then take a couple of beers back to my room.

  Except that there was no safe way to drink. Not for me, not anymore. Hadn't I proved that? How many times did I have to go on proving it?

  So what was I supposed to do? Shake until I fell apart? I wasn't going to be able to sleep without a drink. I wasn't going to be able to sit still without a drink, for Christ's sake.

  Well, fuck it. I had to have one. It was medicinal. Any doctor who looked at me would prescribe it.

  Any doctor? How about that intern at Roosevelt? I could feel his hand on my shoulder, right where the mugger had grabbed me to shove me into the alley. "Look at me. Listen to me. You're an alcoholic. If you drink you'll die."

  I'd die anyway, in one of eight million ways. But if I had the choice, at least I could die closer to home.

  I walked over to the curb. A gypsy cab, the only kind that cruises Harlem, slowed as it approached. The driver, a middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a brimmed cap over kinky red hair, decided I looked all right. I got in the back seat, closed the door, told her to take me to Fifty-eighth and Ninth.

  On the way there my mind was all over the place. My hands were still trembling, though not so violently as before, but the internal shakes were as bad as ever. The ride seemed to take forever, and then before I knew it the woman was asking me which corner I wanted. I told her to pull up in front of Armstrong's. When the light changed she nosed the cab across the intersection and stopped where I'd told her. When I made no move she turned around to see what was wrong.

  I'd just remembered that I couldn't get a drink at Armstrong's. Of course they might have forgotten by now that Jimmy had eighty-sixed me, but maybe they hadn't, and I felt myself burning with resentment already at the thought of walking in there and being refused service. No, fuck them, I wouldn't walk through their goddamned door.

  Where, then? Polly's would be closed, they never ran all the way to closing hour. Farrell's?

  That was where I'd had the first drink after Kim's death. I'd had eight sober days before I picked up that drink. I remembered that drink. Early Times, it was.

  Funny how I always remember what brand I was drinking. It's all the same crap, but that's the sort of detail that sticks in your mind.

  I'd heard someone make that very observation at a meeting a while back.

  What did I have now? Four days? I could go up to my room and just make myself stay there and when I woke up I'd be starting my fifth day.

  Except that I'd never fall asleep. I wouldn't even stay in the room. I'd try, but I couldn't stay anywhere, not the way I felt right now, not with only my own whirling mind to keep me company. If I didn't drink now I'd drink an hour from now.

  "Mister? You okay?"

  I blinked at the woman, then dug my wallet out of my pocket and found a twenty. "I want to make a phone call," I said. "From the booth right there on the corner. You take this and wait for me. All right?"

  Maybe she'd drive off with the twenty. I didn't really care. I walked to the corner, dropped a dime, stood there listening to the dial tone.

  It was too late to call. What time was it? After two, much too late for a social call.

  Hell, I could go to my room. All I had to do was stay put for an hour and I'd be in the clear. At three the bars would close.

  So? There was a deli that would sell me beer, legally or not. There was an after-hours on Fifty-first, way west between Eleventh and Twelfth. Unless it had closed by now; I hadn't been there in a long time.

  There was a bottle of Wild Turkey in Kim Dakkinen's front closet. And I had her key in my pocket.

  That scared me. The booze was right there, accessible to me at any hour, and if I went there I'd never stop after one or two drinks. I'd finish the bottle, and when I did there were a lot of other bottles to keep it company.

  I made my call.

  She'd been sleeping. I heard that in her voice when she answered the phone.

  I said, "It's Matt. I'm sorry to call you so late."

  "That's all right. What time is it? God, it's after two."

  "I'm sorry.

  "It's all right. Are you okay, Matthew?

  "No."

  "Have you been drinking?"

  "No."

 
"Then you're okay."

  "I'm falling apart," I said. "I called you because it was the only way I could think of to keep from drinking."

  "You did the right thing."

  "Can I come over?"

  There was a pause. Never mind, I thought. Forget it. One quick drink at Farrell's before they closed, then back to the hotel. Never should have called her in the first place.

  "Matthew, I don't know if it's a good idea. Just take it an hour at a time, a minute at a time if you have to, and call me as much as you want. I don't mind if you wake me, but-"

  I said, "I almost got killed half an hour ago. I beat a kid up and broke his legs for him. I'm shaking like I never shook before in my life. The only thing that's going to make me feel right is a drink and I'm afraid to take one and scared I'll do it anyway. I thought being with someone and talking with someone might get me through it but it probably wouldn't anyway, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I'm not your responsibility. I'm sorry."

  "Wait!"

  "I'm here."

  "There's a clubhouse on St. Marks Place where they have meetings all night long on the weekends. It's in the book, I can look it up for you."

  "Sure."

  "You won't go, will you?"

  "I can't talk up at meetings. Forget it, Jan. I'll be all right."

  "Where are you?"

  "Fifty-eighth and Ninth."

  "How long will it take you to get here?"

  I glanced over at Armstrong's. My gypsy cab was still parked there. "I've got a cab waiting," I said.

  "You remember how to get here?"

  "I remember."

  The cab dropped me in front of Jan's six-story loft building on Lispenard. The meter had eaten up most of the original twenty dollars. I gave her another twenty to go with it. It was too much but I was feeling grateful, and could afford to be generous.

  I rang Jan's bell, two long and three short, and went out in front so that she could toss the key down to me. I rode the industrial elevator to the fifth floor and stepped out into her loft.

  "That was quick," she said. "You really did have a cab waiting."

  She'd had time to dress. She was wearing old Lee jeans and a flannel shirt with a red-and-black checkerboard pattern. She's an attractive woman, medium height, well fleshed, built more for comfort than for speed. A heart-shaped face, her hair dark brown salted with gray and hanging to her shoulders. Large well-spaced gray eyes. No makeup.

  She said, "I made coffee. You don't take anything in it, do you?"

  "Just bourbon."

  "We're fresh out. Go sit down, I'll get the coffee."

  When she came back with it I was standing by her Medusa, tracing a hair-snake with my fingertip. "Her hair reminded me of your girl here," I said. "She had blonde braids but she wrapped them around her head in a way that made me think of your Medusa."

  "Who?"

  "A woman who got killed. I don't know where to start."

  "Anywhere," she said.

  I talked for a long time and I skipped all over the place, from the beginning to that night's events and back and forth again. She got up now and then to get us more coffee, and when she came back I'd start in where I left off. Or I'd start somewhere else. It didn't seem to matter.

  I said, "I didn't know what the hell to do with him. After I'd knocked him out, after I'd searched him. I couldn't have him arrested and I couldn't stand the thought of letting him go. I was going to shoot him but I couldn't do it. I don't know why. If I'd just smacked his head against the wall a couple more times it might have killed him, and I'll tell you, I'd have been glad of it. But I couldn't shoot him while he was lying there unconscious."

  "Of course not."

  "But I couldn't leave him there, I didn't want him walking the streets. He'd just get another gun and do it again. So I broke his legs. Eventually the bones'll knit and he'll be able to resume his career, but in the meantime he's off the streets." I shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense. But I couldn't think of anything else to do."

  "The important thing is you didn't drink."

  "Is that the important thing?"

  "I think so."

  "I almost drank. If I'd been in my own neighborhood, or if I hadn't reached you. God knows I wanted to drink. I still want to drink."

  "But you're not going to."

  "No."

  "Do you have a sponsor, Matthew?"

  "No."

  "You should. It's a big help."

  "How?"

  "Well, a sponsor's someone you can call anytime, someone you can tell anything to."

  "You have one?"

  She nodded. "I called her after I spoke to you."

  "Why?"

  "Because I was nervous. Because it calms me down to talk to her. Because I wanted to see what she would say."

  "What did she say?"

  "That I shouldn't have told you to come over." She laughed. "Fortunately, you were already on your way."

  "What else did she say?"

  The big gray eyes avoided mine. "That I shouldn't sleep with you."

  "Why'd she say that?"

  "Because it's not a good idea to have relationships during the first year. And because it's a terrible idea to get involved with anybody who's newly sober."

  "Christ," I said. "I came over because I was jumping out of my skin, not because I was horny."

  "I know that."

  "Do you do everything your sponsor says?"

  "I try to."

  "Who is this woman that she's the voice of God on earth?"

  "Just a woman. She's my age, actually she's a year and a half younger. But she's been sober almost six years."

  "Long time."

  "It seems like a long time to me." She picked up her cup, saw it was empty, put it down again. "Isn't there someone you could ask to be your sponsor?"

  "Is that how it works? You have to ask somebody?"

  "That's right."

  "Suppose I asked you?"

  She shook her head. "In the first place, you should get a male sponsor. In the second place, I haven't been sober long enough. In the third place we're friends."

  "A sponsor shouldn't be a friend?"

  "Not that kind of friend. An AA friend. In the fourth place, it ought to be somebody in your home group so you have frequent contact."

  I thought unwillingly of Jim. "There's a guy I talk to sometimes."

  "It's important to pick someone you can talk to."

  "I don't know if I can talk to him. I suppose I could."

  "Do you respect his sobriety?"

  "I don't know what that means."

  "Well, do you-"

  "This evening I told him I got upset by the stories in the newspapers. All the crime in the streets, the things people keep doing to each other. It gets to me, Jan."

  "I know it does."

  "He told me to quit reading the papers. Why are you laughing?"

  "It's just such a program thing to say."

  "People talk the damnedest crap. 'I lost my job and my mother's dying of cancer and I'm going to have to have my nose amputated but I didn't drink today so that makes me a winner.' "

  "They really sound like that, don't they?"

  "Sometimes. What's so funny?"

  " 'I'm going to have my nose amputated.' A nose amputated?"

  "Don't laugh," I said. "It's a serious problem."

  A little later she was telling me about a member of her home group whose son had been killed by a hit-and-run driver. The man had gone to a meeting and talked about it, drawing strength from the group, and evidently it had been an inspirational experience all around. He'd stayed sober, and his sobriety had enabled him to deal with the situation and bolster the other members of his family while fully experiencing his own grief.

  I wondered what was so wonderful about being able to experience your grief. Then I found myself speculating what would have happened some years ago if I'd stayed sober after an errant bullet of mine ricocheted and fatally wounded a six-year-old girl na
med Estrellita Rivera. I'd dealt with the resultant feelings by pouring bourbon on them. It had certainly seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Maybe it hadn't been. Maybe there were no shortcuts, no detours. Maybe you had to go through things.

  I said, "You don't worry about getting hit by a car in New York. But it happens here, the same as anywhere else. Did they ever catch the driver?"

  "No."

  "He was probably drunk. They usually are."

  "Maybe he was in a blackout. Maybe he came to the next day and never knew what he'd done."

  "Jesus," I said, and thought of that night's speaker, the man who stabbed his lover. "Eight million stories in the Emerald City. And eight million ways to die."

  "The naked city."

  "Isn't that what I said?"

  "You said the Emerald City."

  "I did? Where did I get that from?"

  "The Wizard of Oz. Remember? Dorothy and Toto in Kansas? Judy Garland going over the rainbow?"

  "Of course I remember."

  " 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road.' It led to the Emerald City, where the wonderful wizard lived."

  "I remember. The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, I remember the whole thing. But where'd I get emeralds from?"

  "You're an alcoholic," she suggested. "You're missing a couple of brain cells, that's all."

  I nodded. "Must be it," I said.

  The sky was turning light when we went to sleep. I slept on the couch wrapped up in a couple of spare blankets. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep, but the tiredness came over me like a towering wave. I gave up and let it take me wherever it wanted.

  I can't 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 she'd 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 couldn't 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?