“I’m in kind of a hurry, Lucas, so do you think you might -?”
“Sure ’nuf. Let’s give the ol’ piggy bank a shake.” He emptied out his pockets, piling coins and a couple of bills on the table. “Let’s see now.” He counted the money. “I make it zackly ten-thirty-fi’. That ’nuf for you, Cora?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure. But I’ll want all of it, Lucas. Will that be all right?”
“Long as you leave me bus fair. I’m tired’s all get-out tonight. Gonna knock off soon an’ don’ look to no more tips. So gimme fifteen cents an’ welcome to the rest.”
“Thanks, Lucas.” She picked up the money and dumped it into her pocketbook. She bid him good night and left. By the time she was halfway down the block, she was running in her eagerness to get to the subway.
Getting off the train at South Ferry, she was so obsessed with her need for a fix that she didn’t even notice the force of the rain pouring down and drenching her. It was always like this when she needed it real bad and was getting close to having it. Her whole body shook with anticipation, and she no longer bothered to fight against the shaking. Soon now, soon, there would be some relief from this ache of craving, from this hunger exploding inside her head like ice water cascading over her very brain and numbing it to everything except her need. Soon!
The pusher was where Mickey had said he would be. Cora had no trouble recognizing him. She went directly to his table in the cafeteria and sat down across from him. “I need a fix,” she said, too anxious to parry words.
He continued reading his newspaper, ignoring her.
“Mickey said you could help me out.”
“I don’t know you, lady,” he mumbled behind his newspaper. “I don’t know any Mickey. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come off it! I’m not the fuzz. I need it real bad, I tell you!” Cora couldn’t stand this. She was close to tears.
He didn’t answer. His hand reached out from behind newspaper and grasped her arm. He pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, glanced at the telltale sores on her arm, and quickly pushed it down again. Still he was silent.
The window behind him shook with the force of the storm. A flash of lightning creased the top of his balding head, which was all that Cora could see of him over the top of the newspaper. The crash of thunder reverberated inside her skull, drum-beating the urgency of her hunger. Outside black rain howled out an echo of her desperation.
Cora was at the point where she was biting her lip to keep from screaming when he finally spoke. “Four pounds.” That was all he said.
Translation: twenty dollars. Despair filled Cora. “It’s too much,” she told him. “I never paid more than two before.”
“The heat’s on. lady. Things are tough all over. A coupla boys got nabbed just last night. Things like that happen, the price goes up. Supply and demand, you know? The demand’s the same, but the supply’s gettin’ hard to come by. An’ I don’t bargain. Two-oh dollar, price-fixed. That’s final.”
“Please. I just don’t have it. Couldn’t you sell me half a stack?”
“Nix. Too risky. You think I’m gonna stick my neck out makin’ splits, you’re psycho. An’ I don’t wanna sit here talkin’ about it. You ain’t got the bread, it’s your problem.”
“But I have to have it. I’m sick, you can see that. Please. I’ll give you ten now and the rest next time. Please, you can trust me.”
“Girlie, I wouldn’t trust my own grandmother if she was a junkie. Now I can see you really ain’t got the price. So let’s just forget it. Go on, take off.”
Cora knew she should leave, but she couldn’t make herself give up hope. She just sat there and stared at him helplessly, pleadingly. Finally he got up and crossed to a table on the far side of the cafeteria. He sat down and buried himself behind his newspaper again. Somehow Cora found the strength to force herself to go.
The walk through the rain, the subway ride uptown . . . it was all a nightmare of hopelessness. Numb, soaked through, Cora got off the train at Eighty-sixth Street. Half-crazed with fever and cold, obsessed with pain and despair, she made her way to the brownstone house in which she lived.
Entering her room, she saw that Jeff was in bed waiting for her. Jeff had once been her lover; now he was only the man with whom she lived; heroin had become more important to both of them than sex. When they didn’t have it, they were mutually obsessed with getting it. And when they had it, the particular cloud it took them to was usually too euphoric for them to be troubled by sexual desire. Only occasionally were there exceptions to this.
Tonight—at least as far as Jeff was concerned—turned out to be one of those exceptions. As soon as Cora came in, he threw back the blankets and exposed himself as eager for sex. But his manhood wasn’t all that was revealed to Cora. She was also quick to notice that Jeff’s eyeballs were dilated and that his manner was transparently serene.
Jeff had gotten a fix! There could be no doubt about it. Jeff was flying!
“Where? !” She stood over him, trembling, ignoring the hand sliding up her skirt, trying to pry her thighs apart. “Where is it? Tell me!”
“All gone! All gone-gone-gone!” he singsonged, trying to pull Cora down on the bed beside him.
“I don’t believe you. You’ve got some stashed away for later. Where it it?”
“Gone-gone.”
Cora wrenched away from him and went into the bathroom. Yes, there it was! The wax paper Jeff’s pusher always wrapped around the fix. But it was crumpled up and empty. Not a grain left. Cora smoothed out the paper and looked at it. Then a sob tore from her throat and she ran into the other room.
“You bastard!” She fell to her knees beside the bed and began beating at Jeff with her fists. “You lousy bastard! You had a double dose there! Enough for both of us! And you took it all yourself! I’m jumping out of my skin and you take it all for yourself. I could kill you, Jeff! I could kill you! I could kill you!”
Jeff, half-laughing, tried to hide from the blows being rained on him by huddling under the blankets. The more Cora beat at him, the more the energy of her frustration built and exploded into new cycles of energy. Finally, it propelled her away from Jeff and out of the room, downstairs and out into the rain once again.
Racing blindly down the side street to Broadway, and then on up Broadway, there was nothing left inside Cora now except her need. She was beyond all else. She had to have money for a fix. And the only place left to try, her only hope, was Dr. Golden.
Somehow Cora had to persuade Dr. Golden to let her have some money. When she was like this, Cora would do anything for a fix. Anything! She’d sell her body! She’d sell her soul! She’d beg! She’d rob!
Cora would even kill!
CHAPTER 6
A Man Among Men
“. . . KEVIN FRANCIS CONNERY here. From the milky look o’ your lips, I’d say me thirty years makes me the elder statesman o’ the group. Perhaps ye’ve noticed I’m Irish. Dublin-born and bred I am, and in New York only five years. Oh, don’t be lookin’ like that! Sure I work hard at it. But after all, bein’ an Irishman’s a career in itself, you know. . . . Yes, I suppose I am puttin’ you on. Me brogue’s only as thick as I care to make it. That’s true. . . . Me trouble? Sure an’ you might say I’m a bit queer, I suppose. Take it easy there, Dave, I’m not about to attack you. Unless you want me too, o’ course. But you’re not me type. It’s a nubile Nubian lad I’m seekin’. . . . All right, the good doctor’s growin’ impatient with me façade. So, on to me problem in a nut shell. Which is that I hate women, an’ I’m ashamed o’ wantin’ men an’ me person is to me a matter o’ truly great self-disgust . . .”