So when he showed up on the stool next to me, training his gray-blue eyes on me like benign gun barrels, I said, “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a joint like this?”
“Velda is getting worried.”
Velda was my secretary, and my right arm. She had been with me since I set up shop and I hadn’t made a pass at her yet. But there was something special between us that wasn’t just boss and employee.
“Tell her to lay off the mother-hen routine,” I said. I poured some whiskey in a glass and then down my throat.
“You need to let it go, Mike. It’s ancient history.”
“Not even a year, Pat.”
“Would you change it? Would you go back and not pull that trigger?”
“No.”
“Then it’s time to move on.”
I knew he was right. But I’d fallen into a goddamn self-pitying rut. Work five days a week, drink five nights a week. And on weekends, drink the whole damn time. Being numb was good. You didn’t think so much. But if I kept this up, I’d have a liver that even the medics couldn’t recognize as a human organ.
Still, I said, “Blow, Pat. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
“No,” Velda said, “you can’t.”
I hadn’t even seen the big, beautiful dark-haired doll settle her lovely fanny onto the other stool beside me. I must have been far gone.
“And we’re not about to let you crawl in that bottle,” she said, “and drown yourself.”
I gave them a ragged laugh. Hell’s bells-they had me surrounded. I pushed the glass and the whiskey away.
“Okay,” I said. “Officially on the wagon. Now. What do you suggest?”
“First,” Pat said, “you go home and sleep till you’re sober.”
“Second,” Velda said, “we go off somewhere and rest. Someplace where there are no women and no bad guys.”
“That sounds dull as hell.”
Pat said, “It’ll be good for you. You and Velda take the weekend for some R and R. Someplace out on Long Island, maybe.”
Velda said, “What was that little town you and your folks used to go out to? Before the war?”
“Sidon,” I said. I’d been there a couple times after the war, too. But not for a year or two. “It’ll be dead out there. The season doesn’t start for a couple of weeks.”
“Right,” Velda said. “The weather’s beautiful just now, nice and sunny and warm but not hot. The beach, the ocean, it’ll be like a dream.”
“Instead of this nightmare,” Pat said, slapping at my glass, “that you been wrapping yourself up in.”
I turned to Velda. “You’re going along?”
“Sure,” she said easily. “Why not? I got a new two-piece bathing suit I want to try out.”
“One of those bikini deals?” I said, getting interested.
She nodded.
“Hey, I’m game, baby, but I’ll be recuperating, you know? From drink and debauchery and a general state of depression? You’ll need to stay right at my bedside.”
“Separate rooms, Mike,” she said crisply, but she was smiling. “I’ll play nursemaid and babysitter, only I require my own separate quarters.”
“Might as well take you along instead,” I said to Pat, “for all the fun I’ll have.”
He raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
Velda frowned. “No offense, Pat, but you’re staying home. I’m not equipped to handle all the trouble you two could get into.”
She looked equipped enough to handle anything from where I sat.
“Now,” she was saying, climbing off her stool, “can you stand up, or do we have to escort you?”
I made it onto my own two feet. I may have leaned on them a little. A little more on Velda. She was softer and smelled a lot better.
The little guy could walk, but just barely. Velda had found some old sandals near the mouth of the alley that were apparently Poochie’s, lost in the struggle. Anyway, they fit him. He wasn’t saying anything, but he could stumble along with me on one side and Velda on the other, each holding onto an arm.
We trooped him through the lobby of the Sidon Arms, the only one of the little town’s four lodging options open year-round. The building was wooden and old but clean. The lobby was large enough to accommodate a summer crowd but nothing fancy, strictly pre-war, though I wasn’t sure what war. I guessed this hotel stayed open all year largely because of the bar off the lobby, where a high-perched TV was showing wrestling and half a dozen locals were nursing beers, watching whoever was battling Gorgeous George this week pretend to lose.
The cadaverous bald desk clerk in mortician’s black reacted with popping eyes and a, “Merciful heavens!” Could hardly blame him-Poochie was a tattered, blood-spattered, black-and-blue wreck.
We had not checked in yet but had a reservation. When I announced our names, the clerk pretended Poochie wasn’t between us hanging on like a very loose tooth to precarious gums. Everything was handled efficiently. We signed the book, and were told our rooms were adjacent but without an adjoining door. Everything aboveboard for a single man and woman traveling together.
Finally the clerk said, “What about your, uh, friend?”
“Recognize him?” I asked.
“Yes. That is, uh, Poochie. He’s Sidon’s resident beachcomber. He has a shack on the water, just outside town.”
Poochie showed no signs of any of this registering. He wasn’t unconscious, though, and had a goofy, puffy smile going. It widened whenever he looked up at Velda.
“He got hurt,” I said, which was all the explanation I was in the mood to give out.
“Oh, dear. Did he?”
Cripes, didn’t this jerk have eyes?
“Is Doc Moody still in town?” I asked. Moody had been a drinking buddy of my old man’s, on our visits to Sidon. And I’d tossed a few back with the doc on my last solo sojourn.
“Why, yes he is. Should I call him?”
“There’s an idea.” I dug out a five and tossed it to him, the way you would a fish to a seal. “Give the doc my name-he’ll remember it-and when he gets here, send him up to my room.”
Right now I was praying the good doc would be sober enough to see straight.
“Yes, Mr. Hammer,” the clerk said, and reached out a skinny, bony hand for the telephone.
The Sidon Arms had three floors and no elevator. We walked Poochie slowly up the wide lobby stairs and for the first time since we’d made the trek from the alley, the little guy moaned.
Velda said, “It’ll be all right, Poochie. It’ll be fine.”
My room was 2-A and Velda’s was 2-B. The rooms were identical-dresser, wardrobe, a couple chairs, double bed, nightstand, no closet, no bath. That was at the end of the hall. Velda went down there to fill a pitcher with warm water and I set Poochie in the more comfortable of the chairs. It was upholstered and had some padding. While she cleaned him up, I went back down to the lobby. The clerk told me Doc Moody was on his way, and I made my way out to the parking lot behind the hotel and got our luggage and brought it up.
Poochie seemed to be coming into focus as I hauled our bags in.
“I think I better give Poochie my bed,” I said, standing next to her as she bent dabbing a washcloth gently onto our guest’s battered face. She was in a white blouse and a blue pleated skirt and was the kind of nurse you dreamed to get.
“You can sleep with me in my room, if you like.” She flashed me the sweetest smile.
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. You know me, Mike-I don’t stand on ceremony. And speaking of ceremonies, there’s a justice of the peace in this burg, isn’t there? Wonder if he makes house calls like your doctor friend?”
“You’re no fun at all,” I told her. I leaned in and got our charge’s attention. “What was that about, Poochie?”
He smiled. It was like Dopey smiling at Snow White.