Shake it, shake that habit, kick the monkey off your back, don’t think about it, don’t think about anything connected with it, oh, would I love a speedball now, even just a little cocaine mixed in with the hoss, even just a little, but, oh, would a speedball knock my brains out, oh, would a speedball gas the hell out of me, what am I gonna do, how am I gonna take it any more, what am I gonna do, have I got any left, no, all gone, but I’ve got the works, I’ve still got the works, I’ll get out of here and find something someplace. A cap, cap and a half, I’ll settle even for a cap, I’ll settle for anything, anything, even for beat stuff, even for lemon, anything, anything at all, CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, GODDAMNIT?
“Who’s there?” Bud asked.
“Helen,” the voice beyond the door answered.
Thank God, Andy thought. Thank you, God.
18
Bud rose and went slowly to the door. He had forgotten that Helen was coming this evening, and now, with only the wood of the door between them, he felt a curiously fluttering panic in his stomach. He reached out for the doorknob, not wanting to open the door, not wanting to see her again, not after all that had happened, knowing he definitely did not want to see her again, ashamed of himself, deeply ashamed, and not wanting this living reminder of his shame. But she was outside the door, and as inexorably as the steady creep of time, his hand found the doorknob, and twisted the doorknob, and pulled back the door, and she was standing there, unsmiling.
She had not changed much. She looked more mature, more wise perhaps, but her face was still the same, and he felt the unbidden quickening of his heart when he saw that face, when his eyes found her eyes, green and slightly tilted, Chinese eyes, wise and knowing eyes. She wore her hair short now, the pageboy gone, clipped close to her head, framing her face with a deep lustrous black. She wore a sweater and skirt, and he saw the rounded mounds of her small, perfectly formed breasts beneath the sweater, and then his eyes fled back to her face again, swallowed in the depth of her eyes, swallowed there in a sea of wisdom and knowledge and regret.
“Hello, Bud,” she said softly.
“Helen,” he said, “it’s good to see you.”
He took her hand, but she held his only briefly and then dropped it, her eyes leaping into the apartment and finding Andy. She stepped inside, and Bud closed the door behind her. She put her purse down on the butterfly chair, and Andy forced a smile and said, “Hi, Helen, I thought you’d never get here.”
“How have you been?” she asked.
Her eyes did not leave his face. They searched his eyes, they spotlighted the tic at the corner of his mouth, they probed the blinking lids.
“Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”
“It’s been rough, hasn’t it?”
“The roughest.” He smiled wanly.
“You going it cold turkey?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the only way. How long have you been off it?”
Andy hesitated for a moment. “Little more than a week,” he said.
A cloud passed over Helen’s face. “How long, Andy?”
“Well, maybe a little less. Maybe five days or so.”
“You’re lying,” she said flatly.
“What?”
“I said you’re lying. Has he left the apartment, Bud?”
“Why, yes. He—”
“Did you cop, Andy?”
“What?”
“I said, ‘Did you cop’?”
“I got some stuff, yes, but I—”
“He didn’t take it, Helen,” Bud said, feeling strangely outside the conversation, feeling even outside the realm of their thought or their jargon.
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Andy said.
“The stuff. You said you—”
“I dumped it.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“When this morning?”
“Nine, ten o’clock, I don’t remember.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
“Where’d you dump it?”
“Down the toilet.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am not, Helen. Helen, I wouldn’t—”
“You shot up, Andy. You shot up, and now you’re plenty sick. Andy, don’t lie to me because I’ve been through this and back again, and I know all the signs, and you don’t show the signs of a man who’s been cool for a week, or even for five days. You look like a man who’s overdue, and, goddamnit, Andy, why’d you do it? Why’d you go back to it?”
“I didn’t, Helen. I just don’t feel so hot, that’s all. You know how it is when you’re kicking the jive. What makes you think—”
“Andy, don’t lie to me. You never could lie to me, Andy, so don’t start now.”
“But I’m not lying, Helen. I swear to God, I haven’t touched a drop since—”
“Since when, Andy?”
“Since—” He could not complete the sentence.
“How much did you take?”
“A cap,” he lied.
“Andy.”
“A cap and a half, two caps, I don’t remember.”
“When?”
“This morning. About nine. Maybe ten. I don’t remember.”
“Andy, Andy, why?”
“Y is a crooked letter,” he shouted. “Don’t get on my back. I got enough troubles without your climbing on my back.”
“Where’s the outfit?”
“In the closet. In my jacket pocket.”
“Get it,” she said.
He went to the closet, and Bud watched him, still feeling strange, feeling as if he were listening to an argument between a man and his wife, feeling left out of it completely, the way a little boy does when his mother and father are bickering.
Andy brought the jacket back to Helen.
“The spoon,” she said, and he handed her the spoon. Helen looked at it carefully and then asked, “Where’s the spike?”
He took the syringe from the jacket pocket and was handing it to her when she said, “No, hold onto it. Where’d you get it?”
“On the Union Floor. From Rog.”
“He won’t miss it,” Helen said. “Get rid of it, Andy.”
Andy stared at the syringe on the palm of his hand, puzzled, and then he asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“Get rid of it.”
“You can get rid of it. Here, take it.”
“No, I want you to get rid of it. You’re the only one who can do it, Andy.”
“What the hell do you want from me, anyway? I got to return the spike, don’t I? What the hell are you climbing all over me for?”
“Andy, do as I say,” Helen said tightly.
“No! No, I won’t do as you say! Everybody wants me to do as they say. Well, I’m goddamn good and sick of doing what everybody wants me to do. Everybody can go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut, you understand that? That includes you, and Bud, and anybody else you want to drag in! What the hell am I, a kid or something, everybody has to come around and wipe my nose for me? Well, I’m not a kid! I know what I’m doing, and if you want to get rid of that hype, you can do it yourself, you understand that?”
“Andy—”
“Shut up! Jesus, for once in your life, can’t you shut up? I’m doing all I can to keep my head from busting open, and you come around screaming about a syringe — what the hell you want me to do with the goddamn thing, anyway?”
“Destroy it,” Helen said, almost spitting the words.
“What for? What harm’s the hype without what to put in it? You think I’ve got any of the white stuff? You think I’d be sitting around with my stomach ready to split if I had any of the junk? I’d be shooting it so damn fast, it’d make your head spin. I’d be maining it like a madman, that’s what I’d be doing, so what the hell are you screaming about the hype for, what do you want me to do, why the hell doesn’t everyone leave me alone?”