And when we stumble back again
Like paralytic dancers
Each knows the question he must ask
And each man knows the answer
I had a bottle in one hand, a glass in the other. I poured from the bottle into the glass. "Catch this next part," Billie was saying.
And so we'll drink the final drink
That cuts the brain in sections
Where answers do not signify
And there aren't any questions
Billie was saying something but the words weren't registering. There was only the song.
I broke my heart the other day.
It will mend again tomorrow.
If I'd been drunk when I was born
I'd be ignorant of sorrow
"Play that again," I said.
"Wait. There's more."
And so we'll drink the final toast
That never can be spoken:
Here's to the heart that is wise enough
To know when it's better off broken
He said, "Well?"
"I'd like to hear it again."
" 'Playit again, Sam. You played it forher, you can play it for me. I can take it if she can.' Isn't it great?"
"Play it again, will you?"
We listened to it a couple of times through. Finally he took it off and returned it to its jacket and asked me if I understood why he had to drag me up there and play it for me. I just nodded.
"Listen," he said, "you're welcome to crash here if you want. That couch is more comfortable than it looks."
"I can make it home."
"I don't know. Is it raining yet?" He looked out the window. "No, but it could start any minute."
"I'll chance it. I want to be at my place when I wake up."
"I got to respect a man who can plan that far in the future. You okay to go out on the street? Sure, you're okay. Here, I'll get you a paperbag, you can take the JD home with you. Or here, take the flight bag, they'll think you're a pilot."
"No, keep it, Billie."
"What do I want with it? I don't drink bourbon."
"Well, I've had enough."
"You might want a nightcap. You might want something in the morning. It's a doggie bag, for Christ's sake. When'd you get so fancy you can't take a doggie bag home with you?"
"Somebody told me it's illegal to carry an opened bottle on the street."
"Don't worry. It's a firstoffense, you're odds-on to get probation.Hey, Matt? Thanks for coming by."
I walked home with the song's phrases echoing in my mind, coming back at me in fragments. "If I'd been drunk when I was born I'd be ignorant of sorrow." Jesus.
I got back to my hotel, went straight upstairs without checking the desk for messages. I got out of my clothes, threw them on the chair, took one short pull straight from the bottle and got into bed.
Just as I was drifting off the rain started.
Chapter 13
The rain kept up all weekend. It was lashing my window when I opened my eyes around noon Friday, but it must have been the phone that woke me. I sat on the edge of the bed and decided not to answer it, and after a few more rings it quit.
My head ached fiercely and my gut felt like it had taken somebody's best shot. I lay down again, got up quickly when the room started to spin. In the bathroom I washed down a couple of aspirin with a half-glass of water, but they came right back up again.
I remembered the bottle Billie had pressed on me. I looked around for it and finally found it in the flight bag. I couldn't remember putting it back after the last drink of the night, but then there were other things I couldn't recall either, like most of the walk home from his apartment. That sort ofminiblackout didn't bother me much. When you drove cross-country you didn't remember every billboard, every mile of highway. Why bother recalling every minute of your life?
The bottle was a third gone, and that surprised me. I could recall having had one drink with Billie while we listened to the record, then a short one before I turned the lights out. I didn't want one now, but there are the ones you want and the ones you need, and this came under the latter heading. I poured a short shot into the water glass and shuddered when I swallowed it. It didn't stay down either, but it fixed things so the next one did. And then I could swallow another couple of aspirins with another half-glass of water, and this time they stayed swallowed.
If I'd been drunk when I was born…
I stayed right there in my room. The weather gave me every reason to remain where I was, but I didn't really need an excuse. I had the sort of hangover I knew enough to treat with respect. If I'd ever felt that bad without having drunk the night before, I'd have gone straight to a hospital. As it was, I stayed put and treated myself like a man with an illness, which in retrospect would seem to have been more than metaphor.
The phone rang again later in the afternoon. I could have had the desk stop my calls, but I didn't feel equal to the conversation that would have required. It seemed easier to let it ring itself out.
It rang a third time in the early evening, and this time I picked it up. It was SkipDevoe.
"I was looking for you," he said. "You goingto bounce around later?"
"I don't want to go out in this."
"Yeah, it's coming down again. It was slacking off for a while there and now it's teeming. The weather guy says we'regonna get a lot of it. We saw those guys yesterday."
"Already?"
"Not the guys in the black hats, not the bad guys.The lawyers and the accountants. Our accountant's armed with what he calls a Jewish revolver. You know what that is?"
"A fountain pen."
"You heard it, huh? Anyway, they all told us what we already knew, which is terrific, considering they'll bill us for the advice. We got to pay."
"Well, that's what you figured."
"Yeah, but it doesn't mean I like it. I spoke to the guy again, Mr. Voice on the Phone. I told old Telephone Tommy we needed the weekend to find the money."
"You toldTillary?"
"Tillary?What are you talking about?"
"You said-"
"Oh, right, I didn't even make the connection. No, notTillary, I just said Telephone Tommy, I could have said Teddy or any name with a T.Which suddenly I can't think of. Name me some names start with T."
"Do I have to?"
There was a pause. "You don't feel so hot," he said.
"Keegan had me up till dawn listening to records," I said. "I'm not a hundred percent yet."
"Fucking Keegan," he said. "We all hit it pretty good, but he'sgonna kill himself with it."
"He does keep at it."
"Yeah.Listen, I won't keep you. What I want to know, can you keep Monday open?The day and the night. Because I think that's when we'regonna move on this, and if we have to do it I'd just as soon get it over with."
"What do you want me to do?"
"We'll talk about that, iron it out. Okay?"
What did I have to do on Monday? I was still working for TommyTillary, but I didn't much care what hours I put in. My conversation with Jack Diebold had confirmed my own opinion that I was wasting my time andTillary's money, that they didn't have a case against him and weren't likely to make one. Carolyn Cheatham's diatribe had left me not greatly inclined to do much for Tommy anyway, or to feel all that guilty about taking his money and giving him small value for it.
I had a couple of things to tell Drew Kaplan next time I talked to him. And I'd dig up a few more along the way. But I might not have to put in too many long hours inSunsetPark 's bars and bodegas.
I told Skip Monday was wide open.
LATER that evening I called the liquor store across the street, I ordered up two quarts of Early Times and asked them to have the kid stop at the deli and pick up a six-pack of ale and a couple of sandwiches. They knew me and knew I'd make it worth the delivery boy's while to give me special service, and I did. It was worth it to me.
I took it easy with the hard booze, drank a can of ale, and made myself eat half a sandwich. I took a hot shower, and that helped, and then I ate another half-sandwich and drank another can of ale.
I went to sleep, and when I woke up I put the TV on and watched Bogart and IdaLupino, I guess it was, in High Sierra. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the movie but it was company. I went over to the window now and then and watched the rain. I ate part of the remaining sandwich, drank some more ale, and nipped a little from the bourbon bottle. When the movie ended I turned the set off and had a couple of aspirins and went back to bed.