A Ticket to the Boneyard (15 page)

“And touched that I had sent you flowers.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“It certainly makes me wish they were mine.”

“Oh, Matt, I don’t—”

“It does. And they’re beautiful flowers, you can’t get around it. I should have kept my mouth shut and taken credit for them.”

“Think so, huh?”

“Why not? They’re a hell of a good romantic gesture. I can see where a guy could get laid on the strength of something like that.”

Her face softened, and her arm moved to circle my waist. “Ah, baby,” she said. “What makes you think you need flowers?”

Afterward we lay quietly together for a long while, not asleep but not entirely awake. At one point I thought of something and laughed softly to myself. Not softly enough, because she asked me what was so funny.

I said, “Some vegetarian.”

“Some what? Oh.” She rolled onto her side and opened her big eyes at me. “A person who abstains entirely from animal matter,” she said, “runs the risk over a long period of time of developing a vitamin B-12 deficiency.”

“Is that serious?”

“It can lead to pernicious anemia.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It shouldn’t. It’s fatal.”

“Really?”

“So they tell me.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to chance that,” I said. “And you can get that on a strict vegetarian diet?”

“According to what I’ve read.”

“Can’t you get B-12 from dairy products?”

“I think you can, yes.”

“And don’t you eat dairy? There’s milk in the fridge, and yogurt, as I recall.”

She nodded. “I eat dairy,” she said, “and you’re supposed to be able to get B-12 from dairy products, but I figure you can’t be too careful, you know what I mean?”

“I think you’re right.”

“Because why leave something like that to chance? Pernicious anemia just doesn’t sound like something a person would want to have.”

“And an ounce of prevention—”

“I don’t think it was an ounce,” she said. “I think it was more like a spoonful.”

I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew I was alone in the bed and the shower was running in the bathroom. She emerged from it a few minutes later wrapped in a towel. I took a shower myself, dried off, and got dressed, and when I went into the living room there was coffee poured for me and a plate on the table with cut-up raw vegetables and bite-size chunks of cheese. We sat at the dinette table and nibbled at the food. Across the room, the floral arrangement was as dazzling as ever in the soft light of late afternoon.

I said, “The guy who handed you the flowers.”

“What about him?”

“Who was he?”

“Just a guy.”

“Because if Motley deliberately used him to get the flowers to you, he might be a lead back to him.”

“He didn’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

She shook her head. “Believe me,” she said, “there’s no connection. He’s a fellow I’ve known for a couple of years.”

“And he just happened to drop in?”

“No, he had an appointment.”

“An appointment? What kind of an appointment?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “What kind of an appointment do you think he had with me? He wanted to come over and spend an hour discussing Wittgenstein.”

“He was a john.”

“Of course he was a john.” She looked at me sharply. “Does that bother you?”

“Why should it bother me?”

“I don’t know. Does it?”

“No.”

“Because it’s what I do,” she said. “I turn tricks. This is not new information. It’s what I did when you met me and it’s what I still do.”

“I know.”

“So why do I get the impression that it bothers you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just thought—”

“What?”

“Well, that you were keeping the doors barred for the time being.”

“I am.”

“I see.”

“I
am
, Matt. I’m not taking any hotel dates, I turned down a couple of people already. And I’m not letting anybody in the door that I don’t know. But the fellow who came over yesterday afternoon, he’s been a regular date of mine for a few years. He’ll show up one or two Saturdays a month, he’s no trouble, and why shouldn’t I let him in?”

“No reason.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“No problem. A girl’s got to make a living, right?”

“Matt—”

“Got to accumulate some more ready cash, got to buy some more apartment houses. Right?”

“You’ve got no right to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“You’ve got no right.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I picked up a piece of cheese. It was a dairy product, and a likely source of vitamin B-12. I put it back down on the plate.

I said, “When I called this morning.”

“And?”

“You told me not to come over right away.”

“I told you to give me an hour.”

“An hour and fifteen minutes, I think it was.”

“I’ll take your word for it. So?”

“Did you have someone over here?”

“If I’d had someone here I wouldn’t have answered the phone. I’d have put the mute on and let the machine pick it up in silence, the way I did when you and I went into the bedroom.”

“Why did you tell me to wait for an hour and a quarter?”

“You won’t let it alone, will you? I had a fellow coming at noon.”

“So you did have somebody coming.”

“That’s what I just told you. He called me just a few minutes before you did, as a matter of fact. He made a date to come over at noon.”

“At noon on Sunday?”

“He always comes on Sunday, usually late morning or early afternoon. He lives in the neighborhood, he tells his wife he’s going out to buy the paper. He comes over here, and I suppose he picks up the
Times
on his way home. I suppose that’s part of the kick for him, putting one over on her that way.”

“So you told me—”

“To give me until one o’clock. I knew he’d be on time, and I knew he’d be out of here within a half hour. He always is. And I wanted a half hour after that so that I could take a shower and freshen up and be—”

“And be what?”

“And be nice for you,” she said. “What the fuck is this, will you tell me that? Why are you attacking me?”

“I’m not.”

“The hell you’re not. And why am I defending myself, that’s the real question. Why the hell should I have to defend myself?”

“I don’t know.” I picked up my coffee cup, but it was empty. I put it down again and picked up a piece of cheese and put that down, too. I said, “So you already had your B-12 today.”

For a moment she didn’t say anything, and I had time to regret the line. Then she said, “No as a matter of fact I didn’t, because that’s not what we did. Why? Would you like to know what we did?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you anyway. We did what we always do. I sat on his face and he ate me while he jerked himself off. That’s what he likes, that’s what we always do when he comes over here.”

“Stop it.”

“Why the hell should I? What else would you like to know? Did I come? No, but I faked it, that’s what gets him over the edge. Anything else you’d like for me to tell you? You want to know how big his cock was?
And don’t you dare hit me, Matt Scudder
!”

“I wasn’t going to hit you.”

“You wanted to.”

“I never even raised my hand, for God’s sake.”

“You wanted to.”

“No.”

“Yes. And I wanted you to. Not to hit me, but to want to.” Her eyes were huge, brimming with tears at their corners. Softly, wonderingly, she said, “What’s the matter with us? Why are we doing this to each other?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” she said. “We’re mad, that’s why. You’re mad at me because I’m still a whore. And I’m pissed off at you because you didn’t send me flowers.”

She said, “I think I know what happened. We’ve been under a strain, both of us. I think it’s made us more vulnerable than we realized. And we wound up casting each other in roles we couldn’t play. I thought you were Sir Galahad and I don’t know who you got me mixed up with.”

“I don’t know either. Maybe the Lady of Shalott.”

She looked at me.

“How does the poem go? ‘Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat.’ “

“Stop it.”

The sky had gone dark outside her window. Above the lights of Queens I saw the winking red lights of an airplane making its approach to land at La Guardia.

After a moment she said, “We read that in high school. Tennyson. I used to pretend it was about me.”

“You told me once.”

“Did I?” Her gaze turned inward as she took a long look at an old memory. Then, crisply, she said, “Well, I’m no lily maid, baby, and your armor’s lost its shine. And it was Sir Lancelot the Lady of Shalott was hung up on, not Sir Galahad, and we’re not either of them. All we are is two people who always liked each other and always did each other some good. That’s not the worst thing in the world, is it?”

“I never thought so.”

“And now we’ve got a crazy man who wants to kill us, so it’s the wrong time for either of us to get kinky. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“So let’s get the money part handled. Can we do that?”

We could and did. I figured out my expenses to date and she reminded me of some I’d forgotten, then rounded the figure upward and cut off my arguments with a sharp glance. She went into the bedroom and came back with a handful of fifties and hundreds. I watched as she counted out two thousand dollars and shoved the stack across the table at me.

I didn’t reach for it. “That’s not the number you mentioned,” I said.

“I know. Matt, you really shouldn’t have to keep track of what you lay out, and you shouldn’t have to come back to ask me for more money. Take this, and when it starts running thin tell me and I’ll give you more. Please don’t argue. Money’s what I’ve got, and I damn well earned it, and if you can’t use it at a time like this, what’s the point of having it.”

I picked up the money.

“Good,” she said. “That’s settled. I don’t know about the emotional part. I was always better at the business side. I think we’ll just have to play it by ear and take it a day at a time. What do you think?”

I got to my feet. “I think I’ll have one more cup of coffee,” I said, “and then I’ll get out of here.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes I do. I want to go play detective and spend some of the money you gave me. I think you’re right, I think we’ll play it by ear. I’m sorry about before.”

“So am I.”

When I came back with the coffee she said, “Jesus, I’ve got six messages on my machine.”

“When did the calls come? When we were in bed?”

“Must have. Is it all right if I play them back?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

She shrugged and pressed the appropriate button. There was a whirring sound, some background noise, then a click. “A hang-up,” she said. “That’s what I get most of the time. A lot of people don’t like to leave a message.”

There was another hang-up. Then a man said, very crisply and confidently, “Elaine, this is Jerry Pines, I’ll give you a call in a day or so.” Then another hang-up, and then a caller who cleared his throat forcefully, took a long moment trying to think of something to say, and rang off without a word.

Then the sixth caller. A fairly long pause, with the tape running and only background noise audible. Then a whisper:

“
Hello, Elaine. Did you like the flowers
?”

Another pause, as long as the first. Throughout it the background noise, actually quite low in volume, sounded like the roar of a subway train.

And then, in the same forceful whisper, he said, “I was thinking of you earlier. But it’s not your turn yet. You have to wait your turn, you know. I’m saving you for last.” A pause, but a brief one. “I mean second-last. He’ll be the last.”

That was all he had to say, but the tape ran another twenty or thirty seconds before he broke the connection. Then the answering machine clicked and whirred and readied itself to handle incoming calls again, and we sat there in a silence that hung in the air like smoke.

I was back in my hotel room before dawn, but I didn’t beat the sun by much. It was well past four by the time I got there, and I’d spent the whole night running all over the city, going places I hadn’t been in years. Some of them were long gone, and some of the people I was looking for were gone, too, dead or in jail or in some other world. But there were new places and new people, and I found my way to enough of them to keep busy.

I found Danny Boy Bell in Poogan’s. He is a short albino Negro, precise in his gestures and polite in his manners. He has always worn conservatively cut three-piece suits and he has always kept vampire’s hours, never leaving his house between sunrise and sunset. His habits hadn’t changed, and he still drank Russian vodka straight up and ice-cold. The bars that were home to him, Poogan’s Pub and the Top Knot, always kept a bottle on ice for him. The Top Knot’s gone now.

“There’s a French restaurant there now,” he told me. “High-priced and not very good. I’m here a lot these days. Or I’ll be at Mother Goose on Amsterdam. They got a nice little trio, plays there six nights a week. The drummer uses the brushes and he never takes a solo. And they keep the lights right.”

Right meant dimmed way down. Danny Boy wears dark glasses all the time, and he’d probably wear them at the bottom of a coal mine. “The world’s too loud and too bright,” I’d heard him say more than once. “They should put in a dimmer switch. They should turn the volume down.”

He didn’t recognize the sketch, but Motley’s name struck a chord with him. I started to fill him in and he remembered the case. “So he’s coming back at you,” he said. “Why don’t you just grab a plane, go someplace warm while he cools off? Guy like that, give him a few weeks and he’ll step on his cock and wind up back in slam. You won’t have to worry about him for another ten years.”

“I think he’s gotten pretty shrewd.”

“Went up for one-to-ten and served twelve, how much of a genius can he be?” He finished his drink and moved his hand a few inches, which was all he had to do to get the waitress’s attention. After she’d filled his glass and assured herself that I was still all right, he said, “I’ll pass the word and keep my ears open, Matt. All I can do.”