A Long Line of Dead Men

19

Paris Green does a nice brunch on Sundays, with tables set up outside under green-and-white umbrellas. We slept late and started the day there. Then Elaine took a cab to the Sixth Avenue weekend flea market to resume the hunt for urban folk art. I had a second cup of coffee and walked back home.

Jim Shorter had called in our absence, leaving a message on the machine. I rang him back and arranged to meet him in an hour at a meeting at Amsterdam and Ninety-sixth. Then I called another Jim, my sponsor, Jim Faber, to confirm our dinner date and decide which Chinese restaurant to favor with our presence.

We wound up at Vegetarian Heaven, on Fifty-eighth a few doors west of Eighth. The restaurant is a flight below street level, and the chambered dining room is cavernous, with no end of booths and tables, most of them empty.

"I'm glad we got here," Jim said. "I've been meaning to try this place but it looks so tacky from the outside. Do they ever do any business? I hope they're heroin importers and this is just a sideline."

"Sometimes they get a crowd at lunch. Elaine loves the place because she can order anything on the menu. Most Chinese restaurants have the same four or five vegetable dishes, and she gets tired of them."

"She could come here forever," he said, paging through the menu. "You want to order, since you're familiar with the place?"

"Sure. What are you in the mood for?"

"Food," he said. "Good food, and plenty of it."

While we ate, I talked about how I'd spent the afternoon, and how an unpromising sidetrack in a difficult investigation had turned into an unintended Twelfth Step call.

"It's not like you," Jim said. "You've never displayed a whole lot of missionary zeal."

"Well, I never figured it was my job to sober up the world," I said. "Early on I wasn't all that sure if I wanted sobriety for my own self, so the last thing I was going to do was try selling it to somebody else. Then, the longer I stayed away from a drink, the more convinced I became that it was none of my goddamn business whether or not other people drank. Maybe the ones who drink are better off drinking. Who am I to say?"

"Your friend Ballou-"

"My friend Mick Ballou drinks heavily every day of his life, and if he ever walked into a meeting there's nobody who would dream of telling him he was in the wrong place. And I'm sure it's affecting him physically and mentally, even if he's not showing it yet. But he's a grown-up, for Christ's sake. He can make his own decisions."

"But with this fellow uptown-"

"I guess I identified with him," I said. "I looked at his life, or what I figured his life must be, and saw how I could have followed a similar path. Anyway, I didn't set out to drag him to a meeting. I just found myself talking about it, and he seemed interested, and open to suggestion."

"I think it's good for you. You're not sponsoring anybody else, are you?"

"I'm not sponsoring him."

"Well, it sounds to me like you are, whether either of you are calling it that or not. I think it'll do you good to be working with a newcomer. Just don't be surprised when he drinks."

"No."

"You can't get anybody sober and you can't keep anybody sober. You know that."

"Sure."

"And I hope you remember the definition of successful sponsorship."

"That's when the sponsor stays sober."

"You're damn right it is. You know, this stuff fools you. You think you're eating meat but you're not. This here is supposed to be what, eel?"

"I think they make it out of soy."

"There'll come a day," he said, "when they make everything out of soy. Chairs, tables, automobiles, hot turkey sandwiches. Everything. But this is supposed to look and taste like eel, and the thing is if it was the genuine article I wouldn't have anything to do with it, because I don't happen to like eel. I think I'm marginally allergic to it."

"You should have said something when I was ordering it."

"But if it's fake eel, what's the difference? I'm not allergic to fake eel. As a matter of fact, I like it."

"Have some more."

"I intend to. Elaine eats like this all the time, huh? I don't mean this stuff, I mean vegetarian. She doesn't even eat fish, does she?"

"No."

"I'd miss meat myself. Everything good with you two?"

"Everything's great."

"You still seeing the other one?"

"Now and then."

At first I hadn't told him about Lisa, but not for fear of his disapproval. He knows Elaine, and I didn't want to burden him with something I had to keep secret from her, especially if it was something that would end in a couple of weeks. When it didn't, when it went on and on, I talked about it.

"The last time I saw her," I said, "I started out wanting a drink. I called her instead."

"Well, if those were the two choices, I'd say you picked the right one. I don't know that the relationship has much of a future, but I watched a PBS special last night on the greenhouse effect, and you could say the same thing about the human race. She's not likely to try to break up your marriage, is she?"

"I'm not married."

"You know what I mean."

I nodded. "She's just there," I said. "She never calls, and when I call she says to come over."

"Sounds like the answer to a prayer," he said. "Do me a favor, will you? Find out if she's got a sister."

We sat a long time over dinner and arrived a few minutes late for the Big Book meeting at St. Clare's. Afterward I walked Jim home, then kept going to Grogan's Open House at Fiftieth and Tenth. Mick Ballou owns the place, although you won't find his name on the license. He has a farm in Sullivan County, a couple of hours from the city, and another man's name is on the deed. He has a couple of apartments around town, too, and drives a Cadillac Brougham, but for the record he doesn't own a thing. When they finally make their RICO case against him, they'll be hard put to find anything to confiscate.

I'd intended to drop by Friday night, but spent the evening on the Upper East Side instead, saving souls for sobriety. Now, two nights later, the saloon was almost empty, with three old men sitting in silence at the bar and two others sharing a table. Burke, behind the bar, told me out of the side of his thin-lipped mouth that the big fellow wasn't expected.

I stayed long enough to drink a Coke and watch a little of the game on ESPN, the Brewers playing the White Sox, with a lot of players on both teams hitting the ball into the seats. But I wasn't paying any real attention, and when my glass was empty I went home.

Wally Donn called first thing in the morning. "I could use you a couple or three days this week," he said. "You up for it?"

"I'm in the middle of something," I told him.

"Keeping you busy?"

It wasn't, not really. There wasn't much I could do until we had our big meeting at Gruliow's Tuesday afternoon.

I said, "Suppose I call you Wednesday morning? Or late tomorrow afternoon, if I get the chance. By then I'll have a better idea of how I stand."

"I really need you today," he said. "You call me Wednesday, I might not have anything for you. But call and we'll see."

I could have gone in that day, for all the work I wound up doing. I made my usual call to Forest Hills and was not all that surprised when nobody answered. I had already decided that Mrs. Watson was out of town, and was beginning to wonder what I could possibly ask her if she ever turned up again.

Sometime after lunch I went over to Elaine's shop, intending to spell her, but she wasn't there; TJ, cool and professional in his preppy outfit, was minding the shop for her. I sat around talking with him for half an hour, during which time he sold a pair of bronze bookends to a stoop-shouldered man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. The man offered thirty dollars, then forty, then said he'd pay the full fifty-dollar sticker price if TJ would forgo the sales tax. TJ stood firm.

"You're tough," the man said, admiringly. "Well, I'm probably paying too much, but so what? Ten years from now when I look at them on the shelf, will I even remember what I paid?" He handed over a credit card, and TJ wrote up the sale and did what you have to do with the card as if he'd been doing this sort of thing for years.

"They're really nice," he said at last, handing over the wrapped bookends. "All said, I think you got yourself a bargain."

"I think so, too," the man said.

Over dinner I gave Elaine a play-by-play description of the transaction. " 'All said, I think you got yourself a bargain.' Where do you suppose he learned to talk like that?"

"No idea," she said. "How come he got full price? I told him he can cut any price ten percent to make a sale."

"He said he knew the customer would pay the full fifty if he just held firm."

"Plus the tax?"

"Plus the tax."

"I guess shilling for the three-card monte dealers teaches you something. I guess if you can buy and sell on Forty-second Street you can buy and sell anywhere."

"Evidently."

"But it still amazes me when he turns the language on and off. Is it possible he's actually a middle-class kid and all the street jive's an act?"

"No."

"That's what I figured. But you never know, do you?"

"Sometimes you know," I said.

Jim Shorter hadn't called. I tried him after dinner and got no answer. I went over to St. Paul's. The woman who spoke had very strong opinions on everything. I left on the break and went over to my hotel room and sat there looking out the window.

I'd taken off Call Forwarding as soon as I came in. I was trying to make this automatic, and to put it on again automatically when I left. I picked up a book and read for a while, then put it down and looked out the window some more. And the phone rang, and it was Shorter.

"Hi," he said. "How's it going?"

"Just fine," I said. "How about yourself?"

"Well, I didn't drink yet."

"That's great."

"And I was at a meeting," he said, and told me where he'd gone and more of the speaker's story than I needed to know. We talked AA for a few minutes, and then he said, "And what about your investigation? How's that going?"

"It's sort of stalled."

"Tomorrow's the big day, isn't it?"

"The big day?"

"You know, when you get together with everybody and find out where you go from here. Do you suppose the killer'll be there?"

"There's a thought. I don't know for sure that there is a killer."

"Hey, Matt, I discovered Watson's body, remember? Somebody sure as hell killed him. I mean, he didn't do that to himself."

"A single killer," I said. "As I said, I don't know for sure that there is one, and if there is I have no reason to believe he's a member of the group."

"Who else would it be?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what I think- but where do I get off having an opinion? Forget it, you don't want to hear this."

"Sure I do, Jim."

"You sure? Well, I bet it's one of the members. Some guy whose life looks picture-perfect on the surface, but underneath it's a mess. You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Are all of them coming tomorrow?"

"Most of them. A few can't make it."

"If you were the killer," he said, "and if somebody called a meeting like this, would you go? Or would you say you couldn't make it?"

"Impossible to say."

"I'd go. How could you stay away? You'd want to hear what they were saying, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose so."

"You better get a good night's sleep," he said. "Tomorrow you're going to be in the room with the killer. Do you think you'll be able to sense anything?"

"I doubt it."

"I don't know," he said. "You were a cop a long time. You've got the instincts. That might keep him away."

"My instincts?"

"Knowing that you're going to be there. Unless, you know, he wants to be face-to-face with his adversary. What do you think?"

"I think you've been watching too much TV."

He laughed. "You know what? I think you're right. Where's this going to happen tomorrow? Somebody's office?"

"I really can't say, Jim."

"But it's in Manhattan, right? Sorry, I'm sticking my nose in, and I don't mean to."

"It's in the Village, but I don't want to say any more than that."

"Not important. Speaking of the Village, I was thinking I might go to that midnight meeting on Houston Street. I don't suppose you're up for that tonight, are you?"

"Not tonight."

"No, you got a busy day tomorrow. I don't know if I want a late night myself. One o'clock by the time the meeting lets out, and then I've got to get all the way uptown. And it might rain. It's threatening. You know what? I think I'll stay home."

"I don't blame you."

He laughed. "It's good talking to you, Matt. Believe me, it helps. Before I called you I was thinking, why the hell can't I have one glass of beer? I mean, who would even feel the effects of one glass of beer?"

"Well-"

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not gonna have it. I don't even want it now. Have a good day tomorrow, huh? And give me a call afterward if you get a chance, will you do that?"

"I'll do that," I said.

I must have been waiting for his call. Once I'd finished talking to him, I put on Call Forwarding and went home. Ray Gruliow had called in my absence. I called him back.

He said, "Three-thirty tomorrow. That work for you?"

"Fine."

"I told the others three o'clock. That'll give us a chance to bring everybody up to speed before you join us."

There would be eight of them, he said, nine if Bill Ludgate could clear his calendar. And it would be strange seeing them again so soon, not quite two months after the last dinner. Strange to see them away from the usual venue, in a private living room instead of a restaurant.

"Incidentally," he said, "I enjoyed our conversation the other night."

"So did I."

"We'll have to do it again sometime," he said. "After this nonsense is all taken care of. Deal?"

"Deal," I said.

I hung up and poured myself a cup of coffee. I went and watched television with Elaine, but I couldn't keep my mind on the program.

Depending on Bill Ludgate's ability to cancel his appointments, we'd have eight or nine members at Gruliow's house, five or six absentees. Would the killer be present or absent? Would curiosity draw him? Would fear keep him away?

Maybe it was his house.

Ridiculous to think it could be Gruliow. Hard-Way Ray as diabolical murderer? God knows he was bright enough to work out the details, and resolute enough to carry it out. And there were people who would say he was ruthless enough, and even crazy enough.

I couldn't see it. But I couldn't see it for any of them, and nobody else had a motive. Forget motive- no one else even knew the club existed.

Could I rule out anyone? Hildebrand, I thought. The one thing the killer wouldn't do was bring in a private detective.

Unless-

Well, it was crazy, but why expect sane behavior from someone who was systematically wiping out his lifelong friends? Maybe bringing in a detective would add a little excitement to the game. Maybe it was getting dull, knocking off somebody every year or so. Maybe it was infuriating the way the rest of them refused to realize what was going on. So maybe Lew Hildebrand had decided to even the odds a little by bringing in a detective. But, because he didn't want to make things too hard for himself, he'd had the good sense to hire a detective who wasn't all that bright…

Get a good night's sleep, Jim Shorter had urged.

Fat chance.