After the First Death

21

SHE SAID, “YOU SLEEP, BABY, I GOT TO GO OUT FOR A WHILE. I’ll be back. You just sleep.” I dozed for a few more hours. She had not returned when I finally dragged myself out of bed. I showered, then poked around in the medicine cabinet until I found her little electric razor and shaved with it. I was hungry, but the cupboard was bare. I made myself a cup of coffee and took it into the living room.

There wasn’t much to read, just a stack of paperbacks. A couple of novels about American nurses in the Far East. Had my Jackie wanted, in the years before needles and commercial love, to tend the sick? To comfort the wounded? There was a reprint of a big best seller and a few sex-fact books, including one psychoanalytical study of a prostitute. I skimmed this last, but I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading. The words didn’t register. I put the books back and made more coffee.

We were going to find this Phil. Someone had hired him, and we would find out who and why, and we would wrap it all up and hand it to the police and it would be over, all of it.

I was very certain of this now. Before I had possessed the knowledge of my own innocence and little more than that. There was no place to get started, nothing but random facts and inferences that refused to add up to anything concrete. Jackie had changed this. Because of her, we knew who sold my watch. That gave us a handle, and we could pull the rest of it along.

She was out now, talking to people, finding out who this Phil might be.

I lit a cigarette. Once I was cleared, it would be no great problem getting a university job again. I had been a good scholar and a good teacher. They would want me back. Of course there were wasted years, and they made a difference. I had been close to a departmental chairmanship, and now it was unlikely that I would ever rise that high. I was starring fresh, in a sense, and starting at a less than tender age.

The hell, it hardly mattered. I’d have a job again, I’d do my work again, I’d be a person again.

My mind played with plans. Should I stay in New York? There was an undeniable appeal in the idea of a little college town somewhere in New England or the Midwest, a comfortable retreat away from the smell and taste of New York. But the city had things of its own going for it. It was a place to hide, a place where people let you alone.

But I didn’t have to hide any more.

Of course a small town might be a better place for someone trying to shake a drug habit. I remembered having read that the worst danger for cured addicts was a return to old haunts, that this made it all too easy for old patterns to reestablish themselves. In another town, where heroin was presumably hard to find, where she didn’t know the source of supply-

All of which, I told myself, was stupid sloppy romanticism. I was confusing loneliness and gratitude and mutual back-scratching with something deeper and more permanent. Stupid.

I kept getting hungrier and she kept not coming home, and after a while I wrote out a note for her and left it on top of the coffee table. I had to walk all the way over to Broadway to find an all-night diner. I had a couple of hamburgers and a plate of french fries and still more coffee. I walked back to the place. I had left the door unlatched, and it was still unlatched, and the note was on the coffee table and Jackie wasn’t home yet.

It was past six by the time she unlocked the door and came in, and I had gone through a full pack of cigarettes by then. I couldn’t keep from worrying. I got all the worst images-Jackie tracking down Phil, and he with a knife in his hand, and she with her hand at her throat, and the knife flashing. Jackie picked up for possession of heroin, arrested, clapped in a cell Jackie hurt in any of a thousand idiot ways. But she came home, and I went to her and kissed her and told her I had worried about her.

“Worried?”

“You were gone so long.”

“I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

“No, I’ve been up for hours. I went out and got something to eat a little while ago. Where were you?”

“I had to find out about this Phil. You know, look around, talk to people. And then I had to work a little, you know, and I had to find a dealer and make a buy. The stuff I used before was the last of what I had around, and I had to work for awhile and then buy some more. And-”

“I had some money.”

“Only twenty dollars.”

“Wouldn’t that have been enough?”

“I like to buy for a few days at a time. And I don’t want to take money from you, Alex. I wouldn’t want to do that.”

“You went to bed with me and then you went out tricking.”

“You think I wanted to?”

“You went to bed with me and then-”

Her face fell apart She said, “Alex, you got no right, you got no goddamn right!” And ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. I heard the lock click. I went to the door and tried to tell her I was sorry. She wouldn’t answer me. After a few minutes I heard the shower running, and I returned to the living room and walked around. I tried to sit down but couldn’t stay still, so I got up and smoked and wore out the rug.

When she came back smelling fresh and clean and wearing a different dress, I told her again that I was sorry.

“It’s all right.”

“I didn’t think.”

“No, I was the one didn’t think, Alex. I figured you would know why I went out. It was my fault for saying anything.” She scooped up her purse and headed for the bedroom. I followed her. “But you can’t be jealous or anything. It’s not like when we make love. It’s what I do, that’s all. It’s who I am.” She turned to me. “You hate me now, don’t you?”

“No.”

“But you hate what I am.”

“Not even that.”

“Because I can’t help what I am, Alex. I don’t like it and I’m not proud of it but it’s what I am.”

The history professor’s wife in the little college town, dressing the children and bundling them off to school, mingling with other wives at faculty teas, sitting up nights proofreading my books and articles. How I had miscast this girl.

“I found out about this Phil,” she was saying. “That’s not his name but a lot of people call him Phillie because he comes from South Philadelphia. His name is Albert Schapiro. He’s not Italian, he’s Jewish.”

“You’re sure he’s the one?”

“Pretty sure. I asked around, and he sounds right.”

“Is he a killer?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he must have killed Robin.”

“I guess so.” She took an envelope from her purse. “I want to stash this stuff now. Then I thought we could go find Phillie. Somebody said they heard he was staying in a hotel at Twenty-third and Tenth. You want to go?”

“Now?”

“He’s probably there now. It would be a good time.”

I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him. “Let’s go,” I said.

That afternoon we had been a prostitute and her man. Now we were a prostitute and her client. Jackie knew the hotel, she had worked there now and then when the Times Square area was too hot, and the desk man seemed to remember her. The hotel was filthy, the lobby cluttered with winos. The desk man had a bottle of Thunderbird in an open drawer. I signed Doug MacEwan’s name on the registration card and paid the man $5.75 and we headed for the stairs.

And Jackie said, “Just a minute, honey. Wait right here, something I want to ask the man.”

I waited while she doubled back to the desk. I heard her ask what room Albert Schapiro was in. “Something I got to leave with him,” she said. “Soon as I handle this John.”

He flipped through a stack of cards and found the right one. She hurried back and joined me. “305,” she said. “He gave us 214, we better go there long enough for him to forget about us.”

We went to 214. It was dirtier than the Times Square hotels, and, in the light of dawn, even more depressing. I looked at the sagging bed, the sheets stained with past performance. Jackie had worked in this hotel, perhaps in this room, perhaps upon this bed. I tried not to think about this. I was not jealous. What I felt was closer to disgust, and annoyance with myself in the bargain. I told myself, hating the phrase, not to look gift whores in the mouth. I kept my eyes away from the bed and tried to concentrate on Phillie. I wondered if he would have a knife, and if he would be able to use it.

We gave the hotel ten minutes to forget us. Then she nodded shortly and opened the door, and we went back to the staircase and up a flight and found Room 305. I listened at the door and couldn’t hear anything. I tried the knob. The door was locked.

Jackie knocked. There was no answer and she knocked again, louder. A muffled voice wanted to know who the hell it was.

“Dolores.”

“What is it?”

“Lemme in, it’s important.”

There was slow movement within the room, approaching footsteps, then the snick of a bolt being drawn back The door eased open a few inches, and he said, “What the hell, you’re not-”

I put my shoulder into the door and it flew backward, taking him with it. We went in after him. The roundfaced man had described him perfectly. There could be no mistake, he was the one. He was wearing dirty underwear, and he had needle tracks all over both arms and legs.

He looked at my uniform and he looked at Jackie and he was lost. “Whatever your thing is,” he said, “you got the wrong boy. I don’t get it at all.”

“Albert Schapiro,” I said. Phillie.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Who paid you to kill her, Phillie?”

“Kill?” His face said he didn’t understand a bit of it “I never killed nobody. Not ever.”

“And you never saw the watch?”

“What are you talking about?”

I let him see the watch. He stared at it, and he did not quite manage to hide the recognition in his eyes, and then he looked at my face and saw my face instead of my uniform, and this time he didn’t even try to keep it a secret. He said, “Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s you,” and he shoved Jackie into me and started for the door.

I got Him by the arm. I yanked the arm and he spun toward me, off balance, and I let go of his arm and hit him in the face. He yelped and fell back. I grabbed the front of his undershirt with my left hand and drew him close, and I hit him in the face with my right hand. I hurt my hand but I didn’t notice it. I just kept hitting him, and he went down and I landed on top of him, and I kept on hitting him until Jackie managed to drag me away from him. My hand was bloody, I’d cut it on his teeth, and there was more blood from his broken nose. Jackie bolted the door and made me wash my hand in the sink and we waited for Phillie to wake up.

When he came to, Jackie soaked a pillowslip in the sink and cleaned up his face for him. He was in bad shape. The nose seemed to be broken, and his mouth was a mess. I had knocked two teeth out. Now, with the rage cooled, I felt oddly embarrassed by the violence.

He said, the words warped by the missing teeth, “You don’t have to play so fucking rough. You coulda killed me.”

“Like you killed the girl.”

“I never killed nobody. You can beat me up all day long, it don’t matter. I never killed nobody and I’ll never say different.”

“You were in the hotel room.”

“I shoulda thrown that fucking watch in the river. Ten bucks and I got a broken face and more troubles. Yeah, I was in the room. By the time I got there the chick was dead and you were out cold.”

“You’re lying.”

“The hell I am. I thought you were both dead. The first I looked, I saw the two of you, I almost fell out. I wanted to get away from there.”

“Why didn’t your?”

He looked at Jackie. “She’s a user, isn’t she? Ask her.”

Jackie said, “Why were you in that hotel?”

“I was boosting, what do you think? Those hotels, they get a lot of drunks who leave their doors open. They forget to lock them. I was up tight, I was boosting. Is that a crime?”

The question was too silly to answer.

“Jesus, my nose.” His fingers patted it gentry. “You broke my nose.”

“How did you get in the room?”

“The door was open. That goddamn watch. Ten bucks, but I never figured Solly would sing. You can’t trust anybody.”

I asked Jackie if Robin would have left the door unlocked. She shook her head. “Well,” he said, “somebody did.”

I said, “I think he killed her.”

But she shook her head again. “No, he didn’t.”

“I could beat it out of him.”

“I don’t think so. Let me try.” And to Phillie, “You don’t want cops on this. And you don’t want Alex angry.”

“I never killed anybody-”

“I know. But you got to tell this right, Phillie. The door was open and you went inside and took the watch and the wallet and Robin’s purse. Right?” He nodded. “And then what?”

“I split.”

“How?”

“I just walked out.”

“No. When Alex woke up the door was bolted. You better tell this straight, Phillie, and then you’ll get out of it clean, no police, nothing. But don’t buy yourself more trouble.”

He thought about this and evidently decided it was reasonable enough. “I went down the fire escape.”

“Why?”

“I had to lug the purse, didn’t I? Can you see me walking through the lobby with the purse?”

“You’re lying, Phillie.”

“Look, I swear to God-”

She spoke slowly, patiently, logically. “You would of emptied the purse. You could walk right out, no problem. Instead you locked the door and took the fire escape, and that’s always dangerous, going down a fire escape in the middle of the night. You took the purse instead of taking the time to rifle it, which means you were in a hurry, Phillie. Now you better tell it the way it is.”

“I heard somebody in the hallway.”

“So?”

“So there was a dead girl in the room and I panicked! Who wouldn’t? I wasn’t going to get tied into it. You know how they lay it on a junkie. You know the chance you get from them.”

“You heard somebody in the hallway, why didn’t you wait until they went away?”

“I was nervous. Who had time to think?”

She took a cigarette. I lit it for her. She said, “Phillie, it would all go smoother if you didn’t try and hold out. You saw the killer leave that room. You saw him go, and you thought maybe the room was empty and you took a peek inside. You locked the door because you were afraid he was coming back, and when you heard noises in the hallway you went down the fire escape. You were scared bad because you knew what would happen if he found you there. You knew all along Alex didn’t kill Robin because you saw the man who did, and that’s the only way it makes any sense, Phillie, that’s the only way it reads, and now all you have to do is tell me who the man was. You tell us that, Phillie, and you can take your face to a hospital.”

“I didn’t recognize him.”

“Otherwise there’s going to be cops. I mean it now. He never has to know who fingered him.”

“He’ll find out.”

“There’s trouble if you don’t talk, Phillie.”

“Every way there’s trouble.” He worried his broken nose. “Everywhere I look there’s always trouble.”

“Cop trouble’s worse.”

“Yeah?” He sighed. “That fucking watch. I shouldn’t of taken it, and then I knew better than to sell it. I was gonna throw it away. But then I had to get hungry, a lousy ten bucks, two nickel bags, and look what I bought for it.”

“I want a name, Phillie.”

“What makes you sure I know him?”

“The way you said you didn’t recognize him. Otherwise you would of said you didn’t see him. Don’t play games with me, Phillie.”

“I’m dead. If I tell you, I’m fucking dead.”

“You’re dead if you don’t.”

“Beautiful.”

“I’m waiting, Phillie.”

He looked at her. He said, “Fuck it, I’m dead either way. It was Turk Williams.”

Their voices continued. They came at me through air that had gone suddenly thick and heavy.

“That better be the right name, Phillie.”

“You know who I mean? The Turkey?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“The big dealer?”

“Yes.”

“Would I cop out on him if he wasn’t the one? Be serious, would I pick him? I saw him. I was down the hallway, he never got a look at me, but I saw him. With blood on his hands.”

“Then you knew what you’d find in the room.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“But you went in anyway.”

“I was up tight. You been there, you know what it is.”

“I know.”

“You tell the Turkey where you got it, you know I’m dead.”

“We won’t tell him.”

“I’m dead anyway. You’ll put cops on me. The hell, I’m the only witness there is. I’m sitting here and I’m talking to you and my face is a mess and I’m dead.”

“Oh, you’ll live, Phillie.”

“Yeah. Live. Live, yeah.”