The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Chapter 13

“Do you know,” Mick said, “my mother always swore I had the second sight, and sometimes I believe the good woman was right. I was just now thinking I ought to give you a call. And here you are.”

“I just dropped in to use the phone,” I said.

“Did you now? When I was just a bit of a boy, there was a woman a flight up from us sent me every day to Featherstone’s on the corner to fetch her a bucket of beer. They’d sell it to you like that then, by the pail. A little galvanized-iron pail it was, about so big. They filled it up for her for a dollar, and she paid me a quarter to run the errand.”

“And that’s how you got your start.”

“Saving those twenty-five cent pieces,” he said, “and investing them wisely. And look where I am today. No, sad to say, I spent the money on candy. A terrible sweet tooth I had in those days.” He shook his head at the memory. “The point of the story—”

“You mean there is one?”

“—is that the woman wouldn’t have you thinking she ever drank the beer. ‘Mickey, there’s a good lad, and would ye ever run down to Featherstone’s for me, as I need to be washin’ me hair.’ I asked my mother how come Mrs. Riley used beer to wash her hair. ‘It’s her belly she’s after washin’,’ says herself, ‘for if Biddie Riley washed her hair for every bucket of beer she bought, she’d wash herself baldheaded.’ ”

“That’s the point?”

“The point is she only wanted the beer for a hair rinse, and you’re only here to use the fucking telephone. Have ye no phone in your room?”

“You found me out,” I said. “I actually dropped in for a wash and set.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “If you’ve a call to make,” he said, “use the phone in my office. You don’t want the whole world listening.”

There were three men at the bar and one behind it. Andy Buckley and a man I recognized but didn’t know by name were playing darts in back, and two or three tables were occupied. So the whole world wouldn’t have heard if I’d used the pay phone on the wall, but I was grateful all the same for the privacy of his office.

It is a good-sized room, with an oak desk and chair and a green metal filing cabinet. There was a huge old Mosler safe, no doubt at least as sturdy as the one in Drew Kaplan’s law office, but unprotected by lawyer-client privilege. Hand-colored steel engravings in plain black frames formed two groups on the wall. Those over the desk were of the west of Ireland, where his mother’s people had come from. The ones over the old leather couch showed scenes in the south of France, once home to his father.

The phone on the desk had a rotary dial, but that was all right because I wasn’t calling TJ’s beeper. I called Jan, and for a change I actually reached her instead of her machine. She said hello, her voice thick with sleep.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize it would be too late to call you.”

“It’s not. I was reading and I dozed off with the book on my lap. I’m glad you called. I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had the other day.”

“Oh?”

“And it occurred to me that I might have overstepped the bounds of our friendship.”

“How?”

“By putting you in an awkward position. By asking something I had no right to ask.”

“I would have said something.”

“Would you? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. You might have felt under an obligation. At any rate, I wanted to call and give you another chance.”

“To do what?”

“To tell me to go fly a kite.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Unless you’ve been having second thoughts.”

“About wanting the—”

“The item.”

“The item. Ah. That’s what we’re calling it?”

“On the phone, yes.”

“I see. No, no second thoughts. I still want the item.”

“Well,” I said, “it turns out to be a little harder to get hold of than I’d thought, but I’m working on it.”

“I didn’t want to rush you. I just wanted to give you a graceful way out, if you wanted to take it. After all, that’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“A graceful way out.”

I asked her how she was feeling.

“Not bad,” she said. “And wasn’t it a beautiful day? That’s why I kept being out when you called. I couldn’t bear to stay inside. I love October, but I guess everybody does.”

“Everybody with any sense.”

“And how are you, Matthew?”

“Fine. Very busy, suddenly, but that’s how it is with me. Long stretches with nothing to do, and then a batch of things all at once.”

“That’s how you like it.”

“I guess so, but it does get hectic. But I will take care of that little matter for you. I’ve been working on it.”

“Well, now,” Mick said. “What shall I look for on my next phone bill? Have you called China?”

“Just Tribeca.”

“There’s those would call it another country, but the phone rates don’t reflect their view. You’ve time for a little chat, haven’t you? Burke’s just started a fresh pot of coffee.”

“No coffee right now. I’ve been drinking it all day.”

“A Coca-Cola, then.”

“Maybe some club soda.”

“By God, you’re a cheap date,” he said. “Sit down, I’ll fetch something for both of us.”

He brought his private bottle of twelve-year-old Jameson and the Waterford tumbler he liked to drink from, and for me he provided a stemmed glass and a bottle of Perrier. I hadn’t even known he stocked the stuff. I couldn’t believe many of his customers called for it, or even knew how to pronounce it.

“We’ll make it an early night,” I said. “I’m not in shape for a marathon.”

“Are you all right, man? Are you feeling fit?”

“I’m fine, but I’m working a case that’s starting to heat up. I want to be able to get an early start tomorrow.”

“Is that all it is? Because you look troubled.”

I thought about it. “Well,” I said, “I guess I am.”

“Ah.”

“A woman I know,” I said, “is very ill.”

“Very ill, you say.”

“Pancreatic cancer. It’s incurable, and it looks as though she doesn’t have very much time.”

Carefully he said, “Do I know her, man?”

I had to think. “I don’t believe you do,” I said. “She and I had stopped seeing each other by the time you and I got acquainted. I’ve stayed on friendly terms with her, but I’m sure I never brought her here.”

“Thanks be to God,” he said, visibly relieved. “You gave me a turn for a moment there.”

“How? Oh, you thought I was talking about—”

“About herself,” he said, unwilling even to say Elaine’s name in such a context. “Which God forbid. She’s well, then?”

“She’s fine. She sends her best.”

“And you’ll give her mine. But that’s hard news about the other one. Not much time, you said.” He filled his glass, held it to the light. It had a fine color to it. He said, “You don’t know what to wish someone in such circumstances. Sometimes it’s better if it’s over sooner.”

“That’s how she wants it.”

“Oh?”

“And that’s probably part of why I look troubled. She’s decided she wants to shoot herself, and she’s picked me to get her the gun.”

I don’t know what I expected, but certainly not the shock that showed on his face. He asked if I’d accepted the mission, and I said that I had.

“You were not raised in the church,” he said. “For all that I drag ye along to mass, you weren’t brought up Catholic.”

“So?”

“So I could never do what you’ve undertaken to do. Aid and abet a suicide? I’m a terrible Catholic, but I couldn’t do it. They take a hard line on suicide, you know.”

“They’re pretty strict on homicide, too, aren’t they? I seem to remember a whole commandment on the subject.”

“ ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ”

“But maybe they don’t take it seriously. Or maybe it went by the board with the Latin mass and eating meat on Friday.”

“They take it seriously,” he said. “And I have killed men. You know that.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve taken life,” he said, “and I’ll likely die with my sins unconfessed, and as likely burn for them. But taking your own life is a very grave matter.”

“Why? I’ve never understood that. You’re not harming anybody but yourself.”

“The thought is that you’re hurting God.”

“How?”

“You’re saying you know better than Himself how long you should live. You’re saying, ‘Thanks very much for this gift of life, but why don’t You take it and shove it up Your ass.’ You’re committing the one sin that cannot be undone, and cannot be confessed because you’re not around to confess it. Oh, I’m no theologian, I can’t explain it worth a damn.”

“I think I understand.”

“Do you? You’d likely have to be born to it for it to make sense to you. I take it your friend’s not Catholic.”

“Not anymore.”

“She was raised in the church? There’s few of us ever get over it, you know. It doesn’t bother her, what she plans to do?”

“It bothers her.”

“But she’s resolved to do it anyway?”

“It’s likely to get very bad in the later stages,” I said. “She doesn’t want to go through all that.”

“Nor would anyone, but are there not things they can give her for the pain?”

“She doesn’t want to take them.”

“Why not, for God’s sake? And, you know, she could always take a little too much. It’s easy to grow confused under the circumstances, and before you know it you’ve gone and taken the whole bottle.”

“And isn’t that suicide? The worst sin of all, you just finished explaining.”

“Ah, but you wouldn’t be in full possession of your faculties at the time. It doesn’t count against you if you’re not in your right mind. Besides,” he said, “don’t you think the Lord would overlook it if you gave Him half a chance?”

“Do you think so, Mick?”

“I do,” he said, “but I told you I’m no theologian. Theology aside, aren’t pills easier to get hold of than a gun? And isn’t it a gentler death they offer you?”

“It is if you do it right,” I said, “but not everybody does. Sometimes people come out of it choking on their own vomit. But that’s not the real reason she’d prefer a gun.”

I explained Jan’s commitment to sobriety, and how in her eyes that ruled out drugs either to kill the pain or to ease the passage. His green eyes were first incredulous and then thoughtful as he took it all in.

He freshened his drink while he thought about it. At length he said, “Your lot takes this business very seriously.”

“Not all of us would make the choices Jan has made,” I said. “Most of us would take something for the pain, and I don’t know how many of us would see a gun as providing a more sober way out than a handful of Seconal. But yes, you could say that we take sobriety pretty seriously.”

“As seriously as our lot takes suicide.” He drank, regarded me over the brim of the glass. “Let me ask you this. What would you do in her position?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not in her shoes, and that makes it impossible for me to say what I’d do if I were. I think I’d take painkillers, but on the other hand I’d want a clear head at the end. As for killing myself, well, I don’t think that’s a choice I would make. But who can say? I’m not in her shoes.”

“Nor am I, thanks be to God. And I’m just as glad not to be in yours, either.”

“What would you do, Mick?”

“Ah, Jesus, that’s a good question. If I loved her, how could I refuse her? Yet how could I do her such a horrible service? I’m sorry for her trouble, but I’m grateful it’s not me she asked.”

“And if it were I that asked you?”

“God, what a question,” he said. “It’s not, is it? You that’s asking.”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

We talked of other things, but not for too much longer. I made it a fairly early night.

On the way home I thought about Lisa Holtzmann and the money she had shown me. I wondered where it had come from and what was going to become of it.

Did Kaplan even have a safe in his office? It seemed to me he must, that any lawyer would require one. I hoped his was roomy, and as secure as Mick’s huge old Mosler.

I’d seen that Mosler open on more than one occasion. I knew some of the items it typically contained. Money, of course, both U.S. and foreign. Records of his outstanding loans — money he had out working on the street, yielding usurious interest and collected, if need be, by violence or the threat of violence. Occasional articles of value — watches, jewelry, presumably stolen.

And guns, of course. He always had a few guns in the safe. Now and then I’d needed a gun, and he’d provided one without question, and refused to take any money for it. Sitting in his office, talking on the phone with the old-fashioned rotary dial, I’d looked over at the safe and figured I’d get the gun from Mick.

He’d have furnished it with no questions asked. But now I’d have to get it somewhere else.

Because now he would know what I wanted it for. He might provide it, but my asking for it would be an abuse of our friendship. And that is something I take seriously. Like sobriety, or suicide.