A Ticket to the Boneyard

Two days into it, Motley called. She answered in the living room and I picked up the extension in the bedroom. The conversation went something like this:

Motley: Hello, Elaine.

Elaine: Oh, hello.

Motley: You know who this is.

Elaine: Yes.

Motley: I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to make sure you were all right.

Elaine: Uh-huh.

Motley: Well? Are you?

Elaine: Am I what?

Motley: Are you all right?

Elaine: I guess so.

Motley: Good.

Elaine: Are you-

Motley: Am I what?

Elaine: Are you coming over?

Motley: Why?

Elaine: I just wondered.

Motley: Do you want me to come over?

Elaine: Well, I'm all alone. It's sort of lonesome here.

Motley: You could go out.

Elaine: I haven't felt like it.

Motley: No, you've been staying home all the time, haven't you? Are you afraid to go out?

Elaine: I guess so.

Motley: What are you afraid of?

Elaine: I don't know.

Motley: Speak up. I can't hear you.

Elaine: I said I don't know what I'm afraid of.

Motley: Are you afraid of me?

Elaine: Yes.

Motley: That's good. I'm glad to hear that. I'm not coming over now.

Elaine: Oh.

Motley: But I'll be over in a day or two. And I'll give you what you need, Elaine. I always give you what you need, don't I?

Elaine: I wish you would come over.

Motley: Soon, Elaine.

When he'd hung up I went back to the living room. She was on the leather sofa and she looked exhausted. She said, "I felt like a bird charmed by a snake. I was acting, of course. Trying to make him think he'd broken my spirit and he really did own me, body and soul. Do you think he bought it?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. It sounded as though he did, but maybe he was acting, too, playing my game with me. He knows I haven't left the apartment. Maybe he's watching it."

"It's possible."

"Maybe he's perched up somewhere with a pair of binoculars, maybe he can see in my fucking windows. You know something? I was pretending, but I wound up half convincing myself. It's like the rapture of the depths, it would be so goddamned easy to let go of my will and just drown. You know what I mean?"

"I think so."

"How do you suppose he got in? The other day, when I was fucking Whatsisname at the Sherry. He got past the doorman and then he got in the door. How did he do that?"

"It's not that hard to get past a doorman."

"I know, but they're pretty good here. And what about the door? You said there weren't any signs of forced entry."

"Maybe he had a key."

"How would he get a key? I for sure didn't give him one, and I'm not missing any."

"Did Connie have a key to your place?"

"What for, to water the plants? No, nobody had a key. You don't even have a key. You don't, do you? I never gave you one, did I?"

"No."

"I certainly never gave one to Connie. How did he get in? I've got a good lock on that door."

"Did you lock it with the key when you left?"

"I think so. I always do."

"Because if you didn't engage the deadbolt he could have loided his way with a credit card. Or maybe he picked up your key long enough to make an impression in wax or soap. Or maybe he picks locks."

"Or maybe he just used his fingertips," she offered, "and pushed the door open."

My fourth night there, the phone rang at a quarter to four. I'd gone to sleep some two hours earlier, my gut full of Early Times and my whole system ragged with cabin fever. I heard the phone ring and willed myself awake, but my will wasn't strong enough to push through the fog. I thought I was awake but my body stayed in Elaine's bed and my mind in some sort of dream, and then Elaine was shaking me and urging me awake, and I threw back the covers and got my legs over the side of the bed.

"That was him on the phone," she said. "He's coming over." I asked what time it was and she told me. "I said give me an hour, a girl wants to look her best. He said half an hour, that should be plenty of time for me. He's on his way, Matt. What do we do now?"

I had her call the doorman and let him know she was expecting a guest. Send Mr. Motley right up, she told him, but be sure to ring and tell her he was on his way. She hung up and went into the bathroom, stood under the shower for two minutes, toweled off and started to get dressed. I don't remember what she chose, but she tried on a couple of different outfits, complaining about her own indecision all the while.

"This is crazy," she said. "You'd think I was getting ready for a date."

"Maybe you are."

"Yeah, a fucking date with destiny. Are you all right?"

"I'm a little slow off the mark," I admitted. "Maybe you could get some coffee going."

"Sure."

I got dressed, putting on the clothes I'd taken off two hours ago, the clothes I'd been wearing for the better part of a week. I generally wore a suit on the job in those days- I still do, more often than not- and I put it on. I had trouble getting my tie tied right and made two attempts before the inanity of it struck me and I pulled the tie out from under my collar and tossed it on a chair.

I had the.38 the city issued me in a shoulder holster. I drew it once or twice, then took off the jacket and the holster and wedged the gun under my belt, the butt nestled in the small of my back.

The bourbon bottle was on the table next to the bed. It was a fifth, and there was maybe half a pint left in it. I uncapped it and took a short pull straight from the bottle. Just a quick one, to get the old heart started.

I called to Elaine but she didn't answer. I put my suit jacket back on and practiced drawing the gun. The movement felt awkward, which can happen with any movement when you rehearse it to death. I moved the gun to the left side of my abdomen and practiced a crosshanded draw, but I liked that even less, and I thought about trying the shoulder holster again.

Maybe I wouldn't have to draw it. Maybe I could just keep the thing in my hand. We hadn't choreographed this show yet, hadn't decided where I was going to be when she let him in. I thought the simplest thing might be if I waited behind the door when she opened it, then stepped out with a drawn gun once he was inside. But maybe it made more sense to give him a little time alone with her first, while I waited in the kitchen or the bedroom for the right moment. There looked to be a psychological advantage in that, but there was more room in the script for something to go wrong. Her anxiety might tip him off, say, or he might just decide to do something weird. Crazy people, after all, are apt to do crazy things. It's their trademark.

I called her name again but evidently she had the water running and didn't hear me. I put the gun under my belt again, then drew it out and walked down the short hallway to the living room carrying it in my hand. I wanted coffee, if it was ready, and I wanted to work out how we were going to play the scene.

I walked into the living room and turned toward the kitchen and stopped in my tracks, because he was standing there with his back to the window and Elaine at his side and a little in front of him. He had one hand on her arm, just above the elbow, and with the other he was gripping her wrist.

He said, "Put the gun down. Now, right this minute, or I'll break her arm."

The gun wasn't pointed at him, and I wasn't holding it right, I didn't have my finger anywhere near the trigger. I was holding it in my hand the way you'd hold a plate of hors d'oeuvres.

I put the gun down.

She had described him well, the long angular body, spare of flesh but tight as a coiled spring, the narrow face, the eccentric haircut. Someone had used a clippers on everything outside the perimeter of the soup bowl, and his hair perched on his head like a skullcap. His nose was long, and fleshy at the tip, and his lips were quite full. His forehead sloped back, and beneath it his eyes were set deep under a prominent ridge of brow. The eyes were a sort of muddy brown, and I couldn't read anything in them.

His features and his hairstyle combined to give him a faintly medieval look, like an evil friar, but his clothes didn't fit the part. He wore an olive corduroy sport jacket with leather piping at the cuffs and lapels and tooled leather patches on the elbows. His pants were khaki, with a knife-edge crease, and he was wearing lizard boots with one-inch heels and silver caps on their pointed toes. His shirt was western style, with snaps instead of buttons, and he had one of those string ties with a turquoise slide.

"You must be Scudder," he said. "The pimping cop. Elaine wanted to let you know I was here, but I thought it would be nicer to surprise you. I told her I was sure you were a man who enjoyed surprises. I told Elaine not to make a sound, and so she didn't make a sound, not even when I hurt her. She does what I tell her. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because she's beginning to realize I know what's best for her. I know what she needs."

His pallor was such that he didn't look to have any blood in his body. Beside him, Elaine was a matching shade; the blood had drained out of her face, and her strength and resolve looked to have gone with it. She looked like a zombie in a horror movie.

"I know what she needs," he said again, "and what she doesn't need is a dull-witted cop to pimp for her."

"I'm not her pimp."

"Oh? What are you then? Her lawfully wedded husband? Her demon lover? Her twin brother, separated from her at birth? Her long-lost bastard son? Tell me what you are."

It's funny what you notice. I kept looking at his hands. They still gripped her arm at the wrist and above the elbow. She'd told me how much strength he had in his hands, and I didn't doubt her word, but they didn't look that strong. They were large hands and his fingers were long, and knobby at the knuckle joints. The fingernails were short, clipped clear to the quick, and they had well-defined moons at their bases.

"I'm her friend," I said.

"I'm her friend," he said. "I'm her friends and her family." He paused for a moment, as if to relish the sound of that statement. He looked as though he liked it well enough. "She doesn't need anyone else. She certainly doesn't need you." He smiled just enough to show his prominent front teeth. They were large and slightly bucked. Horse teeth. Briskly he said, "Your services are no longer required. Your period of employment is terminated. You're out on your ass, you piece of shit. She doesn't want you around. Don't just stand there, with your face hanging out like bloomers on a tenement washline. Go. Scat!"

"Well, I don't know," I said. "I'm here at Elaine's invitation, not yours. Now if she wants me to leave-"

"Tell him, Elaine."

"Matt-"

"Tell him."

"Matt, maybe you'd better go."

I looked at her, trying to cue her with my eyes. "Do you really want me to leave?"

"I think you'd better."

I hesitated for a beat, then shrugged. "Whatever you say," I said, and moved toward the table where I'd set the gun down.

"Hold it! What do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting my gun."

"I can't allow that."

"Then I don't see how the hell I can leave," I said, reasonably. "That's my service revolver, and I'd be in shit up to my ears if I left it here."