A Walk Among the Tombstones

"So? I walk past bars all day, and so do you. It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"I guess. Heroin's been looking real good lately."

"Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, Pete."

"It was easy for a while. It's harder now."

In the car he took up the theme again. "I think, why bother? Or I go to a meeting and I'm like, who are these people? Where are they coming from? All this shit about turning everything over to a Higher Power and then life's a piece of cake. You believe in that?"

"That life's a piece of cake? Not quite."

"More like a shit sandwich. No, do you believe in God?"

"It depends when you ask me."

"Well, today. That's when I'm asking you. Do you believe in God?" I didn't say anything at first, and he said, "Never mind, I got no right to pry. Sorry."

"No, I was just trying to come up with an answer. I guess the reason I'm having trouble is I don't think the question's important."

"It's not important whether there's a God or not?"

"Well, what difference does it make? Either way I've got the day to get through. God or no God, I'm an alcoholic who can't drink safely. What's the difference?"

"The program's all about a Higher Power."

"Yes, but it works the same whether He exists or not, and whether I believe in Him or not."

"How can you turn over your will to something you don't believe in?"

"By letting go. By not trying to control things. By taking appropriate action and letting things work out the way God wants them to."

"Whether He exists or not."

"Right."

He thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," he said. "I grew up believing in God. I went to parochial school, I learned what they teach you. I never questioned it. I got sober, they said get a Higher Power, okay, no problem. Then when those fuckers send Francey back in pieces, man, what kind of a God lets something like that happen?"

"Shit happens."

"You never knew her, man. She was a really good woman. Sweet, decent, innocent. A beautiful human being. Being around her made you want to be a better human being yourself. More than that. It made you feel like you could." He braked at a red light, looked both ways, went on through it. "Got a ticket like that once. Middle of the night, I stop, there's no one for miles in either direction, so what kind of idiot stands there waiting for the light to change? Fucking cop's lying doggo halfway down the block with his lights out, gives me a ticket."

"I think we got away with it this time."

"Looks like it. Kenan uses smack now and then. I don't know if you knew that."

"How would I know it?"

"I didn't figure you did. Maybe once a month he'll snort up a bag. Maybe less than that. It's recreational with him, he'll go to a jazz club and do up a bag in the john so that he can get into the music better. The thing is, he didn't let Francey know. He was sure she wouldn't approve, and he didn't want to do anything that would lower him in her eyes."

"Did she know he trafficked in it?"

"That was different. That was business, that was what he did. And he wasn't going to stay in it forever. A few years and out, that's his plan."

"That's everybody's plan."

"I see what you're saying. Anyway, she was cool about it. It was something he did, it was his business, it was off to one side in a separate world. But he didn't want her to know he used sometimes." He was silent for a beat. Then he said, "He was stoned the other day. I called him on it and he denied it. I mean, fuck, man, he's gonna deceive a junkie on the subject of dope? Man's obviously high and swears he's not. I guess it's because I'm clean and sober, he don't want to put temptation in front of me, but give me credit for some basic intelligence, huh?"

"Does it bother you that he can get high and you can't?"

"Does it bother me? Of course it fucking bothers me. He's going to Europe tomorrow."

"He told me."

"Like he's got to do a deal right away, build up the cash. That's a good way to get arrested, rushing into deals. Or worse than arrested."

"Are you worried about him?"

"Jesus," he said. "I'm worried about all of us."

ON the bridge back to Manhattan he said, "When I was a kid I loved bridges. I collected pictures of them. My old man got it into his head that I should be an architect."

"You still could, you know."

He laughed. "What, go back to school? No, see, I never wanted that for myself. I didn't have an inclination to build bridges. I just liked to look at 'em. I ever get the urge to pack it in, maybe I'll do a Brodie off the Brooklyn Bridge. Be something to change your mind halfway down, wouldn't it?"

"I heard a guy qualify once. He came out of a blackout on one of the bridges, I think it was this one, on the other side of the railing and with one foot in space."

"Seriously?"

"He sounded pretty serious to me. No memory of having gone there, just whammo, there he is with one hand on the rail and one foot in the air. He climbed back and went home."

"And had a drink, probably."

"I would think so. But imagine if he came to five seconds later."

"You mean after he took another step? Be a horrible feeling, wouldn't it? Only good thing about it is it wouldn't last long. Oh, shit, I should have got in the other lane. That's all right, we'll go a few blocks out of our way. I like it down here, anyway. You get down here much, Matt?"

We were driving around the South Street Seaport, a restored area around the Fulton Street fish market. "Last summer," I said, "my girlfriend and I spent the afternoon, walked around the shops, ate at one of the restaurants."

"It's a little yuppied up, but I like it. Not in the summer, though. You know when it's nicest? On a night like this when it's cold and empty and you've got a light rain falling. That's when it's really beautiful down here." He laughed. "Now that," he said, "is a stone junkie talking, man. Show him the Garden of Eden and he'll say he wants it dark and cold and miserable. An' he wants to be the only one there."

IN front of my hotel he said, "Thanks, Matt."

"For what? I was planning on going to a meeting. I should be thanking you for the ride."

"Yeah, well, thanks for the company. Before you go, one thing I've been meaning to ask you all night. This job you're doing for Kenan. You think you got much of a chance of getting anyplace with it?"

"I'm not just going through the motions."

"No, I realize you're giving it your best shot. I just wondered if you figured there was much chance it would pay off."

"There's a chance," I said. "I don't know how good it is. I didn't start out with a lot to work with."

"I realize that. You started with next to nothing, the way it looked to me. Of course you're looking at it from a professional standpoint, you're going to see it differently."

"A lot depends on whether some of the actions I'm taking lead anywhere, Pete. And their actions in the future are a factor, too, and they're impossible to foresee. Am I optimistic? It depends when you ask me."

"Same as your Higher Power, huh? The thing is, if you come to the conclusion that it's hopeless, don't be in a rush to tell my brother, huh? Stay on it an extra week or two. So he'll think he did everything he can."

I didn't say anything.

"What I mean-"

"I know what you mean," I said. "The thing is, it's not something I have to be told. I've always been a stubborn son of a bitch. When I start something I have a hell of a time letting go of it. I think that's the main way I solve things, to tell you the truth. I don't do it by being brilliant. I just hang on like a bulldog until something shakes loose."

"And sooner or later something does? I know they used to say nobody gets away with murder."

"Is that what they used to say? They don't say it much anymore. People get away with murder all the time." I got out of the car, then leaned in to finish the thought. "That's in one sense," I said, "but in another sense they don't. I don't honestly think anybody ever gets away with anything."

Chapter 9

I was up late that night. I tried sleeping and couldn't, tried reading and couldn't, and wound up sitting in the dark at my window, looking out at the rain falling through the light of the streetlamps. I sat and thought long thoughts. "The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." I read that line in a poem once, but you can think long thoughts at any age, if you can't sleep and there's a light rain falling.

I was still in bed when the phone rang around ten. TJ said, "You got a pen, Glenn? You want to get one, write this down." He reeled off a pair of seven-digit numbers. "Better write down seven-one-eight, too, 'cause you got to dial that first."

"Who will I get if I do?"

"Woulda got me, was you home first time I called you. Man you harder to get than lucky! Called you Friday afternoon, called you Friday night, called you yesterday all day and all night up until midnight. You a hard man to reach."

"I was out."

"Well, I more or less 'stablished that. Man, that was some trip you sent me on. Ol' Brooklyn, it go on for days."

"There's a lot of it," I agreed.

"More than you'd have a need for. First place I went, rode to the end of the line. Train came up above ground and I got to see some pretty houses. Looked like an old-time town in a movie, not like New York at all. Got to the first phone, called you. Nobody home. Went chasin' out to the next phone, and man, that was a trip. I went down some streets that the people looked at me like, nigger, what you doin' here? Didn't nobody say anything, but you didn't have to listen real hard to hear what they thinkin'."

"But you didn't have any trouble."

"Man, I never have trouble. What I do, I make it a point to see trouble 'fore trouble sees me. I found the second telephone, called you a second time. Didn't get you 'cause you wasn't there to be got. So I thinkin', hey, maybe I'm closer to some other subway, on account of I am miles from where I get off the last one. So I go into this candy store, say, like, 'Can you tell me where the nearest subway station is?' I say it like that, you know, you woulda thought you was hearin' an announcer on TV. Man looks at me, says, 'Subway?' Like it not just a word he don't know, it a whole concept he can't get his mind around. So I just went back the way I came, man, back to the end of the Flatbush line, 'cause at least I knew how to do that."

"I think that was probably the closest station anyway."

"I think you right, 'cause I looked at subway map later an' I couldn't see one closer. One more reason to stay in Manhattan, man. You never far from a train."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"I sure was hopin' you be there when I called. Had it all set, I run the number by you, say, 'Call it right now.' You dial, I pick up an' say, 'Here I am.' Tellin' you about it now it don't seem all that cool, but I couldn't wait to do it."

"I gather the phones had the numbers posted."

"Oh, right! That's what I left out. Second one, the one way to hell an' gone out Veterans Avenue? Where everybody look at you real strange? That phone did have the number posted. The other one, Flatbush an' Farragut, it didn't."