A Drop of the Hard Stuff (36 page)
“Oh, that was a bad time. There were a lot killed in this very room around that time.”
“There were.”
“Did you blame yourself for his death?”
“Probably. What helped was his voice in my head, telling me to cut the crap.”
“Ah. The woman, the one who cut her auburn hair. Did the two of you ever get together again?”
“Twice, maybe three times. After Jan and I were finally done with each other, and before I reconnected with Elaine. Donna and I would get to talking, and there’d be a current in the air, and we’d wind up in her canopy bed for an hour or two. Then she got married and moved away, and I think I heard that she got divorced.”
“And Jan is gone.”
“Yes.”
“I remember she wanted you to get her a gun. Did she ever use it?”
“No,” I said. “She let the cancer run its course. But she found it a comfort to have the gun, in case she decided to take that way out.”
“You were the one she turned to. But you’d long since broken things off.”
“She brought me my clothes,” I said, “and I gave her back my set of keys, but it turned out we weren’t quite done with each other. That took a while longer. We really cared for each other, so we kept trying to make it work, until it was just too obvious that it wouldn’t.”
“Ah.”
“Who else? I got together with Dennis Redmond now and then, for a meal or a cup of coffee. I called him a couple of times when I had a case I thought he might be able to help me with. But then we lost track of each other. I figure he must be retired by now.”
“Like the other one.”
“Joe Durkin. We became close over the years, but he was on the job and I wasn’t, and that puts a limit on just how close you can get. He’s working security for a Wall Street firm now, and between that and his city pension he’s doing okay.”
“But you don’t see much of him.”
“Not too much, no. That bar Redmond liked, the Minstrel Boy? Last time I looked it was gone.”
“Places come and go.”
“They do, and the leaves fall from the trees.
Bare ruined choirs—
that was Shakespeare’s line, from one of the sonnets.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t know where I got the idea it was Keats. Jimmy Armstrong’s dead. He lost his lease and moved a block west, and then he died, and somebody else took over and changed the name. The new place had a dish I liked, an Irish break fast they served at all hours, but then they changed the menu, so that’s gone too. Theresa’s is gone, in case you were hoping for a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie. Same with Dukacs and Son. There’s a chain drugstore filling the space where both of them used to be, Duane Reade or CVC, I forget which. I don’t know what became of Frankie Dukacs, whether he died or just lost his lease.”
“He moved to Nova Scotia,” he suggested, “and became a vegetarian.”
“I suppose it could happen. After Billie Keegan quit tending bar for Jimmy, he moved to California and started making candles. And Motorcycle Mark married a Gujarati girl from Jackson Heights and moved somewhere upstate. Putnam County, I think it was, and the two of them are running a day-care center. He stayed sober, he shows up at St. Paul’s every couple of months. He’s still got the Harley, but these days his regular ride is an SUV.”
“And the other one with the bike?”
“The other—oh, Scooter Williams? Last I heard, he was still living on Ludlow Street and enjoying the sixties. It’s become a very desirable neighborhood now, believe it or not. Piper MacLeish got out of prison a couple of years ago. They let him out early, sent him home to die. No idea if Crosby Hart is alive or dead, but Google could probably find him, after it tells us why they call it a Mexican standoff. What else? Tiffany’s has been gone for years. The coffee shop on Sheridan Square, not the jewelry store. That’ll be doing just fine as long as there are Japanese tourists to shop there.”
“And the Museum of Natural History? Where you met with himself? It’s still in business, is it not?”
“Last I checked. Why?”
“Because,” he said, “there ought to be a place for a couple of old dinosaurs.” And he picked up his glass. There was nothing in it but water, but all the same he held it aloft and gazed through it at the light.
Lawrence Block
published his first novel in 1958 and has been chronicling the adventures of Matthew Scudder since 1975. He has been designated a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and has received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Crime Writers’ Association (UK), the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. He has won the Nero, Philip Marlowe, Societe 813, and Anthony awards, and is a multiple recipient of the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon awards. He and his wife, Lynne, are devout New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.
HE
M
ATTHEW
S
CUDDER
N
OVELS
The Sins of the Fathers
•
Time to Murder and Create
•
In the Midst of Death
•
A Stab in the Dark
•
Eight Million Ways to Die
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
•
Out on the Cutting Edge
A Ticket to the Boneyard
•
A Dance at the Slaughterhouse
•
A Walk among the Tombstones
•
The Devil Knows You’re Dead
•
A Long Line of Dead Men
•
Even the Wicked
•
Everybody Dies
Hope to Die
•
All the Flowers Are Dying
ELLER’S
G
REATEST
H
ITS
Hit Man • Hit List • Hit Parade • Hit and Run
HE
B
ERNIE
R
HODENBARR
M
YSTERIES
Burglars Can’t Be Choosers
•
The Burglar in the Closet
•
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling • The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza • The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian • The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart • The Burglar in the Library The Burglar in the Rye • The Burglar on the Prowl
HE
A
DVENTURES OF
E
VAN
T
ANNER
The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep • The Canceled Czech • Tanner’s Twelve Swingers • Two for Tanner • Tanner’s Tiger • Here Comes a Hero Me Tanner, You Jane • Tanner on Ice
HE
A
FFAIRS OF
C
HIP
H
ARRISON
No Score • Chip Harrison Scores Again • Make Out with Murder The Topless Tulip Caper
THER
N
OVELS
A Diet of Treacle • After the First Death • Ariel • Campus Tramp Cinderella Sims • Coward’s Kiss • Deadly Honeymoon • The Girl with the Long Green Heart • Grifter’s Game • Killing Castro • Lucky at Cards Not Comin’ Home to You • Random Walk • Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man • Small Town • The Specialists • Such Men Are Dangerous The Triumph of Evil • You Could Call It Murder
OLLECTED
S
HORT
S
TORIES
Sometimes They Bite • Like a Lamb to Slaughter • Some Days You Get the Bear • Ehrengraf for the Defense • One Night Stands • The Lost Cases of Ed London • Enough Rope
OOKS FOR
W
RITERS
Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print • Telling Lies for Fun and Profit Spider, Spin Me a Web • Write for Your Life
RITTEN FOR
P
ERFORMANCE
Tilt
(episodic television) •
How Far?
(one-act play)
My Blueberry Nights
(film)
EMOIR
Step by Step
NTHOLOGIES
E
DITED
Death Cruise • Master’s Choice • Opening Shots • Master’s Choice, Volume 2 • Speaking of Lust • Opening Shots, Volume 2 • Speaking of Greed • Blood on Their Hands • Gangsters, Swindlers, Killers, and Thieves • Manhattan Noir • Manhattan Noir, Volume 2
Copyright © 2011 by Lawrence Block
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: May 2011
Mulholland Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Mulholland Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-316-13273-2
