There was a long pause, and Ray heard an audible sigh on the line. He knew what his father was going through. He knew, and he hated it. But he needed a shot.
“I won’t give you any more money, Ray. Not for that. We’ve already been over—”
“I don’t want any money,” he lied. “I just want to talk to you. I’m in trouble.”
His father sighed again, the sigh of a man who has taken more than he can bear. Ray listened, and the sound sliced through him like a dagger. “What kind of trouble?” his father asked gently.
“There’s a dead girl with me, Dad.”
“What?”
“A girl. She’s been shot.”
“Oh my God!” There was a long silence on the line. “Where are you, son?”
“At a hotel. The Hotel— I—I can’t remember.” He cursed his muddled mind, cursed the drug.
“Are you downtown?”
“Yes. I think so. I don’t know.”
“What’s the matter with you, for God’s sake!” His father sounded as if he were ready to cry. He had no right to do this to his father. Drugs would never have become a part of his life if Ray hadn’t—
“I’ll be all right,” he told his father. “Can you meet me?”
There was silence on the other end. Finally, his father’s voice came to him again. “I knew it would lead to this some day. I knew it, Ray. I should have had you put away. I should have called the cops in the very beginning. I should—”
“Jesus Christ, am I going to get another sermon?” Ray flared. He bit his tongue quickly, lowered his voice. “I’m—I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry. But I’m in trouble. Bad trouble.”
“I understand,” his father said. “Where do you want me to meet you?”
“There’s a place on The Street—Fifty-second Street—it’s called Conlee’s. Between Fifth and Sixth. You can’t miss it. Meet me there.”
“What time?”
“What time is it now?”
“Twelve-thirty.”
“Give me half an hour.”
“All right.”
“Dad? You’ll—you’ll bring some money? Ten bucks?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks. Thanks.”
He replaced the receiver rapidly, looked once more at the dead Eileen Chalmers, her face white against its halo of hair. He shivered in a new muscular spasm, then opened the door and left the room quietly.
* * *
Half an hour is a long time to wait—especially when you’re overdue. He was overdue. Brother, was he overdue! His stomach seemed to be wrapped around his spine. He couldn’t keep his hands still, even though he’d jabbed them deep into his pockets. He kept shivering, and he looked at the people who passed, wondering if they knew he was an addict.
How does a guy get this way, he asked himself?
The other question followed immediately, the way it always did. How does a guy
stop
being this way?
You just stop, they all told him. How many times had his father sung that same tune?
Look, Ray, be sensible. This thing is all in your mind. Once you set your mind against it, you’ve got it licked.
Sure, sure, they all knew.
Ask an addict, though. Ask an addict how to get off the merry-go-round. See what he told you. All in the mind, sure. His father should be inside his stomach now. His father should see how much “mind” was involved. Where the hell was he? What was keeping him?
The merry-go-round is an easy thing to hop onto. It goes slowly at first, so that you can walk around with it and jump on whenever you feel like it. Later, when it starts spinning crazily, you can’t jump off; you just can’t. You keep reaching for the gold ring, but you never quite get it.
How had he started? On a job, he guessed. That was when he’d smoked his first joint. A pang of remorse whispered up into his throat, and he withdrew his hands from his pockets, watched them tremble violently.
Had he once played the piano? It seemed impossible. They should cut a record of him now. It’d be the greatest thing ever heard.
The first joint, a stick of marijuana, a harmless thing that made him feel just a little giddy, made him laugh a little too loudly. That was all. Nothing to it, really. No great kicks, nothing really.
The second stick was a little different. He knew what to expect this time, and this time the smoke seemed to whirl into his mind, sweeping away all the cloudiness, all the cobwebs, and everything was crystal-clear, as glowing as a diamond, as sharp as the glistening edge of a dagger. He’d swung that second time, really swung, and he went on swinging for half the night, feeling so damned good. He was as sharp as a tack, and he knew so much. He could sit there smugly and watch the poor fools prancing around. He could sit there with a tight little smile on his lips, and a secret enjoyment inside him, with his mind functioning like a well-tuned machine.
He liked it then. He went back to it. It wasn’t expensive, and he enjoyed the feeling.
And then somebody gave him a sniff of the big stuff. He’d dreamt he was swimming under water the first time. And the fish moved silently around him, swishing, swishing. And there were brilliant coral fans and luminescent eyes, and the warm gentle lap of the water.
That had been cocaine. He had continued snorting it until someone told him the drug would destroy the mucus membranes in his nose. He had seen graphic enough proof, had seen snorters with open sores on their nostrils. He had learned, too, that heroin was easier to get than cocaine. Most addicts were on H, and the demand dictated the supply, and so he had made a heroin buy, and someone had shown him how to cook the deck, how to shoot it into his arm. He had started with simple skin pops until someone else told him that mainlining was the only way.
From the first snort to the first mainline shot there had been a total of exactly two months. At the end of that time, he was hooked—and unlike most addicts, he was willing to admit he was hooked, even though such an admission was made with revulsion and reluctance. He had hopped on an innocent-looking merry-go-round, and suddenly the carrousel had begun to pick up speed. It was at top speed now, and it would never slow down, never. He needed a shot every four hours, like clockwork, right on the button. Keep that shot from him and his entire system began to scream for it.
Where did the merry-go-round end? Did it ever run down?
Maybe it had run down already.
Maybe it had run down with the body of a blonde singer stretched out on a hotel bed with two slugs in her belly. Maybe—
“Ray!” The voice was soft, with an undertone of anxiety in it.
He turned rapidly, took his father by the arms.
“Dad, Jesus, what kept you?”
“Let’s go inside,” his father said.
“Sure, sure.” He held open the door, his lips moving nervously, his teeth rattling. “Did you bring the money, Dad?”
“Yes, I brought it.”
“Good, good.” He laughed a quick, forced laugh. “Good.”
They walked inside, past the bar with the lights streaming through the lined-up bottles, past the phone booths, into the rear of the place, a dimly lit rectangle surrounded by a dozen or so round tables.
“Sit down, Dad, sit down,” he offered, pulling a chair out.
He hated himself while he went through the buttering-up routine, but he went through it. He had no choice, he told himself. He had to have money, and he was going to get it.
They sat down together, and he leaned across the table, staring into his father’s face.
“How—how much did you bring?”
“Tell me about the dead girl,” his father said. He was a small man with an aquiline nose and soft brown eyes. The eyes were moist and deep now, spaniel-like, and Ray felt again the deep guilt for having complicated his father’s simple, easy life. His father—
“The girl?” Ray snapped himself back to the scene in the hotel room. “She’s dead, Dad. I left her in the room.”
“How much did you steal from her?”
“What?”
“I said—”
“I heard you! I heard you, all right.” Sudden indignation flooded over Ray. “Are you crazy or something?”
“I knew it would come to this, Ray.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His hands were trembling again, more violently this time. He tried to calm himself. He couldn’t blame his father for jumping to conclusions. “I know what, you’re thinking, Dad, but it isn’t the goods. Look, look, I haven’t got time to talk. I—I need a shot. I need it real bad.”
“Is that why you wanted the money?”
“Yes.”
Ray watched his father’s face, and he knew something of the struggle that was going on within the older man.
“I can’t give you money for that stuff, Ray. I can’t. I’d feel like a murderer.”
“I know, Dad, I know. You’re right, Dad. But this is different. I need the stuff. I’ve got to figure this out. I need a little time to think straight.”
“What do you have to figure out?” Mr. Stone asked.
“This whole business, this thing. The girl, I mean. She’s dead, don’t you understand?”
“Ray,” Mr. Stone asked quietly, “why didn’t you go to Lexington when I asked you to?”
Ray felt his patience beginning to snap. He needed a shot, that’s all, a shot, a lousy shot, and he had to go through all this crap. What did he have to do, get down on his knees? Why couldn’t they understand that he had to have it, that his body was screaming for it, that if he didn’t get it soon he’d rip the goddam table in half with his bare hands? Jesus.
Jesus!
“I didn’t want to go to Lexington. I’m no damned criminal. I’ve heard all about Lexington, thank you.”
“From whom? From your fellow dope f—”
“Don’t say it! Don’t say it,” Ray shouted. That was it, that was the breaking point. He was through kidding. “You’ve been reading too many comic-book exposés,” he said angrily.
“This could all have been avoided,” Mr. Stone said.
“Sure. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t, you see.” He began to tap his heels on the floor. “I need a shot. I need money. I have to have a shot.” He was beginning to speak curiously, his words tumbling out one after the other, He knew this, and he was powerless to stop it. He didn’t care anyway. He didn’t care how he sounded. He wanted that money.
He couldn’t sit any longer. He stood up abruptly, began pacing back and forth before the table, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Are you going to give me the money, or do I get it elsewhere?” he demanded.
Mr. Stone reached out and put his hand on Ray’s arm. “Sit down, son. No need to get excited.”
Ray remained standing, hating what he knew was coming, but making no attempt to stop his voice. “Do I get the money? I have to get out of here or I’ll bust wide open. I have to get that shot, can you understand? I can’t hang around here if you’re not giving me any money.”
“I’ll give you the money, son. Sit down.”
He reached for his wallet, and Ray sat clown, sighing deeply. “I’m sorry, Dad. Really, I’m sorry.” He cradled his head in his hands. “Why do I always have to beg you? Why can’t you understand what it’s like?” He looked across at his father.
“You’re going to be all right, son,” Mr. Stone said. Ray saw his father’s eyes shift imperceptibly to the bar, then back to the wallet he’d placed on the table. Immediately, Ray’s eyes leaped to the mirror over the bar. Two blue-uniformed figures were reflected in that mirror.
Ray’s mouth fell open, and he turned accusing eyes on his father.
“I called them,” Mr. Stone said, a peculiar sadness around his mouth. “They’ll cure you, Ray.”
Ray pushed his chair back quickly, darting a hasty glance at the figures in the mirror again.
“Cure me? With what? The electric chair?”
He looked again at the mirror, saw one of the cops draw his revolver. Quickly, he snatched the wallet off the table, stuffed it into his jacket, and ran to the piano standing against the back wall. Silently, he thanked his memory, thanked the fact that he’d chosen a place he knew well. Without hesitation, he pitted his shoulder against the piano, felt the muscles tighten as he heaved. The piano rolled away, revealing an exit door bolted with a huge two-by-four on metal brackets. He lifted the lumber, dropped it heavily to the floor.
“Ray!” his father called. “Come back! They’ll help you!”
“I don’t need their help,” Ray shouted as he threw open the door. The bright sunlight hurt his eyes for a moment, and he shielded them with his hand. He looked into the room once more, saw one of the cops raise his gun, heard the blast as the cop fired over his head into the ceiling.
He ran out into the alley, heard the tear of another slug whipping into the door jamb. His nerves were tangled into a vibrating crisscross, and his stomach ached, and his muscles shook with blunt pain. But he ran.
He ran like a dazed rabbit, out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. He looked rapidly to his right, his left, then sprinted toward Fifth Avenue, smashing into a woman in a mink coat, almost knocking her down, untangling himself from the leash with the poodle on its end, and then breaking into a run again.
He ran, and the sun slanted down crazily, reflecting in the windows he passed, dancing back into his eyes with blazing intensity. He passed faces, faces, heard the hoarse shouts behind him, the sharp crack of a revolver followed immediately by another blast from a second gun.
He reached Fifth, turned the corner rapidly, ran into the crowd, stumbling, pushing, faster, faster. His lungs burned and his eyes smarted, and he needed a shot more than anything in this great, wide, sweet world, but he kept running.
He passed the perfume shops, the luggage stores, turned into Rockefeller Plaza, ran past the flower beds, past the diners on the pavilion, past the United Nations flags fluttering in the breeze, out into the street again. What street was it? Where was he?
He didn’t care. He ran, dodging cars, jumping at the sudden blast of horns, knocking people aside.
He was in the arcade under the Hotel Roosevelt, running, running, his shoes clacking against the floor of the long corridor. He pushed through the revolving doors at the end of the corridor, ran past the pay lockers and the phone booths, turned to his right and ran into a small waiting room, a part of Grand Central Station.
He stopped running just inside the door, looked around him hastily, and then slowly walked toward a bench. He sat down, his breath coming in painful gasps. Slowly, almost afraid of what he’d see, he looked back over his shoulder toward the doors.