Moth

table with a bottle of K amp;B’s best on the table, a pizza I picked up on the way home and now can’t bear the thought of even opening up, much less eating, and my Police Special. Not the Colt. That’s put away by the bed the way it always is when I get home. This’s the one the department gave me, I first made detective. It stays wrapped in oilcloth in the closet, you know? But tonight I went and got it.”

The French call what I felt just then a frisson.

This too, what was happening with Walsh, was something I knew a lot about.

“Don. What’s going on, man?”

“New reports came in today. Homicides down to thirty-one for this quarter. Petty crime and misdemeanors down almost twenty percent. Surprised you hadn’t heard. NOPD’s doing a helluva job. You be sure and write Mayor Barthelemy and the chief and tell them, as a citizen, how much you appreciate that. They’re waiting to hear from you. Operators are standing by.”

I heard ice clink against a glass, a swallow, then what could have been a low sob.

“She’s married this guy she met, Lew. Owns some fancy-ass sporting goods store, Florida somewhere. Pogoland. Now how the fuck’d she ever meet someone like that, what’s she need with that kind of shit? But she’s already moved down there with him. I finally went around to see the kids-it’d been a while and she’d been dodging me whenever I called, so I was determined, and primed for a fight-and the house was empty, doors wide open, nothing in there but some empty beer cans and paper bags and a rubber or two. So I lean on a neighbor finally and find out she moved out a couple of weeks before. Then the next day, registered mail, I get papers that this guy’s putting in to adopt the kids.”

Ice against glass again. Don’s breath catching there at the other end. A car engine clattering outside.

“I called you because you’re the only one I know who’s been as fucked up as I am right now, Lew. Somehow you always get through it. And you’ve always been a good friend.”

“No I haven’t, not to anyone; we both know that. But you have been. Look, I’m on my way, okay? We’ll talk about it.”

“Yeah, what the hell. You always did talk good, Lew. You gonna want some pizza when you get here?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Tinmins. Right.”

My neighbor three doors down owns his own cab, a bright-green, shopworn but ever-presentable DeVille. Since it spends evenings against the curb in front of his house and rarely goes back out, I guess he does all right.

Lights were on there, and a kid about twelve answered my knock and said “Yeah.”

“Your father home?”

“Yeah.”

After a moment I said, “Think I might speak to him?”

“Don’t see why not.”

After another moment: “So: what? We’re just going to wait till he has to go somewhere and notices me here in the door?”

“You some kind of smartass.”

“Just asking.”

“Old man don’t like smartasses.”

This could easily have gone on all night, but the boy’s father appeared behind him, peering out. He wore baggy nylon pants, a loose zipped sweatshirt, a shower cap. I’d wondered what a kid that age was doing up this time of night, but it seemed the whole family lived counter-clockwise, as it were.

“Hi, we’ve never met, but I live a few houses down.”

“I know who you are. Raymond, you get on about your business now.”

“Who is it, honey?” came a feminine voice from deeper in the house.

“Neighbor, Cal.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but-”

He held out a hand. Muscles bunched along the forearm as we shook. “Norm Marcus. Call me Norm or Marc, whichever comes easier to you. You want to come on in, have a beer or something?”

“I’d love to, but a friend of mine just called and things don’t sound so good over there. Since I don’t drive I wondered if-”

“You need a ride, right?”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Worth my while, huh?” He half turned, called into the house “Be right back, Cal” and stepped out, pulling the door shut. “It’s already worth my while, Lew. Man can’t help a neighbor, why’s he bother living anywhere-know what I mean? Where we headed?”

I got in beside him and told him the address. He punched in a tape of Freddie King, hit the lights, and swung out toward St. Charles.

I tried to pay him when we pulled up at Don’s place, but he said don’t insult him. “You want me to wait?”

I thanked him again and said no, and that we had to get together for that beer soon.

“Absolutely. Or you just come on by for dinner, any night. Eat about nine, usually.”

The front door was locked, but like mine Don’s house is an old one whose frame and foundation have shifted time and again, and whose wood alternately swells with humidity and shrivels from heat. I pushed hard at the door and it opened.

He was still there all right, in the kitchen, head down on the table, facing away from me. An inch or so of bourbon remained in the bottle. The pizza, out of the box now, lay upside down on the floor, Police Special nearby.

I quickly checked a carotid pulse. Strong and steady.

He bobbed to the surface, without moving or opening his eyes.

“You, Lew?”

“Yeah. Let’s get to bed, old friend.”

“I tell you my wife was fucking Wally Gator?”

I hauled him more or less to his feet and we caromed from wall to wall down the narrow hall to his bedroom. I let him go slack by the bed, went around and pulled him fully aboard. Took off his shoes and loosened belt, trousers, tie.

I was almost to the bedroom door when he said: “Lew?”

“Here.”

“You’re a good man. Don’t ever let anybody tell you different.”

I sat there in his kitchen the rest of the night, though at this point there wasn’t a lot of rest left, fully understanding that I wasn’t a good man, had never been, probably never would be. The world outside faded slowly into being, like prints in a developing tray. And when magnolia leaves swam into focus against cottony sky, I put my thoughts aside, finished the bourbon and got coffee started. Not long after that, Don’s alarm buzzed into life. I walked in with two cups of cafe au lait, looked at him, and shut the damned thing off.

Chapter Twelve

The dead walked at last, or more accurately stumbled, at nine or so, into the kitchen where it looked at the clock, looked at me, back at the clock, mumbled shit most unexpletively, and slumped into a chair.

I poured coffee and put it down before him. He sat looking at it, estimating his chances. Gulfs loomed up everywhere. Washington and the Delaware. Napoleon crossing to Elba. Raft of the Medusa. Immigrants headed for Ellis Island, shedding history and culture like old clothes. Boats packed with new slaves, low in the water, nosing into compounds at Point Marigny across the river from what was now downtown New Orleans.

Finally he launched a hand into that gulf. It wavered but connected, and he drank the ransomed coffee almost at a gulp.