can make the phone ring even if you've taken it off the hook, and I thought about identifying myself as a policeman and getting her to do that, but decided to let it go.
I had no right to interrupt the woman. Maybe she was asleep.
Maybe she had company.
Maybe there was a man there, or a woman. It was no business of mine.
Something settled in my stomach and glowed there like a hot coal.
I had another cup of bourbon-flavored coffee to drown it.
The evening hurried on by. I didn't really pay it too much attention.
My mind tended to drift.
I had things to think about.
At one point I found myself on the phone, dialing Lynn London's number. No answer. Well, she'd told me she had tickets for a concert.
And I couldn't remember why I was calling her, anyway. I'd already decided there was no point. That was why I'd missed my appointment with her.
Not that she'd have shown up herself. Would have left me standing there, feeling stupid.
So I called Jan again. Still busy.
I thought about going over there. Wouldn't take too long by cab.
But what was the point? When a woman takes her phone off the hook it's not because she's hoping you'll come knock on her door.
Hell with her.
BACK at the bar, somebody was talking about the First Avenue Slasher. I gathered he was still at large. One of the surviving victims had described how the man had attempted to start a conversation with him before showing his weapon and attacking.
I thought about the little article I'd read about muggers asking you the time or directions. Don't talk to strangers, I thought.
'That's the trouble with this place tonight,' I said. 'Too many strangers.'
A couple of people looked at me. From behind the bar, Billie asked me if I was all right.
'I'm fine,' I assured him. 'Just that it's too crowded tonight. No room to breathe.'
'Probably a good night to turn in early.'
'You said it.'
But I didn't feel like turning in, just like getting the hell out of there. I went around the corner to McGovern's and had a quick one. The place was dead so I didn't hang around. I hit Polly's Cage across the street and left when the jukebox started getting on my nerves.
The air outside was bracing. It struck me that I'd been drinking all day and that it added up to a hell of a lot of booze, but I seemed to be handling it fine. It wasn't affecting me at all. I was wide awake, clear-minded, clear- headed. It'd be hours before I'd be able to sleep.
I circled the block, stopped at a hole in the wall on Eighth Avenue, stopped again at Joey Farrell's. I felt restless and combative and got out of there when the bartender said something that irritated me. I don't remember what it was.
Then I was walking. I was on Ninth Avenue across the street from Armstrong's, walking south, and there was something hanging in the air that was putting me on my guard. Even as I was wondering at the feeling, a young man stepped out of a doorway ten yards ahead of me.
He had a cigarette in one hand. As I approached he moved purposefully into my path and asked me for a match.
That's how the bastards do it. One stops you and sizes you up. The other moves in behind you, and you get a forearm across the windpipe, a knife at your throat.
I don't smoke but I generally have a pack of matches in my pocket.
I cupped my hands, scratched a match. He tucked the unlit cigarette between his lips and leaned forward, and I flipped the burning match in his face and went in under it, grabbing and shoving hard, sending him reeling into the brick wall behind him.
I whirled myself, ready for his partner.
There was nobody behind me. Nothing but an empty street.
That made it simpler. I kept turning, and I was facing him when he came off the wall with his eyes wide and his mouth open. He was my height but lighter in build, late teens or early twenties, uncombed dark hair and a face white as paper in the light of the streetlamps.
I moved in quick and hit him in the middle. He swung at me and I sidestepped the punch and hit him again an inch or two above his belt buckle. That brought his hands down and I swung my right forearm in an arc and hit him in the mouth with my elbow. He drew back and clapped both hands to his mouth.
I said, 'Turn around and grab that wall! Come on, you fucker. Get your hands on the wall!'
He said I was crazy, that he hadn't done anything. The words came out muffled through the hands he was holding to his mouth.
But he turned around and grabbed the wall.
