Out on the Cutting Edge

'What's his name?'

'Dave. I don't know his last name, and I have to say I'm beginning to forget what he looks like, it's so long since I saw him. But I've never yet thrown his number away, so I guess he's still my sponsor. I mean, I could call him if I had to, right?'

'Sure.'

'I could even take the step with him.'

'If you felt comfortable with him.'

'I don't even know him. Do you have anybody that you sponsor, Matt?'

'No.'

'You ever hear anybody's fifth step?'

'No.'

There was a bottle cap on the sidewalk and he kicked at it.

'Because I guess that's what I'm leading up to. I can't believe it, a crook looking to confess to a cop. Of course you're not with the department no more, but would you still, you know, be bound to report anything I said?'

'No. I wouldn't have the legal right to withhold information, the way a priest or a lawyer might, but that's how I'd treat it. As privileged information.'

'Would you be willing? It'd be a whole load of shit once I got started, you might not want to sit through it.'

'I'll force myself.'

'I feel funny asking.'

'I know. I felt the same way.'

'If it was just me involved,' he began, then broke off the sentence.

He said, 'What I want to do, I want to take a couple of days, sort things out in my mind, think some things through. Then if you're still willing we can get together and I can talk some. If that's all right with you.'

'There's no hurry,' I told him. 'Wait until you're ready.'

He shook his head. 'If I wait till I'm ready I'll never do it. Gimme the weekend to sort it out and then we'll sit down and do it.'

'Sorting it out is part of it. Take all the time you need.'

'I been doing that,' he said. He grinned, put a hand on my shoulder. 'Thanks, Matt. That's my block coming up and I think I'll say good night.'

' 'Night, Eddie.'

'Have a good weekend.'

'You too. Maybe I'll run into you at a meeting.'

'St. Paul's is just Monday through Friday, right? I'll probably get there Monday night, anyway. Matt?

Thanks again.'

He headed for his building. I walked up a block on Tenth, walked east on one of the cross streets. A few doors from the corner ofNinth Avenue , three young men in a doorway went silent at my approach.

Their eyes followed me all the way to the corner, and I could feel their stares like darts between my shoulder blades.

Halfway home a hooker asked me if I felt like partying. She looked young and fresh, but they mostly do these days; drugs and viruses keep them from lasting long enough to fade.

I told her we'd have to make it some other time. Her smile, at least as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa's, stayed with me all the way home.

AtFifty-sixth Street a black man, bare to the waist, asked me for spare change. Half a block farther, a woman stepped out of the shadows and made the same request. She had lank blond hair and the face of an Okie out of one of those Depression photographs. They each got a dollar from me.

There were no messages at the hotel desk. I went up to my room and took a shower and got into bed.

Some years back three brothers named Morrissey owned a small four-story brick building on West Fifty-first half a block from the river.

They lived in the top two stories, rented out the ground floor to an Irish amateur theater, and sold beer and whiskey after hours on the second floor. There was a time when I went there a lot, and there may have been half a dozen occasions when Mickey Ballou and I were there at the same time. I don't know that we ever exchanged a word, but I remember seeing him there, and knowing who he was.

My friend Skip Devoe had said of Ballou that, if he had ten brothers and they all stood around in a circle, you'd think you were atStonehenge . Ballou had that megalithic quality, and he had too an air of wild menace just held in check. There was a man named Aronow, a manufacturer of women's dresses, who one night spilled a drink on Ballou. Aronow's apology was immediate and profuse, and Ballou mopped himself up and told Aronow to forget it, and Aronow left town and didn't come back for a month. He didn't even go home and pack, he took a cab straight to the airport and was on a flight within the hour. He was, we all agreed, a cautious man, but not overly cautious.

Lying there, waiting for sleep to come, I wondered what was on Eddie's mind and what it might have to do with the Butcher Boy. I didn't stay up late worrying about it, though. I figured I'd find out soon enough.