summer, and he was walking down the street, and he fell into a conversation with this pretty French girl, and she said, 'Would you like to have a glass of wine?' '
'And he said?'
'And he said, 'Why not?' '
'Just like that.'
'Just like that, after twenty-two years and God knows how many thousands of meetings. 'Why not?' '
'Did he make it back?'
'He can't seem to. He's sober for two days, three days, and then he goes out and drinks. He looks terrible. His drunks don't last long because he can't stay out, he winds up in a hospital after a couple of days. But he can't stay sober, and when he shows up at a meeting I can't bear to look at him. I think he's probably going to die.'
'The cutting edge,' I said.
'How's that?'
'Just something somebody said.'
We turned the corner, reached the coffee shop where she was to meet her friends. She said, 'Don't you want to join us for a cup of coffee?' I said I didn't think so, and she didn't try to talk me into it.
I said, 'I wish—'
'I know,' she said. She reached out a hand and held mine for a moment. 'Eventually,' she said, 'I think we'll probably be able to feel easier with each other. Now's too soon.'
'Evidently.'
'It's too sad,' she said. 'It hurts too much.'
She turned from me, headed for the coffee shop. I stood there until she was through the door. Then I started walking, not paying much attention to where I was going. Not much caring.
Once I'd walked out from under my mood I found a pay phone and tried Gary's number. No one answered. I caught a subway uptown and walked over to Paris Green and found him behind the bar. The bar was empty but there were several tables of people who'd come for a late brunch. I watched as he made up a tray of Bloody Marys, then filled a pair of tulip-shaped glasses half with orange juice and half with champagne.
'The mimosa,' he said to me. 'Reverse synergy, the whole less than the sum of its parts. Drink orange juice or drink champagne, I say, but not the two at once out of the same glass.' He proffered a rag and made a show of wiping the bar in front of me. 'And what may I get you?'
'Is there coffee?'
He called to a waiter, ordered a cup of coffee for the bar. Leaning toward me, he said, 'Bryce said you were looking for me.'
'Last night. And I called you at home a couple of times since then.'
'Ah,' he said. 'Never made it home last night, I'm afraid. Thank God there are still ladies left in the world who find a poor barkeep a creature of romance and intrigue.' He grinned richly behind his beard.
'If you'd reached me, what would you have said?'
I told him what I had in mind. He listened, nodded. 'Sure,' he said.
'I could do that. Thing is, I'm on until eight tonight. It's slow enough right now but there's nobody around who could cover for me. Unless—'
'Unless what?'
'How accomplished a bartender are you?'
'No,' I said. 'I'll come by for you around eight.'
I went back to my hotel and tried to watch the end of a football game but I couldn't sit still. I got out of there and walked around. At some point I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and I made myself stop for a slice of pizza. I put a lot of the crushed red pepper on it, hoping it would stir me up a little.
A few minutes before eight I went back to Paris Green and drank a Coke while Gary evened out his cash and checks and turned it all over to his relief. We walked out together and he asked me the name of the place again. I told him, and he said he'd never noticed it. 'But I'm not on Tenth Avenue much,' he said. 'Grogan's Open House? It sounds like your basic Irish saloon.'
'It pretty much is.'
We went over what I wanted him to do, and then I waited across the street while he ambled over to Grogan's front entrance and walked in. I stood in a doorway and waited. The minutes crawled, and I was starting to worry that something had unaccountably gone wrong, that I'd pushed him into a
dangerous situation. I was trying to decide whether I'd make things worse by going in myself. I was still mulling it over when the door swung open and he emerged. He had his hands in his pockets and he sauntered along, looking almost too carefree to be true.
I matched his pace for half a block, then crossed over to his side of the street. He said, 'Do I know you? What's the password?'
'Recognize anybody?'
'Oh, no question,' he said. 'I wasn't that certain I'd know him again, but I took one look and knew him right off. And he knew me.'
'What did he say?'
