“I might,” Randolph said.
“You like them like that?”
Randolph shrugged. “I just like ’em.”
The busboy came back into the room with a round of drinks balanced on his tray. He put a double vodka rocks in front of Constantine and a cognac with a side of ice water in front of Randolph.
“Hey, amigo,” Randolph said. “We didn’t order these.”
“You fren,” the busboy said, grinning.
Randolph shrugged, sipped his cognac as the busboy walked away. “I’m way past my limit,” he said. “You could stand to slow down too.”
“I’m drunk,” Constantine admitted. “But I don’t want to slow down.” Constantine lighted a cigarette off the table’s candle. “If you slow down, you get hit. Can’t hit a moving target.”
“Yeah, you the king of the drifters,” Randolph said softly, looking Constantine up and down. “And if you had a brain in your head, you’d drift the fuck on out of this town-tonight.”
“ You’re in this thing. Polk’s in it.” Constantine blew smoke at the table. “I’m in it too.”
“We have to be in it,” Randolph said. “You don’t. Not yet.”
Constantine drank deeply of his vodka, swallowed, felt the cool sting of the alcohol in his chest. “Earlier today-you said Grimes had something on everybody.”
“That’s right” Randolph said. “Valdez and Gorman are losers. They stay around ’cause they got nowhere else to go. Jackson, he’s a loser too. Owes Grimes on a card debt. Weiner, he’s locked in on an old gambling beef as well.”
“And with Polk it’s the money.”
Randolph shook his head. “I don’t think so. I used to think, you know, it was that thing with his foot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Polk and Grimes,” Randolph said. “They were in the same outfit, C Company, in Korea. Got into some serious shit during the Korean offensive, east of the Chosin Reservoir. It was colder than a motherfucker there-Siberian cold. Subzero. The company got stopped at a blown bridge, at the base of Hill Twelve Twenty-One, on the way to Hudong. That’s when the Koreans attacked. C Company, Chosin-all that shit is legendary, man, the old-timers were talkin’ about how fierce that shit was when I was in the service. Well, Grimes and Polk made it over that hill, made it to the other side, and kept right on going, crossed that frozen reservoir to a place called Hagaru. By then Polk had the frostbite bad. The way I heard, Grimes carried him most of the way across the ice.” Randolph swallowed water, put the glass back down on the table. “They air-lifted Polk, took off damn near half his foot. But if Grimes hadn’t looked after him…”
“That doesn’t sound like the Grimes I know.”
“Friendship and loyalty. It means something, when you’re young.” Randolph sat back in his chair. “But Polk paid his debt a long time ago-he’s been in on these jobs, going back near twenty years. It doesn’t explain why he’s still here today.”
Constantine swirled the ice around in his glass. “What about you?” he said.
Randolph looked into Constantine’s eyes, then looked away. “When I first came up here, in the early seventies, I got a job as a stockboy, at this shoe store on Connecticut Avenue. My cousin was a salesman there at the time, and he hooked me up. Over the years, you know, I got to be a salesman myself, and a damn good one. My cousin, though, he just got further into that street bullshit, till finally he was into the heroin thing and out of a job. At the time the company was really doin’ it-we had ten stores, and we were moving some inventory. The owner, he wasn’t declarin’ most of the cash money that was coming in, and the way he turned it was to do cash deals with the New York vendors, for a discount on his purchases. He did this every second Thursday of the month. My cousin knew about it-he knew when the owner brought in the cash, and where he stashed it the night before.”
“Your cousin knocked the place over,” Constantine said.
Randolph nodded. “Grimes bankrolled the job. My cousin’s dealer-he owed Grimes a favor-hooked the two of them up.”
“What happened?”
“It was a night job. They came in through the skylight, at the office above the Connecticut Avenue store. They got away with it, too. The owner couldn’t even report the theft-all that cash.” Randolph closed his eyes, tilted his tumbler back, and sipped cognac. “Anyway, I knew about it, and I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. The man was my cousin, understand? The thing is, he died two months later, anyway. Overdose.”
“Grimes is blackmailing you.”
Randolph lowered his voice. “I come from a little tobacco farm, Constantine, outside of Wilson, North Carolina. If you could see the place I’m talkin’ about, compare it to what I’ve got now, my life now, at that shoe store…”
“I understand,” Constantine said. He butted his cigarette, smiled at Randolph. “That skinny kid, at the store-”
“Antoine.”
“Yeah. He called you ‘Shoedog.’ You gonna tell me now what that’s all about?”
“You might not understand, man. It’s about having some kind of direction in your life.”
“Try me.”
Randolph leaned over the table. “You ever see a dog, man, when he’s walkin’ across a bridge? Well, that dog, he doesn’t look left and he doesn’t look right. He keeps his head down, lookin’ at his paws makin’ a straight line, all the way. And the only thing he’s thinking about, the whole time, is gettin’ to the other side of that bridge.”
“So?”
“So this. You saw me today, on that floor. While those other boys were thinkin’ how to get the jump on me, or thinkin’ about the pussy, all I was concentrating on was doin’ my job. From twelve to two, that’s what the fuck I do. I put my head down, just like a dog, and I cross that bridge. And every single day, I’m the only one in that joint who gets to the other side.” Randolph sat back, pointed at Constantine. “I’m a shoedog, man. Might be time for you to be some kinda shoedog too.”
Constantine finished the rest of his vodka, put the glass down on the table. “Maybe so, Randolph,” he said. “But I never found that one thing-”
“Not yet.”
“No. Not yet.”
A few minutes later, the party moved back into the room. They grouped themselves around the table, stood over Randolph and Constantine.
“Let’s go,” Polk said energetically, his arm around Charlotte. “We’ll get a nightcap over at Market Inn.”
“Great piano bar,” Phyllis said, smiling at Randolph. “You boys up for it?”
“I could listen to some standards,” Randolph said.
“Come on, Connie,” Polk said.
Constantine shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m comfortable here. I’m gonna hang out, have another drink.”
Weiner had a seat and said, “I’m with Constantine.”
Randolph stood up, moved smoothly to Phyllis, slipped his arm around her back, his hand resting on her waist. “Suit yourself, Constantine. I’ll pick you up in the morning, at your place. Eight A.M. We goin’ shopping, remember?”
“I’ll see you then,” Constantine said, nodding at Phyllis, then looking back to Randolph. “Have a good night, man.”
Randolph raised his brow. “Bet.”
“We took care of the tab,” Polk said. “See you fellas later.”
Constantine took his cigarettes off the table and tossed the pack to Polk.
The two couples walked toward the door. Charlotte broke away, came back, leaned over the table, and put her mouth close to Constantine’s ear. “Polk’s got plans for you,” she said. “He’s really impressed. For the record, so am I.” She kissed him on his cheek.
“Thanks, Charlotte,” Constantine said. “Take care of him.”
“Honey?” she said, standing straight and capping the movement with a broad wink. “I always do.”
She turned and moved quickly to the door. As she walked out, Constantine could hear their laughter over the
