“What? Law, you all right? I’ll get Danny.”
I made a move toward the door but he stopped me.
“No, no. I’m fine. I’m fine. I just… it’s been a long time, is all. Give me another.”
“Law, we’ve got to talk.”
“I know that. Just give me another taste.”
I held the flask to his mouth again and poured in a good jolt. He took it down well this time and closed his eyes.
“Black Bush… Jesus, is that good.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Fuck the meds,” he said. “Give me Bushmills anytime, Harry. Any fucking time.”
He was a man who couldn’t move but I could still see the whiskey work into his eyes and soften them.
“She won’t give me anything,” he said. “Doctor’s orders. Only time I get a nip is when one of you guys comes by and visits. And that ain’t often. Who wants to come and see this sorry sight…
“You gotta keep coming, Harry. I don’t care about the case, clear it, don’t clear it, but keep comin’ to see me.”
His eyes moved to the flask.
“And bring your friend there. Always bring a friend.”
It was beginning to dawn on me. Cross had held back on me. I had come to him the day before I went to Taylor. Cross had been the place to start. But he had held back in order to bring me back-with a flask. Maybe the whole thing, his call to reawaken the case in me had all been about one thing. The flask.
I held the wallet-size container up.
“You held back on me, Law, so I’d bring you this.”
“No. I was going to have Danny call you. There was something I forgot.”
“Yeah, well, I already know it. I go talk to Taylor and the next thing I know I get a visit from the sixth floor telling me to lay off, it’s being worked. By people who don’t fuck around.”
Cross’s eyes were darting back and forth in his frozen face.
“No,” he said.
“Who came to see you before me, Law?”
“No one. Nobody’s come about the case.”
“Who did you call before you called me?”
“Nobody, Harry, I promise.”
I must have raised my voice because the door to the bedroom suddenly opened and Cross’s wife stood there.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine, Danny,” her husband said. “Leave us alone.”
She stood in the doorway for a moment and I saw her eyes go to the flask in my hand. For a moment, I thought about taking a drink from it myself, so she might think it was there for me. But in her eyes I could see she knew exactly what was going on. She didn’t move for a long moment and then her eyes came up to mine and held for a moment. She then took a step back and closed the door. I looked back at Cross.
“If she didn’t know she knows now.”
“I don’t care. What time is it, Harry? I can’t see the screen too good.”
I looked up at the corner of the television screen where CNN always carried the time.
“It’s eleven-eighteen. Who came out to see you, Law? I want to know who is working the case.”
“I’m telling you, Harry, nobody came. As far as I knew, the case was deader than these goddamn legs of mine.”
“Then what was it you didn’t tell me when I was here before?”
His eyes went to the flask and he didn’t have to ask. I held it to his chapped and peeling lips and he drank deeply from it. He closed his eyes.
“Ah, God…,” he said. “I’ve got…”
His eyes opened and they jumped on me like wolves taking down a deer.
“She’s keeping me alive,” he whispered desperately. “You think this is what I want? Sitting in my own shit half the time? She’s getting a full ride while I’m alive-full pay and medical. If I’m gone she gets the widow’s pension. And I wasn’t in that long, Harry. Fourteen years. It’s about half of what she gets with me alive.”
I looked at him for a long moment, the whole time wondering if she was outside the door listening.
“So what do you want from me, Law? To pull the plug? I can’t do that. I can get you a lawyer if you want, but I’m not -”
“And she doesn’t treat me right, either.”
I paused again. I felt a tugging sensation in the pit of my guts. If what he was saying was true, then his life was more of a hell than I could imagine. I lowered my voice when I spoke.
“What does she do to you, Law?”
“She gets mad. She does things. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s not her fault.”
“Listen, you want me to get a lawyer in here? I could also get a social services investigator.”
“No, no lawyers. That’ll take forever. No investigators. I don’t want that. And I don’t want you to get in any trouble, Harry, but what am I going to do? If I could pull the plug myself I would…”
He blew out a burst of air. The only gesture his body would allow him to make. I could only imagine his horrible frustration.
“This is no way to live, Harry. It isn’t living.”
I nodded. None of this had come up on the first visit. We had talked about the case, what he could remember about it. His case memory was coming back in chunks. It had been a difficult interview but there was no sense of self-loathing or desperation. No more depression than would be expected. I wondered if it had been the alcohol that had suddenly brought it out.
“I’m sorry, Law.”
It was all I could say. His eyes looked away, up to the television screen which was over my left shoulder.
“What time is it now, Harry?”
This time I checked my watch.
“Twenty after. What’s your hurry, Law? You expecting somebody else?”
“No, no, nothing like that. There’s just a show I like to watch on Court TV. Comes on at twelve. Rikki Klieman. I like her.”
“Then you’ve still got time to talk to me. Why don’t you get a bigger clock in here?”
“She won’t give me one. She says the doctor says it’s bad for me to be watching a clock.”
“She’s probably right.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I saw anger flood his eyes and I immediately regretted the words.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t -”
“You know what it’s like not to be able to raise your own goddamn wrist to look at your fucking watch?”
“No, Law, I don’t have any idea.”
“You know what it’s like to shit in a bag and have your wife take it to the toilet? To have to ask her for every goddamn thing, including a taste of whiskey?”
“I’m sorry, Law.”
“Yeah, you’re sorry. Everybody’s fucking sorry but nobody’s -”
He didn’t finish. He seemed to bite off the end of the sentence like a dog getting a hold of raw meat. He looked away and was silent and I was silent for a long moment, until I thought the anger had drained back down his throat into the seemingly bottomless well of frustration and self-pity that was down there.
“Hey, Law?”
His eyes came back to me.
“What, Harry?”
He was calm. The moment had passed.
“Let’s go back. You said you were going to call me because there was something you forgot. You know, when we went over the case before. What was it you forgot to tell me?”
“Nobody’s come here and talked to me about the case, Harry. You’re the only one. I mean that.”
