the day but I did not pick it up. In the afternoon I gathered all the liquor, beer, and wine from my apartment and made a gift of it to my landlord.
Kim Lazarus woke up at around six in the evening. I cooked her an omelette, fried potatoes, cut a salad, and served it with juice and tea. She ate it and returned to bed, where she slept soundly through the night.
ON SUNDAY MORNING I prepared a huge breakfast. She came to the table, a bit swollen around the eyes, but with color back in her face. She was wearing Levi’s and a blue sweatshirt.
“Thanks,” she said as I poured her some coffee. One side of her mouth rose as she smiled, her thick upper lip arching lazily above her slightly crooked teeth.
“You’ve been thanking me an awful lot. It’s no bother having you here. I figure we both need to chill out for a few days.”
“What day is it?” she asked.
“Sunday.”
She ate her breakfast and cleaned her plate with pieces of toast. I refilled her plate and she kept going. She was a big-boned woman with little body fat but plenty of curves.
When she was finished, the cat, who had already taken to her, jumped up on Kim’s lap.
“Do you mind?”
“No,” she said, rubbing behind the cat’s ears. “I like it. How’d she lose her eye?”
“Catfight, I guess. That’s how I found her. She was hiding outside behind some latticework, and her eye was just hanging out, hanging by a nerve. I got her to a vet, and he took it out, then sewed the lid shut. After that she stuck around.”
“Kind of like how you adopted me.”
“Until we figure this whole thing out, yeah.”
“Don’t you work?” she asked.
“I lost my job last week.”
“Where?”
“I did ads for a retail outfit.”
“Really. Which one?”
“Nutty Nathan’s,” I mumbled.
“I know that place,” she said. “‘The Miser Who Works for You.’”
“That’s the one.”
“Your friend John work there too?”
“Yeah, how’d you guess?”
“He looks like a salesman. You don’t.”
“Well, I was-for years. Johnny and I worked the floor together for a long time.”
“Hard to stay friends and not fight over ups and things like that.”
“Oh, we fought over ups, believe me.”
“How did that happen?” she asked, reaching across the table and touching the faded purple area around my nose.
“Looking for Jimmy Broda.”
I refilled our coffee cups and put a fresh pack of smokes on the table between us. She shook one out and lit it, then blew smoke at the window. Her mouth turned down at the edges and her eyes watered up.
“Have you heard anything yet?” she asked.
“Not yesterday. Not on the news today or in the Sunday paper. Frankly, I’m beginning to think that the ones who killed Eddie went back and cleaned up.” I thought of the dropcloth they had placed beneath him. “I don’t think anybody’s going to find Eddie, not for a while anyway.”
“And you’re not going to report it?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.'›hei”
“How did you get involved with those guys?”
“Cocaine,” she said. “The same way I get involved with every guy I know.” She butted her cigarette and lit another, then looked back at me. “When I moved up to D.C., I didn’t have a job, but I had money. I was dealing for a guy. Then we had a falling out, and my supply and income got cut off. I started hanging out in the clubs. One night at the Snake Pit I met Eddie and Jimmy.”
“And Jimmy was holding.”
“Bigtime. And he was generous with it. I think it made him feel like a bigshot, but at the same time he was real nervous about it.”
“Did you know it was stolen?”
“I suspected it at first,” she admitted, “and then after a while I was certain. But I’m an addict, Nick. I didn’t care where it came from, only that he had it, and that he didn’t mind handing it out.”
“Where did Eddie fit in?”
“He wanted me,” she said.
“Why did the three of you leave town?”
“Like I said, Jimmy was paranoid. I told him how we could off it and take a vacation at the same time. So we drove south.”
“Did he ever say where he got the drugs?”
“No.”
“Come on, Kim, think. Something must have been said. With all the shit you were putting up your noses, there must have been quite a bit of talking going on.”
“I’m certain,” she said bitterly.
I stood up and washed our cups in the sink. I could hear her crying behind me. When I turned, her arms were outstretched.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and put my arms around her.
“I’m so fucked up,” she said. Her tears felt hot on my neck. I was aware of her breasts crushed against my chest, and of my erection. I eased her away.
“You can stay here for as long as you like.”
“I could use a glass of wine or something.”
“There isn’t any booze here,” I said. “I was thinking maybe it would be a good time to start drying out. I could stand it myself.”
She nodded. “If you’re willing to put up with me. But I’ll need a few things from my place.”
“Where do you live?”
“I have an apartment in Southwest.”
“I’ll take you there.”
“Thanks, Nick.” ‹? div height='0em'›
Her place was in a low rent hi-rise near the Arena Stage, two blocks back from the river. We rode the elevator up to the eighth floor.
Her apartment seemed to be a part-time residence. There were chairs and stereo equipment and a television, but no tables. The walls were bare. Magazines and newspapers were scattered on the floor, along with several full ashtrays.
As she walked towards the bedroom, she said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I had a look in before she closed the door. A sheeted mattress lay on the floor. Next to it was a small reading lamp and a telephone, and another ashtray.
I walked out onto her narrow balcony and lit a smoke. Her view faced north and looked out over other bunker-style buildings. I crushed the butt on the railing and reentered the apartment.
I could hear her muffled voice through the bedroom door as she talked on the telephone. I browsed through her small record collection, a typically seventies example of dead-end rock: Boston’s debut, REO Speedwagon, Kansas, etc. Her stereo equipment was high-end; her television, state-of-the-art.
“You ready?” she asked cheerfully, coming out of the room with the suitcase she had emptied, then refilled.
We got on the freeway at Maine Avenue and headed east for a couple of miles, turning off past the Capitol
