'If you had something you were working on, you'd stay away on Thanksgiving,' Paul said.
'I know.'
'If I'd gotten a chance to dance, like at Lincoln Center or something, I'd have gone. I wouldn't have come here.'
'Sure,' I said. My glass was empty. I went and got the bottle and poured some more. I filled it before I remembered the ice. Too late. I sipped some neatly. Paul was watching me. A grown face, not a kid. Older maybe than eighteen because of the psychological experience he'd had and overcome.
'You went off to Europe without her in 1976.'
'Yes.' My voice was hoarse. More whiskey, relax the larynx. Good thing I hadn't used ice. Throat needed to be warmed.
'It's killing you, isn't it?'
'I want her with me,' I said, 'and more than that, I want her to want to be with me.'
Paul got up and walked over and stood beside me at the window and looked out. 'Empty,' he said.
I nodded.
He said, 'We both know where I was when you found me, and we know what you did. It gives me rights that other people don't have.'
I nodded.
'I'm going to hurt you too,' he said. 'We're the only ones that can, me and Susan. And inevitably I'll do it too.'
'Can't be helped,' I said.
'No.' Paul said. 'It can't. What's happened to you is that you've left Susan inside, and you've let me inside. Before us you were invulnerable. You were compassionate but safe, you understand? You could set those standards for your own behavior and if other people didn't meet those standards it was their loss, but your integrity was…'- he thought for a minute-'… intact. You weren't disappointed. You didn't expect much from other people and were content with the Tightness of yourself.'
I leaned my forehead against the cold window glass. I was drunk.
'And now?' I said.
'And now,' Paul said, 'you've fucked it up. You love Susan and you love me.'
I nodded with my forehead still against the window. 'And the Tightness of myself is no longer enough.'
'Yes,' Paul said. He took a large swallow of whiskey. 'You were complete, and now you're not. It makes you doubt yourself. It makes you wonder if you were ever right. You've operated on instinct and the conviction that your instincts would be right. But if you were wrong, maybe your instincts were wrong. It's not just missing Susan that's busting your chops.'
' 'Margaret, are you grieving,' ' I said, ' 'over Golden-grove unleaving?' '
'Who's that?' Paul said.
' Hopkins,' I said. 'Gerard Manley Hopkins.'
'There's a better one from The Great Gatsby,' Paul said. 'The part just before he's shot, about losing the old warm world…'
' 'Paid a high price for living too long with a single dream,' ' I said.
'That's the one,' Paul said.
Chapter 14
It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, Paul was back at Sarah Lawrence College. I was back in my one-room office with a view of the art director on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. It was 9:15 a.m. and I was reading the Globe and drinking some coffee. Today was the day I would have only two cups. I drank the last of the first one when my office door opened and Vinnie Morris came in. Behind him came a large blank-faced guy with a hairline that started just above his eyebrows.
Vinnie was my age, a good-looking guy with a thick black mustache and his hair cut sort of longish over the ears. He was wearing a black continental-cut suit and a white shirt with a white tie. His camel's hair coat was unbelted and hung open and the fringed ends of a white silk scarf showed against the dark suit. He had on black gloves. The big guy behind him wore a plaid overcoat, and a navy watch cap on the back of his head like a yarmulke. His nose was thick, and there was a lot of scar tissue around his eyes.
'Vinnie,' I said.
Vinnie nodded, took off his gloves, put them together, and placed them on the top of my desk. He sat in my office chair. His large companion stayed by the door.
'You got any coffee?' Vinnie said to me.
'Nope, just finished a cup I brought with me.'
Vinnie nodded. 'Ed, go get us two coffees,' Vinnie said. 'Both black.'
'Hey, Vinnie,' Ed said. 'I ain't no errand boy.'
Vinnie turned his head and looked at him. Ed's septum had been deviated enough so he had trouble breathing through it. I could hear the faint whistle it made.
'Two black,' Ed said.
'Large,' I said.
'Two large,' Vinnie said.
Ed nodded and went out.
'Slipping punches wasn't his long suit,' I said. 'You still with Broz?'
Vinnie nodded.
'Joe send you over?' I said.
Vinnie shook his head.
I leaned back in my chair and waited.
'You been in Springfield?' Vinnie said.
I nodded.
'You been making a pain in the balls of yourself in Springfield?'
'It's the least I can do,' I said. 'Spread it around.'
Vinnie nodded patiently. 'Want to tell me what you been doing out there?'
'No.'
'It's one of the reasons I like you, Spenser. I can always count on you to be a hard-on. Really consistent, you know. A hard-on every time.'
'Well, if I ever fail you, Vinnie, it won't be for lack of trying.'
Vinnie grinned. There wasn't a lot of warmth in the grin, but it seemed real enough. It was probably as warm as Vinnie could get.
Ed came back in with the coffee in a paper sack. He'd bought one for himself. I wondered if that was considered exceeding orders. Rebellious bastard.
'Thanks, Ed,' I said when he put mine on the desk. I took the cover off and put it into the wastebasket, then I reached over and took Vinnie's cover and dropped it into the wastebasket. I sipped some. First sip of the day's last cup. Coffee got me sort of jumpy lately. Time to cut back. Man of iron will, no problem. I'd begin cutting back today.
Ed tore a little half circle out of the cover of his coffee. He put the torn-out piece back into the empty bag and put the bag on the corner of my desk. I took it and put it into the trash. Neat work space, orderly mind. I drank the second sip of my last cup of the day. Ed slurped some of his coffee through the hole he'd torn in the cover.
Vinnie said, 'You went and talked with Louis Nolan. You told him that I sent you. How come?'
'I wanted to see if he was connected to you and Joe.'
'And?'
I shrugged. 'And he is. He jumped up and lapped my face when I mentioned your name. Offered me some fruit.' I sipped more coffee and smiled at him. 'And here you are.'
'You know more than that,' Vinnie said. 'You know he put those two stumblebums to work on my job.'
