A Drop of the Hard Stuff

“No, Donna, you’re the one who said that. But you moved out, right? It’s my apartment now, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So it’s my apartment, who’s got a better right to be here? You want to kick me out of it? Hey, I wanted to, I could kick you out of it.”

“Vinnie—”

“Ah, we’re back to Vinnie. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.” He reached out a hand, rubbed her hair. “You know what you look like? You look like Raggedy fuckin’ Ann.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“ ‘Don’t touch me.’ A different tune these days, Donna. Hey, don’t worry. I’m not gonna kick you out of my apartment.” He stood aside, motioned her in. “Esta es su casa,” he said. “You know what that means?”

“I know what it means.”

“It’s Spanish, it means this is your house. Except it’s mine.”

I said, “Vinnie, maybe it’d be a good idea if you gave us an hour.”

He looked at me. Before, he’d regarded me as an audience, but now I had a speaking part, and he responded accordingly. “I know you,” he said. “Matt, am I right? Used to be a cop before they kicked you off the force for bein’ an asshole. You the new boyfriend?”

“Matt and Richard are helping me move,” Donna said.

“They’re just what you need,” he said. “Matt can beat me up and Richard here can blow me. Between the two of ’em I got no fuckin’ chance.”

It was a long afternoon in Cobble Hill. Vinnie had been drinking around the clock for days now, and he got to show all his emotions in turn, from self-pity to belligerence. He said he wished that Donna hadn’t cut her hair, and that he’d like to wrap it around her neck and strangle her with it. He walked out of the room, turned up the volume on the TV, came back with a beer, wandered off again.

The apartment must have been nice before he picked up a drink. Now it was all empty bottles and beer cans and pizza boxes, half-eaten containers of Chinese food, and copies of Hustler and Penthouse. There was a page torn from Screw, hooker ads with their photos and phone numbers, taped alongside the wall phone in the kitchen. Some of the ads were circled in Magic Marker.

“This one,” he announced, pointing to one of the photos, “could give you cards and spades, Donna. Could suck a tennis ball through a garden hose. I dunno, though. Bet you could do the same, huh, Richard?”

Nobody answered him, but this didn’t seem to bother him. I’m not sure he noticed.

A long afternoon in Cobble Hill.

XXVII

WE WERE ACROSS the bridge and back in Manhattan when she said, “Raggedy Ann, for God’s sake. Little Orphan Annie and Raggedy Ann.”

“You are fabulously glamorous,” Richard said. “So will you please stop that shit?”

“Okay.”

“I meant Little Orphan Annie in the nicest possible way. And you have big eyes, the same as she does, except yours are this gorgeous light brown. And they really pop now that your hair’s not falling in front of them.”

“So now I’m pop-eyed? I’m sorry, I’ll stop.”

“And you don’t look at all like Raggedy Ann,” he said. “The man is a drunken imbecile.”

There was a long silence. Then she said, “He’s not a bad fellow, you know. When he’s sober.”

“He’s not sober, though, is he?”

“No.”

“And drunk or sober, he was never right for you. And deep down you always knew that.”

“Oh, God, Richard. You’re absolutely right.”

“Well, of course,” he said.

Her belongings filled the trunk and shared the backseat with me. When we got back where we started, Eighty-fourth and Amsterdam, Richard circled the block and couldn’t find a parking spot. I told him to park next to the fire hydrant, and handed him a card to put on the dashboard.

“Detectives’ Endowment Association,” he read aloud. “And this means I won’t get a ticket?”

“It improves the odds.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d take my chances on a ticket, but what if they tow it?”

Donna said, “Honey, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable staying with the car. Matt and I can manage the stuff. We’ll just make an extra trip.”

She lived on the fifth floor of a brownstone. It was a fine building in excellent condition, and the only smell in the stairwell was a faint hint of furniture polish. But it was a walk-up, and it took us three trips, and by the time I’d climbed those four flights of stairs for the third time I was winded.

“Sit down,” she said, “before you fall down. Those stairs keep me in shape, but they’re killers if you’re not used to them. Plus you were carrying three times as much as I was. Can I get you a glass of water? Or maybe a Coke?”

“A Coke would be great.”

“Except it’s Pepsi.”

“Pepsi’s fine.”