A Drop of the Hard Stuff

HAD TO FORCE myself to go out and eat breakfast. I’d skipped dinner, and couldn’t remember if I’d had lunch. It seemed to me that I hadn’t.

Don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. The acronym is HALT, and it’s standard advice for beginners, and remains applicable no matter how long you’ve been sober. Ignore it and your mind begins working against you, and the next thing you know you’ve got a glass in your hand.

I’d been all those things the previous night, hungry and angry and lonely and tired, but I’d managed to get through the night in spite of myself. I had a plate of bacon and eggs with toast and home fries, and once I got the first bite down my appetite returned, and I cleaned my plate and drank three cups of coffee. I’d bought the Times on the way to the Morning Star, and someone had read and abandoned the Daily News, and I read each paper carefully, looking for stories of violent death. There were plenty of them, there always are, but for a change none of the newly dead were people I knew.

Back in my room, I looked up phone numbers and made calls. I rang Dukacs & Son, and recognized the proprietor’s voice when he answered. But I made sure: “Mr. Dukacs?”

“Yes?”

I broke the connection, called Crosby Hart at his office. He picked up the phone and said, “Hal Hart.”

“Wrong number,” I said, and rang off.

I made a third call to Scooter Williams. The phone rang and rang, and I wondered if a quick trip down to Ludlow Street would be overreacting. Then he picked up. He was out of breath, and something made me ask if he was all right.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “I just got out of the shower, I had to run to the phone. Uh, who is this?”

I gave my name.

He said, “Matthew Scudder. Matthew Scudder. Oh, right! Jack’s friend.”

“Right,” I said, figuring that was close enough.

“Yeah, I remember. I was gonna call you, man.”

“Oh?”

“Can’t remember why. It came to me, you know, and then it went away. Something you asked me, but don’t ask me what it was. Oh, wow. You asked me but don’t ask me?”

“You can’t remember.”

“Hey, if it came to me once it’ll come to me again. Like swallows to Capistrano, you know? You want to give me your number again? You gave it to me, but I don’t know what I did with it.”

I gave it to him again. He said, “Matthew Scudder. Okay, got it. Hey, you know what? You’re Scudder and I’m Scooter.”

“And to think some people doubt the existence of God.”

“Huh? Oh, right. Years since anybody called me that, though. Ages. Hey, it’ll come to me and I’ll call you.”

“That’s great,” I said, and finally managed to hang up.

So they were alive, all three of them.

I got to the noon meeting at Fireside. There was a message in my box when I got back. Red Man, it said, and there was a number. It took me a minute, but I figured out that it was Dennis Redmond, and made the call from my room.

“I figured Monday for the autopsy results,” he said, “but either they’ve got a light load over there or Stillman jumped the queue. No sign of blunt force trauma to the head. Or to any other part of him, as far as that goes.”

“So it looks like he did it himself.”

“It always did,” he said. “Of course somebody could have drugged him and strung him up. But that didn’t happen either. No drugs in his system, no blood alcohol.”

So he’d died sober.

“In fact,” he said, “all the physical evidence supports a verdict of suicide. Strangulation’s the cause of death. There ought to be a law.”

“Against suicide? I think there already is.”

“Against belts,” he said. “Where do they get off making them strong enough to support a man’s weight? You might as well be putting a loaded gun in the hands of a child.”

“How else are people going to keep their pants up?”

“What the hell’s wrong with suspenders? Or you could do like they do with fishing line. A certain amount of pressure and it snaps, gives the fish a sporting chance. Why not do the same with belts? A weight of more than a hundred pounds and it breaks. Think of the lives that would be saved.”

“And what about children?”

“Never thought of it,” he said. “But you’re right, it’d just trigger an epidemic of juvenile suicide. I guess there’s only one answer.”

“And that would be?”

“Warning labels. Works with cigarettes. Matt, I just thought you’d want to know. Your friend killed himself. Though I don’t suppose it makes you happy to hear that.”

“No,” I said. “How could it? But at least it saves me having to figure out what to do next.”

I was watching television when the phone rang. ESPN was showing a Gaelic football game, or a match, whatever they call it, and I sat there while a lot of young men in shorts and long-sleeved jerseys showed enormous energy doing something entirely incomprehensible. There was running and passing and kicking involved, and the score kept changing, in what struck me as a wholly arbitrary way.