route he did, over to West End and up to Eighty-eighth, because that’s where his car was parked. And when he got in it, well, that was how he gave us the slip, without even knowing we were there.”
“An’ he just got in it an’ didn’t start the engine or nothin’.”
“Why go anywhere? He had a space that was good until seven the next morning.”
Elaine said, “That’s men for you. After they make love, all they want to do is get in their car and go to sleep.”
“Least he got a car,” TJ said. “They could go for rides.”
“He could take her to drive-in movies,” she said. “If they still had them. Or he could park somewhere and lure her into the back seat.”
“An’ he fall right asleep.”
“Out of force of habit,” she agreed. “Oh, I love it.” They turned more serious when I told them about the mustache hairs Monica’s killer had left behind, and the inferences Sussman and I had drawn. I asked Elaine if the mustache had looked phony to her, and she said it hadn’t, that she’d have said something if it had.
“But you don’t expect a mustache to be a fake,” she said. “A certain kind of hairline, you take a second glance to see if you can spot any of the standard telltale signs of a rug. Even then, like we were saying the other day, if it’s a good one you can’t tell. A false mustache should be easier to get away with, because no one would be looking for it.” Something struck me, and I asked where the drawing was.
“Right there on the table, a whole stack of them.”
“I mean the original.”
“Oh,” she said. “Just a minute, I think I know where I put it.”
“Bring an eraser, will you?”
“An eraser? Why do you—oh, I get it. Okay.” She came back with Ray’s pencil sketch and a cube of Artgum and said, “Let me do it, okay? Now you want the mustache off but nothing else touched, am I right?”
“Right.”
“So I’ll do it, because my hands are better than yours at detail work.”
“And lettering.”
All the Flowers Are Dying
235
“And lettering, and it’s all because I’m a girl. That’s the same reason I can’t throw a baseball.”
“Or understand the infield fly rule.”
“Except I could throw a baseball fine if I were a lesbian. I don’t know about the infield fly rule, though.” She leaned forward, blew away the shreds of Art Gum detritus. “There! What do you think?”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look sick. What’s the matter?”
“I think I know him,” I said. “I think it’s Abie.”
“His name’s Abie. I’ve known him for, well, I don’t know. One, two months? He’s new in New York, but he’s been sober something like ten years. He comes to meetings at St. Paul’s and Fireside, and just the other night he turned up at a gay men’s meeting in Chelsea. I thought it was strange, running into him there. And there was something odd about his manner. I guess I thought he was gay but didn’t want me to know it. He wanted to talk, tried to get me to talk, but I just wanted to be alone that night.”
“He was stalking you.”
I couldn’t sit still. I was on my feet, walking around the room as I talked.
I said, “It just doesn’t make sense. He’s been in the program ten years, for God’s sake.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he said so, and why would anybody lie about something like that? It’s like a mustache, you don’t look at it closely.” I frowned.
“I’m the one he latched on to, aren’t I? I thought it was Monica and then you, or maybe the other way around, but it must have been me.
He tagged me to AA and started coming to meetings. I don’t know how he got to Monica.”
“She’s over here a lot. Was over here a lot.”
“Then he found a way to meet her, which probably wouldn’t have 236
Lawrence Block
been too hard. And impressed upon her the need for secrecy, so she couldn’t tell us about him. Didn’t she buy Scotch for him?”
“Yes.”
“And he brought her a bottle of that Italian crap.”
“Strega.”
