ago, half of 'em's dead. Didn't take thirty-two years, neither. Dyin' must be easy, when I think of all the dudes caught on real quick how to do it.'
'Try to be a slow learner,' I said.
'Oh, I tryin',' he said. 'I doin' the best I can.'
11
I treated myself to the afternoon, catching a movie on Twenty-third Street, then walking downtown to the Village. I passed the apartment building that had risen where Cunningham's had once stood, and the brownstone a block away where Carl Uhl had been murdered. I got down to Perry Street in time for the four o'clock meeting and stood in the rear with a cup of coffee from the pastry shop around the corner.
The speaker told what a friend alcohol had been, and how it had turned on him. 'Toward the end,' he said, 'it just didn't work anymore. Nothing worked. Nothing relaxed me, not even seizures.'
While I waited for a bus on Hudson Street, a florist's display caught my eye. I had them wrap a dozen Dutch iris, rode the bus to Fifty-fourth, and walked over to Elaine's shop.
'These are beautiful,' she said. 'What brought this on?'
'They were going to be diamonds,' I said, 'but the client got cheap about the bonus.'
'What bonus?'
'For the picture we took at Wallbanger's.'
'Oh, God,' she said. 'What a crazy evening that was. I wonder how many bars like that there are in the city, with grown men and women sticking themselves to the wall.'
'I know one on Washington Street,' I told her, 'where they stick each other to the wall, but they don't use Velcro.'
'What do they use, Krazy Glue?'
'Manacles, leg irons.'
'Oh, I think I know the place you mean. But didn't they have to close?'
'They reopened again under another name.'
'Is it boys only these days? Or is it still boys and girls?'
'Boys and girls. Why?'
'I don't know,' she said. 'One isn't obliged to participate, is one?'
'One doesn't even have to walk in the door.'
'I mean you can just observe, right?'
'Why you ask, kemo sabe?'
'I don't know. Maybe I'm interested.'
'Oh?'
'Well, look how much fun we had at the Velcro Derby out in Queens. It might be even more of a hoot to watch people get kinky.'
'Maybe.'
'It would finally give me a chance to wear that leather outfit that I had no business buying.'
'Ah, that's why you want to go,' I said. 'It's not sex at all, it's to make a fashion statement. You're right, though, it's the perfect costume for the well-dressed dominatrix. But what would I wear?'
'Knowing you, probably your gray glen-plaid suit. As a matter of fact you'd look really hot in a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.'
'I don't own a black T-shirt.'
'I'll get you one. I'd get you a black tanktop if I thought you'd wear it, but would you?'
'No.'
'That's what I thought. Let me put these in water, and then I'll close up and you can walk me home. Unless the flowers were for the apartment?'
'No, I thought they'd look nice here.'
'You're right, and I've even got an empty vase the right size. There, don't they look pretty? We'll stop at the Korean and pick up something for a salad, and I'll fix us some pasta and a salad and we'll eat at the kitchen table. How does that sound?'
I said it sounded fine.
After dinner I opened the envelope I'd been carrying around all day and got out the printouts of the TRW reports, along with the letter of commendation Wally had dictated to the client. Elaine went into the other room to watch Jeopardy and I had a look at what just about anybody with a couple of bucks to spend could find out about the financial standing and bill-paying habits of the fourteen living members of the club of thirty-one.
I had gone through most of the stack when Elaine brought me a cup of coffee and the news that none of the three contestants had known that Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison.
'Neither did I,' I admitted. 'What was the category, Guys Named Harrison?'
'Presidents.'
'Oh, William Henry Harrison. Tippecanoe?' She nodded. 'And Tyler, too. It all comes back to me. He died, didn't he?'
'No shit, Sherlock. He was elected president in 1840, so what do you want from him? What's this?' She took the client's letter from me and read it through. 'This is great,' she said. 'Wally dictated it?'
'So he says.'
'It's perfect, don't you think? You should make it a point to get one of these whenever you've got a client who tells you what a great job you did for him.'
'I suppose.'
'Your enthusiasm is contagious.'
'I guess I should have it framed and hang it on my office wall,' I said, 'if I ever get a real office. And I could tuck a copy in the portfolio I show to prospective clients.'
'If you ever put together a portfolio.'
'Right.'
'But you don't know if you want all that.'
The coffee was too hot to drink. I blew on the surface to cool it. I said, 'It's about time I got off my ass, don't you think? It's been twenty years since I turned in my gold shield.'
'You were bottoming out with your drinking,' she said. 'Remember?'
'Vividly.'
'And then you were getting sober.'
'And now I've been dry so long I'm a fire hazard, as I've heard it said, and what the hell have I done with my life?' I tapped the sheaf of credit reports. 'Here's a group of guys my age,' I said, 'and they've got families and careers, they own their own homes, and most of them could retire tomorrow if they wanted to. What have I got to put up against that?'
'Well, for one thing,' she said, 'you're alive. More than half of those men are dead.'
'I'm talking about the living ones. Anyway, nobody's been trying to kill me.'
'Oh? I can think of one fellow who really put his mind to it for a while there. If you forget what he looks like, look in the mirror.'
'I get the point.'
'And,' she said, 'give yourself a little credit, will you? From the day you left the department you've made a living.'
'Some living.'
'Were you ever on welfare? Did you ever miss a meal or sleep in the park? Did you break into parked cars and steal radios? I don't remember seeing you on the street with a paper cup, asking for spare change. Did I miss something?'
'I got by,' I said.
'You made a living,' she said, 'doing the work you're best at, and you didn't chase after it, either. You let it
