decade. There's a whole new set of names cast in bronze every single year. Often one surname will appear two or three times when fathers, sons, brothers, and cousins who worked together on the same vessel end up dying together as well.
'We were partners, you know,' Alan continued. 'From the time our dad died, we were equal partners, but mostly I was so drunked up that Lars had to carry me. And he never complained about it. Always passed it off like it was no big deal. Like, ‘He ain't heavy, he's my brother,' or something equally dumb.'
Alan Torvoldsen blinked, shook his head, and ground out his half-smoked cigarette. 'Shit!' he muttered. 'I guess I still miss him.'
'Alan…' I began, but he held up his hand and silenced me.
'Now that I've started, let me finish. Lars was always a good kid-a good man, I mean. When he went down, he had a nice wife-a pretty wife who loved him and who was seven months pregnant. He also had a three-year-old son. The previous year had been a pisser. We barely made enough for me to scrape by, and I didn't have a family to support. So when Lars ran short, he more or less stopped paying some of the bills, including insurance on the boat and his own life insurance.'
The Torvoldsens' family boat-The Norwegian Princess — had been one of the graceful old two-masted schooners. Compared to it, Alan's One Day at a Time was little more than a sea-going scow.
'That's where the family boat went?'
Alan nodded. 'But it was only a boat, you know? I should have been grateful just to be alive, but did I fall down on my knees and thank God? Hell no! I blamed Lars. Said it was his fault that we were ruined, and then I climbed on my pity-pot, got drunk, and stayed drunk. Finally, about a year ago, Aarnie Knudsen-you remember Button, don't you?'
'I remember Button.'
'He tracked me down in a beat-out dive down in Astoria. He told me I'd better come home because my mother was dying. So I did. My mother was happy to see me, even after all that. It was just like the story in the Bible about the damn prodigal son. She died two days later. I haven't had a drink since.'
I've heard some pretty dramatic drunkalogues in my time. We weren't even in a meeting, but Champagne Al's story put gooseflesh on my legs.
'What I've done in the last year,' he continued, 'is to try figuring out why I'm still alive. If Lars is dead and I'm not, there must be some reason, some plan. I've tried to make amends for what I didn't do before. I'm doing what I can to help Krissy-that's Lars's wife…widow. I spend every Sunday afternoon with my nephews. They're cute kids, but life without a father is pretty damn tough.'
He stopped talking as though he had used up all the words at his command, but something was still missing. We sat there in silence while the jukebox blared behind us. He lit another cigarette.
'Alan,' I said finally. 'I don't understand why you're telling me all this.'
'Because I want you to know who I am now,' he returned gravely. 'You probably remember me from the old days. It's taken almost thirty years, but I've finally grown up. I'm not Champagne Al anymore, and I'm man enough to tell you that although I may have been married five times, I've only been in love once. Else Didriksen is the one who got away, Beau. And maybe I still care too much. But when I tell you what I'm about to tell you, I don't want you to think it's sour grapes talking.'
'When you tell me what?'
'Gunter Gebhardt was a rotten son of a bitch,' Alan Torvoldsen said through clenched teeth. 'He had a girlfriend on the side. She lives in a house up on Camano Island.'
'How do you happen to know where she lives?'
'Because she showed up in the parking lot down on the dock today. I'd seen her before, lots of times. I saw her driving around in the lot just before I called down to the department looking for you. I thought maybe you'd get there in time to talk to her, but you weren't in. When she left, I followed her home.'
'Who is she? What's her name?'
'That I don't know, but I can give you her address. She's a looker all right. She's maybe all of twenty-five, and she's got a figure that won't quit.'
He pulled a ragged scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it over. A street address had been penciled on it in a careless, masculine hand.
'Can I keep this?'
He nodded. 'All I ask is one favor in exchange.'
'What's that?'
'I've seen this same broad coming and going from the Isolde off and on for months now. I kept hoping that someday someone would tell Else about it or that maybe she'd find out on her own. When you tell Else about this, it's going to be real tough on her. Even with Gunter dead, it's still going to break her heart. So don't tell her how you found out, okay? Whatever you do, don't tell her it came from me.'
I raised the cup that still held the dregs of my Club 449 Americano and toasted Champagne Al Torvoldsen in a heartfelt salute.
'You've got it,' I said. 'My lips are sealed.'
9
Alan Torvoldsen dropped me back at Belltown Terrace around nine-thirty. Our newest doorman, Kevin, let me into the lobby, where I stopped long enough to pick up my mail and punch the Up button on the elevator. When the elevator door opened, there was a dog inside-a dog and no one else. And not just one of those little, yappy waste- of-fur dogs, either. This was a big dog-tall, blond, and pointy-nosed. An Afghan maybe. Or perhaps a Russian wolfhound.
Whatever kind of dog it was, standing on all fours, its nose came right to the bottom of my tie. Fortunately, the tail was wagging.
'There's a dog in here!'
'That's just Charley,' Kevin said, as though explaining the obvious. 'Lives on nineteen. Haven't you two met before?'
'Never. What's he doing in the elevator?'
'Just riding around. Must get bored in the evenings sometimes, locked up in an apartment all day. Gail-the owner-lets Charley spend half an hour or so just before bedtime, riding up and down in the elevator and meeting people.'
'He rides up and down all by himself?'
'Don't worry. Charley's very friendly.'
'Thank God for small blessings.'
Charley moved aside, giving me room enough to join him in the elevator. On the way up, I tried punching nineteen. The door opened on that floor, but Charley looked up at me quizzically and made no move to get off. Instead, he rode on up to twenty-five with me. When the door slid open on my floor, he started forward eagerly, as though he wanted to bail out right along with me.
'No, you don't, pal,' I told Charley, barring the way. I was thankful that we were alone and that no one was there to hear me talking to a damn dog. It's bad for the tough-guy image.
'This is where I live,' I added. 'No dogs allowed.'
Before exiting, I hit nineteen one more time for good measure, punched 'door closed,' and then made sure Charley was still safely inside when the elevator car started back down. I didn't know Charley's owner, Gail, from Adam's off ox, but someone would have to have a serious talk with the woman. Having a dog wandering around loose in a high-rise luxury condo building didn't seem like such a good idea to me.
I let myself into my apartment and started to put the mail down on the entryway table. I usually let it accumulate there for several days before I finally force myself to sit down and go through it all at one time. But the metal box was still there. My grandfather's ashes were still there. I put the mail on the dining-room table.
The red light on my answering machine was blinking steadily. Ralph Ames, my attorney, gave me the machine years ago. It's starting to wear out. Every once in a while, it goes crazy and either eats a tape or garbles a
