They tell you not to let yourself get too hungry. I hadn't had anything to eat since that hot dog in the park. I thought of food and my stomach turned at the notion.
I walked back to my hotel. It seemed as though every place I passed was a bar or a liquor store. I went up to my room and stayed there.
I got to the meeting a couple of minutes early. Half a dozen people said hello to me by name. I got some coffee and sat down.
The speaker told an abbreviated drinking story and spent most of the time telling of all the things that had happened to him since he got sober four years ago. His marriage had broken up, his youngest son had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, he'd gone through a period of extended unemployment and several bad bouts of clinical depression.
"But I didn't drink," he said. "When I first came here you people told me there's nothing so bad that a drink won't make it worse. You told me the way to work this program is not drink even if my ass falls off. I'll tell you, sometimes I think I stay sober on sheer fucking stubbornness. That's okay. I figure whatever works is fine with me."
I wanted to leave at the break. Instead I got a cup of coffee and took a couple of Fig Newtons. I could hear Kim telling me that she had an awful sweet tooth. "But I never gain an ounce. Aren't I lucky?"
I ate the cookies. It was like chewing straw but I chewed them and washed them down.
During the discussion one woman got into a long riff about her relationship. She was a pain in the ass, she said the same thing every night. I tuned out.
I thought, My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic. A woman I know got killed last night. She hired me to keep her from getting killed and I wound up assuring her that she was safe and she believed me. And her killer conned me and I believed him, and she's dead now, and there's nothing I can do about it. And it eats at me and I don't know what to do about that, and there's a bar on every corner and a liquor store on every block, and drinking won't bring her back to life but neither will staying sober, and why the hell do I have to go through this? Why?
I thought, My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic and we sit around in these goddamned rooms and say the same damned things all the time and meanwhile out there all the animals are killing each other. We say Don't drink and go to meetings and we say The important thing is you're sober and we say Easy does it and we say One day at a time and while we natter on like brainwashed zombies the world is coming to an end.
I thought, My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic and I need help.
When they got to me I said, "My name is Matt. Thanks for your qualification. I enjoyed it. I think I'll just listen tonight."
I left right after the prayer. I didn't go to Cobb's Corner and I didn't go to Armstrong's, either. Instead I walked to my hotel and past it and halfway around the block to Joey Farrell's on Fifty-eighth Street.
They didn't have much of a crowd. There was a Tony Bennett record on the jukebox. The bartender was nobody I knew.
I looked at the back bar. The first bourbon that caught my eye was Early Times. I ordered a straight shot with water back. The bartender poured it and set it on the bar in front of me.
I picked it up and looked at it. I wonder what I expected to see.
I drank it down.
Chapter 7
It was no big deal. I didn't even feel the drink at first, and then what I experienced was a vague headache and the suggestion of nausea.
Well, my system wasn't used to it. I'd been away from it for a week. When was the last time I'd gone a full week without a drink?
I couldn't remember. Maybe fifteen years, I thought. Maybe twenty, maybe more.
I stood there, a forearm on the bar, one foot on the bottom rung of the bar stool beside me, and I tried to determine just what it was that I felt. I decided that something didn't hurt quite so much as it had a few minutes ago. On the other hand, I felt a curious sense of loss. But of what?
"Another?"
I started to nod, then caught myself and shook my head. "Not right now," I said. "You want to let me have some dimes? I have to make a couple of calls."
He changed a dollar for me and pointed me toward the pay phone. I closed myself into the booth and took out my notebook and pen and started making calls. I spent a few dimes learning who was in charge of the Dakkinen case and a couple more reaching him, but finally I was plugged into the squad room at Midtown North. I asked to speak to Detective Durkin and a voice said, "Just a minute," and "Joe? For you," and after a pause another voice said, "This is Joe Durkin."
I said, "Durkin, my name is Scudder. I'd like to know if you've made an arrest in the Dakkinen murder."
"I didn't get that name," he said.
"It's Matthew Scudder, and I'm not trying to get information out of you, I'm trying to give it. If you haven't arrested the pimp yet I may be able to give you a lead."
After a pause he said, "We haven't made any arrests."
"She had a pimp."
"We know that."
"Do you have his name?"
"Look, Mr. Scudder-"
"Her pimp's name is Chance. That may be a first or last name or it may be an alias. There's no yellow sheet on him, not under that name."
"How would you know about a yellow sheet?"
"I'm an ex-cop. Look, Durkin, I've got a lot of information and all I want to do is give it to you. Suppose I just talk for a few minutes and then you can ask anything you want."
"All right."
I told him what I knew about Chance. I gave him a full physical description, added a description of his car and supplied the license number. I said he had a minimum of four girls on his string and that one of them was a Ms. Sonya Hendryx, possibly known as Sunny, and I described her. "Friday night he dropped Hendryx at 444 Central Park West. It's possible she lives there but more likely that she was going to attend a victory party for a prizefighter named Kid Bascomb. Chance has some sort of interest in Bascomb and it's probable that someone in that building was throwing a party for him."
He started to interrupt but I kept going. I said, "Friday night Chance learned that the Dakkinen girl wanted to end their relationship. Saturday afternoon he visited her on East Thirty-eighth Street and told her he had no objection. He told her to vacate the apartment by the end of the month. It was his apartment, he rented it and installed her in it."
"Just a minute," Durkin said, and I heard papers rustle. "The tenant of record is a Mr. David Goldman. That's also the name Dakkinen's phone's listed in."
"Have you been able to trace David Goldman?"
"Not yet."
"My guess is you won't, or else Goldman'll turn out to be a lawyer or accountant Chance uses to front for him. I'll tell you this much, Chance doesn't look like any David Goldman I ever met."
"You said he was black."
"That's right."
"You met him."
"That's right. Now he doesn't have a particular hangout, but there are several places he frequents." I ran down the list. "I wasn't able to learn where he lives. I gather he keeps that a secret."
"No problem," Durkin said. "We'll use the reverse directory. You gave us his phone number, remember? We'll look it up and get the address that way."
"I think the number's his answering service."
"Well, they'll have a number for him."
"Maybe."
"You sound doubtful."
"I think he likes to keep himself hard to find," I said.
"How'd you happen to find him? What's your connection to all of this, Scudder?"
I felt like hanging up. I'd given them what I had and I didn't feel like answering questions. But I was a lot easier to find than Chance, and if I hung up on Durkin he could have me picked up in no time.
I said, "I met him Friday night. Miss Dakkinen asked me to intercede for her."