"Jerry must know that."
"Oh?"
"All he has to do is stop doing what he's been doing."
"You mean withPrejanian ."
"Do I?" She had finished her cigar, and now she took another from the teak box. But she didn't light it, just played with it. "Maybe I don't mean anything. But look at the record. That's an Americanism I rather like. Let us look at the record. For all these years Jerry has been doing nicely as a policeman. He has his charming little house inForest Hills and his charming wife and his charming children. Have you met his wife and children?"
"No."
"Neither have I, but I've seen their pictures. American men are extraordinary. First they show one pictures of their wives and children, and then they want to go to bed. Are you married?"
"Not anymore."
"Did you play around when you were?"
"Now and then."
"But you didn't show pictures around, did you?" I shook my head.
"Somehow I didn't think so." She returned the cigar to the box, straightened up, yawned. "He had all that, at any rate, and then he went to this Special Prosecutor with this long story about police corruption, and he began giving interviews to the newspapers, and he took a leave of absence from the police force, and all of a sudden he's in trouble and accused of shaking down a poor little whore for a hundred dollars a week. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
"That's what he has to do? DropPrejanian and you'll drop the charges?"
"I didn't come right out and say that, did I? And anyway, he must have known that without your digging around. I mean, it's rather obvious, wouldn't you say?"
We went around a little more and didn't accomplish a thing. I don't know what I'd hoped to accomplish or why I had taken five hundred dollars fromBroadfield in the first place. Someone had Portia Carr intimidated a lot more seriously than I was likely to manage, for all my cleverness in sneaking into her apartment. In the meantime we were talking pointlessly, and we were both aware of the pointlessness of it.
"This is silly," she said at one point. "I am going to have another drink. Will you join me?"
I wanted a drink badly. "I'll pass," I said.
She brushed me on the way to the kitchen. I got a strong whiff of a perfume I didn't recognize. I decided I would know it the next time I smelled it. She came back with a drink in her hand and sat on the couch again. "Silly," she said again. "Why don't youcome sit next to me and we will talk of something else.Or of nothing at all."
"You could be in trouble, Portia."
Her face showed alarm. "You mustn't say that."
"You're putting yourself right in the middle. You're a big strong girl, but you might not turn out to be as strong as you think you are."
"Are you threatening me? No, it's not a threat, is it?"
I shook my head. "You don't have to worry about me. But you've got enough to worry about without me."
Her eyes dropped. "I'm so tired of being strong," she said. "I'm good at it, you know."
"I'm sure you are."
"But it's tiring."
"Maybe I could help you."
"I don't think anyone can."
"Oh?"
She studied me briefly,then dropped her eyes. She stood and crossed the room to the window. I could have walked along behind her.
There was something in her stance that suggested she expected me to.
But I stayed where I was.
She said, "There's something there, isn't there?"
"Yes."
"But it's just no good at the moment. The timing's all wrong." She was looking out the window. "Right now neither of us can do the other any good at all."
I didn't say anything.
"You'd better go now."
"All right."
"It's so beautiful outside.The sun, the freshness of the air." She turned to look at me. "Do you like this time of year?"
"Yes.Very much."
"It's my favorite, I think. October, November, the best time of the year. But also the saddest, wouldn't you say?"
"Sad? Why?"
"Oh, very sad," she said."Because winter is coming."
Chapter 2
On my way out I left the passkey with the doorman. He didn't seem any happier now, even though he was getting to see me leave this time. I went over to Johnny Joyce's on Second and sat in a booth. Most of the lunch crowd was gone. The ones who remained were one or two martinis over the line now and probably wouldn't make it back to their offices at all. I had a hamburger and a bottle of Harp,then drank a couple shots of bourbon with my coffee.
I triedBroadfield's number. It rang for a while and no one answered it. I went back to my booth and hadanother bourbon and thought about some things. There were questions I couldn't seem to answer.
Why had I passed up Portia Carr's offer of a drink when I wanted a drink so badly? And why (if it wasn't another version of the same question) had I passed up Portia Carr herself?
I did some more thinking onWestForty-ninth Street , in the actors'
chapel at St.Malachy's . The chapel is below street level, a large understated room which provides a measure of peace and quiet that is otherwise hard to come by in the heart of the Broadway theater district. I took an aisle seat and let my mind wander.
An actress I used to know a long time ago once told me that she came to St.Malachy's every day when she wasn't working. "I wonder if it matters that I'm not a Catholic, Matt. I don't think so. I say my little prayer and I light my little candle and I pray for work. I wonder whether or not it helps. Do you supposeit's okay to ask God for a decent part?"
I must have sat there for close to an hour, running different things through my mind. On the way out I put a couple of bucks in the poor box and lit a few candles. I didn't say any prayers.
I spent most of the evening in Polly's Cage, across the street from my hotel. Chuck was behind the bar and he was in an expansive mood, so much so that the house was buying every other round. I had reached my client late in the afternoon and had given him a brief rundown on my meeting with Carr.
He'd asked me where I was going to go from there, and I'd said I would have to work it out and that I'd get in touch when I had something he ought to know. Nothing in that category came up that night, so I didn't have to call him. Nor did I have any reason to call anyone else. I'd picked up a phone message at my hoteclass="underline" Anita had called and wanted me to call her, but it was not the sort of night on which I wanted to talk to an ex-wife. I stayed at Polly's and emptied my glass every time Chuck filled it up.
Around eleven-thirty a couple of kids came in and started playing nothing but country and western on the jukebox. I can usually stomach that as well as anything else, but for some reason or other it wasn't what I wanted to hear just then. I settled my tab and went around the corner to Armstrong's, where Don had the radio set to WNCN. They were playing Mozart, and the crowd was so thin you could actually hear the music.
"They sold the station," Don said. "The new owners are switching to a pop-rock format. Another rock station is just what the city needs."
"Things always deteriorate."
"I can't argue the point. There's a protest movement to force them to continue a classical music policy.
I don't suppose it'll do any good, do you?"
I shook my head. "Nothing ever does any good."
"Well, you're in a beautiful mood tonight. I'm glad you decided to spread sweetness and light here instead of staying cooped up in your room."
I poured bourbon into my coffee and gave it a stir. I was in a foul mood and I couldn't figure out exactly why. It is bad enough when you know what it is that is bothering you. When the demons plaguing you are invisible, it is that much more difficult to contend with them.
IT was a strange dream.
I don't dream much. Alcohol has this effect of making you sleep at a deeper level, below the plane on which dreams occur. I am told that DTs represent the psyche's insistence upon having its chance to dream; unable to dream while asleep, one has one's dreams upon awakening.