Arthur J. Nelson had come to believe that if he didn't make a pig of himself, if he didn't gulp it down, if he just sipped slowly at a glass of cognac, or put half a shot in his coffee, it was possible to reach a sort of equilibrium. The right amount of cognac in his system served to deaden the pain, to keep him from painful thought, but not to make him drunk. He could still think clearly, was still very much aware of what was going on. The only thing he had to do, he believed, was exercise the necessary willpower, and resist the temptation to pour another glass before it was really safe to do so. And there was no question in his mind that he had, in the last twenty-four hours, been doing just that. A lesser man would have broken down and wept, or gotten falling-down drunk, or both, and he had done neither.
When Staff Inspector Peter Wohl had telephoned, Arthur J. Nelson had been a third of the way through a bottle of Hennessey V.S.O.P., one delicate sip at a time, except of course for the couple of hookers he had splashed into his coffee.
And he took a pretty good sip, draining the snifter, when he hung up after talking to Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, that miserable arrogant sonofabitch.
He poured the snifter a third full, and then, carrying it with him, walked upstairs from his den to his bedroom on the second floor. He quietly opened the door and walked in.
Sally was in the bed, flat on her back, asleep. She looked, he thought, old and tired and pale. Although he hated what the fucking pills had done to her, he was glad, for her sake, that she had them now. And then she snored. It was amazing, he thought, how noisily she snored. It sounded as if she were a 250-pound man, and he supposed she didn't weigh 100 pounds, if that much.
He remembered the first time he had seen her naked, held her naked in his arms. She had been so small and delicate he had been afraid that he was going to break her. And he remembered when she was large with Jerome. That had been almost impossible to believe, even looking right at it.
A tear ran down his cheek, and he brushed at it, forgetting that that hand held the snifter. He spilled a couple of drops on his shirt, and swore, loud enough for it to get through to Sally, who sort of groaned.
He held himself motionless for a moment, until her regular, slow, heavy breathing pattern returned. Then he left the room as carefully and quietly as he entered it.
He stood at the top of the stairs. He was hungry. He hadn't eaten. The house had been full of people, and although Mrs. Dawberg, the housekeeper, had seen to it that there had been a large buffet of cold cuts, he just hadn't gotten around to eating.
And now all the help was in bed, and he hated to get them out of bed in any case; and especially now, when they would need all the rest they could get to get ready for tomorrow, when the house, all day, would be like goddamn Suburban Station at half past five.
He walked down the wide staircase, wondering if he really wanted to go into the kitchen and fix himself an egg sandwich or something. He went back in his den and drained what was left in the snifter after he-Jesus, what a dumb thing to do!!!-had spilled it on his shirt, and then poured a little more in.
To hell with going in the kitchen, he decided. What I'll do is just get in a car and go find a fast-food joint.
The idea had a sudden appeal. He realized that what he really wanted was junk food. Hamburgers and french fries. Not what they served these days in McDonald's or Burger King, but the little tiny ones they used to sell for a dime, the kind they sort of steamed on the grill over chopped onions. In those white tile buildings with no booths, just round-seat stools by a counter, where everything was stainless steel. He could practically smell the damned things.
He had a little trouble finding where they kept the keys to the cars. He supposed they took them from the ignition last thing when they locked up for the night. He finally found a rack of keys in a little cupboard in the pantry off the garage. They were all in little numbered leather cases, except the key to the Rolls, which had a Rolls insignia on it.
Which was which?
He didn't want to take the Rolls. He was going to go to a hamburger joint and sit on a round stool and eat cheap little hamburgers and french fries, and you don't take a Rolls-Royce to do that.
He took one key and worked his way through a Cadillac coupe and a Buick station wagon before it worked in the ignition switch of an Oldsmobile sedan he didn't remember ever having seen before. He remembered vaguely that Sally had said something about having to get Mrs. Dawberg a new car, and that he'd told her to go ahead and do it.
He thought he remembered a White Palace or a Crystal Palace or whatever the hell they called those joints about a mile away, but when he got there, there was a Sunoco gas station, so he drove on. When he stopped at a red light, he decided it had been some time since he'd last had a little sip, and pulled the cork from the Hennessey bottle and took a little nip.
Thirty minutes later, not having found what he wanted, he decided to hell with it. What he would do was go by theLedger. It wouldn't be a cheap little White Palace hamburger, but the cafeteria operated twenty-four hours a day, and he could at least get a hamburger, or something else. And it was always a good idea to drop in unannounced on the city room. Keep them on their toes.
He drove to the back of the building and pulled the nose of the Oldsmobile in against a loading dock, and took another little sip. He could hardly walk into the city room carrying a bottle of cognac, and there was no telling how long he would be in there.
There was a tap on his window, and he looked out and saw a security officer frowning at him. With some difficulty, Arthur J. Nelson managed to find the window switch and lower the window.
"Hey, buddy," the security officer said, "you can't park there."
"Let me tell you something,buddy," Arthur J. Nelson said. "I own this goddamned newspaper and I can park any goddamned place I please!"
The security officer's eyes widened, and then there was recognition.
"Sorry, Mr. Nelson, I didn't recognize you."
"Goddamned right," Arthur Nelson said, and got out of the car. "Keep up the good work!" he called after the retreating security officer.
He entered the building and walked down the tile-lined corridor to the elevator bank. Windows opened on the presses in the basement. They were still, although he saw pressmen standing around. He glanced at his watch.
It was not quite one A.M. The first (One Star) edition started rolling at two-fifteen. Christ alone knew what it was costing him to have all those pressmen standing around for an hour or more with their fingers up their asses at $19.50 an hour. He'd have to look into that. Goddamned unions would bankrupt you if you didn't keep your eye on them.
He got in the elevator and rode it up to the fifth, editorial, floor, and went into the city room.
He felt eyes on him as he walked across the room to the city desk.
Well, why the hell not? I don't come in here at this time nearly often enough.
There were half a dozen men and two women at the city desk. The city editor got to his feet when he saw him.
"Good evening, Mr. Nelson," he said. "How are you, sir?"
"How the hell do you think I am?" Nelson snapped.
"I'd like to offer my condolences, sir," the city editor said.
"Very kind of you," Arthur Nelson said, automatically, and then he remembered that goddamned cop, whatsisname,Wohl.
"I've got something for you," Nelson said. "The cops have found my son's car. It was stolen from the garage at his apartment when… it was stolen from his apartment."
"Yes, sir?"