“Another?” Abe asked.
“Yeah,” Mortimer said.
Abe poured a second round.
Mortimer knocked that back, then placed the shot glass on the bar and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Abe tried to lighten the atmosphere. “You don’t sing by any chance, do you, Morty?”
“Shit,” Mortimer said glumly.
Abe poured another round. “Sip this one,” he said. “You might enjoy the taste.”
Mortimer did as he was told.
“What do you think?”
“Good,” Mortimer said.
“You look a little… I don’t know…”
“Fucked,” Mortimer said.
“Yeah, that’s the word,” Abe said. “What’s the trouble?”
Mortimer’s eyes suddenly lifted from the glass, and Abe could see just how deep the trouble was.
“I got these fucking tests back.” Mortimer looked surprised that the information had flown from his mouth so suddenly. “A death sentence. Three months on the outside.” He rolled the glass slowly between his hands. “Liver’s shot.”
Abe had no idea what to say, and so he said, “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Mortimer shrugged. “No hope. Couple months, on the outside.”
For a moment the two men sat silently. Then Abe said, “I’m really sorry to hear it, Morty.” He poured a fourth round. “On the house. From now on,” he said.
“From now on,” Mortimer repeated, his voice oddly filled with emotion. “You’re a real friend, Abe. Always there for me.”
Abe stared at him, astonished that Mortimer could regard him in such a way. Before now he could remember no conversation that hadn’t included the weather.
Mortimer put out his hand. “My best friend.”
Abe shook Mortimer’s hand lightly.
Mortimer smiled at him warmly, then finished off the drink. “I didn’t tell Dottie yet.”
“Dottie?”
“My wife.” Mortimer ran his finger around the rim of the empty glass. “I ain’t told nobody but you, Abe.”
“You should tell your wife,” Abe said, now suddenly aware that this was Mortimer’s best friend talking.
“The trouble is, I got nothing to leave her.” Mortimer shook his head despondently. “Horses, you know?”
Abe realized that for Mortimer this amounted to a heartfelt confidence. “So, what are you going to do?” he asked. “I mean… about… what was your wife’s name?”
“Dottie.”
“Yeah, Dottie.”
Mortimer considered Abe’s question briefly, his eyes gazing into the empty glass as if it were a crystal ball. Then he sat back and lightly slapped the bar with both hands. “I better get going.” He grabbed Abe’s hand and squeezed. “Thanks, Abe,” he said as he eased himself off the stool.
Abe came around the end of the bar and followed him out onto the street. It seemed the minimum he could do. Briefly, they stood together, watching the breeze riffle through the trees that lined the street.
“Let me know if there’s anything you need,” Abe said finally.
Mortimer snatched a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, thumped one out and lit it. “You got a safe, Abe?”
“Yeah.”
Mortimer lifted the match and stared at the small, guttering flame. “Maybe you could do something for me.”
“Sure.”
Mortimer drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Abe. “Fifteen thousand. It’s for Dottie. If something happens to me, make sure she gets it.”
“That’s a lot of cash,” Abe said warily.
“I do a cash business,” Mortimer replied. “And the thing is, if I keep it, it’ll ride off on some fucking nag at the track.” He dropped the cigarette and crushed it with the toe of his shoe. “You don’t see me around, look me up in the book. Mortimer Dodge. Eighty-sixth Street. That’s where Dottie is.”
“Okay,” Abe said. He put the envelope in his pocket. “But, hey, maybe you’ll beat this thing.”
Mortimer shook his head. “If it was a light switch, I’d flip it off right now.”
“If what were a light switch?”
“Life,” Mortimer said, turned, and trudged wearily down the street, head bowed, shoulders hunched, as if headed for that place where the firing squad stood waiting for him, talking idly and smoking cigarettes.
CARUSO
From behind the limited concealment of a tree, Caruso watched Mortimer trudge up the street. He’d seen him pass an envelope, but the guy he’d passed it to didn’t remotely resemble the sort of guy he’d have taken for Batman. But that didn’t matter, Caruso said to himself. If this fuck was Batman, and the Big Assignment came his way, then it didn’t matter if the guy looked the part or didn’t look the part. Either way, the guy was history.
Now, as he fell in behind Mortimer, following him at a distance, he wondered just how many guys Mortimer would see during the night, how long the list he’d have to whittle down, eliminating one guy at a time, until he knew which one Batman really was.
Mortimer reached Fifth Avenue, then headed uptown again. It was a clear, cool night, but as far as Caruso was concerned, the air’s crisp clarity did nothing to recommend a long nocturnal stroll up the blue spine of Manhattan. What if Mortimer were a drunk? Caruso asked himself. What if the poor hopeless bastard was one of those guys who spent his nights going from bar to bar but always managed to appear sober the next morning. Caruso considered this possibility, then instantly believed that Mortimer was precisely this kind of guy. From that unappetizing conclusion, he imagined himself tailing his black-hatted quarry from one gin mill to the next as the hours dropped dead one by one, and dawn at last broke over the bleary face of the city.
But as Mortimer continued north, he seemed hardly to notice the taverns he passed. Instead, he appeared entirely lost to the world around him, hardly noticing the speeding traffic or his fellow pedestrians. When an old woman’s small white dog leaped at him, snarling and straining at the leash, he seemed barely aware of it. He didn’t flinch away or alter the pace of his forward momentum but only sailed onward, holding to his course like a battered old steamer churning its way home.
At Nineteenth Street, Mortimer turned westward, his gait now so weary and unsteady he seemed perpetually jostled by a rude, invisible crowd. The signs from the bars did not beckon to him. He passed them like strangers, wobbling on through the nearly deserted street until he reached a building whose address Caruso could clearly read: 445 West 19 Street.
It was a five-story brownstone that looked carefully maintained. Two black wrought-iron railings led up seven cement steps to a polished wooden door. Four windows faced the street, and there were terra-cotta flower boxes in each of them. Some kind of greenery rose from the boxes, but there were no flowers. There was a large brass knocker on the door, but Caruso noted that Mortimer pressed a small buzzer instead, then waited until the door opened.
STARK
Mortimer stood at the door, the same oddly morose look on his face that Stark had noticed at their last meeting. “I hope it’s enough,” he said as he drew the envelope from his jacket pocket.
Stark looked at Mortimer pointedly, took in the drawn, desolate face, the sense of something frayed beyond mending. If something were wrong with the deal, he thought, and Mortimer knew it was wrong, then what desperation would have compelled him to go through with it? He thought of the years they’d worked together and decided, just this once, to offer an out.
“Do I need to know anything else, Mortimer?” he asked. “Anything else before I go to work on this?”
“You mean about the-”
“About anything,” Stark interrupted.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Mortimer looked unnerved by the question but said only, “Yeah.”
All right, Stark thought, what’s done is done. He took the envelope from his hand. “I’ll get back to you.”
With that, Stark expected Mortimer to retreat down the corridor, but he remained in place, staring at the envelope.