The old days.
Which were more than ten years ago.
So what the fuck was I doing now?
I left the elevator car, walked out through the revolving doors and on to the plaza. I crossed Ninetieth Street and headed in the direction of Eighty-ninth. I came to the paper store about half-way along the block and went inside. Vernon hadn’t said what brand he wanted, so I asked for a box of my own favourites, Extra-Strength Excedrin. I looked at the newspapers laid out on the flat – Mexico, Mexico, Mexico – and picked up a Globe. I scanned the front page for anything that might give me a clue as to why Vernon was reading this paper, and the only possible item I could find related to an upcoming product liability trial. There was a small paragraph about it and a page reference for a fuller report inside. The international chemical corporation, Eiben-Chemcorp, would be defending charges in a Massachusetts court that its hugely popular anti-depressant, Triburbazine, had caused a teenage girl, who’d only been taking the drug for two weeks, to kill her best friend and then herself. Was this the company Vernon had said he was working for? Eiben-Chemcorp? Hardly.
I took the paper and the Excedrin, paid for them, and went back out on to the street.
Next, I headed for the diner, which I saw was called the DeLuxe Luncheonette and was one of those old-style places you find in most parts of the city. It probably looked exactly the same thirty years ago as it did today, probably had some of the same clientele, as well, and was therefore, curiously, a living link to an earlier version of the neighbourhood. Or not. Maybe. I don’t know. In any case, it was a greasy spoon and being around lunchtime the place was fairly crowded, so I stood inside the door and waited for my turn to order.
A middle-aged Hispanic guy behind the counter was saying, ‘I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it. I mean, what is this all about? They don’t have enough problems here, they’ve got to go down there making more problems?’ Then he looked to his left, ‘What?’
There were two younger guys at the grill speaking Spanish to each other and obviously laughing at him.
He threw his hands up.
‘Nobody cares any more, nobody gives a damn.’
Standing beside me, there were three people waiting for their orders in total silence. To my left, there were some other people sitting at tables. The one nearest to me had four old guys at it drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. One of them was reading the Post and I realized after a moment that the guy behind the counter was addressing his remarks to him.
‘Remember Cuba?’ he went on. ‘Bay of Pigs? Is this going to turn into another Bay of Pigs, another fiasco like that was?’
‘I don’t see the analogy,’ the old guy reading the Post said. ‘Cuba was because of Communism.’ He didn’t take his eyes off the paper during this, and he also spoke with a very faint German accent. ‘And the same goes for US involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In the last century there was a war with Mexico because the US wanted Texas and California. That made sense, strategic sense. But this?’
He left the question hanging and continued reading.
Very quickly the guy behind the counter wrapped up two orders, took money for them and some people left. I moved up a bit and he looked at me. I ordered what Vernon had asked for, plus a black coffee, and said that I’d be back in two minutes. As I was going out, the guy behind the counter was saying, ‘I don’t know, you ask me, they should bring back the Cold War…’
I went to the dry-cleaner’s next door and retrieved Vernon’s suit. I lingered on the street for a few moments and watched the passing traffic. Back in the DeLuxe Luncheonette, a customer at another table, a young guy in a denim shirt, had joined in the conversation.
‘What, you think the government’s going to get involved in something like this for no reason? That’s just crazy.’
The guy reading the Post had put his paper down and was straining to look around.
‘Governments don’t always act in a logical way,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they pursue policies that are contrary to their own interests. Look at Vietnam. Thirty years of-’
‘Aw, don’t bring that up, will you?’
The guy behind the counter, who was putting my stuff in a bag now – and seemed to be talking to the bag – muttered, ‘Leave the Mexican people alone, that’s all. Just leave them alone.’
I paid him and took the bag.
‘Vietnam-’
‘Vietnam was a mistake, all right?’
‘A mistake? Ha. Eisenhower? Kennedy? Johnson? Nixon? Big mistake.’
‘Look, you-’
I left the DeLuxe Luncheonette and walked back towards Linden Tower, holding Vernon’s suit up in one hand and his breakfast and the Boston Globe in the other. I had an awkward time getting through the revolving doors and my left arm started aching as I waited for the elevator.
On the ride back up to the seventeenth floor I could smell the food from the brown paper bag, and wished that I’d got something for myself besides the black coffee. I was alone in the elevator and toyed with the idea of appropriating one of Vernon’s strips of Canadian bacon, but decided against it on the grounds that it would be too sad, and – with the suit on a wire hanger – also a little difficult to manoeuvre.
I got out of the elevator, walked along the corridor and around the corner. As I approached Vernon’s apartment, I noticed that the door was slightly open. I edged it open further with my foot and stepped inside. I called out Vernon’s name and went along the hallway to the living-room, but even before I got there I sensed that something was wrong. I braced myself as the room came into view, and started back in shock when I saw what a complete mess the place was in. Furniture had been turned over – the chairs, the bureau, the wine-rack. Pictures on the wall were askew. There were books and papers and other objects tossed everywhere, and for a moment it was extremely difficult to focus on any one thing.
As I stood there in a state of paralysis, holding up Vernon’s suit and the brown paper bag and the Boston Globe, two things happened. I suddenly locked on to the figure of Vernon sitting on the black leather couch, and then, almost simultaneously, I heard a sound behind me – footsteps or a shuffling of some kind. I spun around, dropping the suit and the bag and the newspaper. The hallway was dark, but I saw a shape moving very quickly from a door on the left over to the main door on the right, and then out into the corridor. I hesitated, my heart starting to beat like a jack-hammer. After a moment, I ran along the hallway and out through the door myself. I looked up and down the corridor but there was no one there. I rushed on as far as the end and just as I was turning the corner into the longer corridor I heard the elevator doors sliding closed.
Partly relieved that I wasn’t going to have to confront anyone, I turned and walked towards the apartment, but as I did so the figure of Vernon on the couch suddenly flashed back into my head. He was sitting there – what… pissed off at the state of his living-room? Wondering who the intruder was? Calculating the cost of having the bureau repaired?
Somehow none of these options sat easily with the image I had in my mind, and as I got closer to the door I felt a stabbing sensation in my stomach. I went in and made my way down to the living-room, pretty much knowing at this stage what I was about to see.