“Would you? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. You might have felt under an obligation. At any rate, I wanted to call and give you another chance.”
“To do what?”
“To tell me to go fly a kite.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Unless you’ve been having second thoughts.”
“About wanting the—”
“The item.”
“The item. Ah. That’s what we’re calling it?”
“On the phone, yes.”
“I see. No, no second thoughts. I still want the item.”
“Well,” I said, “it turns out to be a little harder to get hold of than I’d thought, but I’m working on it.”
“I didn’t want to rush you. I just wanted to give you a graceful way out, if you wanted to take it. After all, that’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“A graceful way out.”
I asked her how she was feeling.
“Not bad,” she said. “And wasn’t it a beautiful day? That’s why I kept being out when you called. I couldn’t bear to stay inside. I love October, but I guess everybody does.”
“Everybody with any sense.”
“And how are you, Matthew?”
“Fine. Very busy, suddenly, but that’s how it is with me. Long stretches with nothing to do, and then a batch of things all at once.”
“That’s how you like it.”
“I guess so, but it does get hectic. But I will take care of that little matter for you. I’ve been working on it.”
“Well, now,” Mick said. “What shall I look for on my next phone bill? Have you called China?”
“Just Tribeca.”
“There’s those would call it another country, but the phone rates don’t reflect their view. You’ve time for a little chat, haven’t you? Burke’s just started a fresh pot of coffee.”
“No coffee right now. I’ve been drinking it all day.”
“A Coca-Cola, then.”
“Maybe some club soda.”
“By God, you’re a cheap date,” he said. “Sit down, I’ll fetch something for both of us.”
He brought his private bottle of twelve-year-old Jameson and the Waterford tumbler he liked to drink from, and for me he provided a stemmed glass and a bottle of Perrier. I hadn’t even known he stocked the stuff. I couldn’t believe many of his customers called for it, or even knew how to pronounce it.
“We’ll make it an early night,” I said. “I’m not in shape for a marathon.”
“Are you all right, man? Are you feeling fit?”
“I’m fine, but I’m working a case that’s starting to heat up. I want to be able to get an early start tomorrow.”
“Is that all it is? Because you look troubled.”
I thought about it. “Well,” I said, “I guess I am.”
“Ah.”
“A woman I know,” I said, “is very ill.”
“Very ill, you say.”
“Pancreatic cancer. It’s incurable, and it looks as though she doesn’t have very much time.”
Carefully he said, “Do I know her, man?”
I had to think. “I don’t believe you do,” I said. “She and I had stopped seeing each other by the time you and I got acquainted. I’ve stayed on friendly terms with her, but I’m sure I never brought her here.”
“Thanks be to God,” he said, visibly relieved. “You gave me a turn for a moment there.”
“How? Oh, you thought I was talking about—”
“About herself,” he said, unwilling even to say Elaine’s name in such a context. “Which God forbid. She’s well, then?”
“She’s fine. She sends her best.”
“And you’ll give her mine. But that’s hard news about the other one. Not much time, you said.” He filled his glass, held it to the light. It had a fine color to it. He said, “You don’t know what to wish someone in such circumstances. Sometimes it’s better if it’s over sooner.”
“That’s how she wants it.”
“Oh?”
“And that’s probably part of why I look troubled. She’s decided she wants to shoot herself, and she’s picked me to get her the gun.”
I don’t know what I expected, but certainly not the shock that showed on his face. He asked if I’d accepted the mission, and I said that I had.
“You were not raised in the church,” he said. “For all that I drag ye along to mass, you weren’t brought up Catholic.”
“So?”
“So I could never do what you’ve undertaken to do. Aid and abet a suicide? I’m a terrible Catholic, but I couldn’t do it. They take a hard line on suicide, you know.”
“They’re pretty strict on homicide, too, aren’t they? I seem to remember a whole commandment on the subject.”
“ ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ”
“But maybe they don’t take it seriously. Or maybe it went by the board with the Latin mass and eating meat on Friday.”
“They take it seriously,” he said. “And I have killed men. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve taken life,” he said, “and I’ll likely die with my sins unconfessed, and as likely burn for them. But taking your own life is a very grave matter.”
“Why? I’ve never understood that. You’re not harming anybody but yourself.”
“The thought is that you’re hurting God.”
“How?”
“You’re saying you know better than Himself how long you should live. You’re saying, ‘Thanks very much for this gift of life, but why don’t You take it and shove it up Your ass.’ You’re committing the one sin that cannot be undone, and cannot be confessed because you’re not around to confess it. Oh, I’m no theologian, I can’t explain it worth a damn.”
“I think I understand.”
“Do you? You’d likely have to be born to it for it to make sense to you. I take it your friend’s not Catholic.”
“Not anymore.”
“She was raised in the church? There’s few of us ever get over it, you know. It doesn’t bother her, what she plans to do?”
“It bothers her.”
“But she’s resolved to do it anyway?”
“It’s likely to get very bad in the later stages,” I said. “She doesn’t want to go through all that.”
“Nor would anyone, but are there not things they can give her for the pain?”
“She doesn’t want to take them.”
“Why not, for God’s sake? And, you know, she could always take a little too much. It’s easy to grow confused under the circumstances, and before you know it you’ve gone and taken the whole bottle.”
“And isn’t that suicide? The worst sin of all, you just finished explaining.”
“Ah, but you wouldn’t be in full possession of your faculties at the time. It doesn’t count against you if you’re not in your right mind. Besides,” he said, “don’t you think the Lord would overlook it if you gave Him half a chance?”
“Do you think so, Mick?”
“I do,” he said, “but I told you I’m no theologian. Theology aside, aren’t pills easier to get hold of than a gun? And isn’t it a gentler death they offer you?”
“It is if you do it right,” I said, “but not everybody does. Sometimes people come out of it choking on their own vomit. But that’s not the real reason she’d prefer a gun.”
I explained Jan’s commitment to sobriety, and how in her eyes that ruled out drugs either to kill the pain or to ease the passage. His green eyes were first incredulous and then thoughtful as he took it all in.
He freshened his drink while he thought about it. At length he said, “Your lot takes this business very seriously.”
“Not all of us would make the choices Jan has made,” I said. “Most of us would take something for the pain, and I don’t know how many of us would see a gun as providing a more sober way out than a handful of Seconal. But yes, you could say that we take sobriety pretty seriously.”