Part 2 (1/2)
I got comfortable on the pillow sofa while Carolyn put the final touches on the terrier's pedicure and popped him back in his cage. During the course of this she complained at length about her lover's misbehavior. Randy had come home late the previous night, drunk and disheveled and marginally disorderly, and Carolyn was sick of it.
”I think it's time to end the relations.h.i.+p,” she told me, ”but the question is how do I feel feel about ending the relations.h.i.+p? And the answer is I don't about ending the relations.h.i.+p? And the answer is I don't know know how I feel because I can't get in how I feel because I can't get in touch touch with my feelings, and I figure if I can't get in touch with them I might as well not feel them altogether, so let's go someplace with a liquor license, because all I want to feel right now is better. And how was with my feelings, and I figure if I can't get in touch with them I might as well not feel them altogether, so let's go someplace with a liquor license, because all I want to feel right now is better. And how was your your day, Bernie?” day, Bernie?”
”A little long.”
”Yeah, you do look faintly tuckered. Let's go, huh? I'm so sick of the smell of this place. I feel like I'm wearing Wet Dog perfume.”
We ducked around the corner to a rather tired saloon called the b.u.m Rap. The jukebox leaned toward country and western, and Barbara Mandrell was singing about adultery as we took stools at the long dark bar. Carolyn ordered a vodka martini on the rocks. I asked for club soda with lime and got a nod from the bartender and a puzzled stare from Carolyn.
”It's October,” she said.
”So?”
”Lent's in the spring.”
”Right.”
”Doctor's orders or something? Giving the old liver a rest?”
”Just don't feel like a drink tonight.”
”Fair enough. Well, here's to crime. Hey, did I just say something wrong?”
So that got me onto the subject of Ray Kirschmann and his mink-loving wife, and it became Carolyn's turn to make sympathetic noises. We've become good at playing that role for one another. She's crowding thirty, with Dutch-cut dark-brown hair and remarkably clear blue eyes. She stands five-one in high heels and never wears them, and she's built like a fire hydrant, which is dangerous in her line of work.
I met her around the time I took over the bookshop. I didn't know Randy as well because I didn't see as much of her; the Poodle Factory was a solo venture of Carolyn's. Randy's a stewardess, or was until she got grounded for biting a pa.s.senger. She's taller and thinner than Carolyn, and a year or two younger, and faintly flighty. Randy and I are friends, I suppose, but Carolyn and I are soulmates.
My soulmate clucked sympathetically. ”Cops are a pain,” she said. ”Randy had an affair with a cop once. I ever tell you?”
”I don't think so.”
”She had this phase she went through, three months or so of panic before she was ready to come out as a lesbian. I think it was some kind of denial mechanism. She slept with dozens of men. This one cop was impotent and she made fun of him and he held his gun to her head and she thought he was going to kill her. Which somebody ought to, and why the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l am I talking about her again, will you tell me that?” am I talking about her again, will you tell me that?”
”Beats me.”
”You got anything on tonight? You still seeing the woman from the art gallery?”
”We decided to go our separate ways.”
”What about the crazy poet?”
”We never really hit it off.”
”Then why don't you come by for dinner? I got something sensational working in the slow cooker. I put it in this morning before I remembered how mad I was. It's this Flemish beef stew with beer and shallots and mushrooms and all kinds of good things. I got plenty of Amstel for us to wash it down with, plus some Perrier if you're serious about this temperance bit.”
I sipped my club soda. ”I wish I could,” I said. ”But not tonight.”
”Something on?”
”Just that I'm beat. I'm going straight home, and the most active thing I intend to do is say a quick prayer to St. John of G.o.d.”
”Is he somebody I should know about?”
”He's the patron saint of booksellers.”
”Yeah? Who's the patron saint of dog groomers?”
”d.a.m.ned if I know.”
”I hope we've got one. I've been bitten and scratched and peed on and I ought to have someplace to turn. As far as that goes, I wonder if there's a patron saint of lesbians. All those cloistered nuns, there d.a.m.n well ought to be. Seriously, do you suppose there is?”
I shrugged. ”I could probably find out. I only know about St. John of G.o.d because Mr. Litzauer had a framed picture of him in the back room of the shop. But there must be books with lists of the patron saints. I've probably got something in the store, as far as that goes.”
”It must be great, having that shop. Like living in a library.”
”Sort of.”
”The Poodle Factory's like living in a kennel. You going? Hey, have a nice night, Bern.”
”Thanks. And I'll check out St. Sappho tomorrow.”
”If you get a chance. Hey, is there a patron saint of burglars?”
”I'll check that, too.”
I rode three different subway trains to Broadway and Eighty-sixth and walked a block to Murder Ink, where I sold my shopping bag full of books to Carol Bremer. She got all my vintage mysteries; I could do better wholesaling them to her than waiting for somebody to pick them off my shelves.
She said, ”Charlie Chan, Philo Vance-this is wonderful, Bernie. I've got want-list customers for all this stuff. Buy you a drink?”
For a change everybody wanted to buy me a drink. I told her I'd take a rain check, left her shop just in time to miss a bus on West End Avenue, and walked the sixteen blocks downtown to my apartment. It was a nice crisp fall afternoon and I figured I could use the walk. You don't get all that much fresh air and exercise in a bookstore.
There was mail in my box. I carried it upstairs and put it in the wastebasket. I was half-undressed when the phone rang. It was a woman I know who runs a day-care center in Chelsea, and the parent of one of her charges had just given her two tickets to the ballet, and wasn't that terrific? I agreed that it was but explained I couldn't make it. ”I'm bushed,” I said. ”I've ordered myself to go to bed without supper. I was just about to take the phone off the hook when it rang.”
”Well, drink some coffee instead. What's-his-name's dancing. You know, the Russian.”
”They're all Russians. I'd fall asleep in the middle. Sorry.”
She wished me pleasant dreams and broke the connection. I left the phone off the hook. I'd have enjoyed eating Carolyn's beef stew and I'd also have enjoyed watching the Russian hop around the stage, and I didn't want the phone to let me know what else I was missing. It made an eerie sound for a while, then fell into a sullen silence. I finished undressing and turned off the lights and got into bed, and I lay there on my back with my arms at my sides and my eyes closed, breathing slowly and rhythmically and letting my mind go here and there. I either dreamed or daydreamed, and I was in some sort of doze when the alarm went off at nine o'clock. I got up, took a quick shower and shave, put on some clean clothes, and made myself a nice cup of tea. At a quarter after nine I put the phone back on the hook. At precisely nine-twenty it rang.