All the Flowers Are Dying (35 page)

Then he said, “Well, hello, Matt S. This is Abie.”

Elaine was in the room with me, and the color left her face as she recognized the voice. She would, of course; she’d heard it when he’d come to her shop to buy the bronze paper knife.

I picked up the phone. I said, “Hello,” and wondered why I was saying anything.

“I’ve been trying to reach my sponsor,” he said. “I was hoping for the benefit of his strength, hope, and experience. But he’s not answering his phone, so I thought I’d call you instead.”

“Really.”

“Maybe you could tell me not to drink, and to go to a meeting. That might be helpful in keeping me on the straight and narrow.”

“What do you want?”

“Why, I just wanted to talk. And you’ll probably want to keep me on the line so you can trace the call.”

We hadn’t set up for that. It’s not that hard to do nowadays, but in this case there hadn’t seemed to be much point to it. We knew he’d called Bill several times, and a check of the LUDS on Bill’s phone had established that all the calls from Abie had been made on an untraceable cell phone. If he called me he’d use the same phone, so why bother setting up a trace?

“I’ll save you the trouble,” he said. “I’m on a pay phone at Penn Station, and in approximately seven minutes I’ll be on a train. I’ve decided it’s time to disappear.”

“I wish you’d stick around.”

“Oh? Be careful what you pray for, my friend.”

“Because I might get it?”

“So they say. Or did you want to tell me that I can be helped, and that you’ll see to it that they help me if only I turn myself in?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t want to tell you that.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t want you to be helped. I want you to be killed.”

“Now
that’s
refreshing,” he said. “All the more reason for me to leave the stage, wouldn’t you say? I’m enjoying this conversation, but it’s time to catch my train. One thing, though. Will you give my sponsor a call? It’s Bill, the older fellow they call William the Silent. He’s even more silent than usual lately, and I’d feel better if you’d check on him.”

He broke the connection. I put the phone down and looked at Elaine.

She said, “I feel like throwing out the answering machine and getting a new one. Or at least spraying this one with Lysol.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Maybe I should spray the whole apartment. It needs disinfecting, after that voice has had a chance to bounce off the walls.”

“The whole city needs disinfecting.”

“The whole planet. Who are you calling?”

“Bill,” I said. The phone rang and rang. I broke the connection and redialed and the same thing happened.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said.

They found Bill in his apartment, dead of multiple stab wounds to the chest. There were defensive wounds on his hands and forearms, suggesting he’d tried to fight off his killer.

Sussman checked the phone records, and it turned out the call we’d received had in fact come from a pay phone in Penn Station. I didn’t know what to make of that.

“One of the things we found on Fifty-third Street,” he said, “was a cell phone charger. I had to guess, I’d say his battery ran down. If he wanted to give you a call, he had to spend a quarter.”

“He called from Penn Station,” I said, “and he said he was calling from Penn Station.”

“So?”

“So he wanted to make sure I knew it. Not only does he tell me, but he knows the LUDS will back him up.”

“He wants us to think he’s leaving town.”

“Maybe. Or he really is leaving town, and he wants us to think he’s not.”

“By telling us he is.”

“Right.”

Elaine said, “ ‘How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My Life?’ ”

“They don’t write songs like that anymore,” Sussman said. “So let’s sum this up, okay? What we now know for sure is that either he’s leaving town or he’s not. Is that about it?”

I wound up going to the meeting at St. Paul’s. I didn’t want to go anywhere, but someone had to tell them about Bill, and I decided it really ought to be me. I got there a little late, after the qualification but in time for the general discussion, and I got to be the bearer of bad tidings.

Beyond the fact that we’d lost a long-time member, I had to let everybody know that they might be in danger, and that it was impossible to guess with any degree of certainty just how real that danger might be. Abie—I called him that in the meeting, because that’s how they knew him—was at once a coldly logical being and a homicidal maniac. Just as I couldn’t say if he’d left town or pretended to leave town, neither could I tell if he’d killed his sponsor as an opening skirmish in a one-man war on New York AA or simply to send me a personal message. I felt like the goddam government, raising the Alert level from Yellow to Orange. Stop being Careful, I was saying, and start being More Careful. And rest assured that we’ll let you know when it’s time to be Extra Careful.

I didn’t stop in at the Flame afterward. I hadn’t left Elaine alone, TJ was with her, but all the same I was anxious to get home.

Walking the couple of blocks, I kept having the feeling someone was watching me. I looked around, but nothing caught my eye.

The bastard’s wary.

You can see it in his walk, see it in the way he keeps looking this way and that way. Maybe he can sense that he’s being watched, followed. Maybe it’s just an indication of the level of his anxiety.

And he’s armed, too. You can’t see the gun, but you know just where it is—tucked into his waistband on the right hip. His sport shirt, worn outside his trousers, hangs down far enough to cover it, but when you watch him it’s no trick to pinpoint its location because of the way his right hand hovers nearby, ready to reach for the gun should the occasion arise.

And would he be fast enough? The man’s in his middle sixties, and isn’t likely to have the reflexes of a teenager. He’s on edge, he’s undoubtedly visualizing quick draws in his mind, but suppose you rush him, suppose you run hard at him from the rear with the knife open in your hand. How long will it take him to register the sound of approaching footsteps? How quickly will he turn, how swiftly can the left hand draw the shirttail aside while the right hand yanks the gun free?

There are other people on the street, but you can forget about them. By the time they figure out what’s happening in front of their eyes, it will be over and done with, and you’ll be around the corner while he’s bleeding into the pavement.

You could do it. Care to give it a try?

No, not just yet.

Perhaps he should have bought a ticket. A reserved seat on the Metroliner to Washington, say. In a name they’ll recognize, Arden Brill or Alan Breit or Arne Bodinson.

But would they even check ticket sales? And would they attach much significance to such a purchase if they even managed to spot it?

Probably a waste of time. A waste of money, too.

He has money to waste, if it comes to that. His wallet holds a fresh supply of cash, courtesy of the late William the Silent, who hadn’t been so silent after all. Old Bill had given up his ATM card and the PIN number when it was clear nothing else would save his life. That didn’t save it either, of course, and he couldn’t have thought it would, but it’s hard to think clearly when someone has you pinned to the floor and keeps on sticking a knife into you.

With the PIN revealed, he’d used the knife one last time. Then he’d withdrawn it, and shortly thereafter he’d made another withdrawal, this for $500 from Bill’s account. That, plus the cash Bill kept in his sock drawer, has improved his financial position considerably.

Money won’t be a problem.

But he needs a place to stay. He’ll want to sleep, and he could use a shower.

And he needs a way to get at the Scudders.

A smile comes to his lips, the cautious half-smile he practiced in the rear-view mirror in Virginia. Two birds, he thinks. And he knows where to find a stone.

The man’s name is Tom Selwyn. He’s a few inches over six feet in height, and must weigh well over 250 pounds. He carries the weight well, and is the sort of fat man who’s inevitably described as being light on his feet. No doubt he’s a good dancer, although one’s not likely to find out. While the jukebox holds a decent selection of jazz and standards, there’s no dance floor in the dimly lit Fifty-eighth Street bar.

“Alden,” Tom Selwyn says. “Alden. As in Miles Standish’s very good friend?”

Now there’s a thought. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “my mother, who would never forgive me if I didn’t at once point out her membership in the DAR—”

“I can well imagine.”

“Well, she managed to find a genealogist who was able to establish a direct line of descent from John Alden and Priscilla Mullins”—now how did he manage to summon up that name?— “to herself, and hence to me. Whom she would have liked to name John Alden Beals, but my father was already named John and felt one John in the family was plenty.”

“I’ll omit any wordplay relating to Johns and lavatories.”

“That’s because you’re a gentleman, and I in turn will avoid any allusions to peeping Toms and doubting Thomases.”

“Fair enough.”

“She dropped the John and named me Alden.”

“Alden Beals.”

He bows his head, just the slightest bit theatrically. “Myself,” he says.

“I’ve noticed you before, you know.”

“Really?”

“You’ve been here at Griselda’s before. Two or three times I’ve seen you march in, order a single-malt Scotch, perhaps the same brand you’ve been drinking tonight—”

“Perhaps not. I’m not terribly loyal. Always looking for something better, you know.”

“Oh, indeed I do.”

“But willing to keep sampling as I search, one might say.”

“I suspect one might. You’ve come in, ordered one drink, took your time drinking it, and then left without a word to anyone.”

“I never thought anyone noticed me.”

“Oh, please. An attractive man like yourself? Surely you felt the eyes, mine among them. But you never seemed to be looking for company.”

He is silent for a moment. Then he says, “I have someone at home
.”

“I see.”

“But that’s not always where I want to be.”

“And just where would you like to be now, Alden?”

“
At the moment,” he says, “I’d like to be precisely where I am. Right here in this congenial atmosphere, engaged in conversation with a very personable and attractive gentleman
.”

“You’re very kind.”

“It’s no more than the truth. The only problem—”

“Oh, I hope there’s not a problem.”

“Only that it’s getting close to closing time.”

Selwyn looks at his watch, a Tourneau with a thin case and an oversize dial. “It is,” he agrees. “And where would you like to go when they close this pop stand?” And, when he hesitates, “What was it your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother said? ‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, Alden?’ ”

He has lowered his eyes. Now he raises them to gaze directly and openly into Tom Selwyn’s. “I’d like to go back to your place,” he says.

The lobby attendant is seated at a desk on the left. He has anticipated this, and contrives to be on Selwyn’s right as they enter the building, letting the big man screen him from the attendant’s view. The two exchange greetings. (“Evening, Mr. Selwyn.” “A lovely evening, Jorge. I see Sammy hit one tonight.”)

In the elevator Selwyn pushes Nine and sighs as the door closes. “Sammy Sosa,” he explains. “He and Jorge hail from the same village in the Dominican Republic. Although it may not be large enough to be called a village. What’s smaller than a village?”

“A hamlet?”

“Perhaps. Or it may be more of a coriolanus. Do you follow baseball?”

“No.”

“Neither do I, but I contrive to find out what Sammy Sosa has done, so Jorge and I will have something to talk about. He’s with the Cubs. Sosa, that is. Not Jorge. The Cubs play in Chicago, in the stadium that didn’t have lights, but now it does. And here we are.”

The apartment consists of one large high-ceilinged room, perhaps thirty feet square, with a small kitchen alcove. Except for the king-size platform bed, piled high with pillows, the furnishings are antique. There’s a large abstract oil on one wall, with a simple black gallery frame, and groups of prints and drawings on the other walls. It is, he decides, a very pleasing room, and a great improvement on Joe Bohan’s apartment; it’s a shame he won’t be able to stay here very long
.

“I have Scotch,” Selwyn says.

“Maybe later.”

“Ah. Someone doesn’t wish to wait.”

“Someone doesn’t even wish to talk,” he says, and begins taking off his clothes. His host raises an eyebrow, then unbuttons his own shirt, takes it off, steps out of his trousers. His clothes had concealed some of his bulk; naked, it’s evident just how heavy he is.

“I was always shy about disrobing,” Tom Selwyn says. “You can imagine how I hated gym class. In recent years I’ve learned that there are people who don’t mind a Rubenesque figure. And it would appear you’re one of those, wouldn’t it? My word, no wonder you don’t want to waste time on drink or small talk. You’re fully prepared, aren’t you? Not to say splendidly endowed. And speaking of preparation, the drawer there holds a supply of rubber goods. You’ll find the large ones on the left. But here, let me help you get dressed. If I may?”

Selwyn offers a bit of artful oral homage before fitting him with the condom, then kneels at the side of the bed, his forearms planted on the mattress, his enormous buttocks on display. There’s nothing attractive about the sight, nothing about Selwyn to make him a desirable sex object, and yet he finds himself consumed with the need to have this man.