A Walk Among the Tombstones (40 page)

"I think so."

"Yeah, I bet you do. He told you he wanted to be buried at sea, right?"

"Not in so many words. He told me how water was his element, though, and how he wouldn't want to burn up or be buried in the earth.

The implication was clear, and the way he talked about it--"

"Like he was looking forward to it."

"Yes," I said. "Like he longed for it."

"Ah, Jesus. He called me, I don't know, a day, two days before he did it. If anything happened to him would I make sure he was buried at sea. I said yeah, sure, Petey. I'll book a stateroom on the QE

Fucking Two and slip you out the porthole. And we both laughed, and I hung up and forgot about it, and then they call me up and they found his car on the bridge. He loved bridges."

"He told me."

"Yeah? When he was a kid he loved 'em. He was always after our father to drive over bridges. Couldn't get enough of 'em, thought they were the most beautiful thing in the world. One he jumped off, the Brooklyn, that does happen to be a beautiful bridge."

"Yes."

"Same water under it as all the others, though. Ah, he's at peace, the poor guy. I guess it's what he always wanted, you come right down to it. The only peace he had in his life was when he had smack in his veins, and aside from the rush the sweetest thing about heroin is it's just like death. Only it's temporary. That's what's good about it. Or what's wrong with it, I guess, depending on your point of view."

AND a couple of days after that I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was Mick.

"You're up early," I said.

"Am I then?"

"It must be six in the morning there. It's one o'clock here."

"Is it," he said. "My watch stopped, don't you know, and I called in the hope that you could tell me the time."

"Well, this must be a good time to call," I said, "because we've got a perfect connection."

"Clear, is it?"

"As if you were in the next room."

"Well, I should fucking well hope so," he said, "as I'm at Grogan's.

Rosenstein got everything cleared up for me. My flight was delayed or I'd have been in hours ago."

"I'm glad you're back."

"No more than I. She's a grand old country, but you wouldn't want to live there. But how are you keeping? Burke says you haven't been around the saloon much."

"No, not much at all."

"So why don't you get yourself down here now?"

"Why not?"

"Good man," he said. "I'll put up a pot of coffee for you and crack the seal on a bottle of Jameson. I've a great store of tales to tell."

"I have a few of my own."

"Ah, we'll make a night of it, won't we now? And go to the butchers' mass in the morning."

"We might do that," I said. "It wouldn't surprise me."

The End

I am pleased to acknowledge the substantial contributions of the Writers Room, where much of the preliminary work on this book was done, and of the Ragdale Foundation, where it was written. Thanks, too, to George Cabanas and Eddie Lama, and also to Jack Hitt and Paul Tough, who introduced me to the Kongs. And, finally, to Sarah Elizabeth Miles, who swears she'll do anything-- anything!-- to get her name in a book.

About the Author

The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of American Grand Master, a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France, Germany, and Japan.

Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24