Unknown Man #89

  Ryan asked him if he'd heard from Mr. Perez.

  Yeah, Mr. Perez had been to Chicago and Fort Wayne and was down to Indianapolis now.

  Same kind of business?

  You bet. It was what Mr. Perez did. He never sat around much, he was always on the go.

  Ryan asked Raymond what he did for Mr. Perez.

  Raymond said oh, he looked up people, he drove Mr. Perez on trips, he went with him sometimes to see people. Otherwise he fooled around, worked some at the Jungle Gardens and Bird City, then'd go on down to New Orleans for a while. Shit, Canal Street was about five times wider than Ryan's Woodward Avenue.

  Ryan tried to think of things for Raymond to do. He asked him if he'd been to Belle Isle, in the Detroit River.

  Raymond said shit, there was nothing there worth seeing. Some statues, the aquarium-gaw fish were little bitty things. Ryan should see the gaw fish they caught down at Barataria and Grand Isle, man, big ones like Ryan never seen. Ryan said, Oh, you mean gar fish. And Raymond said, That's what I said.

  Raymond was freshly powdered, with his hair wetted down. He looked like he'd shaved with a hunting knife. He said most of the time, shit, he'd get dressed and sit here, waiting for somebody to call. When was something going to happen?

  Ryan said well, if it didn't happen soon, he'd give Raymond a treat and drive him past the Ford plant.

  Raymond looked at him, not quite sure, scratching at his forearm where the tattoo showed like an old bruise through the hair. The tattoo was a faded black and red scroll within a flower that said In Memory of Mother.

  She could have gone anywhere.

  Ryan didn't like to think of it that way, even after three weeks without a word.

  She did go somewhere.

  That was better. It gave him something to picture, even if the picture was usually a bar in the afternoon. He always saw it the same way: a cheap, dim lounge with glass-brick windows or Venetian blinds holding out the sunlight.

  What were her thoughts when she woke up that morning?

  What were her options? Keep drinking or quit. Kill herself or quit. Want to quit. Or play the I'll-quit-tomorrow game. He could picture that easily enough: the girl saying she was going to do it herself, without help, resenting help. First, though, a few glasses to get through the hard part. Then a few more, and then, with the glow, a change of attitude: she was all right, it wasn't a serious problem, Christ no, she had a lot on her mind and the wine soothed her nervous system and melted anxieties. She could quit anytime she wanted. Maybe she wouldn't do it all at once, though, in one day. That would be like driving along fast and slamming on the brakes. You could go through the windshield. Better to slow down gradually, ease to a stop, and not get hurt.

  Or keep going and not touch the brake at all, finish it.

  But she had called him. She had said she didn't want to be inside herself.

  She wasn't a name in a county clerk's file or a picture in the newspaper, she was a person and he was aware of her as a person. He should have stayed and been sitting there when she woke up and said to her okay, here's what you have to do. Here's what you're going to do, and don't give me any shit about doing it any other way, because there isn't any other way. That close, looking at her. A person inside somebody she didn't want to be. She had told him that. And he had let her get away.

  Maybe not far, if she didn't have much money. If she didn't work and if Bobby had been in jail or in a state hospital, where would she get money? Unless she got a job.

  Ryan dialed Dick Speed's number, looking out the window at another overcast day, possible showers. Maybe it was the weather that made him feel depressed. At least it helped. He wanted to be doing something. He hoped he didn't have to leave word and then wait for Dick to call back. Or go out and have to check with the answering service and take all day to get hold of him. Dick Speed answered, and Ryan felt a little lift.

  "I was wondering, if Denise Leary was working, wouldn't she have to give them her social security number and there'd be a record of it in Washington?"

  "I guess so," Dick Speed said, "but it wouldn't do us any good. They won't release that kind of information, not even on a murder warrant. You're thinking, though. Keep it up."

  Keep thinking. That's all he'd been doing, trying to put himself in Denise Leary's place. He realized he wasn't just thinking about her in relation to the money, the fifteen thousand he'd get. He was thinking about her as a person. She had called for help and he had let her down. He could say it wasn't his fault, she changed her mind. But the feeling, the concern, stayed with him. He wondered if it was a feeling of guilt. Either that or a strong compulsion to kick himself in the ass. The phone rang.

  Dick Speed said, "Guess what? I was talking to a guy in the Seventh Squad, they're handling it. They found out a Denise Watson applied for a driver's license three days ago in Pontiac."

  "How do they know?"

  "They checked with Lansing, both her married and maiden name. She gave an address on the application, 1523 Huron Street, Pontiac. The Oakland County Sheriff's Department's on it now."

  "What'll they do?"

  "Make sure she's there first, then get back to us." Ryan felt the lift again, the second one that morning, and higher this time. It woke up his confidence and kept him up and eager all the way out Woodward to Pontiac, making it from his apartment in a quick twenty minutes. He found Huron Street and followed the numbers and the lift began to descend. The 1500 block was all commercial. Fifteen twenty-three was a red, white, and blue building with a sign that said Uncle Ben's Pancake House. Ryan saw the manager. The manager said he had just talked to the police. Who was this girl, anyway? What'd she do? She certainly hadn't ever worked for Uncle Ben.

  Maybe not, but for some reason she had used the address. She was around, somewhere. That was on a Monday.

  Chapter 13

  Wednesday afternoon, Ryan was sitting in a bar on Saginaw Street in Pontiac. It was about four-thirty, a nice sunny day. Ryan was about an hour away from being drunk.

  The bartender said, "Same way?"

  "Yeah, do it again."

  "That was a bourbon mist?"

  "Early Times over crushed ice."

  The bartender gave him the look that meant That's what I said. He didn't say it. Shit no, the guy was made of wood, he didn't say anything. You had to drag things out of him. Ryan watched the bartender make the drink. He was neat and methodical and slow. He used a chrome shot glass to measure the whiskey and poured it carefully over the crushed ice.

  "You don't do it by sight, huh?" Ryan said. "Pour it right from the bottle, give it that turn with the wrist, little extra hit? You know what I mean?"

  "You want a double?" the bartender asked him.

  "Yeah, I guess so. If I can't talk you into anything."

  The bartender got the bottle from the backbar again and picked up the chrome shot glass.

  It was too bad. Ryan felt confident and alert, not the least bit down, the way he'd felt the last week or so. He felt like talking to somebody, doing something. Not with Rita, though. He wanted something to happen. It was too quiet in here. It wasn't a friendly place where you heard people talking and laughing. The bartender didn't give a shit. He wasn't paid to talk. Maybe listen, if you held him against the bar and threatened to punch him out.

  He placed a fresh napkin and the mist in front of Ryan. Ryan said, "What I started to tell you before."

  "Sir?"

  "About the time I was serving papers to the rock group."

  Either the bartender didn't remember or it didn't matter. He stood with his hands behind him, at parade rest.

  "They were being sued by some hotel where they wrecked the place," Ryan said. "I was backstage, see, but I couldn't get near them, all the security cops and groupies and different people. I can't remember their name. It was something like Norfolk and Western. It sounded like a railroad."

  "Excuse me," the bartender said. He moved off to serve a customer.

  Fuck you, Ryan thoug
ht. He drank the bourbon and sat without moving, staring at his reflection in the rose-tinted mirror.

  What was he doing sitting here? He could go home right now, take a nap, have dinner, feel a little shitty this evening, get a good night's sleep, and feel about 75 percent okay in the morning. But if he kept going until the bars closed at two he'd be on his way. Open his eyes in the morning and hope there was still some vodka in the cupboard. Or else get dressed and go out and find a seven o'clock opener, a workingman's bar. Then serve a few papers, get that done. Have lunch, a few beers. Go through the motions of looking for Denise Leary, who wasn't anywhere around Pontiac, Drayton Plains, Clarkston, or Keego Harbor. Rochester was next, maybe Rochester. And finally, by late afternoon, feeling a drunk's idea of normal as he started on the bourbon and sailed with it through the evening, becoming more talkative, confident, funny, interesting . . .

  "I'll have another one."

  "Same way?"

  "No, I'll have a double bourbon mist this time."

  The bartender gave him the look again. He made the drink, placed it in front of Ryan, and picked up the two empties.

  "I saw I couldn't get near the group backstage," Ryan said, "so I waited till they went on and started playing and I walked right out there, in all the lights and the crowd screaming, walked right up to the lead guitar."

  "Excuse me," the bartender said. He walked off with the empty glasses.

  So interesting the bartender could hardly wait to hear the rest. He was aware of what he was doing. He asked himself, why do you want to fuck up? He had said to the girl, Because it's so much fun?

  It didn't make sense. How could he sit here drinking? Like running out in front of cars on the expressway and saying he might not get hit. Since Monday afternoon . . .

  Tired, getting the down feeling again, sitting in a bar on M-59 having a Coke. Feeling down-was that the excuse? The bartender had said, "You want something else?" Meaning, You ready to pay? and he had said, "Yeah, give me another one," and paused and said, "With a bourbon this time." Not thinking about it and getting an excuse ready first, but corning right out with it. He could come up with all kinds of excuses if he had to.

  Because he was depressed.

  Because he deserved a drink.

  Because he couldn't keep walking into bars and ordering Cokes. It didn't seem natural.

  Because he was tired and depressed was the best. He needed a drink to pick him up.

  Then the next rationalization. He could have one or two and not go berserk, for Christ's sake. That was a lot of shit about one drink and you're off again. He had had one drink Monday afternoon. No trouble.

  He had had eight drinks Monday evening. Okay, that was it, the urge had been satisfied.

  He had had two Bloody Marys at lunch Tuesday in Clarkston. He had had four vodkas and tonic during the afternoon. Eight, maybe ten bourbons that evening. And he'd bought the pint of vodka and had one with root beer before going to bed. He had seen an outdoor sign on the highway advertising Smirnoff and root beer. It was a Charlie something.

  Then, this morning, a couple of vodkas and orange juice. At lunch in Drayton Plains he'd decided to pass on the Bloody Marys and had two beers with his chili. Then another bowl, it was so good, and another couple of beers. Then, two bars before this one, four bourbons. Two, three more here with the friendly bartender. That was thirteen drinks and it was only a quarter to five.

  His wife or somebody had told him once, his problem was he didn't count his drinks. Okay, he was counting them. He could continue to drink socially till midnight and bring the total to thirty without any trouble. A good two whole fifths' worth of booze. But why stop at midnight? He wouldn't; he'd keep going.

  He didn't have to, though. Right now he was at the border. With a relatively clear head he could say, "Goodbye brains," and start pouring them down. Or he could quit right now. Except it would seem like stopping right in the middle, before he'd taken advantage of getting drunk, before he'd had any fun. Maybe a couple more days. Relax and let it happen. Look into some of the interesting afternoon lady drinkers he'd seen, the housewives with their gimlets and stingers and Black Russians.

  Tell them about serving the papers to the rock group and how he'd got his picture in the Free Press. Tell that one a few more times. Show the housewives what a funny guy he was. Score in a motel on Telegraph with a fifth of vodka, pop out of the machine. Or cold duck, because the housewife thought cold duck was romantic.

  By tomorrow afternoon he wouldn't be thinking about it, he'd be doing it. Half in the bag trying to do it, sweating, and nothing happening. Or quit right now. Four years ago he was ready to quit on September 28, but he had put it off a few days because October 1 would be easier to remember as the day he quit and joined AA. He had quit six or seven times since then and wasn't sure of the last date. It didn't matter. He had been clean three and a half years and now, for some reason, he was sitting in a bar drinking. Deciding if he should keep going. Actually considering it, knowing the pain he would experience when he finally stopped cold and withdrew. It wasn't a hangover pain; that was simple, you could numb it with aspirin. The pain in withdrawal was the extreme feeling of anxiety that Ryan remembered well-a raw, hypersensitive feeling, like a sunburned nervous system-wanting to either take a drink or go out the window. With Ryan it would last a couple of days while he paced and filled himself with liquids and ate B-12 tablets like peanuts.

  The question, was it worth it? Of course not? But that didn't seem to matter, because it didn't have anything to do with now.

  Why he was drinking didn't matter either. Because he was Irish or basically insecure? He was drinking. He could admit he was powerless over it once he got going, and he was still drinking. Sitting quietly in a bar, looking at his options and his reflection. He looked good, tan in the tinted bar mirror. His memory wasn't too sharp, though. He wasn't sure of the exact date, April 25 or 26. May 1 was a little too far off. The thing to do was call one of his friends in AA, admit he was fucking up and needed help, a kick in the ass. Or he could go to a meeting tonight. He hadn't been to a meeting in about four months, and maybe that was his problem. Find one in the area. Call the main office and find out where to go in Pontiac. Go home and take a shower and a quick nap first, have something to eat. Pay and get out of here. Or have just one more.

  Chapter 14

  "I woke up last night and looked at the ceiling," the woman across from Ryan said. "And you know what? It wasn't spinning around. I got up to go to the bathroom and I found it without bumping into furniture or knocking anything over. It was right where it was supposed to be. Sometimes I used to wake up in the morning on the floor and I'd say a prayer, before opening my eyes, that I'd know where I was."

  The table leader said, "I know what you mean. The first six months to a year in the program, I'd still wake up in the morning expecting to be hung over. I was amazed I actually felt normal."

  The meeting was in a windowless basement room of Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital, Pontiac. Cinder-block wall, fluorescent lights, lunchroom tables and folding chairs, the coffeemaker, the Styrofoam cups, the cookies. It could be an AA meeting anywhere, with groups of eight to twelve people at the five tables.

  Another of the women was saying that sometimes she'd wake up in a motel room and there'd be a man with her she'd never seen before in her life and she'd scream at him, "What're you doing here! Get out!" The poor guy would be baffled-after the beautiful evening they'd had that she didn't remember.

  There were four women and seven men at the table, including Ryan. He wasn't sure if he was going to say anything when the table leader got to him. He might pass, say he just wanted to listen this evening. He wondered if there might be a trace of whiskey on his breath. He asked himself then, Would it matter? Like someone might point to him and they'd throw him out of the program. Amazing, two days of drinking and the guilt feelings were back. He had stayed away from meetings too long. He knew it, but he didn't feel part of it tonight. At least not yet.
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  A man two chairs away from him said, "Thank you. I'm Paul, I'm an alcoholic, and I'm very glad to be here. You know, there's a big difference between admitting you're an alcoholic and accepting the fact. That's why I like to sit at a First Step table every so often. Not only to listen, but to keep reminding myself that I'm powerless over alcohol. I wasn't like Ed there, who mentioned binge drinking, go off for a couple of weeks and then straighten out, stay sober awhile. Shit, I was drunk all the time."

  What were you? Ryan was thinking, a moderate drunk? A neat drunk. He had always hung up his clothes at night and only wet his pants once.

  A woman about forty-five said that Saturday night finally did it when she came home drunk and had a fight with her fourteen-year-old daughter: the unbelievable language she used, screaming at the child, Mommy in one of her finest scenes. The next morning she wanted to die. But she called a friend in the program and went to a meeting that night. She had come to meetings Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and she was here tonight and was going to keep coming.

  The guy next to Ryan leaned close to him, reaching for the ashtray, and said, "What does she want, a fucking medal? She doesn't have any choice."

  When the guy's turn came to speak to the table, he said, "I wasn't an alcoholic, like the rest of you drunks. Hell no. In a two-year period I got fired from three jobs, my wife divorced me, I was arrested twice for drunk driving, I smashed up the garage and five cars, but I wasn't an alcoholic. I was a heavy social drinker." There was laughter and some nodding heads. Ryan smiled.

  Everyone at the table had been there.

  "Cats slept in my car," a woman said. "It had so many holes in it from smashups."

  Ryan remembered scraping the side of his sister's house pulling into the drive, ruining the flower bed. He remembered picking up the strip of molding and throwing it in the car while his brother-in-law ran his hand gently over the brick wall, like the scrape mark was a wound.

  "I wouldn't, the way I was, I wouldn't go anywhere unless I was sure I could get a drink," the woman was saying now. "I'd be at a school PTA meeting, I'd say excuse me, like I was going to the bathroom. I'd go out to my car. I always kept a couple of six-packs in the trunk."