CHAPTER 14
’Round midnight
Where the hell was I? All I knew was, I was wearing a fur.
Oh, right. The Emporium. Aubrey had put me to bed on the fold-out cot in the dressing room.
The clock near the small sink read three o’clock. In the morning or the afternoon?
In a few minutes Aubrey came in, naked from the waist up and wearing a spangled G-string: that casually perfect, taut, amber body glistening. She took a clean towel from the back of a chair and began daintily to blot away the sweat.
“You awake, Nan?”
“I’m awake. How long have I been sleeping?”
“About five hours. I gave you a pill and you went out like a light”
“Walter is dead, Aubrey. They shot him.”
“I know, baby. You told me.”
“He was doing some terrible things … terrible things, Aubrey. I didn’t know.”
I lay the coat aside then, and noticed that I was wearing a clean, starched shirt. I stared down at the whiteness of it, not able to remember changing my clothes.
“Here, Nan, take this.” Aubrey had opened a cabinet next to her dressing table. She handed me a glass and half filled it with brandy. She lit a cigarette for me as I drank.
We sat without speaking for a while.
“He asked me to marry him, Aubrey. I didn’t even get a chance to tell you.”
“Well,” she sighed, “that’s Walter. You know one way or another he was gonna leave your ass at the altar.”
I laughed once, bitterly. Then I broke down. She let me sob, periodically feeding me Newports and Courvoisier.
And at last the tears stopped. I felt oddly clear headed, light. I got up and washed my face carefully.
“Is that bartender who used to deal still here?” I asked. “The one who used to get you the Demerol?”
“You mean Larry? Yeah. He’s on till four. Why you asking?”
“Does he still buy and sell things?”
“What things?”
“Pills. Stuff. Just about anything you can name.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But I asked you why you wanna know.”
“Because. Like Walter said, I’ve come to a few decisions. Could you ask him to come in here for a minute? Tell him I need to talk to him.”
“Don’t do nothing stupid, Nan.”
“Please get him.”
“Don’t do nothing stupid,” Aubrey repeated when she walked in again with the brown eyed bartender. “Larry, you remember my friend Nanette, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Hey, Larry, I need a gun,” I said.
“No shit?”
“No shit. Can you get it for me?”
He looked over at Aubrey, who rolled her eyes and walked into the toilet.
“Can you get it?”
“What do you mean—tonight?”
“Why not?”
“What do you need?”
“I just said, Larry, a gun.”
“I mean what kind, angel.”
“It makes no fucking difference whatever.”
He scratched his head, looking me up and down.
“Larry, let me be honest with you. You’re dealing with a novice here. I just need a shooting device that works. Something that will make an impression, something that will threaten and persuade. Something capable of killing a rat, for instance.”
“There’s a nice .22 long I can lay my hands on right away. Comes with a full clip.”
“What’s a .22 long?”
“Well, it certainly could take out any rat who tried to fuck with you.”
“Can you show me what to do with it?”
“Sure.”
“Is there a cash machine near?”
“On Chambers Street.”
“I’ll meet you out front at four.”
The white shirt felt good against my skin. I wriggled into a pair of Aubrey’s snakeskin leotards, stretching them over the mass that is my butt. I put my boots back on and, at her insistence, threw on Aubrey’s fur coat. I got a glance at myself in the mirror. My God, I could have been looking at Tookie Smith! Or I might have been a downtown money bunny off for a long day’s shoe buying and gallery hopping.
“Why don’t you wait for Jeremy?” Aubrey offered just as I was leaving. “Come home with us. He gonna be here in a minute.”
I shook my head. “Tell him about Walter, would you? Just tell him—just say hello from me.”
I withdrew five hundred dollars and gave Larry four hundred of it.
Larry lived in a nice loft building on Nineteenth. He came out of the kitchen carrying a mid-sized Dean and De Luca shopping bag. He placed the bag on the floor and removed my gun.
A gun is a singular thing, isn’t it? Nothing else in the world even remotely resembles it.
“Long” was right. I was surprised at the size and heft of it. I got a five minute lesson on how to operate my new purchase. Clip. Safety. Barrel. Muzzle. Ammo. Push this up. Pull that back. “This looks like the foreskin on a very angry penis,” I remarked.
“Uh … right,” said Larry.
“Thanks for everything, Larry. I never met you before in my life.”
He nodded. “Looks like you dropped a few pounds since the last time I saw you, didn’t you?”
“I guess.”
“Looks good on you.”
“I’ve got to be running along now, Larry.”
“Well, just a second.”
“What?”
“You’re really not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
“Do I look stupid?”
“Not at all. Listen—How about staying for a drink?”
“It’s almost light,” I said. “I have to go.”
I pushed through the prison grey lobby doors and stepped out onto the deserted street.
It had begun to rain.