Sinner Man

by Lawrence Block

  That was October. I spent it at my office, at Cassino’s, at Noomie’s, at the Stennett. There was a week, maybe two weeks, when I sat on the edge of my chair and waited for Albert Durkinsen to remember where he had seen my pretty face. Evidently he forgot all about me. Or, if he remembered, he decided to let it lie. Or, if he went screaming to the nearest cop, the cop wrote off little Albert as a screwball to be neatly ignored. Whatever way the incident played itself out, Albert from Connecticut was a man to be forgotten and Donald Barshter was deader than a dozen doornails.

  My job was easy and got to be surprisingly satisfying. The job involved business and at the same time it was illegal—and the combination got to be a hell of an interesting one. I had the inside track and the inside story, which kept the job exciting. But when I was in my office with my door closed and my secretary buffing her nails and a pile of papers and correspondence on my desk in front of me, I was just another straight-and-narrow businessman all over again. It was bookkeeping and figure-juggling and memo-writing, and only the pay and the underworld undertone made the job different from being somebody’s accountant. Or from selling insurance. But that was enough for me. I’d always been good at the work, and this way it didn’t bore me.

  And I was starting to like Buffalo. It was my town now—this made a difference. The trip to Las Vegas—Tony’s idea, not mine—had been a good move. It made coming back to Buffalo a pleasure.

  So that was October and it was pleasant. I had a closet filled with suits and a bank account filled with money. There was a safe-deposit box, also filled with money, and on that money I didn’t have to pay taxes. There was Berman’s basement, where we still played poker once a week, and there were half a dozen nightclubs where they always had a table free for me. There was the place at the Stennett which got more and more like a home.

  And when I wanted her, there was Anne Bishop.

  She wasn’t the same girl, not exactly. A mistress is not the same thing as a girlfriend. Anne was a mistress now and her independence was over and done with. She lived with me and slept with me. I gave her money for clothes, money for books, money for her to do as she pleased with. We still had our cute conversations but they were milder now, never so fierce as they had grown before. We still had our probing sessions, Anne playing her “Who Is This Nathaniel Crowley?” game, but they were fewer, farther between and infinitely subtler. We still had our kicks but they were somehow a different sort, our roles more clearly defined. I hadn’t had reason to slap her again, since Vegas. She hadn’t wielded any shivs.

  “You ought to break down,” she said one night. “You ought to make an honest woman out of me, Nat.”

  “That a proposal?”

  “Just an idea. Why don’t we get married?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Maybe we could find one of those split-levels. I hear you can get a thirty-year mortgage with no sweat these days.”

  “Not a split-level. A huge stone house with a lot of land around it and respectable neighbors. Gangsters love to brag about their respectable neighbors. I watched The Untouchables and I know all about gangsters.”

  “I know the program. It’s about lower-caste Hindus. In India.”

  “That’s the one,” she said.

  “Are you untouchable?” I asked.

  “Not exactly. Why?”

  I said, “Come here and I’ll show you.”

  And I showed her. We’d grown used to our roles, and it was not murderous now. There was no fight to have the upper hand. You could almost think of it as making love—if you squinted. If you forgot about how we got here, about the things we’d said and done. The things I’d said, the things I’d done.

  * * *

  She played the let’s-get-married record again a few days later. This time there were violins in the background. She almost made marriage sound interesting but I remembered Ellen too well to really meditate about it. Besides, for obvious reasons, marriage was impossible.

  “I’m twice shy,” I said.

  “Meaning you were once bitten?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “Tell me all your troubles, Nat Crowley. Tell me about your past love and your past life. Do you have an exciting past?”

  “No past at all.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “I wasn’t,” I told her. “I sprang full-blown from the brow of Johnny Torrio. Don’t you read your crime comics? They’re part of American mythology.”

  “What happened to her?”

  I looked at her. “To who? You lost me.”

  “To your wife.”

  “Oh,” I said. “She left me. She ran away with a pencil sharpener. It was very sad.”

  “I guess you don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” I said. “But I’ve got this terrible allergy—I break out whenever I’m near a sharp pencil.”

  * * *

  Then October disappeared and it was November. It was a Sunday night, late, but neither Annie nor I felt like sleeping. We got the doorman to find the Lincoln for us and climbed into it. The first snow of the season was falling on us. It was scattered, skitterish snow, melting as it hit the pavement, but it was enough for me to keep the Lincoln’s top up.

  I headed the car east and parked down the block from Noomie’s. It was as bad a neighborhood as ever and nobody with sense parked a decent car there. But the kids in the neighborhood knew whose car the Lincoln was. Nobody would hotwire it or break off the radio aerial or otherwise foul things up. We got out and walked through the falling snow to the doorway. The coffee-colored hostess passed us through with a smile. We found a table in front and ordered drinks.

  Pete Moscato was there with a blonde I’d seen around before. Pete was Angie’s younger brother, a pretty sharp kid moving up fast. I think he admired me or something. Pete and his blonde came over and sat down at our table. We listened to the combo on stage go through a hard jazz arrangement of “Night in Tunisia.” Then the combo switched to a slow Cole Porter thing and the four of us got up to dance. After one number the combo worked on another slow one and we traded girls. Annie danced with Pete and I moved his blonde around the floor. It turned into a sort of vertical rape—either she was madly in love with me or she wanted to aid Pete’s progress in local crookdom, or that was the only way she knew to dance. Whatever, her hot little hips kept bouncing at me and her body wrapped itself around me like a second skin. By the time we got off the floor I needed the fresh drink that was waiting for me.

  We talked some more. Then Pete remembered something he had to do and took his blonde bombshell away.

  Annie raised her glass to me. “Have a nice time?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “I’m jealous as hell,” she said. “Nat, can I go to New York?”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to go on a buying spree,” she said. “I want to leave your money all over Fifth Avenue.”

  “What prompted this?”

  “I read an article on what the well-dressed whore is wearing this year. I’m out of style. Can I fly down for a few days?”

  “I’ll get lonely.”

  “Why should you? There are loads of blondes in this town. Hair color so natural only their druggist knows for sure.”

  I lit cigarettes for us. She drew hard on hers and blew a little smoke across the table at me.

  “New York,” she said. “Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’ll need money.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “A few hundred. Enough for plane fare and a room and meals and to buy clothes with. Not too much.”

  “You learn fast, don’t you?”

  “I’ve got the name,” she said. “I might as well have the fun.”

  * * *

  The next day I wrote her an impressive check and she scurried off to the bank to cash it. That night she called the airport and made her reservation.
The following afternoon I drove her to the airport. It was ugly weather. A little snow had managed to pile up on the sidewalks and now a frigid rain was melting the snow and putting a raw edge to the air. The clouds were black. Annie was worried that her flight might be canceled but I told her they flew in everything nowadays, especially on shortie trips like the one she was taking. I dropped her at the terminal entrance while I found a place to park in the big open lot. She had one piece of light gray luggage. I parked the car and carried her bag inside.

  She bought her ticket and checked her baggage. I followed her over to the newsstand where she picked out a few books to shorten the trip. Then we grabbed coffee and waited for her flight to be called.

  When that happened I walked most of the way to the plane with her. Moments of parting are funny ones. I held her hand a little more tightly than usual. When she put her face up to be kissed I wanted to hold her very close, to say something sweet to her, something nice.

  But I didn’t know how.

  So I handed her a lopsided smile and chucked her under the chin. “Be good,” I told her. “Don’t stay away too long.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Here,” I said. I slipped her an extra bill, a big one. She palmed it and smiled ambiguously. Then she turned and walked away from me to the plane.

  * * *

  Anne was gone a week. It was a long week. She left on a Tuesday, in the afternoon, and she came back on a Monday, at night, and the days in the middle were curiously empty ones. It was a week when I would have gladly buried myself in work but there just wasn’t that much work to do. I spent all of Wednesday and most of Thursday at the free-form desk in my office writing meaningless numbers on sheets of memo paper, doodling mechanically and waiting for time to pass. It passed, but slowly.

  Wednesday night I got moodily drunk at a quiet little bar not far from the Stennett. Finally I went home and slept.

  Thursday night there was the poker game at Berman’s. Tony picked me up and ran me over. I held good cards and played them well and won around a hundred dollars. Our game went for higher stakes lately—all the players were Tony’s boys from a while back and all of them had been living better since Baron had left the scene. When dawn broke the game broke, too. I put my winnings in my wallet and let Tony run me home.

  We stopped on the way for ham and eggs. Tony put down a cup of coffee and looked at me. “I got some advice,” he said. “But you don’t have to listen to it.”

  “I always listen to your advice.”

  “This is different. Personal advice. The kind you can ignore.”

  “Go on.”

  He drank more coffee. “When your woman comes back,” he said, “marry her.”

  I took out a cigarette and tapped it on the smooth tabletop. I lighted it and looked at Tony.

  “It’s not my business,” he said.

  I blew out smoke.

  “Just an idea,” he said. “You don’t play around, Nat. You’ve got a steady deal with one broad. A good girl, not just a walking, talking piece. I knew her a long time ago. She’s a good kid.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s not just a shack-up. Right?”

  I didn’t answer. I drank my coffee. It wasn’t bad coffee. I signaled the waitress to bring me another cup.

  “I’m not saying this right,” he said. “I talk fine when it’s business. This is different. So all I do is stick my foot down my throat. Want me to shut up, Nat?”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  Tony shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Look, there are different kinds of racket people. Some like a good time and high living. Nothing tying them down. Maybe I’m like that. Others are like Berman. A house, a wife, kids and to hell with the excitement. Maybe you’re like that. I don’t mean a house in the suburbs, a country-club scene, any of that. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded.

  “You went nuts in Vegas,” he said. “Gambling isn’t your kick, chasing isn’t your kick, nightlife isn’t your kick. You can do those things, but they don’t send you to the moon. Hell, I’m preaching a sermon. Let’s let it lie.”

  “Fine.”

  “But it’s something to think about, Nat.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s something to think about.”

  I tipped the waitress and picked up our checks. Then we left the place and he drove me home.

  * * *

  It was a dull and thoughtful weekend. I did more drinking than usual but never quite managed to go over the edge. I drank and stayed strangely sober.

  I thought about Tony Quince and his diagnosis and prescription. So Nat Crowley was nothing but a family man at heart. I tossed that one around and remembered another family man who used to sell insurance. Maybe he hadn’t changed so damned much after all. Maybe few things change.

  On Sunday night it was hard to sleep. People paraded through my mind, many people, all dead now. Ellen led the parade, of course, and too many people followed on her heels. There was Jack Garstein, a family man from Philadelphia. There was Scarpino and Johnny Carr and Leon Spiro and a tough little blonde with a slit throat. There was To Nat From Lou Baron and there was Porky, who hadn’t talked much. My private Hit Parade, which may or may not be a bad pun.

  I got a wire Monday morning telling me what plane to meet. It was snowing out, big flakes that piled up in drifts. I ate breakfast and drove around in the Lincoln. I took a ride through the cemetery and managed to find Scarpino’s grave. I remembered him kissing his father and going for a final ride, the inevitable final ride. I remembered Scarpino’s face when he saw the grave, an open wound in the earth. And the dirt falling on him, and Tony and Angie and I walking silently back to the car.

  Anne’s plane was supposed to land at nine. I was at the airport by eight-thirty. I had coffee and rolls in the airport coffee shop. Then I leafed through an early newspaper while I waited for the plane. It had stopped snowing sometime in the late afternoon and her plane was supposed to arrive on time. It did.

  I tried to decide whether I felt like a man waiting for a mistress or a husband waiting for a wife. It was hard to say.

  Anne came off the plane looking lovely. She’d had her hair done in New York and it was neat and pretty. She came to me with steady eyes and her skin rosy from the cold air. I kissed cool lips.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  “You did?”

  And somehow I had run out of words. I took her hand and we walked over to the baggage counter to wait for her gray suitcase. We talked aimlessly. She told me New York had been fine, the weather had been good there. I asked her if she had bought many clothes. She said there hadn’t been much she had bought but that she had seen a few good shows and had gone to some nice restaurants. There had been a good cool jazz group at the Blind Spot, and she’d been there once or twice.

  Her suitcase came. She traded a baggage check for it and I carried it. It wasn’t heavy. We walked to the door.

  “Wait here,” I said. “I’ll bring the car around.”

  “I can come with you.”

  “The snow’s deep. Wait here.”

  I brought the Lincoln over. I put her suitcase in the back. Anne got beside me in front. The conversation on the way to the Stennett was small talk. I asked her if she wanted to stop for a bite. She said she had had dinner on the plane and wasn’t hungry right now. I gave the Lincoln to the doorman and we went into the lobby and rode the elevator upstairs. I opened the door to the apartment and followed her inside. She made drinks while I hung up our coats.

  We touched glasses and I sipped my drink. She was still drinking gin and tonic, even with snow on the ground.

  “Annie…”

  “Don’t call me Annie,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “That’s over now.”

  Her voice was very odd. I was missing something and I wasn’t sure what it was. I offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. I took one for myself and lighted it with my T
o Nat From Tony lighter.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. What do I call you?”

  “Miss Bishop.”

  “Isn’t that kind of formal?”

  “You call me Miss Bishop,” she said. “And I’ll call you Mr. Barshter.”

  18

  “It was only a matter of time,” she said. “I knew there was something to look for, some kind of secret. You certainly weren’t Nat Crowley. There were too many things out of line, too many inconsistencies. It was just a question of knowing what to look for and where to look.”

  Black hair, all neat, every strand in place. Blue eyes. Now a very icy blue.

  “You were never Nat Crowley from Miami. And you weren’t a racket type, not from the start. You were feeling your way. And gradually you grew into yourself, didn’t you? It was something to watch. You got harder and tougher until you turned into Nat Crowley. And by then I didn’t even like you anymore, Nat. I mean Don, don’t I? Is that what they called you? Don?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s been a long time.”

  She was smiling. “Then I’ll stick to Mr. Barshter. It’s easier, I suppose. It keeps everything on a businesslike plane.”

  “How did you find out?”

  She ignored the question. “I wasn’t even trying at first. I told you not to tell me too much. Do you remember? I knew there was something to look for and I didn’t want to find it. I thought we could have something nice. I thought you could live your life and I could live my life and the two of us could build a nice scene between us. Something easy. Something that let me be me.”

  I put down my drink without finishing it. I put out my cigarette in an ashtray.

  “You wouldn’t let it stay that way, Nat. You see what I mean? I can’t help calling you Nat—you grew into yourself that completely. And you had to make me fit the new pattern. You had to get the right hold on me. You never should have made me come to Vegas with you. That was a big mistake. It made me hate you.”

  I didn’t say anything. She was talking calmly, levelly. Her eyes had gone an even icier shade of blue, or maybe it was my imagination.