"Me and Jay are breaking up," Barbara said to me at a table near the window. She was drinking her second Bloody Mary, her hair cut short to shoulder length.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I can't say I'm not happy about it."
I reached across the table and touched her wrist; then she yanked her arm away as if I had cooties.
Glaring at me, she said, "You fucked up my whole life," loud enough that a couple at a nearby table looked over. She took a big gulp of her Bloody Mary, almost finishing it, and I wondered if she was drunk.
"Me?" I said. "What did I do?"
"Dr. Kellerman says you're the reason I can't have a functional relationship with a guy."
"I don't know why you pay some guy one-fifty an hour to insult you."
"He said we spend too much time together."
"You're basically the only family I have in the world, so, what, we can't hang out together? Is that some kind of crime?" "I hate you so much right now."
The cab was stuck in traffic near Seventy-second Street, cars and buses all around us honking their horns. I realized the cabdriver was talking to me. "What?" I said.
"You want me to take East Side?" he said with his Russian accent.
"Yeah, fine, whatever," I said, staring out the window. When the cab turned onto Avenue A, I was so certain that Ricky wouldn't be in the apartment I almost considered telling the driver to turn around and head back uptown. Then I remembered how believably desperate Sue had sounded on the phone, and I decided that since I'd come all the way down here I might as well make sure.
I got out at the corner of Sixth and A and headed down the block toward Sue's building. I remembered how relieved I'd felt this afternoon when I'd left there, and it was hard for me to believe that I was going back.
I went into the vestibule and rang apartment fourteen. She buzzed me in and I headed up the stairs. Near the third floor, a thin, light-skinned black guy in an army jacket passed me on the stairs, pushing me hard with his shoulder.
"Hey," I said, but the guy kept going. I hated New Yorkers; I hated people. I wanted to move to the country, deep into Vermont or New Hampshire or better yet Canada. Saskatchewan. I'd live in a cabin with no TV, never see a human face again.
When I reached Sue's floor I caught my breath, then rang the bell to her apartment. I heard footsteps going back and forth. It sounded like one person was in there, but I wondered if Ricky was there too, maybe scrambling to hide.
I rang the bell several times in succession, upset that so much of my time was being wasted, and then Sue opened the door. I noticed that she was shivering as she moved to the side to let me into the apartment.
I entered the foyer and, as I expected, the body wasn't there.
"Look," I said, pointing my index finger, as if scolding a delinquent child, "I've had it with this bullshit. Stay the hell away from me or I'm calling the cops, and I mean it. I don't care what story you have, either the second I hear your voice I'm gonna»
I noticed that Sue wasn't looking at me her gaze was focused to my right and down slightly. I looked over my right shoulder and saw Ricky on his back the lower part of his body inside the bathroom, the upper part in the main part of the apartment a few feet away from me. His eyes were half-open, but perfectly still and glazed over, and his light brown skin had turned a shade of blue.
I stared at the body for a while, then turned to Sue who hadn't budged, and said, "So he's still playing dead, huh? Nice try, but it won't work."
"What the hell're you talking about?" she said. "Have you totally lost it? You better do something. I can't stand having him in the apartment anymore. I can't look at him."
I continued staring at the body in a daze, the truth setting in. I didn't know how I'd managed to convince myself that it hadn't happened.
"You were supposed to take care of this," I said.
"I couldn't, all right?" Sue said.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a really shitty liar."
"Then why did you tell me»
"Because I thought I could pull it off," she said. "I made a mistake, all right? Go ahead shoot me."
"Call the police now."
"I can't."
"Do it, damn it."
"You do it," she said. "Tell them the truth say you killed him by accident, self-defense, whatever. That's what you wanted to do anyway, right?"
I considered this, but decided it was too late. The police would run tests, realize the body had been here for about seven hours. They would want to know why there was a delay in reporting the incident. I could tell them that I'd panicked and ran away, which was sort of the truth, but with Ricky's head bashed in they'd never believe my self-defense story especially not now.
"That won't work," I said.
"Well, you better do something else then. You're the one who killed him."
"I saved your life."
"Bullshit." She sounded ridiculous, getting angry with that high, squeaky voice. "You know how many times Ricky came at me with a blade?
He wasn't really gonna hurt me he just liked to get macho like that.
You didn't have to ram his head into the door like some maniac."
Now I knew there was no way I could call the cops. Sue would never back up my story and I'd be arrested for murder.
I couldn't believe I'd let this happen. If I hadn't tried to get my wallet back, I could've been home right now.
"Come on," Sue said, "just call the»
"We're not calling anybody."
"Then what're we gonna»
My brain jump started.
"Was Ricky a junkie too?"
Sue stared at me with her glassy, lifeless eyes, then said, "Who're you calling a junkie?"
"Shut up. Was he a junkie too?"
"I'm not a fuckin' junkie."
"Was he a junkie?"
"He shot up once in a while, yeah, but he wasn't a junkie."
"We'll make it look like it was drug-related," I said.
"What're you talking about?"
"The murder, I mean killing whatever. We'll dump the body somewhere.
Tompkins Square Park's right around the corner, right? The cops probably find dead junkies there all the time."
"Ricky wasn't a junkie."
"Shut up," I said, almost shouting. In a much quieter voice I said,
"Does he have track marks?"
I leaned over toward the body to get a closer look at the arms. They looked like pincushions.
"Perfect," I said. "So that's what we'll do. The cops'll think some drug dealer killed him. They had an argument over money and started fighting; then the guy rammed Ricky's head into a tree and killed him.
They'll come talk to you, but they'd never question you. Why would they?"
"It won't work," Sue said.
"Yes, it will," I said.
"How're we supposed to get him to the park?"
"We'll carry him."
"You crazy? He weighs one-sixty-five."
"So?"
"What if somebody sees us?"
"We'll wait till later the middle of the night. Four, five in the morning. It's just down the stairs, then a block or two to the park."
"The cops won't believe it was over drugs."
"Why not?"
"Why would a dealer kill him?"
"For money."
"If the dealer killed him he'd never get his money."
"Maybe he didn't mean to kill him."
"If a dealer was after him he wouldn't bust his skull," Sue said. "He'd shoot him, or cut him, or something like that."
"Maybe there was a struggle," I said, "a fight and… Or maybe it wasn't over drugs, all right? Maybe somebody just tried to mug him kids. Or maybe he got into a fight said something to the wrong guy.
That happens all the time two guys fighting over a parking space and one guy flips and starts beating the other guy up."
"Why would they be fighting over a parking space in the park?" Sue asked.
"The fight could've been over anything," I said, losing patience. "The cops'll find his body in the park, they'll think he was killed fighting, and that'll be the end of it."