JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home by Peter Spiegelman Page B

third. I buzzed and waited and nothing happened. It was still early and I wasn’t surprised. I walked down the street.
    There was a bar on the corner of Columbus, with small tables out front. I found one with a clear view of Pratt’s building and ordered a ginger ale. I stretched out my legs and worked my way through a bowl of cashews while the soft air grew dark. Noise and smoke and the smell of liquor thickened around me, and with them— suddenly— came a strong and acrid nostalgia.
    It could have been the light that set it off— the ripening purple sky and the swelling shadows, the sense of recklessness and promise that seemed to fall with evening— or it could have been the jumble of voices— laughing, flirting, boasting and arch, eager to please, studiously bored, and all a little slurred. It could have been the tiny buzz of danger as the customers grew louder and less cautious, or the possibility of violence— however remote— that rode with every jostling arm and elbow. It could have been the anonymous feel of being alone in the midst of a raucous crowd that did it, or my own incipient restlessness, scratching in my head like a low-grade fever. Whatever the cues, the memories— of other bars and other evenings, years ago— were powerful and close enough to taste. Columbus Avenue was a world away from Burr County, and from the dives I’d haunted in the months after Anne’s death. But the jagged, angry feeling that was always with me then was abruptly back again, lodged in my chest like a hunk of broken glass.
    Back then it was broken glass and a head full of static, a furious buzzing that I could never silence but could only distract. And every night, for four blurry months, I did just that, trading grief and guilt for motion, for drink and drugs, for violence and sex. I crashed along the back roads with my headlights dark and a chemical fire in my brain, and I made the rounds of places like the Rind and Buddy’s Fox and every other bucket of blood in the county. When I paused it was only to pass out, and when I came to I was often bruised and battered, or else I was sprawled alongside women whose names I never knew and who were never pleased to see me in the light of day. After a while, I took my act to the neighboring counties, to spare my colleagues the bother and embarrassment of cleaning up after me. It was only luck that no one got killed.
    I swallowed some ginger ale, and for an instant it tasted smoky and bitter and my throat closed up. These were long-absent feelings, but they were more than familiar. They dwelled someplace below conscious recall and were bound in me like muscle memory. Like riding a bike. And they scared the hell out of me.
    A shudder ran through me and I looked up the street and saw Irene Pratt, walking east from Amsterdam. She had a purse and a big leather tote bag on her shoulder and a plastic grocery sack in her hand, and her gait was awkward. Her head was down, but I recognized the thick chestnut hair and the pink blouse.
    I watched her fumble for her keys and disappear inside. I gave her twenty minutes— time enough to sort the mail, put the groceries away, check messages, change clothes; then I took out my cell phone and punched her number. When she answered, I spoke fast.
    “Ms. Pratt, this is John March. We spoke yesterday morning, and I stopped by your office this afternoon—”
    She cut me off. “Jesus Christ, what the hell are you calling me at home for? What do you want from me?”
    “I want to talk about Gregory Danes, Ms. Pratt. I’m trying to find him, and I thought maybe you could help.”
    She heaved an exasperated sigh. “I told you, we can’t—”
    It was my turn to cut her off. “I know what your orders are, Ms. Pratt. I’m at the bar on the corner, sitting at a table outside. I’ll be here for another half hour if you want to talk.” I clicked off.
    It took her forty-five minutes, and her steps were tentative. She’d changed into jeans and