Read Online A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online

it had had and what action he could possibly take to make things right. Some of the people on the list had died, and it bothered him that there was no way to make amends to a dead person.”
    “He told me about his father.”
    “How he hadn’t been there when the old man died. I suggested some things he could do. He could go someplace quiet—a church sanctuary, a park. The old neighborhood in the Bronx might have been a good choice if they hadn’t run an expressway through it. The venue’s not important. He could go there and think about his father and talk to him.”
    “Talk to him?”
    “And tell him all the things he wished he’d been able to tell him on his deathbed. And let the old man know he was sober now, and what that meant to him, and—well, you know, I wasn’t going to compose a speech for him. He’d think of plenty of things to say.”
    “And who’s to say if the message would get through?”
    “For all I know,” he said, “the old fellow’s off on a cloud somewhere, and he’s got ears that can hear a dog whistle.” He frowned. “I mean one of those whistles only dogs can hear.”
    “I knew what you meant.”
    “It could have meant, you know, a dog whistling. Not even the dead can hear that.”
    “So far as we know.”
    He gave me a look. “There’s more coffee,” he said. “Can I get you another cup?”

VIII
     
    J ACK WAS SITTING in your chair when he took the Fifth Step. He’d written out his Fourth Step, spent several weeks on it, making sure he got it all down. Then he sat there, and I sat where I am now, and he read it out loud. His voice broke a few times. It was hard going.”
    I could imagine.
    “I would stop him now and then, you know. For amplification. But mostly he read and I took it in, or tried to. It wasn’t easy.”
    “Heavy going?”
    “Very much so. Matt, my own Fourth Step had no end of things of which I was deeply ashamed. And in program terms what matters is how your deeds weigh on your conscience, not how far down they rank on some consensus of morality. But I felt like a lightweight sinner, a positive dilettante of turpitude. My only crimes were jaywalking and cheating on my taxes. Oh,and sneaking under subway turnstiles a couple of times. You won’t report me, will you?”
    “I’ll let it go this time.”
    “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. I did things that weren’t crimes, but that were morally reprehensible, and that I don’t feel the need to mention now. But, you know, I never robbed anyone, I never hit anyone with a club. I never, Christ, I never killed anyone.”
    “And Jack did?”
    His silence was answer enough.
    After a long moment he said, “I don’t feel comfortable sharing what he told me. And his character defects and his resentments didn’t get him killed, and neither did his bad actions, so my feeling is they can go to the grave with him.”
    “That seems reasonable.”
    “Except there won’t be a grave to go to. I’ve made arrangements to have him cremated, as soon as they’re able to release the body. My thought is to scatter the ashes at sea. There are people who’ll take you out in a boat, and you just empty the container of remains overboard.” He rolled his eyes. “Or cremains, as the insiders would say. If I had a copy of his Fourth Step inventory it could go to the oven with him, if not the grave. And into the water, and—”
    He’d been speaking almost cheerfully, and then it all caught up with him and choked him up. I watched him set his jaw and blink back the tears, and when he resumed speaking, his voice was steady and strong.
    “My dilemma,” he said, “is with his Eighth Step. I think I said it was detailed.”
    “A paragraph about each person.”
    “And some of them were long paragraphs. I would think that the person who killed him would almost have to be on that list.”
    “And you have a copy.”
    “Did I already mention that?”
    “No, but you wouldn’t have much of a dilemma without it.