Chapter 25 Chapter Twenty-Five

I called Durkin at Duncan Donuts on Woodside Avenue.They don't have a phone booth, just a public phone on the wall.A few feet away from me, two kids were playing with electronic toys, and someone else was listening to disco music on a portable radio the size of a schoolbag.I picked up the mike and told Deggin of my latest discovery. "I can issue a warrant. Octavia Calderon, male, Colombian, early twenties. How tall is he? About five foot seven?" "I've never seen him." "No, you haven't. I can have someone at the hotel describe it. Are you sure he's missing, Scudder? I only spoke to him two days ago."

"Saturday night." - Stick School · E Book Group - "I think so. Yes, before Hendrix killed himself. Yes." "Is that a case of suicide?" "Is there any reason to say otherwise?" "Not yet. You talked to Calderon Saturday night, and no one has seen him since." "I have that kind of influence over a lot of people." "He's frightened by something. Do you think it's you?" He said something, but the restaurant was too loud and I couldn't hear it.I want him to say it again. "When I asked him something. He didn't seem to be paying attention. I thought he was on LSD."

"His neighbors say he is a well-behaved young man." "Yeah, a nice, quiet boy. That's the kind of guy who goes crazy and kills the whole family. Where did you call? It's so noisy." "A donut shop on Woodside Avenue." "Can't you find a quiet bowling alley? What do you think of Calderon? Dead?" "He packed everything before he left, and someone called in sick for him. If you want to kill him, do you need to go to such trouble?" "Sick leave sounds like you want him to start first, to run a few miles before chasing him."

"Makes sense." "Maybe he went home," Durkin said. "They used to go home, you know. Times are different now. My grandparents haven't looked at them since they came here, except in the calendars they got from the liquor store. Ireland. These bastards come home every month with two chickens and a bastard relative. Of course my grandparents work, maybe that's the difference. They can't travel around on the dole world." "Calderon has a job," "Well, lucky him, that little bastard. Maybe I should look up the last three days out of JFK. Where's he from?"

"Some say it's Cartagena." "What is that, a city? Or an island?" "I think it's a city, it should be in Panama or Colombia or Ecuador, otherwise the landlord would not be able to rent him a room. I think it's in Colombia." "Jewel in the Pacific. If he does go home, the sick leave is explained. He wants someone else to call so he doesn't lose his job when he comes back. He can't call from Cartagena every afternoon." "Then why did he clean the room?" "Maybe he didn't like it there. Maybe the exterminator came and killed his pet cockroaches. Maybe he didn't pay his rent and just ran away."

"The landlord said no. He's prepaid for the week," He was silent for a while, and then said reluctantly: "Someone threatened him, so he ran away." "It seems so, doesn't it?" "I'm afraid that's true. But I think he's probably still in New York. I think he just moved a subway stop away, changed his name, and rented another furnished room. There are about fifty people in the five boroughs of New York." Thousands of illegal immigrants, he doesn't need to become one to hide it so we can't find it." "You'll run into him if you're lucky."

"That's possible. I'll check the morgue first, then the airline. If he's dead, or if he's out of the country, we'll be on the safe side." He laughs, and I ask him what's so funny. "If he's dead, or abroad," he said, "he won't be of much use to us, will he?" The subway back to Manhattan sucks, the interior is wrecked beyond recognition.I sat in a corner, trying to drive away the waves of despair that came over me.My life is an ice floe, shattered at sea, the different pieces drifting in different directions, never to be reunited—whether I'm working on the case or not.All was meaningless, purposeless, and hopeless.

No one wants to spend a lot of money for me.No one wants to marry me, no one wants to save my life: ...the good old days are over. There are eight million ways to die, and there are many choices for those who help themselves.There are many things wrong with subways, but as long as you throw yourself on the tracks, they are perfectly capable of crushing you to death.What's more, there are countless bridges and high windows in this city, and the shops selling razor blades, clotheslines and pills are open 24 hours a day. I keep a bunch of . 30s in the drawer of my dresser, and my hotel room windows are set high enough from the sidewalk to kill someone.But I've never tried it, and somehow I know I never will.Either I was too scared, or I was too stubborn, or maybe my despair was never as complete as I thought.There always seems to be something to keep me going.

Of course if you drink, everything will be out of control.I remember being at a party once and a man was talking about his experience of regaining consciousness on the Brooklyn Bridge.The moment his mind regained consciousness, he found that he had climbed over the railing, with one foot in the air.He pulled his foot back, turned over and climbed down the railing to escape in a hurry. If he wakes up a second later, both feet will be in the air— I'd be better off if I drank. I can't get the thought out of my head.Worse is that I know it's true.I'm so sad, and if I could just have a drink, the pain would go away.I will definitely regret it in the future, and I will still feel that life is boring in the future.But so what?We're all going to die anyway.

I am reminded of something I heard at a party, said by Mary, a regular visitor to St. Paul's.She is as light as a swallow, speaks softly, and is always well-groomed. I heard her testify once. Obviously, she was almost reduced to a beggar on the street. One night, she stood on the stage and said, "You know what? I made a great discovery, that is, people don't have to feel good to be alive. Who stipulated that I have the obligation to be happy? "I used to think that if I felt tense or anxious or unhappy, I had to figure something out, but I don't think that's true. Negative feelings can't kill me. Alcohol can kill me. But my feelings don't .”

The train enters the tunnel.As it drove below ground level, all the lights went out momentarily and then came back on.I could hear Mary speaking every word very clearly.I could see her fine-boned hands folded in her bosom as she spoke. It's strange how this image flashed through my mind.Still feeling the urge to drink as I walked out of the Columbus Circle subway station, I passed two bars.Walk to the party. The speaker was a tall, stocky Irishman who lived in Bay Ridge.He looked like a policeman, but it turned out that he had been a policeman, retired after twenty years, and supplemented his family's income by working as a guard in addition to his pension.The drinking never affected his job or his marriage, but over the years, alcohol began to harm his body.He was failing, his hangover was getting worse, and a doctor told him he had an enlarged liver. "He told me. Alcohol is killing me," he said. "I'm not an outcast, a depraved drunk, or someone who has to drink to get rid of a bad mood. I'm just your most common Kind of an optimist who loves a drink after get off work and sits in front of the TV with a half-pack of beer. So if booze is going to kill me, then fuck him. Is it all wrong? I walked out of that doctor's office and decided to stop drinking. Eight years later I finally did it." A drunk kept interrupting his testimony.The man was well dressed and didn't look like he wanted to cause trouble.He just couldn't seem to sit still and listen.After he had five or six seizures, two members escorted him out, and the party continued. It occurred to me that I too had come to a party while unconscious.God, was I that virtuous? I can't concentrate on listening.I think about Octavia Calderon, I think about Sunny Hendricks, I think about almost nothing.I played half a beat slow at the beginning.I could have seen Sunny before she committed suicide.She might still die, and I'm not responsible for her self-destructive tendencies, but at least I'll be able to get some information from her. And it's time for me to talk to Calderon before he escapes.I looked for him the first time I got back to the hotel.He was not there at the time, and I forgot all about it.Maybe I can't get him to say anything, but at least I can be alert that he has something to hide.It didn't occur to me that this man was worth checking until after he had packed his bags and fled. I'm always out of timing.I'm always one step behind.Hard to die by a penny.I suddenly realized: I didn't only do this when I was handling this case.This is the portrayal of my life. Poor me, poor me, pour me a glass, will you? During the discussion, a woman named Grace said that today is the second anniversary of her sobriety, which won a lot of applause.I applauded for her, and when the applause died down, I counted and realized that today was my seventh day.If I go to bed awake it will be seven full days. How many days did I quit before the last time I drank?eight days? Maybe I can break that record.But maybe not, maybe I will break tomorrow. At least not tonight.I have no problems tonight.I'm not much better now than I was before, and my opinion of myself certainly hasn't improved.All the numbers on the scoreboard are the same.I used to have a drink to celebrate it, but not now. I don't know why.But I know I'm safe for now.