Beware the Solitary Drinker Read Online Free PDF Page A

Angelina— no waking from her terror. She died with her scream frozen in her throat.
    David, the night bartender, kept tuning me up with blow, so I woke up sick and terribly nervous Friday afternoon in Betsy Blumberg’s bed. I’d been sleeping and waking fitfully during the morning, trying to make myself sleep instead of thinking about Angelina. The coke boiled inside me; I couldn’t stand myself. I needed a Valium, and I needed to fuck Betsy. Good old Betsy came through on both counts.
    She was in love with David Beattie, the bartender at the Terrace, but, on the frequent nights he found someone else to sleep with, she took whoever was left at the bar at closing time home with her for comfort; once in a while it was me. This morning—or afternoon—after we had fucked ferociously, and I had almost pulled her hair out while her nails dug long scratches into my back, I went back to sleep in her arms. When I woke once more, we fucked again. Then she cooked me eggs and a steak.
    â€œToday has been wild,” said Betsy. She looked coy and pleased, sitting across her dinette table from me, her blue bathrobe carelessly tied so when she moved slightly it opened at the top, baring her breast. “You’re becoming my number one beau.”
    â€œWhat about David?”
    â€œHe’s a pig, and even when he does come here, he doesn’t spend all afternoon…you know—” She smiled again.
    â€œI know what?”
    â€œYou know….”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFucking me. He doesn’t spend all afternoon fucking me.” Her smile was lascivious.
    â€œThe last time I was here I couldn’t get it up,” I reminded her.
    â€œYou made up for it.” She rested her chin in her hands, elbows on the table, and looked longingly in my direction.
    â€œI don’t want to be your beau, Betsy.”
    â€œI know.”
    I concentrated on eating.
    â€œI’m really sorry about Angelina,” Betsy said tentatively. “The poor kid.”
    I didn’t know why I’d spent the night with Betsy. I didn’t know why I had to get laid the day after Angelina was killed. Bottomless pits were opening up just beneath my consciousness.
    ***
    That night, a police sergeant introduced himself to me at the bar. Oscar clocked him the moment he entered. The first thing Oscar had said when I got to work was that the broad getting herself killed was going to get his place closed. Now, with a knowing grimace, he nodded toward the man in the door and buried his face in
The Racing Form
.
    The cop introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Pat Sheehan. He had sandy hair, bluish eyes, stood a good few inches over six feet, and gave the impression that he had a perfect right to do whatever it was he might be doing, despite the chilling pall his presence cast over the bar. He might just as well have driven a squad car through the door.
    He didn’t order a drink or show me a badge, just settled like a searchlight into my eyes. “A woman named Angelina Carter was murdered in Riverside Park Thursday morning. Did you know her?”
    â€œI’m sort of busy right now,” I said politely. I was pretending that if I went back to work, he would go away.
    Oscar squirmed and bounced on his stool at the other end of the bar, trying to hear everything and be inconspicuous at the same time. The cop looked at him. Everyone looked at him because he kept thumping around like a percolator.
    â€œCan someone take over for you for a few minutes?” the cop said. “You are McNulty?”
    I nodded and called Oscar, who sprang off his stool, then tried to act nonchalant as he came behind the bar.
    â€œHow do you know me?” I asked Sheehan when we sat down at a table. Except for his feet, which kept up a non-stop tapping under the table, he seemed at ease, uninterested in the impression he was making or in establishing any kind of rapport. He was intimidating without trying