Shoot the Moon

Chapter Ten - The Dog-Faced Boy

The following morning I dialed the number from Mickey's book for the couple, Charley and Veeva. The phone rang six times before a breathless hoarse voice came on the line. 

"Yeah, this is Charley. Who is this?" he said in a slight southern accent. 

***** 

I wrapped the paper bag tight to the neck of the fifth and walked up the street swinging it by my side. The sun was bright and the neighborhood was looking wholesome, innocent, and boomish. St. Marks Church was standing up bright and righteous above the heaps of litter that had collected against the iron fence around the courtyard.  

The address he had given me was a townhouse on Second Avenue near Thirteenth Street that had been divided into apartments. I rang the bell under a hand lettered card that said Stackpoole. A speaker to my right rattled and hummed and something like a human voice said, "That you, bud?" 

"That's right." 

"You bring the booze?" 

I started to ask a question and the speaker rattled cutting me off. 

"First things first, huh? You have something for me to drink?"  

"It's in my hand." 

"Then get on up here, man." 

A buzzer sounded and I pulled the door open and entered the building.  

I wasn't prepared for the plush luxury of the carpeted hallway. One flight up, I found the door. Before my knuckles landed twice, the door was open and I saw Charley. He was a tall skinny and red faced Irishman, squinting from the smoke of a wet non-filter tip hanging in a groove at the corner of his mouth. His eyes had strange fish-belly-white circles under them. He was sweating. Very unhealthy guy. 

"Come in." He squinted at me. "I don't know you. Do you know me?" 

"No," I said, "I don't know you." 

"Just call me a friend in need, bud. What's your name again?" 

"Murphy." 

"Mine's Royce. Sorry about the rush but I want to get some drinking done and digested before Veeva gets home. I'm not supposed to be doing this. She thinks." 

"Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing," I said.  

"Naaah, what's it gonna do? Ruin my health?" He laughed like a friendly maniac and said, "Follow me," and took off down the hall. The apartment was a spacious floor-through. There wasn't much furniture other than a large new sofa and a coffee table. The floor was polished wood. Here and there a cigarette was ground out on the floor making a nice durable burn mark in the polyurethane varnish. In the kitchen, Charley produced two glasses. 

"Sorry about the stench, man. Veeva had this dog here for a couple of days. Keeping it for a friend, like. Dog was hardly house trained and I forgot to walk him and..." Charley shrugged and then held his nose. 

He opened the refrigerator door and I saw there was nothing inside except a crusty bottle of ketchup, a jar of maraschino cherries and a curling slice of pizza. 

"Ice?" he said, frowning with distaste. 

"If we're gonna drink it," I sighed, pulling the Jameson's out of the bag, "why don't we just drink it?" 

"That's the way, bud. Pour us a couple of big ones." He licked his lips as the amber liquor gurgled into the glasses. There was a thin sheen of sweat coating his forehead. Watching him, the back of my mouth twitched in sympathy, my head started to ache and my stomach curdled inside me. The first gallon of the day is always the hardest. I handed him the glass and lifted my own to him, trying to make a cocktail hour out of it.