Though
he had been to Gallagher’s apartment on Havermeyer Steet once before, Connor
had trouble locating the address. Too
much had changed in Williamsburg since his last visit. Everywhere he looked, he saw new apartment
buildings being put up one after the other.
Workers in hard hats scrambled over the scaffolding surrounding
them.
When
Connor did finally arrive, he found Gallagher busy in the kitchen cooking dinner. “Hey, perfect timing, man,” the latter said
as he held the door open. Connor noticed Gallagher took the time to look into
the hallway to make sure they were alone.
“Come on in and have some of my
special chicken fricassee. It’s a work
of art if I do say so myself.”
Connor
gave a bleak smile. He looked about the
apartment he had so recently visited with Deirdre in his dream and saw it was
just as disordered now as it had been then.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you need a cleaning woman to come in and
get rid of this mess?”
“I’ve
thought about that,” Gallagher chuckled.
“What I really want is some sexy chick in a French maid’s uniform
walking around with a feather duster in her hand.” He turned back to the stove and stirred some
vegetables in a pot. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m
Irish, remember? We only break bread
with our friends.”
Gallagher
turned toward him with pot in hand.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly
what it sounds like.”
Gallagher
looked at Connor closely enough to make out the dangerous glint in his
eye. “So what’s up with you? You trying to tell me we’re not friends
anymore?”
“You
never were my friend, you piece of shit.
It’s just that I’m only now realizing how you used me all this time.”
Gallagher
was startled but recovered quickly.
“Fuck you,” he shot back. “If
you’ve got some bug up your ass all of a sudden, you can get yourself the hell
out of my home.”
“Don’t
worry. I’m going as soon as I’ve said
what I came to say. I don’t want to be
around you a minute longer than I need to be.
You can take my word on that.”
Gallagher
was too surprised by Connor’s new attitude to be genuinely angry. He lowered his voice. “What’s with you tonight anyway? Your new girlfriend throw you out on the
street or what?”
“Get
off the act. I know all about you and
Jocelyn.”
This
time Gallagher was genuinely shocked.
“What are you talking about? That
woman say some shit to you about me and her?
If she did, you know it’s a damned lie.”
“I
haven’t seen Jocelyn since I visited her at her new apartment, and I’ve no
plans to change that. If I don’t see her
again until my dying day, it will still be too soon as far as I’m concerned.”
“That
I can understand,” said Gallagher as he attempted to calm Connor down. “If she hadn’t talked you into pulling that
dumb burglary job you wouldn’t be in the mess you are now. She really did screw up your life with that
stupidity.”
“It
wasn’t her idea, it was yours.”
Gallagher
banged the pot down. “And bullshit makes
the world go round.”
“Except
even that wasn’t enough for you. You
didn’t stop there. You called the cops
while I was inside and handed me to them on a platter.”
Gallagher
took a step back. “Are you crazy? Where’d you ever get that idea?”
“I
was standing right here the last time you met with Jocelyn.” Connor changed his tone to mimic his
ex-wife’s voice. “‘That didn’t stop you
from calling the police and telling them what he was up to that night and where
they could find him.’”
Gallagher’
face went white. “How the hell did you
find out about that?”
“I
just told you. I was standing right here
while you two lovebirds were spilling your guts to one another.”
Gallagher
dropped all pretense of innocence. “The
hell you were. She and I were in here by
ourselves with the door locked behind us.”
“You
figure it out then. What the hell
difference does it make anyway how I found out?
What’s important is that I know you stabbed me in the back, the both of
you.”
“So
what are you going to do about it?”
Gallagher was fast recovering his composure. He gave up attempting to appease Connor and
instead moved forward to confront him.
“You know as well as I do you’re fucked.
You’re an ex-con. Ty to play
rough with me, and the cops will have you in cuffs before you know it. They’re just waiting for the chance.”
“Don’t
worry,” Connor assured him. I already
figured that much out for myself. You
can have your miserable life and be happy with it. You can have Jocelyn too – you two deserve
one another. I don’t want anything more
to do with either of you. I only came by
to tell you I finally got wise to what’s been going on. God knows, it took me long enough.”
“So
that’s it then. We’re done, aren’t we?”
“We’re
done all right. If I saw you lying in
the gutter, I wouldn’t stop long enough to spit on you. I’d just step over you and keep on walking.”
“Yeah?
Well fuck you too.”
Connor
stepped in close and hit the other below the belt as hard as he could. He watched as Gallagher doubled over in
pain. “I just wanted to give it to you
once where it would hurt and wouldn’t leave any marks. I wouldn’t want you to have anything to show
the cops if you decide to turn snitch again.”
Gallagher
groaned in pain. “I’ll get you for
this,” he said behind clenched teeth.
“Go
ahead and try. You know where to find
me.”
Connor
took one more look at Gallagher and headed for the door. “Sorry I couldn’t stay for dinner,” he said
over his shoulder.
When
Connor arrived at his own home in Bed Stuy a half hour later, he found an envelope
addressed to him lying on his desk. He
ripped it open and found inside a message written on a scrap of yellowed paper.
“I’ll
be at the Purple Onion on West 3rd Street at 9 o’clock. Meet me there. Deirdre”
There
was no stamp on the envelope and Connor had no idea how it had ended up in his
room. Neither of his roommates was in
the apartment to tell him who had dropped it off. Connor crumpled the note and put it in his
pocket. Looking at his watch, he saw it
was already almost 8. Without missing a
beat, he grabbed his jacket and headed back out the door.
The
address Deirdre had given was right around the corner from the West 4th
Street subway station. There turned out
to be a nightclub at the location. A
glitzy neon sign hanging above the entrance identified it as The Purple
Onion. Inside was the usual Village
crowd of N.Y.U. students, tourists and well-to-do couples who paid for their
overpriced martinis with platinum credit cards while taking in the local color.
Connor
didn’t pay that much attention, though, to the audience that filled the club’s
darkened interior. His gaze was instead
riveted on the small stage where Deirdre sat playing piano. A single spotlight shone down on her and
reflected the glow of her blonde hair.
She was dressed in a full length strapless gown that made her seem a
visitor from another, more glamorous, era.
There was no score on the piano, and Deirdre barely looked at the keyboard
as her fingers raced across the keys.
No
host or waiter was in sight, so Connor took a seat at a table in the back of
the room. From there he could see and
hear everything. A lit candle had been
placed at the table’s center, and its flame fluttered and created reflections
on the empty glassware.
Deirdre
continued to play as if unconscious of those about her. Her selections were familiar standards that
ranged from Duke Ellington’s Take the A
Train to Cole Porter’s Night and Day. Each one she performed as perfectly as the
last.
“She’s
marvelous,” whispered a woman at the next table to her distracted husband. “I wonder who she is. She’s never played here before that I can
remember.”
The
performance went on for the next half hour as Deirdre progressed through an eclectic
program that veered from the Big Band era to the classical. For her final number, she played Debussy’s Claire de Lune. When she had finished, the entire audience
broke into wild applause. Some even
stood up at their tables as they clapped.
Deirdre
looked up and smiled at the crowd who, as if awaiting their cue, at once broke
into cheers. She stood then beside the
piano and gave a formal bow in their direction.
Seeing
Connor sitting alone in back, Deirdre stepped down from the stage and made her
way across the room while ignoring the curious stares of those she passed along
the way.
As
soon as Deirdre sat down beside Connor, a waiter in a white jacket rushed to
their side. In his hand he held an ice bucket
containing a bottle of Roederer Cristal.
He first set elegantly cut flute glasses before them both and then
handed to Deirdre a small package wrapped in white paper. “This is the item you asked the manager to
hold for you.” His voice was almost a
whisper as he prepared to pop the cork from the champagne bottle.
After
the waiter had filled their glasses and left, Connor leaned smiling toward Deirdre. “In the old days,” he joked, “you’d have held
a Turkish cigarette in a long ivory holder and I’d have lit it with a
monogrammed silver lighter.”
“Oh,
no. I’d never in my life smoke a cigarette,”
laughed Deirdre. She pretended to shiver
at the thought.
Connor
nodded toward the stage. “I see you
haven’t forgotten any of the piano skills you learned in our dream.”
“Yes,
it’s amazing, isn’t it? I can’t remember
ever having heard some of those songs before.
They just seemed to play themselves.”
“I’m
glad you invited me here to listen. You
have quite a career ahead of you as a concert pianist. I’ll be able to say I knew you when you were
first starting out.”
Deirdre
shook her head. “No, it’s too late for
any career for me. But at least I’ll
have this wonderful memory of having been here with you.”
Connor
lifted his glass toward her. She raised
her own and they touched rim to rim before they drank.
“There
was another reason I wanted to meet with you tonight,” said Deirdre. “I have something I want to give you. It once belonged to someone very close to
me.” She took the wrapped package the
waiter had given her and handed it to Connor.
Not
knowing what to expect, Connor tore away the paper and found inside a
book. Looking at it more closely, he saw
it was the I Ching, the same
Bollingen edition he had at home. “Hey,
I already own this book,” he exclaimed in astonishment. “And this looks exactly like the copy I have,
only it’s not so badly worn and tattered.”
“Where
did you get yours?”
“I
picked it up years ago second-hand at the Strand. I found it was much better than the
translations I’d used in college.”
“And
you still ask it questions every now and then?”
“I
consult it every time I have a decision to make,” answered Connor
seriously. “I believe everything I was
taught about it.” He frowned. “Not that I can always understand the answers
the oracle gives me.”
“You
have to keep your mind open.”
“And
that’s the problem. We always know what
answer we want the book to give us before we toss the coins. The real difficulty is in not imposing our
own wishes on it when we try to interpret the hexagrams it’s shown us.”
“Oh,
you do understand,” Deirdre said and clapped her hands appreciatively. “That’s the same explanation Donny always
gave too.”
“There’s
that name again.” Connor regarded his
companion reproachfully. “You never did
tell me who this Donny is. What’s the
big mystery?”
“You’ll
meet him. But you have to be ready
first. Then I can take you to him.”
“In
my dreams, right?”
“Where
else?” Deirdre asked as she took another sip of champagne.
Connor
started to say something else but then thought better of it. “I guess I should be jealous of how much you
care for this guy,” he finally told her, “but if he’s half as cool as you are
then I can’t wait to meet him.”
“You
two will get along great. I
promise.” Deirdre gave an enigmatic
smile. “Believe me when I tell you that
you’ll feel you’ve known him forever.”