Scudder - Eight Million Ways To Die Part 47

He pointed to a mirrored vanity across the room from the corpse. There, among innumerable jars and bottles of makeup and scent, were two empty plastic vials containing prescription labels. The patient's name on both was S. Hendryx, although the prescriptions had been written by different physicians and filled at different pharmacies, both nearby. One prescription had been for Valium, the other for Seconal.

'I always looked in her medicine chest,' he was saying. 'Just automatically, you know? And all she ever had was this antihistamine stuff for her hay fever. Then I open this drawer last night and it's a regular drugstore in there. All prescription stuff.'

'What kind of stuff?'

'I didn't read every label. Didn't want to leave any prints where they shouldn't be. From what I saw, it's mostly downs. A lot of tranks. Valium, Librium, Elavil. Sleeping pills like the Seconal here. A couple things of ups, like whatchacallit, Ritalin. But mostly downs.' He shook his head. 'There's things I never heard of. You'd need a doctor to tell you what everything was.'

'You didn't know she took pills?'

'Had no idea. Come here, look at this.' He opened a dresser drawer carefully so as not to leave prints. 'Look,' he said, pointing. At one side of the drawer, beside a stack of folded sweaters, stood perhaps two dozen pill bottles.

'That's somebody who's into this s.h.i.t pretty heavy,' he said. 'Somebody who's scared to run out. And I didn't know about it. That gets to me, Matt. You read that note?'

The note was on the vanity, anch.o.r.ed with a bottle of Norell cologne. I nudged the bottle aside with the back of my hand and carried the note over to the window. She'd written it in brown ink on beige notepaper and I wanted to read it in decent light.

I read:

Kim, you were lucky. You found someone to do it for you, I have to do it myself.

If I had the guts I would use the window. I could change my mind halfway down and laugh the rest of the way. But I haven't got the guts and the razor blade didn't work.

I hope I took enough this time.

It's no use. The good times are all used up. Chance, I'm sorry. You showed me good times but they're gone. The crowds went home in the eighth inning. All the cheering stopped. n.o.body's even keeping score anymore.

There's no way off the merry-go-round. She grabbed the bra.s.s ring and it turned her finger green.

n.o.body's going to buy me emeralds. n.o.body's going to give me babies. n.o.body's going to save my life.

I'm sick of smiling. I'm tired of trying to catch up and catch on. All the good times are gone.

I looked out the window across the Hudson at the Jersey skyline. Sunny had lived and died on the thirty-second floor of a high-rise apartment complex called Lincoln View Gardens, though I hadn't seen any trace of garden beyond the potted palms in the lobby.

'That's Lincoln Center down there,' Chance said.

I nodded.

'I should have put Mary Lou here. She likes concerts, she could just walk over. Thing is, she used to live on the West Side. So I wanted to move her to the East Side. You want to do that, you know. Make a big change in their lives right away.'

I didn't much care about the philosophy of pimping. I said, 'She do this before?'

'Kill herself?'

'Try to. She wrote 'I hope I took enough this time.' Was there a time she didn't take enough?'

'Not since I've known her. And that's a couple years.'

'What does she mean when she says the razor blade didn't work?'

'I don't know.'

I went to her, examined the wrist of the arm stretched out above her head. There was a clearly perceptible horizontal scar. I found an identical scar on her other wrist. I stood up, read the note again.

'What happens now, man?'

I got out my notebook and copied what she'd written word for word. I used a Kleenex to remove what prints I'd left on it, then put it back where I'd found it and anch.o.r.ed it again with the cologne bottle.

I said, 'Tell me again what you did last night.'

'Just what I already told you. I called her and I got a feeling, I don't know why, and I came here.'

'What time?'

'After two. I didn't notice the exact time.'

'You came right upstairs?'

'That's right.'

'The doorman see you?'

'We sort of nodded at each other. He knows me, thinks I live here.'

'Will he remember you?'

'Man, I don't know what he remembers and what he forgets.'

'He just work weekends or was he on Friday as well?'

'I don't know. What's the difference?'

'If he's been on every night he might remember he saw you but not remember when. If he just works Sat.u.r.days - '

'I get you.'

In the small kitchen a bottle of Georgi vodka stood on the sink board with an inch's depth of liquor left in it. Beside it was an empty cardboard quart of orange juice. A gla.s.s in the sink held a residue of what looked like a mixture of the two, and there'd been a faint trace of orange in the reek of her vomit. You didn't need to be much of a detective to put those pieces together. Pills, washed down with a batch of strong screwdrivers, their sedative effect boosted by the alcohol.

I hope I took enough this time.

I had to fight the impulse to pour the last of the vodka down the drain.

'How long were you here, Chance?'

'I don't know. Didn't pay attention to the time.'

'Talk to the doorman on the way out?'

He shook his head. 'I went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and out through the garage.'