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Thewrit

Moves on Nor all your piety and wit

Can call it back to cancel half a line

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it

I had tried hard to blame myself for Estrellita Rivera, but in a certain sense it wouldn't stick I had been drinking, certainly, but not heavily, and ht could not be faulted And it was proper forfro already, and there were no civilians in the line of fire A bullet ricocheted Those things happen

Part of the reason I left the force was that those things happen and I did not want to be in a position where I could do wrong things for right reasons Because I had decided that, while it ht be true that the end does not justify the means, neither do the raer to kill himself

I hadn't seen it that way, of course But I couldn't see that ithi he would never have done otherwise He had killed Spinner, but if I had sier with no need ever to kill again But I'd given him reason to try, and he had tried and failed, and then he'd been backed into a corner and chosen, impulsively or deliberately, to kill himself

I could have destroyed that envelope I had no contract with Spinner I'd agreed only to open the envelope if I failed to hear froiven away the whole three thousand instead of a tenth of it I had needed the money, but not that badly

But Spinner had made a bet, and he'd turned out a winner He had spelled it all out: "Why I think you'll follow through is soo, namely that you happen to think there is a difference between s all my life but never killed anybody and never would I have known people who have killed which I've known for a fact or a ruet close to them It is the way I am and I think that you are that way too…"

I could have done nothing, and then Henry Prager would not have wound up in a body bag But there is a difference between murder and other crimes, and the world is a worse place for the er would have walked had I done nothing

There should have been another way Just as the bullet should not have ricocheted into a little girl's eye And try telling all that to theon when I left I walked a couple of blocks, not paying much attention to where I was, and then I stopped at a Blarney Stone and took co to do its job I moved around a lot, because every bar I hit had one person in it whose co hi hiy probably burned off a lot of the alcohol before it had a chance to get toaround was ti in one place and drinking

The kind of bars I chose had so me relatively sober I usually drink in dark quiet places where a shot is two ounces, three if they know you Tonight I was hitting Blarney Stones and White Roses The prices were considerably lower but the shot glasses were sot, and even so it was apt to be about 30 percent water

At one place on Broadway they had the basketball ga color set The Knicks were down by a point when the quarter started, and wound up dropping it by twelve or thirteen That was the fourth gauy next to me said, "And next year they lose Lucas and DeBusschere, and Reed's knees are still gonna be shit, and Clyde can't do it all, so where the fuck are we?"

I nodded What he said sounded reasonable to me

"Even at the end of three, dead even for three periods, and they got Cowens and What's-his-name with five fouls, and then they can't find the basket Itry, you know?"

"Must beapart when I started watching It must be my fault"

He looked uy I didn'tI'd been absolutely serious

I wound up at Ar's, where they pour perfectly fine drinks, but by then I'd lost my taste for it I sat in the corner with a cup of coffee It was a quiet night, and Trina had time to join me

"I kept a weather eye open," she said, "but saw of him neither hide nor hair"

"How's that?"

"The cowboy Just ht Wasn't I supposed to keep watch, like a good Junior G-Man?"

"Oh, the Marlboro ht"

"Here?"

"No, earlier I've been seeing a lot of shadows tonight"

"Is so?"

"Yeah"

"Hey" She covered my hand with one of hers "What's the ht candles for"

"I don't get you You're not drunk, are you, Matt?"

"No, but not for lack of trying I have had better days" I sipped coffee, put the cup down on the checkered cloth I took out Spinner's silver dollar-correction, ave it a spin I said, "Last night somebody tried to kill me"

"God! Around here?"

"A few doors down the block"

"No wonder you're-"

"No, that's not it This afternoon I got even I killed a ht she would take her hand from atop un in his un, they truck them in by the ton from the Carolinas"