saint, Eddie Felton, so mum’s the word.”
“Got it.”
“Are you still having blackouts?”
“Nah.”
“Coughing up blood?”
“I’m fine, Letitia, that was probably a virus of some kind.”
She sighed. “It’s good you don’t tell lies for a living, sugar, cause you’d be flat broke in no time.”
“I couldn’t be any broker than I already am.”
“What meds are you taking?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I dropped all the confetti-colored pills; they gave me diarrhea and a ringing in my ears. Now I’m just on Jack Daniels & Coke.”
“Johnnie Walker was my medicine of choice.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I really loved doing a long line of shots, Eddie, getting totally wasted in the shortest time possible. Then I felt happy and carefree again.”
“Yeah, Jack and Johnnie are tried-and-true pick-me-ups, Letitia, the only problem is the crushing hangover that hits you the next morning.”
She gave him a hard look. “You ain’t gonna find salvation in a bottle.”
“Who’s looking for salvation?”
“It’s time to be getting off the sauce, Eddie, you’re drinking yourself to death.”
“I’m considering dialing down a notch to vodka & Red Bull. RB is an energy drink and has B6 and B12 vitamins in it.”
She drank the last of the soda, crushed the aluminum can with her strong fingers, and lobbed it into a trash basket. “Why don’t you just drink Drano and get it over with?”
He grimaced. “Oy vey!”
“You’re fooling nobody but yourself, Eddie, you got to get your skinny ass into a 12-step program, A-sap.”
“It’s the best I can do right now, Letitia.”
“I hear you, sugar, I’ve been there myself.”
“The Red Bull also has caffeine in it that doctors say is beneficial for the heart.”
She seemed puzzled. “When I was a kid the doctors said caffeine was bad for you.”
“Yeah, I was told the same thing, however, the doctors changed their minds; now they say it’s good for you.”
“Those same doctors told me margarine was good for me and I needed to stop using butter on my pancakes.”
“Now they say margarine’s bad for you because it’s only one molecule away chemically from plastic, Letitia, so you need to start using butter again.”
“It’s all so confusing, Eddie, I wish those doctors would make up their damn minds.”
“I agree.”
“It seems like we’ve got to unlearn a lot of the stuff we learned growing up.”
“Yeah, Letitia, nothing is true for very long these days.”
She turned her back on the water and faced the Downtown skyline. “So where are you sleeping at night?”
“Here and there.”
“Does here and there have an address?”
“I’m catching my forty winks at the skyscraper they put up on Ann Street a few months ago.”
“The 70-story monstrosity that twists like a pretzel?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“How are you getting past Security?”
“I waltz in with the cleaning crew at 11:00 P.M. wearing a uniform I ‘borrowed’ from one of the company’s trucks.”
“It’s that easy?”
He nodded. “The guards are paid minimum wage; they’re not the sharpest tools in the shed. I never get asked for my I.D.”
Her face soured. “Here we are living in New York, the number-one target of terrorist groups, and Eddie Felton can walk willy-nilly into a major building near Ground Zero, without even being challenged. What does that tell you?”
“That we’re not as secure as Hizzoner the Mayor says we are.”
“Bingo!”
He shrugged. “Politicians tell lies; so what else is new?”
“You’re a naughty boy, Eddie, but you’ve got chutzpah.”
“If you act as though you belong in a place, Letitia, you’ll be accepted. It’s all in the way you carry yourself.”
“What happens once you’re past Security and in the building?”
“I locate an executive office with a comfy couch and a private bathroom. Then I sleep until 6:00 A.M., tidy up carefully after myself so nobody’s the wiser, and leave with the cleaning crew at the end of their shift.”
“The guards don’t check you on the way out either?”
He shook his head. “Security systems are designed to keep intruders out, Letitia, not in.”
“How many years you been an office squatter, Eddie?”
“Almost six.”
Her eyes glowed with visions of dollar signs. “I could buy me a new Caddy with all the rent I’d have saved if I squatted like you did.”
“It’s not an easy existence, Letitia.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
“I’ve had a few close calls but I’ve never been arrested.”
”The newspapers would love to know about you. I bet they’d run your story on their front pages. You’d be invited onto the TV talk-shows.”
“Yeah, maybe, but after my fifteen minutes of fame was over I wouldn’t have nowhere to sleep at night.”
“Do you got any family left?”
His jaw tightened. “Nah, I’m the last of the noble line of Feltons.”
“Noble?”
“We were Connecticut Yankees, Letitia, big fish in a small New England pond.”
“Hmm.”
“All the
