Detective

he have done in this case, assuming he took it at all, which I doubt? Well, he might have had some ex-cop who would have been willing to bodyguard Albrect. What would have happened then? One of two things. One, Albrect and the bodyguard would have got killed, in which case Fred would have reported what he knew to the police, end of case. Two, the bodyguard would have shot Pedro. What would have happened then? Would Fred have covered it up, kept Albrect out of it, and gone after the cocaine ring? Not on your life. Fred has a license, and he’s not dumb. He’d have made a full disclosure to the police, withholding only the specifics of Albrect’s story, stating that Albrect had hired his agency to provide a bodyguard for reasons unknown, and this had been the result, end of case.
    Yeah, that’s what Fred would have done. He wouldn’t have solved the Albrect murder. But if he’d gotten involved at all, he’d have made damn sure someone paid him a fee. He’s a real detective.
    So it dawned on me that the whole time I’d been upbraiding myself for not being a real detective, what I’d been thinking of as a real detective wasn’t real at all. I’d been coming down on myself for not being a TV detective, a movie detective, a paperback hero that doesn’t even exist. The macho fantasy figure I’d been disparaging all along—that was the guy I’d been unable to measure up to. That was the guy I’d felt useless for not being able to be. He wasn’t real at all.
    I got so wrapped up in thinking this I nearly missed the 96th Street exit, and I had to swerve in front of a car that was pulling onto the Highway from the entrance at Riverside Drive and 95th. The driver gave me the horn and the finger, and deservedly so. I didn’t care. I coasted down the exit ramp under Riverside Drive, lost in a world of my own.
    Schmuck. You total schmuck. Your real detective wasn’t even real. “And the princess and the prince discuss what’s real and what is not.” Jesus Christ, Bob Dylan sang that song over twenty years ago. Think how old that makes you, and yet you still cling to your idiotic, romantic, childhood notions. Stanley Hastings, P.I. Stanley Hastings, coward, incompetent, bungler, fool. What’s the difference? You did it, you son of a bitch.
    I turned the corner onto my block. There was a parking space right in front of my building. Some days you get lucky. I parked the car, set the code, alarm, and went in.
    The Mets had won that day, and Jerry was insufferable in the elevator, but I didn’t care. I barely heard. I got off at my floor, put my key in the lock, and opened the door.
    Tommie was waiting for me with his Red Sox hat and glove on. He held out my glove to me. As I took it from him, my wife exploded from the kitchen, a letter clutched in her hand.
    “There you are, finally,” she cried. “Do you know what this is? The goddamn Master Charge people sent the bill here again. After all the times you’ve told them to switch it over, they sent it here again, and guess what? You know how much it’s for? Nineteen hundred and seventy dollars! I called them up and said what the hell is going on, our limit is fifteen hundred, for Christ’s sake, and they said they sent a letter raising it, but we never got it. So you know what’s happened? Someone’s stolen one of our cards and is charging stuff all over the place. Airline tickets. Hotel rooms. Well, I gave the people at Master Charge a piece of my mind, and you know what they said? We gotta pay it. I told them the card must have been stolen, but they say since we didn’t report it stolen we gotta pay. Can you believe that? Nineteen hundred seventy dollars and they say we gotta pay! Do you know how much the damn interest is on all that? It’s unbelievable. I was so mad I told ’em to cancel our card, but they said we couldn’t cancel it until we pay the damn thing off, and I’m so mad I want to take ’em to court, if we could afford a goddamn lawyer. Do you think Richard would do it? No, he doesn’t handle that kind of stuff, does he? So what the hell we gonna do now, huh?”
    She paused for breath, looked at me. “You’re very late. I hope you had a big day, ’cause we really need it. So tell, me, how many hours did you get today?”
    I’d been trying to keep a straight face, but this was too much. I chuckled.
    I put my glove on, banged it once with my fist. God, I felt good.
    I smiled at her, and shook my head.
    “Not a damn one.”

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