Beware the Solitary Drinker by Cornelius Lehane Page B

Lincoln Center. I’d always wanted to work at Hanrahan’s, mainly because of the ballet dancers, but also because of the name. Its full name was Hanrahan’s Baloon. Legend has it that they told Hanrahan, who’d just put the name of his new joint—Hanrahan’s Saloon—in lights, that he couldn’t use the word saloon because saloons are against the law in New York. So Hanrahan, rather than paying for a completely new sign, changed the S to B.
    Janet said she picked the hotel because Hanrahan’s was the last place Angelina worked, and went back to nursing her drink.
    Around one, I put her in a cab right in front of Oscar’s, and, under the delusion I worked for the Visitor’s Bureau, asked her to have lunch with me the next day.
    She seemed surprised and thought about it for a minute before she said yes, her response bringing a sparkle of light to her eyes and a flush of color to her cheeks.
    â€œI’ll pick you up at the hotel around two,” I said.
    â€œIsn’t that a little late?”
    â€œI thought it was early myself.”
    ***
    We ate lunch at an American Restaurant in the Seventies, one of a chain of Upper West Side Greek coffee shops, a kind of upscale greasy spoon. On the walk up Broadway, I pointed out the Ansonia Hotel, one of the West Side’s most intriguing buildings, which was across the street from the Central Bank building where my socialist dentist had his office.
    After Janet’s lunch and my breakfast, we walked to Central Park. This time, I showed her the Dakota, where John Lennon once lived—realizing, when her face crumbled, that I wasn’t doing a very good job of steering her away from thoughts of death and murder.
    Next, I pointed out the Inn on the Park, where I’d once worked. The inn has white Christmas lights in the trees all year round, lots of floor to ceiling windows, sparkling chandeliers, and crystal vases with fresh flowers every day. We stood for a long time looking at it.
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” she said. There were tears in her eyes.
    â€œIt’s a shit hole,” I told her. “I used to make piña coladas in a five gallon pail, using the bar boy’s broom handle to stir them, the same broom I used to chase the rats out of the garden…”
    She wasn’t shocked by my outburst, just looked at me curiously, as if not sure why I’d say such a thing. I wasn’t sure myself, except I didn’t like that she was impressed by the glitter. I wanted her to know what it was like behind the glitter.
    Janet Carter, dressed for an afternoon walk in slacks and a dress shirt with a sweater over it, had an air of casual, well-groomed confidence that I normally didn’t like. There was something vacant in how she was also, as if an important part of her was somewhere else. Me, I felt left over from the night before, red-eyed and murky of mind, flabby and out of sorts.
    When we walked across Strawberry Fields, this profound sadness caught up with me: for Angelina, for John Lennon, for the day not long after John Lennon was murdered that a couple of thousand of us stood in front of the Dakota singing “Give Peace a Chance.”
    For that moment, tasting sadness, climbing a grassy hill in the cool sun of a New York City autumn, for that moment, I felt unbearably lonely; I felt sad for everyone, and hopeless, and I shivered from fear that rippled through me like a chill.
    â€œWhy’d you come to New York?” I asked Janet, who, head down, her own expression far from cheerful, climbed the hill beside me.
    â€œI don’t know—to get whatever my sister left behind, I guess.” She started to say more but stopped, as if she couldn’t make up her mind what she should say if she did go on.
    â€œI was afraid Angelina would be killed in New York…” she said suddenly, out of nowhere. We stopped on the hill and she faced me, her expression stony, her body going