42, WG36, E41, / NG6, D1, Frz0, NA0, B0, C0

Lawrence Block, The Devil Knows You're Dead

Wieder ein schöner Fall für Scudder mit mehreren Handlungssträngen, die sich ineinander verzweigen -das Ende von Jan Keane, immer so bewegend, TJs Hilfe, Matts Affäre mit Lisa Holtzmann, und natürlich der eigentlichen Ermittlung, dessen Lösung wieder völlig anders ist als man es sich vorstellt (denn natürlich hatte ich den Mörder längst vergessen).
Und jetzt wartet der neue Stuart MacBride darauf gelesen zu werden, also gönne ich dem guten Matt mal ne Pause.
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"I sat at the window and watched it rain," I said, "and I thought of all the people I've lost over the years. That's what comes of living this long. It's a hell of a choice life gives you. Either you die young or you lose a lot of people. But they're not gone if I still think of them, right?"
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At St. Paul's that night the speaker was from Co-Op City in the Bronx. He worked construction, mostly as a window installer, and he told a good basic drinking story. My attention drifted some, but he brought me back when he said, very solemnly, "And every single night I would lock myself in my furnished room and drink myself to Bolivia."
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Definitely on my mind, and several times I was on the point of saying something to Jim. I could have. One of the roles a sponsor plays is that of a nonjudgemental confessor. I strangled my grandmother this morning, you might say. She probably had it coming, he would reply, and anyway the important thing is you didn't drink.
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(Lawrence Block, The Devil Knows You're Dead, 1993)