Maddie finished that drink and went back for another. I was grateful for the silence when she was gone. Then she was back. She poured again, mixed again, and drank again, faster this time. She said I was looking good, was I going into the city on business. I said no. She said, jacket and tie, fresh shave, being inquisitive, but friendly.

“A funeral,” I said.

“Oh, death,” she said. “I’m sorry. Were you close?”

None of your fucking business is what I wanted to say. “Close enough” is what I said. It didn’t quite shut her up. Of course not.

“You’re a detective,” she said.

I twisted my head, half a shake, half a denial. I raised one shoulder, shrugging it off.

“You used to be a detective,” she said.

I made one of those noises. Yes, it was true. I acknowledge it. Don’t have any interest in discussing it. She wanted to know if it was exciting. Did I do any famous cases? Did I carry a gun? Did I ever shoot anyone? Things like that. What kind of people did I work for? It was all long ago, and far away, is what I said, in several different ways. Retired now, living on social security and a little of this and a little of that.

Maddie said that I didn’t look that old. I’m vain enough to want that to be true. I still have hair on my head, I haven’t gone to fat, and I’m as fit for my age as I’m likely to be short of being fanatical, medicated, and on a regimen of human growth hormone.

We’d passed Croton-Harmon. That was her third drink. On the train. I expect she’d started before she’d boarded. She got the fourth just after Yonkers. We’d be seeing the Palisades across the river soon. The fragments in her mind were mixing and matching without the normal controls and separations of sobriety. “Millions,” she said. “The pig has millions. And he is a pig. He’s cruel and plotting and vicious and mean. I have bruises. I could show you bruises. Not to mention the emotional abuse. Plus, if Me Too catches up with him. The problem is everyone is scared of him. And his money, of course. I should have a big, big piece of that money. He wouldn’t have made it without me. Will I get it? No. I told you some of the things he’s manufactured and faked to cut me out. Plus, he will spend on lawyers. Lying, mean, despicable lawyers.

“A funeral,” she said, in a quick gear shift. “Death. That’s what has me thinking this way.”

Yes, that and alcohol.