6.

At the library computers Marty found out that Aurora Silver Plate Manufacturing was a company from Aurora, Illinois. They were founded in the mid-19th century and went out of business in 1919, which made that ashtray at the very least eighty years old, probably more. Eighty? Well, somewhere in the upper eighties, and Marty was too weary to figure the exact years it had been since 1919. Shit. Maybe Alex was right. Maybe he got fifty, a hundred bucks for it. If he wasn’t a complete dumb fuck he found the same thing Marty did and then went down to the South Broadway antique shops.

After looking that up Marty stepped out front. The sun was down now and the city looked purple, except for the sharp white of the headlights speeding by and the streetlights that coated the sidewalk in orange. He stepped out to the concrete benches in front of the library and sat down. A few minutes later he’d curled up on that bench and shut his eyes. The concrete felt cool against his clothes and it was a nice feeling in the hot summer air. The bench must have been standing in the shade of the library since the early afternoon, when the sun would have passed around to the other side of the library. He was unconscious before he’d realized he was lying there in order to sleep.

He woke up remembering not the slightest vestige of a dream when Alex stood over him saying his name. He looked up and asked what time it was. Alex didn’t know, but the streets had thinned considerably of cars.

Alex sat next to him, smiling.

“Let me guess,” said Marty. “You made a fortune on the ashtray.”

Alex shook his head. “No,” he said. “I went to three antique places and didn’t get so much as a two-buck offer on it. They had all kinds of big fancy shit there too--I felt like an idiot trying to ply this little gray ashtray!”

“Then why are you so happy?”

Alex reached into his back jeans pocket. “I know you’ve been feeling bad about--about your novel,” he said. “So I got us this.”

He held a cigarette-wrapper piece of cellophane with three tiny squares of acid blotter in it. White blotter.

“Shit!” said Marty. “I’m in the mood for some of that!”

Alex had hardly said, “One hit for me, two hits for you,” when they both noticed the cop that slammed on his brakes going south on Broadway right in front of them. They both turned to look and Alex had already dropped the cellophane behind the concrete bench with hardly any motion. They both sat and stared at the cop, not glancing at the acid; but not glancing they still both knew exactly where it was, behind the bench on the white concrete in plain sight, just a trace of concealing shadow over it.

“Maybe I should just swallow the shit,” said Marty. But Alex said nothing and Marty didn’t move to swallow it.

By now the cop was out of his car, his lights flashing, and walking toward them. He asked them to stand up, frisked them both for weapons, with their hands up on his hood; then looked around on the ground pointing his flashlight into every corner. He found the acid within seconds.

“Are you going to tell me whose this is or do I have to arrest you both?” he said.

“It’s neither of ours--that’s just some cigarette wrapper--we didn’t even see it,” said Marty.

Alex was staring down at his feet. “It’s mine,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” said Marty. “Don’t say that--we didn’t even see it there!”

The cop asked Alex if what he said was true. Alex didn’t speak to him but to Marty.

“No,” he said; “I sent someone to jail once--I did it to Kelly Lyle--I did that once and I won’t do it again. It’s mine. Marty didn’t even know I had it.”

“Alex!” said Marty. “You don’t have to answer him--you don’t have to--” But the cop was already saying something to that effect to Alex--otherwise known as reading his Miranda rights--and Alex was in cuffs and both of them were having their pockets gone through by the two or three cops that seemed to have come from nowhere.

Marty walked away as they took Alex off in a squad car, the three hits of acid in an evidence bag, Marty in the clear and disconsolate, knowing he would only see Alex again in three years or so, if Alex bothered to find him at all when he got out.

Marty wandered the Sixteenth Street Mall and didn’t notice the tears on his face till a drunk young college man stepped out of a bar and held a dollar out for him. My tears, he thought now as he took the dollar; he feels sorry because I’m crying. Aw fuck, all the tough guys are in prison or dead; fuck it, I’ll cry. He walked on unable to say a word of thanks to the drunk college guy, not really giving a shit about the dollar anyhow.

He lay down on the green metal mesh of a bench a few paces from there, and lay down to sleep with the dollar still crumpled in his sweaty fist.