I’m pretty sure drink and drugs play a significant role in his story, so there’s always the chance he’ll find his way to the same answer I found, in one form or another. A lot of people do, but most people don’t, and I’ll type the words I’ve been avoiding: For all I know, he’s already dead and buried. I hope otherwise but it’s certainly possible.

  I may never know.

  There was a homeless black kid, around fourteen when I met him, who became a virtual son to me and to Elaine. Watching him grow, watching his life take shape, was a distinctly parental pleasure. When I was sufficiently committed to life at the Parc Vendôme to give up my hotel room across the street, I got him settled in there. He had come to serve as my assistant, revealing a natural talent for whatever it is that a private detective does, and as I found my way into retirement, he got acquainted with the stock market and discovered an uncanny aptitude for day-trading. That didn’t take too big a bite out of his day, and he spent the rest of his time unofficially auditing college classes at Columbia.

  In the novels, as in life, I knew him only as TJ. He was a constant presence in our lives, and then a frequent presence, one that could only become less frequent as time did what time does. He’s now, astonishingly, a middle-aged man, with a house in Westchester County and his-and-hers SUVs in the garage, and his oldest daughter is the age he was when he and I first encountered one another in Times Square.

  We see him and his wife every now and then. But we don’t really know her at all, and barely know TJ. We know the boy he was and the young man he was becoming far better than we know the man he is today. So we see him infrequently, and that seems to be often enough.

  On Friday evenings I go, more often than not, to my AA meeting in the basement of St. Paul’s. Some years ago I was taken aback to realize that I’d been sober longer than anyone else in the room with me. Nowadays that’s almost always the case. The meetings engage me less than they did early on, but I never leave one wishing I’d stayed home. And if I dozed off during one of the longer shares, well, it’s an article of faith that the meetings work just as well if you sleep through them.

  And Elaine has a program of her own, composed of working girls who’d left the life—or were trying to leave it. It’s had a few names in the handful of years it’s been functioning—the most recent was Sex Workers in Recovery—but they’re still finding their way. Elaine was a long time out of the game when she found the group, but it’s been therapeutic for her even as it’s allowed her to be a sponsor and mentor. And she’s found friends there.

  And who else do we see? Well, Mick and Kristin. They’re certainly our closest friends, and sometimes it seems as though they’re our only friends. The bond is an uncommonly strong one, and Elaine has suggested that one element of it may be that the Ballous are the only couple we know who are as unlikely as we are.

  McGuinness and McCarty . . .

  Regrets? Yes, of course. There are things I could have done better. But no bitter regrets, not really, because I truly like where I am.

  And the trip that got me here has had its moments.

  MY NEWSLETTER: I get out an email newsletter at unpredictable intervals, but rarely more often than every other week. I’ll be happy to add you to the distribution list. A blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with “newsletter” in the subject line will get you on the list, and a click of the “Unsubscribe” link will get you off it, should you ultimately decide you’re happier without it.

  About the Author

  LAWRENCE BLOCK is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. His work over the past half century has earned him multiple Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus awards, the U.K. Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement, and recognition in Germany, France, Taiwan, and Japan. His latest novels are Dead Girl Blues and The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown; other recent fiction includes A Time to Scatter Stones, Keller’s Fedora, and The Burglar in Short Order. In addition to novels and short fiction, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.

  While some Bernie Rhodenbarr fans might argue the point, Block’s novels and short fiction featuring Matthew Scudder are generally regarded as his finest work. Beginning with The Sins of the Fathers, we follow the ex-NYPD detective for half a century; we watch him grow and age in real time, we see his alcoholism become increasingly problematic until the day when he leaves a drink untouched on the bar. (Two of the novels have been filmed—Eight Million Ways to Die and, more successfully, A Walk Among the Tombstones.) Finally, in The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder, we get see the man in full, from his boyhood in the Bronx to the twilit present.

  Block contributed a fiction column to Writer’s Digest for fourteen years, and has published several books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and the updated and expanded Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel; he recently held the position of writer-in-residence at South Carolina’s Newberry College. His nonfiction has been collected in The Crime of Our Lives (about mystery fiction) and Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails (about everything else), while his collection of columns about stamp collecting, Generally Speaking, has found a substantial audience throughout and far beyond the philatelic community. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.

  Email: lawbloc@gmail.com

  Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

  Facebook: lawrence.block

  Website: lawrenceblock.com

  Matthew Scudder

  The Novels

  #1 The Sins of the Fathers

  #2 Time to Murder and Create

  #3 In the Midst of Death

  #4 A Stab in the Dark

  #5 Eight Million Ways to Die

  #6 When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

  #7 Out on the Cutting Edge

  #8 A Ticket to the Boneyard

  #9 A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

  #10 A Walk Among the Tombstones

  #11 The Devil Knows You’re Dead

  #12 A Long Line of Dead Men

  #13 Even the Wicked

  #14 Everybody Dies

  #15 Hope to Die

  #16 All the Flowers are Dying

  #17 A Drop of the Hard Stuff

  #18 The Night and the Music (Collected Short Stories)

  #19 A Time to Scatter Stones (A Novella)

  The Short Stories

  #1 Out the Window

  #2 A Candle for the Bag Lady

  #3 By the Dawn’s Early Light

  #4 Batman’s Helpers

  #5 The Merciful Angel of Death

  #6 Looking for David

  #7 Let’s Get Lost

  #8 A Moment of Wrong Thinking

  #9 One Last Night at Grogan’s

 

 

  Lawrence Block, The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

 

 

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