A Long Line of Dead Men Read Free Page A

on the left hand but not on the right..."
    "I'm James Severance... I don't know what's interesting about me. Maybe the most interesting thing is that I'm here with all of you right now. I don't know what I'm doing here, but it sort of feels like a turning point..."
    "My name's Bob Ripley, and I've heard all the Believe It or Not jokes...One thought I had before I got here tonight is that it's morbid to have a club of people who are just waiting to die. But that's not how it feels at all. I agree with Lew, I have the sense that I've become a part of something important..."
    "... know it's superstitious, but the thought keeps coming to me that forcing ourselves to be aware of the inevitability of death will just make it come along sooner..."
    "... a car accident the night of high school graduation. There were six of us in my best friend's Chevy Impala and everybody else was killed. I got a broken collarbone and a couple of superficial cuts. That's the most interesting thing about me, and it's also how I feel about tonight. See, that was eight years ago, and I've had death on my mind ever since..."
    "... I think the only way to describe how I feel is to say that the only other time I felt anything like this was the night my baby daughter was born..."
     
* * *
     
    Thirty men, ranging in age from twenty-two to thirty-two. All of them white, all of them living in or aroundNew York City. They'd all had some college, and most had graduated. More than half were married. More than a third had children. One or two were divorced.
    Now, thirty-two years later, more than half of them were dead.

2
    By the time I met Lewis Hildebrand, thirty-two years and six weeks after he became a member of the club of thirty-one, he had lost a lot of hair in front and thickened considerably through the middle. His blond hair, parted on the side and slicked back, was silver at the temples. He had a broad, intelligent face, large hands, a firm but unaggressive grip. His suit, blue with a chalk stripe, must have cost a thousand dollars. His wristwatch was a twenty-dollar Timex.
    He had called me late the previous afternoon at my hotel room. I still had the room, although for a little over a year I'd been living with Elaine in an apartment directly across the street. The hotel room was supposed to be my office, although it was by no means a convenient place to meet clients. But I'd lived alone in it for a good many years. I seemed to be reluctant to let go of it.
    He told me his name and said he'd got mine from Irwin Meisner. "I'd like to talk to you," he said. "Do you suppose we could meet for lunch? And is tomorrow too soon?"
    "Tomorrow's fine," I said, "but if it's something extremely urgent I could make time this evening."
    "It's not that urgent. I'm not sure it's urgent at all. But it's very much on my mind, and I don't want to put it off." He might have been talking about his annual physical, or an appointment with his dentist. "Do you know the Addison Club? On East Sixty-seventh? And shall we say twelve-thirty?"
     
* * *
     
    The Addison Club, named for Joseph Addison, the eighteenth-century essayist, occupies a five-story limestone town-house on the south side ofSixty-seventh Street between Park andLexington avenues. Hildebrand had stationed himself within earshot of the reception desk, and when I gave my name to the uniformed attendant he came over and introduced himself. In the first-floor dining room, he rejected the first table we were offered and chose one in the far corner.
    "San Giorgio on the rocks with a twist," he told the waiter. To me he said, "Do you like San Giorgio? I always have it here because not many restaurants stock it. Do you know it? It's basically an Italian dry vermouth with some unusual herbs steeped in it. It's very light. I'm afraid the days of the lunchtime martinis are over for me."
    "I'll have to try it sometime," I said. "Today, though, I think I'll have a Perrier."
    He apologized in advance for the food. "It's a