The 1st Deadly Sin Read Free

him, a man he recognized as a tenant of the building came up the entrance step hauling a German shepherd pup on a long leather leash.
    “Heel!” the man was shouting. “Heel!”
    But the young dog hung back. Then he lay on the driveway, muzzle down between his paws, and refused to budge.
    “Heel, you bastard!” the man screamed. He then struck the dog twice on the head with a folded newspaper he had been carrying under his arm. The dog cringed away. Whereupon the man kicked him heavily in the ribs.
    Daniel Blank and Charles Lipsky saw all this clearly. Blank leaped forward. He could not endure the sight of an animal being mistreated; he couldn’t even think of a horse pulling a load.
    “Stop that!” he cried furiously.
    The tenant turned on him in outrage. “Mind your own goddamned business!”
    He then struck Daniel on the head with his folded newspaper. Blank pushed him angrily. The man staggered back, became entangled in the leather leash, stumbled off the step onto the driveway, fell awkwardly, and broke his left arm. Police were called, and the tenant insisted on charging Daniel Blank with assault.
    In time, Blank and Lipsky were summoned to the 251st Precinct house to give sworn statements. Daniel said the tenant had abused his dog, and when he, Daniel, objected, the man had struck him with a folded newspaper. He had not pushed the man until after that first blow. Charles Lipsky corroborated this testimony.
    The charge was eventually withdrawn, the case dropped. The dog owner moved from the building. Blank gave Lipsky five dollars for his trouble and thought no more of the matter.
    But about six months after this incident, something of a more serious nature happened.
    On a Saturday night, lonely and jangling, Daniel Blank put on his “Via Veneto” wig and strolled out into midnight Manhattan. He wore a Swedish blazer of black wool and a French “body shirt” in a lacy polyester weave, cut to cling to the torso. It was a style called “Chemise de gigolo ” and had a front that opened halfway to the waist. An ornate Maltese cross hung from a silver chain about his neck.
    On impulse, nothing else, he stopped at a Third Avenue tavern he had seen before but never entered. It was called “The Parrot.” There were two couples at the bar and two single men. No one sat at the tiny tables. The lone waiter was reading a religious tract.
    Blank ordered a brandy and lighted a lettuce cigarette. He looked up and, unexpectedly, caught the eye of one of the single men in the mirror behind the bar. Blank shifted his gaze immediately. The man was three seats away. He was about 45, short, soft, with the meaty nose and ruddy face of a bourbon drinker.
    The bartender had his radio tuned to WQXR. They were playing Smetana’s “The Moldau.” The bartender was reading a scratch sheet, marking his choices. The couples had their heads together and were murmuring.
    “You have beautiful hair.”
    Daniel Blank looked up from his drink. “What?”
    The porky man had moved onto the barstool next to his.
    “Your hair. It's beautiful. Is it a rug?”
    His first instinct was to drain his drink, pay, and leave. But why should he? The dim loneliness of The Parrot was a comfort. People together and yet apart: that was the secret,
    He ordered another brandy. He turned a shoulder to the man who was hunching closer. The bartender poured the drink, then went back to his handicapping.
    “Well?” the man asked.
    Blank turned to look at him. “Well what?”
    “How about it?”
    “How about what?”
    Up to now they had been speaking in conversational tones: not loud, but understandable if anyone was interested in listening. No one was.
    But suddenly the man leaned forward. He thrust his flabby face close: watery eyes, trembling lips: hopeful and doomed. “I love you,” he whispered with an anxious smile.
    Blank hit him in the mouth and toppled him off the stool onto the floor. When the man got up, Blank hit him again, breaking his jaw.