A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block

So don’t try to run my life. It’s my life, baby.”
    “I know it, Joe.”
    “Then show it. You know how many times you told me you don’t like pot? It can get on a cat’s nerves. Really, baby. You can become a drag.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Like yesterday. Like walking out of the pad because I was turning on and you didn’t want to be around. That wasn’t nice. Anti-social.”
    “I—”
    “A lot of cats would have insisted you make the scene yourself. I’m not like that. Hell, it’s not like we’re married, for God’s sake. We just swing together. All right. So you don’t have to smoke and I don’t have to stop.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m…sorry.”
    He relaxed. “I’m going out for a walk,” Joe said. “Just a little walk.”
    “In the rain?”
    “I won’t melt. The pad has me all confined today. Like a prison. I’ll be back in a while.”
    “Can I come?”
    He hesitated. “You stay here,” he said. “I got thinking to do. I can do it better alone.”
    Her disappointment showed in her face. “Oh,” she said. “Will you be gone long?”
    “God,” he said. “I told you, a little while. Just stay here and maybe straighten up a little and I’ll be back. God, I told you—”
    “I’m sorry,” she said again.
    Joe gave the girl a quick kiss on the forehead, forced a smile and quit the apartment. When he hit the street he at once felt better—liberated, as if he had escaped. The rain did not trouble him; it slanted down lightly now, a fine spray. Joe strode through without difficulty.
    He hurried to Second Avenue, then walked to a small East Side coffee house called Bird In Hand. It was dark inside. The front part contained half a dozen tables, and a back room had four more. It was to the back that Joe walked, where he took a table close to the adjoining kitchen. For a moment he was completely alone, until the waitress approached for his order.
    The waitress, a thin, hollow-eyed blonde named Eileen, wore tight dungarees and a loose-fitting black sweater. Joe grinned, reaching to pat her buttocks. He had slept with her once or twice several months ago and had liked her.
    “Coffee,” he said. “American coffee, black, no sugar. And if somebody’s looking for a chess game, here I am. Ready and willing.”
    “Solid,” Eileen said. “You’ve been absent lately.”
    “Miss me?”
    “Like I miss a boil. Busy?”
    “Not too.” Joe shrugged.
    “There’s a set at Judy’s. Going?” Eileen asked.
    “I think so. Tomorrow night?”
    “That’s the one.”
    She headed for the kitchen and returned with a cup of coffee. Joe handed her a quarter and she pocketed it in her dungarees; then she sighed heavily and sat down opposite him. “God, I’m dragged,” she said. “This is a bitch of a day.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Everything. You know Dave?”
    “Dave Schwerner?”
    “That’s the one. I’ve been living with him.”
    “I’m hip.”
    “Well, he’s been playing needle games,” she complained.
    Joe shook his head. “Bad,” he said. “Horse?”
    “Uh-huh. Just skin-popping. That’s all, he says. Just skin-popping. He can take it or leave it. Funny, you know. Because he can take it or leave it but he never leaves it. Isn’t that funny?”
    Joe said nothing.
    “So we’re always broke,” she went on. “But very broke. I don’t make much here, you know that. A buck an hour plus a tip now and then. And he spends long bread on the needle. Nobody goes through money like a junkie.”
    “Hold on,” Joe said. “He’s not a junkie.”
    “Then Dave’s faking it. So he’s not hooked. He’s still using a little too regularly to make me happy. And we’re always broke. And you know what comes next.”
    “He wants you to try a needleful?”
    “Not that. Not yet. I suppose that’s next on the agenda but he can go to hell for himself before I punch needle-holes in myself. No, another brainstorm. We’re sitting around, wondering how to pay for the next