Free Touch (1987) by Elmore Leonard

of the room in the condemned building. It was dark outside; bright with fluorescent lighting inside, showing sticky spots and cigarette ashes on the formica.
    Edith rapped her knuckles on a wet stain of coffee saying, "Well, I never had no d.t.'s, thank the Lord for that."
    The Lord, on that varnished cross holding his hip-cocked pose of agony.
    "Excuse me," Edith said. "Lynn, hon, you want another cup?"
    Lynn's gaze came away from the crucifix. "I'll get it." She slid out of the booth, taking their cups over to the twin urns.
    Something to do. She didn't need more coffee and she wasn't too keen on listening to more stories about alcoholism. She had watched television for nearly four hours after supper, on and off, looking around for Juvenal between programs. There wasn't anything to do but go to bed or sit and listen. She came back to the table with two coffees.
    Jerry was saying, yeah, he used to hide them in the garage different places, even in the shrubs. That's why he was always out cutting the grass.
    The man next to him said in his apartment, when he'd clean it up about once a month, he'd reach under the couch and drag out all these empty bottles.
    Jerry said, "You ever reach under there and come out with a full one you forgot about? Put it on the table next to about half a fifth you got left? Man, knowing you're set for the day? Jesus, that was a good feeling."
    Lynn said to Edith, setting the cups down, "I'll be back in a little bit."
    * * *
    "They usually don't talk that much about drinking or d.t.'s unless a new resident's asking questions, or sometimes you'll get a person who maybe wants to impress you," Juvenal said.
    "I was impressed, but I got tired of it," Lynn said. She paused. "I was looking for you earlier."
    "I had to go out on a call."
    "This is your office?" It was exactly like the woman counselor's office she had been in this morning. In fact, from the hall, seeing the light on inside, she had thought it was the same one and thought of the telephone on the desk.
    Juvenal had a phone too.
    He nodded, sitting back in the chair with his pleasant expression, wearing the same red-and-blue-striped knit shirt. "I use this one if I have the duty; I can hear better if anyone starts to freak out. My room's way down the end of the hall."
    "I won't bother you," Lynn said, starting to turn, but giving him time to stop her.
    "No, sit down. You want to ask me something, don't you?"
    Lynn eased into the chair next to the desk, facing him. "Well, when you put it like that, and since I've blown my cover--"
    "Your cover wasn't that red hot to begin with. Quinn already suspected you're straight."
    Lynn was surprised. "I only talked to him for a minute. The first time I saw him he came roaring into that big room that's like an auditorium on a motor scooter. Got off and gave the most fascinating talk I've ever heard."
    "He makes an entrance," Juvenal said. "Have you seen the fire engine? . . . It's a real old one. He gets a bunch of residents on the back end and they go for a ride downtown, ringing the bell, waving at people--it's part of the therapy, get the alcoholic out of his shell."
    "Maybe before I leave--" Lynn said.
    "You don't need to be brought out," Juvenal said. "You're fine."
    "Aren't you a little irritated? I mean I tell you I've come here to find out about you-- But you aren't mad or anything."
    "I haven't told you anything either," Juvenal said. "You hear a story and you wonder about it, you and your friend Bill Hill--That reminds me. You were a baton twirler in a religious service?"
    "What were you doing, checking on me?"
    "I spoke to Virginia today, so I asked about you."
    "It wasn't exactly during the service," Lynn said. "I twirled a little while the choir was singing, just the opening part and the close."
    "I'd like to've seen that."
    "The part of the service that was the feature, Reverend Bobby Forshay'd come out and heal people."
    Was Juvenal grinning a little? She wasn't sure. He said, "What do you