"Yes," Lennox said. "We both are."
He returned to the cab and drove back to the Bay Shore docks. There he sampled the Irish again until the pilot hurried him into the plane. He had been phoning up and down Long Island and the fog was closing in rapidly. By twelve-thirty when they were over The Rock again, it had covered the river.
"We can't get in here," the pilot muttered.
"What do we do? Head for Spain?"
"I'll settle for the Coney Island station," the pilot said. "How about it?"
"Why not?" Lennox said. Suddenly he began to laugh. "Do you know, I've never been to Coney Island in all my life? Why not now?"
"It's dead now."
"I'll be dead tomorrow. Why not catch up on everything I've missed? What the hell am I so damned gloomy for? I'm going to enjoy."
The Cub circled and soared over the Upper Bay and sneaked down through breaks in the heavy nacreous blanket. There was no chop on the water off Coney Island, but there was a swinging groundswell as they taxied in to the small station. It made the brandy and Irish fume pleasantly inside Lennox.
He paid off the pilot, parted from him genially, found a saloon, and requested to be served with "Dog's Nose," a drink he recollected from Dickens. He was now in the first, or literary stage of drunkenness. The bartender consulted his blue book and regretfully reported that no such drink was listed. Lennox settled for a pair of Boilermakers and wandered out to the desolate amusement park, empty, canvassed and boarded up.