by G. M. Ford
"Hey yourself," I said between gasps.
She lowered her arm, hiding her hands in her sleeves.
"Didn't mean to scare ya."
"You didn't--" I started.
She smiled, showing fleeting crow's-feet that sailed up and away from her dark eyes. Her teeth were worn and discolored.
"Actually, you scared the crap out of me," I said. "You're a whole lot faster than you look," she said seriously.
She was a big, long-boned woman, all knobs and elbows and angles. It was hard to guess at her age. Anywhere between thirty-five and fifty was the best I could manage at the moment. Long, dark hair, streaked with gray, parted down the middle. Big features. Eyes set wide apart beneath thick black eyebrows. She gave me a kind of amused grin that reminded me of Houdon's statue of the seated Voltaire, elderly, way past any tawdry need for redemption, smiling that thin smile of reason.
"I wanted to thank you guys," she said.
I waited, listening to the sound of my pulse still raging inside, checking her out. She wasn't carrying everything she owned, which meant she had a good secure place to flop.
"For... you know ... the help back there in the alley," she went on.
"No problem."
"I was doin' okay back there, you know?" she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "He wasn't gettin' none. No way. I was just waitin' till he got his pants down. Then I was gonna fix him up good."
She punched her right hand out of the sleeve. What looked like the business end of an old-fashioned hat pin stuck four inches out from between the knuckles of her first and second fingers.
"I was gonna fix him good," she repeated.
I didn't have a response, so I kept my mouth shut.
"He's right, ya know," she said.
"Who's right?"
"The old guy with the white hair. George, I think they call him."
"Right about what?"
"About there being' nothin' you can do for the likes of
me."
Years of keeping the wrong company had seriously eroded my patience for street-corner philosophy. I started to leave. "Listen, I gotta--"
"Maybe I could help you, though," she interrupted. "You ever think of that?"
I stopped. "How's that?"
She checked the street, then took two paces backward into the shadows, lowering her voice. "They say you guys are lookin' for the old guy with the one tooth in front. The goofy one always hang with George and Normal and that other guy. That so?"
"Who says?" I asked.
"Everybody, man. You fuckin' kiddin'? You guys been kickin' ass and taking names all day long. Don't be dumb. That Normal put the fear of God in folks. Hell, man, nobody's talkin' about anything else."
"They haven't been talking about where Ralph is," I said. "They're scared, man. Scared shitless." "Scared of what?"
"Sucker's dangerous. He cut a bunch of folks." "Who's that?"
"They had to take one guy's arm. I seen him myself the! other day, mister. Got him a sleeve without a damn thing in it."
"What's his name?"
She bent at the waist, leaned out, and checked the street again. A solitary bicyclist rolled past us down Washington, j tires hissing on the wet pavement, his progress marked by J a pedal-generated taillight, which flickered its way around the corner to the left and was gone.
"Hooker," she said.
"His name is Hooker?"
"Got him a big hooked knife too."
I hate knives. The idea of a hooked knife made my intestines churn.
"What's he got to do with Ralph?"
"That's Hooker's gig, man. He gets the oldies and the goners. The ones got monthly checks comin' in and he gets 'em a room and keeps 'em wasted. Gets 'em to start havin' their checks mailed right to the hotel so he can get his hands on the money."
"What hotel?"
"You know. Over in Chinatown. Across from the little park."
"The Alpine?" "Yeah. That's it."
"And Ralph's over there with him?" "That's what they say."
The Alpine was a regular stop for anybody working scumbags and skip traces. If your quarry was the dregs of the earth, broke and on the run, the Alpine was always a good place to start looking. It would have been kind to say that the Alpine Hotel had seen better days. It would have been kind, but it wouldn't have been true. The Alpine was not a grand old lady gone to seed. She had sprung to Me as a boil on the ass of humanity. An afterthought, a corn crib for people, raised from the mismatched, vagrant bricks of nearby projects, the Alpine had originally provided temporary haven for starry-eyed miners heading for the Klondike. Two weeks of being stacked in the Alpine like cordwood among the wretched refuse did wonders for alleviating the trepidations of a hazardous Arctic journey. By the time the ship arrived, most men were more than ready to go. Most were willing to swim along behind the ship.
Only the lobby showed a concession to time. Originally occupying the entire ground floor, the lobby had long ago been converted into seven extra rooms and now gave the impression that one had mistakenly walked from the street into a broom closet.
"You know what floor, what room, anything like that?"
"That's all I know."
"I guess it's my turn to thank you," I said.
"Except--" She hesitated. "--they say that after he starts gettin' your checks--" She let it hang.
"Yeah, what?"
"They say... they say you go out with the garbage. That him and that little nigger wrap you up in plastic real
good and put you out with the trash for the trucks to pick up."
My mouth filled with a taste that could only be stomach lining. I reached in my pocket and pulled out what money I had left. Looked like forty-three bucks. I held it out to her. She met my gaze. She took the money and slipped it into her jacket pocket. "George is right about you, you know"
"I know," I said.
I turned and began to jog toward my car.
3
I jerked the spare tire out and threw it to the ground, where it bounced twice and then began to waffle, each rotation smaller than the one before, torn between the dictates of gravity and centrifugal force. I rummaged down in the damp well where it had rested and found the metal box just where I'd stashed it. I took it around to the passenger side, where the light from the hotel sign was brightest.
A painted and embossed picture of a mission building, backed by brown, naked mountains. "The Mesilla Valley in Southern New Mexico," it read. In a spasm of holiday zeal, somebody in the family, Aunt Hildi as I remembered, had once sent me cookies, fudge, or some such shit in it. I'd canned the cookies but kept the box.
I pried off the lid and let it drop. The rags, stiff on top, got more pliable as I approached the center and found the little Colt .32 and half a box of shells that had been packed in there for at least five years. At the bottom I came across what felt like a leather stick. I pulled it out. It was a spring loaded sap that had been given to me by a pimp called Baby G. G had assured me that this honey and a simple flick of the wrist would surely render even the most recalcitrant opponent helpless and drooling at my feet. The bulbous knob wobbled obscenely in the limited light. It consisted of a leather loop that tightened around the wris j an eight-inch braided handle, and a leather-covered knob of lead about the size of a small hen's egg. Between the handle and the lead were two inches of heavy-duty springj which, according to its former owner, exponentially in-f creased its operational effectiveness. I dropped the sap into! my pants' pocket, knob down, where it weighed heavy and secure like a massive extra ball.
I dry-fired the .32 a couple of times, checking the action, then popped open the cylinder and filled it up. After dropping the extra shells into my jacket pocket, I raised the gun to shoulder height and sighted south down Alaskan Way.
She stood there in front of the gun. I dropped my hand, pointing the gun at the pavement. "You gotta stop sneakin' up on me," I said.
"I wanna help."
"You already did."
> "I mean like really help, man."|
I thought it over for about four seconds. No denying it, I could use all the help I could get. "What's your name?'^ I asked.
"Selena."
"You know that hotel at all, Selena?"
"Scumbag chinks run it," she said.
Wildly politically incorrect, but essentially accurate.
"Right. So usually there's an old Asian woman at the desk."
"Same old squinter all the time."
"You think you can whip her in a pinch? 'Cause I can't have her getting on the phone warning anybody while I'm upstairs looking for Ralph."
"I'll kick her ass," she said without hesitation.
"Get in."
I threw the tire and the metal box back into the trunk, slammed the lid, and ran around to the driver's side. I backed the car out of the spot, turning as I backed, until I had it pointed south, the wrong way down Alaskan Way. I jammed her in gear and went bouncing up the street. Within the limited confines of the tiny car Selena smelled remarkably like a freshly opened can of Campbell's vegetable soup. "What the hell's wrong with this car, anyway?" she asked as we turned left up Jackson.
"It's a long story. The frame isn't quite straight with the car."
"Cool." She sounded relieved. "I thought it was me."
"It takes a little getting used to."
"You ain't shittin'. If we was goin' very far, I think I'd puke."
Last year, while running for my life, I had, in a moment of drug-induced euphoria, driven the Fiat through the family room of Ester and Rudy Oatfield's lovely new modular home. The old girl had been pronounced a total wreck. Dead. A goner. Scrap metal on wheels.
In one of those defining moments when any man smarter than a crocus, regardless of his ability to rationalize, is forced to confront at least momentarily his own endemic stupidity, I decided I wouldn't hear of it. Against the heated insistence of my insurance agent, the best advice of three body-and-frame specialists, and the general laws of physics, I'd insisted that she be rebuilt. Despite the best efforts of modern unibody technology and a couple of thousand out of my own pocket, she now crabbed down the road at a horribly oblique angle, giving the impression that she was constantly driving directly perpendicular to hurricane-force winds, which forced her to tack her way from place to place like a sailboat. Selena's reaction was not unique. While I had over time become accustomed to driving at a thirtydegree angle, passengers uniformly found the experience to be quite unsettling. Their loss, I figured.
I gave the little car all she had. Disregarding the lights, leaning on the adenoidal horn, I bounced roughshod over the intersections, hoping I would attract a cop. I figured that if I could get them to chase me inside the hotel, they'd have no choice but to roust the place, thus keeping me away from that goddamn hooked knife. No such luck. Every espresso bar in the city was safe tonight.
I took a right on Fifth Avenue South, then slid the car around left in front of the Red Front Tavern, abandoning the horn, shifting up King now toward the Alpine, a block and a half up the street. I slowed to a crawl as we cruised past.
"There she is," said Selena as we eased by the entrance. The blue light of a TV, mounted down under the counter, illuminated the old woman's face behind the battered kiosk.
I pulled the car to a stop at the corner, fished a red keychain flashlight out of the glove compartment, and got out.
"So listen " I started. "You and I are going to go stumbling in there like we want a room. Then I'm going to get the old woman out from behind the desk, and you're going to keep her out of trouble while I go upstairs. Right?"
"I got it," she said.
"What are you gonna do if she gives you a hard time?" I pressed.
"I'll knock her scrawny ass out," she replied.
You had to admire the woman's confidence.
"Take my arm," I said as we approached the door.
We stumbled in through the door, arm in arm, leaning on one another, heads together, giggling like a couple of horny drunks. The old woman rose from the stool behind the counter, lacing her long fingers together on the desk as we shuffled across the room.
Her nearly lipless mouth formed a perfect circle as she began to speak. Since it was open, I stuck the barrel of the gun in it. Using only the slightest pressure to the left, I sidestepped her out from behind the desk and sat her down on the tattered red couch. I stepped back.
"Hooker and his friends," I said. "What room?"
"You're not police," she said, her eyes as hard as gravel.
I put the little gun on her forehead and cocked the hammer.
"You're right," I said. "We're not the police. The police would need a warrant. The police would respect your rights. Unlike me, they might even give a shit whether you lived or died. Now" I tapped her on the forehead with the barrel "one more time," I said in a whisper. "I'm not going to ask you nice again."
For the first time her shark eyes flickered. "Four," she said.
"What room?"
She shrugged. I started to move the gun.
"I don't go there," she protested. "He rents the whole floor."
I turned to Selena. "Keep her on the couch and away from that damn phone."
The carpet in the stairwell was stained in the center and slippery with wear. I took the stairs one section at a time, covering the spaces like a swat team, satisfying myself that all was secure before moving up. Each floor was protected by a metal fire door, its deep burgundy paint chipped and Peeling, the once brass handles soiled and green.
The fire door to the fourth floor was tied open; a black nylon rope connected the doorknob to the handrail. The narrow corridor was lit by a single light fixture a third of the way down, the finger-like fluorescent bulb glowing like a welding rod. Four doors lined each side of the hall. Even numbers on the left, odd numbers on the right.
Holding the gun low, down by my right hip, I walked to the far end and turned back to face the hall from the other direction. I rested my back on the far wall and waited to see if my entrance had attracted any unwanted attention.
Somewhere in the building something electrical turned on, creating a deep underlying hum that swallowed all ambient noise. The atmosphere smelled of old sweat and new urine. I waited in the semidarkness. A fluttering sound escaped from under the door on my left. Breathing deeply, I worked on slowing my heartbeat. A siren rolled up King Street. The hum stopped as suddenly as it began. Someone snored loudly, coughed twice, and then was quiet again.
Using my left hand, I tried the knob on room 400. In spite of my care, the worn mechanism rattled as I eased it around. With my back pressed to the wall, I reached over, eased the door open a foot, and went back to waiting. The sound of congested breathing worked its way into my consciousness. I shifted the gun to my left hand and pulled out the mini-flash. In two quick strides I stepped across the threshold and around the corner, now occupying the same spot on the inside of the wall that I had just occupied on the outside.
The muted light from the hall showed a single bed wedged against the right-hand wall. The floor was awash with old newspapers, junk food wrappers, and aluminum cans. Somewhere out in front of me, along the bottom ofthe rear wall, the sound of scurrying feet made my skin crawl.
I took three long steps to the side of the bed. She slept on her back, wrapped in a shiny plastic shower curtain that was covered with black-and-white pictures of movie stars. George Raft smiled out from under her chin. Her scalp, nearly white, showed from beneath her thinning hair. Her teeth, uppers and lowers, grimaced from a glass of cloudy water on the floor next to the bed. The only other object in the room was a particleboard dresser, missing two drawers, on the wall opposite the bed. The proverbial dresser of deal.
Retracing my steps, I backed out into the corridor and eased open the door across the hall. I ran my pathetic yellow light around 401. It was empty and being used as a garbage dump. On the west wall an embroidered missive, god bless our home, hung badly askew. A galaxy of small red eyes
dared me to enter. I decided to pass.
I moved up the hall to 403. He sat straight up in bed the minute I opened the door. Under thirty, balding fast, a face as bland and open as a cabbage, with that vaguely Asiatic quality of Down's syndrome. He blinked and squinted into the light.
"Easy, partner," I said. "Wrong room."
"I don' wanna go," he said.
"You don't have to," I said as I reclosed the door.
I stepped across the hall and waited to see if he was going to make any trouble. I gave it what I figured was a full three minutes and then tried 404. The ancient hinges groaned for the whole swing of the door. Same arrangement as the first room. Trashed dresser, double bed against the right-hand wall. If liquor bottles were returnable for refund, this person could clean up. The bed seemed to be covered with a pile of old towels and rags. I was about to back outinto the hall when the pile sighed and then moved.a
Pocketing both the gun and the flashlight, I began to rummage through the pile on top of the bed. I found his feet first. He was upside down on the bed. I stepped down to the footboard. Like the old woman, what was left of Ralph lay on his back. His skin lay in pools against the striped mattress as if he had partially melted in the sun. His normally portly frame had withered to little more than half its normal size. In the half-light of the room, I could clearly see the shadow of the corpse he carried.
I clamped one hand over his mouth and shook him. Nothing. His warm breath whistled through his nose onto the back of my hand. I shook him again. Still nothing.
I hauled him up out of the bed by the arms, bent at the waist, stuck my left shoulder under his chest, and stood up. He felt like he was made of balsa wood. I balanced him on my shoulder and headed back for the door. The kid from across the hall stood in the doorway.
"Where you goin' with Ralph?" he asked. "Ralph's my friend. He hasn't been feelin' too good. Ralph "
I ignored him, brushing him aside, double-timing it up the hall with Ralph on my shoulder. I almost made it. As I took the first tentative step onto the stairs, I was pushed hard from behind, sending me headfirst down the stairwell, turning twice, bouncing hard on my side, driving the wind from my lungs.