“You get held up a lot, do you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“That’s what I thought.” I retrieved my leather coat from the rack by the door and stuffed the gun in the pocket. It was a short-barrel .38 revolver, and if Lefty could hit a robber with it from anything more than three feet away, he was a damn sight better shot than I was. But it was what he had. A street preacher I know called The Prophet would say the karma of the moment was structured that way, which was not so different from my Uncle Fred telling me to play the hand I was dealt. Either way, I went with it.
We don’t really have a part of town called Nighttown, but that’s how I always think of it. East of downtown and north of what’s left of the old Soo Line freight yards and the warehouses they used to service, the land falls away sharply to a low, weedy area that never quite knew what to do with itself except be a place for the Mississippi to flood into every spring. A bit north of there, the general slough forks into two distinct branches, Swede Hollow to the east and Connemara Gulch to the west. The high ground between those two is called Railroad Island. The buildings suddenly get a lot seedier and farther apart there than in downtown, mixed with scattered vacant lots and impromptu junkyards that are overgrown with weeds and favored by strange animals and stranger people. There are still a few shacky houses and apartments and some small industrial buildings, like plating factories and chop shops, but a lot of the area is just wilderness. The urban removal programs of the sixties wiped out most of the old slum housing and marginal businesses and replaced them with nothing. I guess somebody thought that was progress.
Neither of the gulches is a good place to go alone and after dark. The high ground may or may not be any better, depending on which alley you go down. A deputy sheriff friend of mine first got me calling it Nighttown because, she says, there are a lot of ways for your lights to go out there, ways that have nothing to do with the sun going down. Somewhere down there, “under the wye-duct,” Charlie may have had his cardboard box, the one that wasn’t warm enough. And that general direction was where the cop and the kid with the shovel seemed to be headed. And though I knew he was still lying on the sidewalk across from Lefty’s, I had the strong feeling that somewhere down there, Charlie was waiting for me. Waiting for me to set things right.
Chapter 3
Nighttown
The cop and the kid had a big head start on me by the time I got back from Lefty’s, but rush hour had been over for a long time and the snow continued to fall, so there weren’t a lot of competing footprints to confuse things. I followed them east for four or five blocks, then north and east, across a bridge over the Interstate ditch and into an area of old factories and warehouses, somewhere near Railroad Island. The streetlights got very far apart there, and about a block past the bridge, they disappeared completely. I was beginning to wish I had hit Lefty up for a flashlight as well as a piece.
Over behind an old industrial building that had been partly made into artists’ lofts and partly abandoned to squatters, some street people were huddled around a trash fire in an old barrel. They were a younger and tougher-looking bunch than the usual pack of lost souls and dehorns that hang around in that area, and if I’d been smart, I’d have probably just kept walking. But there was no more pristine snow, and no more distinct tracks. They were my last hope for picking up the trail again.
I headed over to see what I could learn from the great unwashed.
“Here comes another one.”
“Another what?” A second shapeless bundle of rags looked up from the fire.
“Sit-ee-zen, man, what you think?”
“Nah, this one ain’t no citizen. This one ain’t got no ramrod up his ass, like that last dude.”
“Bet he ain’t got no badge, neither.”
“Does he gots money, is what the thing is.”
“I can think of some ways to find out.”
“Think of one that don’t get us all busted.”
“Shit, man.”
“Shit is right. You think I’m playin’ y’all here?”
“Shit.”
That seemed to be the consensus, all right.
There were five of them altogether, and I found their talk about another sit-ee-zen more than a bit interesting. But before I was likely to hear any more of it, there was some physical protocol to take care of. A little respect, a little threat, a little reward. Not the way the cops do it. Let them know you’re not afraid of them, but let them wonder if they should be afraid of you. Easy, easy. First, though, find a place where they can’t get behind you.
I caught the eye of the big black guy who was doing most of the talking, held up my last twenty from the pool game, and let him get a good look at it. Then I went over to a niche in the back of the closest industrial building, an inside corner by a loading dock. He looked at his buddies as if wanting their approval. They didn’t react, which was good news. It meant they probably weren’t a regular gang. The big guy shuffled over to me, and the others followed about five yards back.
“Rough night to be out,” I said.
“’Pends on if you with you friends, man.”
“Yeah, well it’s always good to have friends,” I said. I took the .38 out of my pocket and let my arm hang by my side, partially lost in the folds of my coat. Then I rotated the piece outward, toward him, giving him just a bit of a look.
“I’m real scared, man. So what you lookin’ for, with your big-assed strap and your little bitty double sawbuck?”
“Two guys, a cop and a big kid, came by here maybe fifteen minutes ago, tops.”
“You shittin’ me? That’s it? You ain’t lookin’ for ol’ Cee Vee’s squat?”
That got my attention, but I tried not to show it too much. I tore the twenty in half and gave him one piece of it.
“First, the cop and the kid,” I said.
“For that crappy piece of paper? Go fuck yourself.”
“Listen, man, what’s your name?”
He glared at me for a while, just to show me he didn’t have to tell me if he didn’t want to. Then he did it anyway.
“Linc.”
“Okay Linc, tell me. You know about the stick and the carrot?”
“What’s that, some rock group?”
“That’s the two things you can get, to make you feel like talking to me. Twenty is all the carrot I’ve got. After that’s gone, we go to the stick. Trust me, you don’t want that.”
“You a cop?” said one of the other worthies, who was sidling his way up to me along the dock face.
Didn’t I wish? If I were a cop, I could call for backup. I took a deep breath and tried again.
“No. I’m also not a fed or a social worker or a preacher or a politician. And that means I don’t have anybody I report to or any damn procedure I have to follow. Think about that for a minute.”
Number three continued to crowd in on me, and the momentum started going the way I had hoped to avoid. Oh, well.
I made a sudden jerky movement, as if I were trying to get away from the guy. He took that as an invitation, which it was, to stick out an arm and lunge for me. I grabbed the arm and pulled him in the direction he was already moving, only a lot faster than he wanted to go. As he lurched by, I kicked his legs out from under him, letting him sprawl on the ground in front of me. Then I put one foot on his neck, hard, swung Lefty’s .38 up into full view, and pointed it at the guy who had been moving in from the other way.
“Five guys, six bullets,” I said. “I can make that work. Or you can all split an easy twenty bucks and get the hell out of here.” With my left hand, I waved the torn bill in front of me. “Your choice. You don’t look stupid to me. How do you want to play it?” And I gave them about two seconds of a totally phony smile.
“Cool,” said the big one with the other half of my twenty.
“Cool what?”
“What I says is we all play it cool, man.” And he held up hi
s hands, palms toward me, and backed away half a step.
“I think you’re smarter than your buddy under my foot here,” I said. “So how about cop and the kid?”
“Yeah, okay. They come by here, jus’ like you say. Then they take a cab.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Somebody in a big black set of wheels come by and picked them up, is what.”
“What kind of wheels?”
“Big, is all I know. Not a stretch, but a 98 of some kind. One of them high mothers.”
“Like a SUV? Escalade, maybe?”
“Yeah, maybe. I dunno.”
“Was the kid in cuffs?”
“Nah, they was tight, man. Wasn’t no bust or shit goin’ down. Them rims come for them, is all.”
“And which way did the rims go?”
“That way.” He pointed toward the gulch, deeper into Railroad Island.
“You’re sure? They didn’t head back into town?”
“What I said, man. Back that way. That enough?”
“We’re getting there. Now tell me why you asked me about Cee Vee’s pitch.”
“She-it, man, that’s the flavor of the day. First a couple of suits come by askin’, back this afternoon, a dude and a broad. Broad was bad, too, but she didn’t bust a move or nothin’ and they didn’t pay us. They just flash around these fancy ID cards an’ all, wasn’t even real badges.”
“Feds?”
“Maybe, some kind.”
“And who else?”
“Short, fat dude with a big overcoat and a funny hat, maybe two, three hours ago. He didn’t have no fancy ID, but he gave us fifty presidents.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“You got fifty, man?”
“I already told you I don’t. We’re almost home free, man. Let’s make it work, here.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t really have no cipher to give him, no how, so we made up some shit. Kinda like the shit we tole the suits. Tole them Cee Vee’s box was down under the viaduct, whatever the fuck that is, ‘cause that’s what he allus use to say. An’ we tole them the viaduct was down in Sheeny Gulch, which who the hell knows?” He hooked a thumb in the general direction behind his back.
“So, what did they all do?”
“Do? What you think, man? They all go down there, is what they all do.”
“What about the guy with the ramrod up his ass?”
“Who?”
“Aw, hell, and we were doing so well there.” I stuffed the half of the twenty back in my pocket.
“Oh, you mean that dude, the one we was talkin’ bout when you come up? Looks like a jarhead with a cheap suit? He got out of the wheels.”
“The wheels that picked up the—”
“Yeah, yeah, that one.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me about him?”
“I thought I’d keep the story short, you know? He didn’t talk much, no how. I s’pose he coulda been making sure nobody followed the wheels. Thought he was hot shit, gives us a hard stare for a while like he’s lookin’ to rumble some. Finally he just splits.”
“Let me guess…”
“Down to the gulch. It was like a regular fucking parade, man.”
“This is good,” I said, and I handed the other half of the bill over to him. “Thanks, Linc.”
“You gonna let Mingus, there, up?”
“He fuckin’ well better,” said the head that was down by my foot, “or when he does, I’m unna—” I stepped down a bit harder, and he grunted a bit and then shut up.
“Back off thirty paces, and he’s all yours.”
They walked backward, back to their trash barrel, and I slowly lifted my foot. Mingus, if that was really his name, pushed himself up fast to a hands-and-knees position, looking pissed. But before he could jump up to his full height, I stuck the barrel of the .38 up against his nose and let him have a good look at it.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Mingus.”
He stared cross-eyed at the piece for a moment, then shook his head vehemently. I let him get the rest of the way up, and he hustled off to join the others. When they started their own muttered, low conversation again, I turned and walked away, toward the reportedly popular gulch.
I let out the breath I’d been holding for longer than I could remember.
Fifty yards later, I was in a totally unlit area of weeds, rocks, and trash. A short way ahead, it got even darker, as the snow gave way to the utter black of Connemara Gulch, gaping below and beyond me. Or maybe it was just some railroad ditch. I wasn’t that sure of where I was anymore. I couldn’t tell how far it was to the bottom, but the way down looked steep and treacherous. There had to be a better route. Right or left? I picked left and walked along the edge of the gully for a while, and sure enough, I came to a crude roadway with a gate across it where it dropped down into the hollow. And standing with one hand on the gate was a guy who must have been the ramrod-ass that the village people had liked so much. Stiff posture, military-style brush cut on his light hair, and a dark topcoat that hung on him like a tent that was one size too big. And even in the dark, I could tell he wore a look that said, “I’m in charge here, and you are lower than whale shit.” One of my favorite types. I wondered if I could find an excuse to shoot him.
“This road is closed,” he said.
No “mister,” no “sir,” not even a “please.” Wow, he really did want to impress me with what a badass he was. And for all I knew, he really was. He was big, anyway. He had his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, and I had the impression I did not want him to take them out.
“Because you say it is? Who are you, exactly?”
“You have no business here,” he said, in non-reply. “Move along.”
“I asked who you are,” I said.
“I’m Mister Colt.” He opened his coat and let me see that he had two semiautomatics in holsters, in addition to a compact submachine gun that he had just pulled out of a pocket. “And your name is Mud. Some people are about to get hurt here, and unless you haul ass now, you could be one of them. This has nothing to do with you.”
That was way too much firepower for me. “Thanks for the warning,” I said. I kept my hands at my side, turned around and walked back into the shadows.
In the black gulch below, somebody was switching on powerful flashlight beams. They looked as if they were on the bottom of the ocean. Then there was a bunch of shouting that progressively got louder. Some of it sounded hysterical, all of it angry. Soon there were crashing noises to go with it and then sporadic automatic weapons fire.
And there was the smell.
What the hell was it? A gasoline smell of some kind, but not like what you whiff when you fuel up your car. Kerosene, maybe, or the kind of gas they use in camp lanterns.
As I thought about it, the gulch below lit up with the orange glow of tents and sleeping boxes and piles of rags being torched. Somebody, or rather several somebodies, were moving through the gulch, setting fire to everything in sight and driving a frantic clot of ragged derelicts in front of them.
I stared, dumbfounded, transfixed. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and my ears roared with my own pulse. Why the hell did they have to use fire? I hate fire. Let me die any way but that.
For a while, I watched the pyrotechnics display and the shadowy crowd of refugees move farther down the gulch, away from me. And seeing nothing to be gained down there but trouble, I turned away. I didn’t know where Square Head was by then, but I decided he was right: I had no business down there.
As I walked back the way I had come, fresh out of ideas and purpose, I found the snow shovel.
Chapter 4
Business as Unusual
The next morning, I blew the dust off the remote for my TV and listened to the early morning news as I worked on my first caffeine fix of the day and my nourishing, balanced breakfast of White Castle hamburgers and bread-and-b
utter pickles. The incident at the trash barrel bothered me. I had pulled a gun on a man I did not really want to kill, and that can’t happen, ever. Once a gun is out, it takes on a life of its own, and all your careful plans for anonymous existence can suddenly be nothing but yesterday’s daydreams.
As troubling as all that was, the fires down in the gulch were worse, if only because I had no idea what to make of them. The media, of course, wouldn’t know how to tell me the complete or accurate truth if their ratings actually depended on it. But they might at least tell me something about the superficial events. That would be a start.
But the early news said nothing about a commando raid on homeless people or any mysterious fire in Connemara Gulch. On three different channels, male-female anchor teams flirted ever so mildly, giggled at their own inane jokes, chatted about the latest squabbles between the City Council and the Mayor, and offered advice on how to prepare your lawn for winter. They also promised to give me the morning traffic reports and some high-powered weather information after only sixteen or twenty more commercials. I quickly remembered why my remote control is all covered with dust. How can people listen to that shit every day?
Before I left for my office, I called the non-emergency number for the police and got a female desk sergeant with a phone voice that radiated don’t-mess-with-me with thorns on it.
“A man named Charles Victor was killed outside Lefty’s Pool Hall last night,” I said. “I’m wondering if I could talk to the detective who has that case.”
“And your name is?”
I told her.
“Are you calling from your own phone?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And you have information on what case, again?”
“The murder of Charles Victor.” I almost said I didn’t have any information, but I could see how far that would get me. As it happened, it didn’t make any difference.
“We have no such case on record, sir.” If her voice had been any colder, my phone would have been icing up.
“Maybe you just don’t have the name. He was a homeless person.”
“We have more than one John Doe homicide currently open, sir. Could you give me some more information?”
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