The Angel of Montague Street

by Norman Green

  “Hey,” he said. “You guys seen any vampires?”

  Most of the men were surprised by the question and looked at each other. One or two began to smile. “What?” one man said. “What did you say?”

  Silvano brightened, remembering what Roland had said about the man upstairs. Maybe this guy really is more than just a random crazy person. Maybe he was sent here for a purpose. The Lord works in mysterious ways, that’s what they say, His wonders to perform.

  “Vampires,” the guy said, in the same low voice. “I’m hunting vampires. You seen any?”

  “Oh, man,” the questioner said, “you need to . . .”

  “I seen one,” Silvano said, interrupting. “He hangs out next door. Very young-looking, for a vampire. Black hair, got a goatee. He’s a big one, though. Be careful.”

  The vampire hunter hefted his pipe. “Oh, boy,” he said. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  A wry smile worked its way through the group of men as they watched the guy go into the building next door. The man who had spoken up before wasn’t smiling. “Oh, Lord,” he said to Silvano. “I know the kid is a spoiled rich boy, but why did you do that?”

  Several of the men laughed.

  “No, really,” the guy said. “He could get hurt bad.”

  Silvano shrugged. “He’s got an ass-kicking coming to him.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Too quick to run his mouth. That’s what happens, you ain’t had your ass kicked when you needed it.”

  They heard the sounds of breaking glass from the building next door, and then shouting, and thumping noises.

  “Break’s over.” It was Lee, walking over to the group. “Back to work. Don’t worry, I’ll go check on the little shit.” He was looking at Silvano, laughing, shaking his head. Silvano went back inside, and he didn’t see when the cops came to take the vampire hunter away.

  AT THREE O’CLOCK everybody stopped what they were doing. Lee came walking through the room where Silvano was working. Wordlessly he took a roll of bills out of his pocket and paid Silvano.

  “See you tomorrow,” Silvano said.

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because tomorrow’s Saturday. You forget what day of the week it is?” The big man had a look of amusement on his face.

  “I suppose I did.”

  “I’ll see you Monday, then. You be here on Monday?”

  “Do my best.”

  He walked through the gate a few minutes after three, but then he remembered the insurance card in his shirt pocket and he went back. The place was suddenly deserted, because the construction workers were gone and Black and White’s regulars were still out with their armored vehicles, doing their jobs. Silvano looked around for Sean O’Brian and didn’t see him, so he headed for the office. He yanked open the inner door and went in. Sean and Elia were sitting at their respective desks, doing paperwork. They both looked up in surprise.

  “Forgot to give you this,” Silvano said, fishing the card from his pocket.

  Sean had a mouse under one eye, some scratches on his cheek, and a resentful look on his face. He stood up and walked over to get the card. “I speak to you outside?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Sean walked through the door, and Silvano turned to follow him. Elia, stifling a grin, looked at him and winked. Outside, in the yard, Silvano and Sean faced each other.

  “Why’d you do it? Why’d you sic that guy on me. I didn’t do nothing to you.”

  Silvano shook his head. “There’s a rat in every crowd. Who told you it was me?”

  “What difference does that make? Why’d you do it?”

  “I figured I’d do you a favor.”

  “How the hell do you figure that?”

  “Remind you to get the door fixed, for one thing.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot.”

  “And the other thing was, obviously you ain’t had nobody to tell you, what’s okay and what’s not. So I decided to help you out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “See, me being a vagrant, I don’t need you, and I don’t need this job. You start talking shit to me, I can walk, or I can kick your ass first and then walk, if I want. But it ain’t right to talk shit to guys who can’t talk back. You’re a man, you ain’t supposed to do that, not after grammar school. You get it?”

  Sean reddened. “You mean Frankie and Roland. You did it because of what I said to them.”

  “Not exactly. I did it because I didn’t like how it felt to get into that car with Roland and feel ashamed that I’m the same color as your sorry ass. Either one of those guys is a better man than you. You had to carry what they’re walking around with, you’d run to the nearest bridge to throw yourself into the fucking river to drown.”

  Sean was still red. “You’re right,” he said after a minute. “I was wrong. But next time, just tell me, okay, don’t send some whacko in to get me.”

  “You kidding? You got off easy.”

  SHE LOOKED BETTER out in the daylight, even if she was still wearing the same clothes she’d had on when Silvano first saw her. She grabbed his elbow. “Wait, wait,” she said. “Hold up right here.”

  It was Mrs. Clark, and it was the first time Silvano had seen her in the full light of day. He stopped. He couldn’t look at her without wondering what had gone wrong, he had to mourn for her, Jesus, she was so close to beautiful, with the wind blowing her hair around that lost face, but there was no way to feel good, knowing she was so far gone. Why you hadda make friends with this one? he thought. The Angel of Montague Street. Teach you to talk to crazy people.

  She was digging around in her shopping bag. She pulled out an old nasty brown fedora with a wide brim and jammed it down over his ears. He reached up to adjust it.

  “No,” she said. “Pull it down low.” She took a step back to look at him. “Still need something,” she said. “Got anything in that pocket?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She reached out quicker than he’d thought possible and snatched the pocket right off the shirt. The square of material that had been underneath was a darker color than the rest of the shirt. “Better,” she said, looking at him and grinned. She stuck the square piece of cloth that had been his pocket into one of her bags. “Almost there. See that patch of sand in the gutter? That dry stuff? Rub your hands around in it.”

  Okay, God, Silvano thought, I know you find me amusing. “Do you have some reason for this? Something that would make sense to me?”

  She cackled. “You think I got a screw loose, don’t you?”

  “You kidding? You got some screws missing altogether.”

  “Well, maybe so,” she said, “but there’s some men waiting in the Montague, don’t look all that friendly, and I’m betting they’re waiting for you.”

  “No shit,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because you’re not a complete asshole. Now go on, get some of that nice dirt on your hands.”

  He did as he was told.

  “Good. Now rub your hands around on your face. Rub it in good. All right, all right,” she said, taking his elbow again. “Now I’m gonna walk with you, and you’ll be invisible. Slow down, slow down, you got nowhere to go. Limp a little bit, like you got a bad foot, and you ain’t been to the doctor in about half a lifetime. No, not like that, just a little. That’s better. Now you’re getting it. Go check out that trash can, see if you can find us a little sumpin-sumpin.” She was amused by his reaction. “Go on, don’t be shy. What do you think you’re gonna eat when there’s too much month left over at the end of the money?”

  He went over to look in the can.

  “Go on,” she said, enjoying it. “Dig around in there.”

  Go ahead, God, he thought. Rub my nose in it. Is this to pay me back for sending that guy after Sean? Don’t tell me you didn’t think that was funny.

  He didn’t find anything worthwhile in the can. Mrs. Clark lo
oked at him sideways. “Bet you passed sumpin’ up,” she said. “Bet you’d find a little bit in there, you was hungry enough.”

  “Well, you’re right about that,” he said, his memory flashing him images of a rain forest on the far side of the planet. “But I ain’t been that hungry in a while. What now?”

  “Now we’re gonna walk right on past the Montague, but we’re gonna go nice and slow, take our time. Remember, your foot hurts, you’re hungry, and you’re just another invisible street person.”

  They made their slow way up the street, and as they did, all of Silvano’s senses came alive. A black Cadillac with the engine running was parked on Henry Street, about twenty-five feet back from the corner of Montague, just past the rear of the hotel. The back windows were blacked out. The driver, a heavyset dark-haired man in a pin-striped suit, sat stolidly behind the wheel.

  Wonder if I’d have noticed? Silvano thought. Wonder if I’d have picked him up in time? They paused right in front of the hotel. “Go do that trash can, over there,” she said. “You do it right, none of these people will ever see you at all. Don’t forget, you still got a sore foot.”

  He limped over to the trash can and rooted around inside. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her looking casually in the direction of the hotel’s entrance. “Nothing here,” he said.

  “All right,” she said. “Come on.” There was a man standing just inside the front entrance of the hotel, a somewhat younger and thinner copy of the man behind the wheel of the car around the corner. The guy ignored the two of them as they continued on their way. Silvano felt himself getting angry, but he cooled off in the few minutes it took them to get far enough up the street to be safely out of sight.

  “Well,” she said, straightening up and releasing her grip on his elbow, “that was that. One more in the stairwell, another one inside your room.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll hit you up someday, don’t worry. You got someplace to stay?”

  “I could stay at the St. Felix.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. First thing they’ll do is check out the other hotels. You can stay with my friend Henry. They’ll never find you there. C’mon, I’ll take you to see him.”

  “Time out.” He stood silent, thinking. “You hungry? Someplace around here you can get lunch?”

  “I guess . . .”

  He handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “Go eat. I’ll meet you back right here in, say, forty-five minutes. You got a watch?”

  “I’ll be here,” she said. “You gonna go get into trouble?”

  “Don’t worry. Recon used to be my specialty.” He set off down the sidewalk, taking the long way around the block so he’d come up Henry Street behind the Cadillac.

  THE DRIVER WAS EASY. Silvano waited until there was no one else on the sidewalk, then he walked up behind the car on the driver’s side and kicked in the taillight. The guy had been half asleep, and Silvano felt mildly insulted as the guy woke up with a jolt and lurched halfway out of the car. Silvano grabbed a handful of greasy black hair and whacked the guy’s head twice against the roof of the car. He laid the guy out across the front seat of the car, unconscious, relieved him of the Smith & Wesson he’d been carrying in the inside pocket of his jacket. Silvano tucked the gun in his waistband, in the small of his back.

  He went around behind the hotel and jumped up on the loading dock. Guy was just a driver, he told himself. Don’t get cocky.

  THE BACK DOOR of the hotel must have been jimmied a hundred times. He looked at the door, sprung, hanging on its hinges. Why they bother locking it? he wondered. He looked around the loading dock, noticed a wooden pallet. The pallet had been knocked together out of thin sticks of hard wood. He kicked a piece loose and jammed it in the space between the door and the frame just above the plate on the door that was supposed to protect the deadbolt. He leaned against the protruding end of the piece of wood, prying the door away from the frame until the deadbolt came out of the hole in the frame it was slotted into and the door slid open. Certain things you learn when you’re twelve, he thought, you never forget.

  He was in a short, dark corridor, and at the end of the corridor was the back door to the hotel lobby. The door had a small window in it, it was grimy, but he could see through. Guy was still there, but it appeared that he was getting antsy, looking around, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Silvano waited, watching him. Wouldn’t do to have the guy spot you in the lobby, he thought. Eventually the guy lit up a cigarette, and that seemed to calm him down. Silvano slipped through the door and headed for the stairs.

  The guy behind the front desk never looked up from his newspaper. The old guy with the potato nose, the guy Silvano had met his first night at the Montague, was sitting in a lobby chair staring out into space. His hands rested on his thighs, the left twitching rhythmically. Don’t look at me, buddy, don’t say anything, Silvano thought, but the guy just stared out into nothing. If not for the twitching hand he might be dead. Mrs. Clark must be right, Silvano thought. Too much month left over at the end of the money, this guy’s sitting there in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the next check to come so he can afford his life’s blood.

  Once through the stairwell door he paused to think. One guy up over my head, one in the room. How would you do it? I was the guy in the stairwell, I’d wait one floor up, wait for the target to go into the hallway on his floor, then I’d come down, go in behind him, make some noise. Guy in the room comes out, we’ve got him. He took the driver’s pistol out of his waistband and looked at it. Snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson, the kind the cops used to like back in the fifties. Lethal enough at close range, nice gun, not too big, not too heavy, does what it’s made to do.

  He made a little noise going up the stairs. Don’t want to startle the guy, he thought. Good way to get shot. He got to the fifth-floor landing and sure enough, it was empty, but he could smell the unmistakable essence of Old Spice. He shook his head. Definitely not varsity, he told himself. They sent the water boys after me. He opened the door and went through, waited just inside the hallway.

  Rapid, heavy clomping noises came from the stairwell. Big boy, he thought. He bent his knees slightly and went into a spin, and just as the door opened he jumped off his right foot, and high in the air he snapped out his left leg. It’s a beautiful kick when you do it right, positively a thing of beauty, but it’s kind of like an Italian sports car, you have to keep up with it, maintain it, baby it, you can’t leave it in the garage for six months and then expect it to work when you need it. Six months? More like three years.

  He was too high, and off balance to boot, plus the guy was shorter than he’d expected, and in a bit of a crouch. Silvano’s toe caught the guy right on the chin instead of in the solar plexus. The guy’s momentum carried his lower body forward even as his head and shoulders snapped back from the force of the kick, and he straightened out in midair and landed on his back. Silvano came tumbling awkwardly down on top of the guy, but the guy didn’t move as Silvano rolled off him and jumped to his feet. He noticed in passing the unnatural position of the guy’s head and neck. Sloppy, he thought. Should never have gone for the kick.

  He grabbed the body by the shoulders and dragged it hastily through the metal stairwell door. Behind him he heard a door burst open. He left the guy on the stairwell landing and climbed up the stairs a few steps and sat down, grabbing for the .38 he’d taken from the driver. There was just one light on the landing, and the sound the gun made seemed deafening in the enclosed space. Silvano was suddenly in gloom.

  The guy who burst through the stairwell door was the size of an NFL linebacker, six foot four easy, nice big target. Gym rat, Silvano thought, watching the guy vault the body on the floor and rush to look down the stairs, a big automatic in his left hand. No fat on the guy at all. Had his hair cut the way the kids were wearing it, long enough to cover his ears, and curly.

  Silvano pointed the .38 at the guy’s head. “I don’t think your friend is gonna make it,
” he said. The guy froze. “You might not either, you don’t do exactly what I tell you.”

  The guy turned his head slightly in Silvano’s direction.

  “No you don’t,” Silvano told him. “Put it down, put it down or I’ll shoot you right in the fucking head. Safety on, please. Oh, nice. Now kick it down the stairs.”

  The guy did as he was told. This guy’s so mad he can barely breathe, Silvano thought. “Okay, turn and face the wall. Verrry nice. Down on your knees, hands up behind your head. Nice, nice. Now I’m gonna come and pat you down, don’t do anything to make me nervous.”

  The guy had a straight razor in his back pocket and an ice pick in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Silvano screwed the muzzle of his pistol into the guy’s ear while he retrieved them. “For me? Man, I love a guy believes in traditions. Do things like your grandfather did.” He tossed them both down the stairs after the pistol, and he got the guy’s wallet next. He stepped back with it, flipped it open, looked at the name on the credit cards inside.

  “Ivan Bonifacio,” he read. “Bet I know what they called you in school.”

  “Not more than once,” Ivan said.

  Guy is still steaming, Silvano could hear it in his voice, but he was under control. Unafraid. “Well, kids can be cruel. Turn around, Ivan, okay, sit down now, back against the wall, feet straight out in front. Sit on your hands, Ivan. Verry good. Now tell me who the fuck you are.”

  Ivan sat on his hands and stared balefully.