Crumbtown

by Joe Connelly

  Tim walked to the front window, leaning on the curtains, his voice bending. It broke. “I’m not signing those papers Loretta because I still love you, because what we had before. That never goes away, it just gets buried, all this shit. You still love me too, you used to say it every day, remember, you adored me. Tell me how you used to say it, Loretta. Look at me baby and tell me I was somebody.” Tim opened the curtains.

  When it was over, no one could be sure who fired the first shot, Detective Hammamann or Little Eddy, or any one of the other ten rental cops. It didn’t matter, Harry’s was the only gun with real bullets, breaking through the window, the beer in Tim’s hand, tearing into the dark wood of the bar, the bottles above, the parachutes on the walls, Tim falling to the floor. Silence again. “We got him,” Eddy said, running to the door.

  “We got nothing,” said Harry.

  97

  Brian Halo plowed into the bar followed by the detective and ten members of camera and crew. He knelt next to Tim, shaking until the eyes opened. “Are you hit?”

  Tim nodded, the broken bottle in his hand.

  “Your beer was hit?” He turned to Tom, lying on his side, his head in Rita’s lap, “What about you?”

  “I’m okay,” Tom said, raising his hand and watching it fall. “I left out one thing.”

  “He needs an ambulance,” Rita said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Halo backed into the middle of the room. “Okay everybody I want a remote control camera over the TV here and one over there and let’s get some stronger bulbs behind the bar and a sound check please we’re on in ten minutes.”

  He turned to Dyan, still tied on the stool. “My sun, my beautiful star, you’ve been so good,” loosening the gag at her mouth.

  “Thank God,” she said.

  The bathroom door opened and Eddy popped out. “Right here,” Halo said, and pulled a stool next to Dyan, Eddy climbing on, his back pressed against hers, two men from the crew quickly taping round his chest, around hers, taping them together. “Oh Brian no,” Dyan moaned. “Oh no I can’t I’m so tired please I can’t see.”

  He placed the towel between her lips, tying it back, “That’s okay Dyan I’m seeing for you, just one or two more scenes, we’re picking up one hundred thousand every quarter.” He turned to Eddy, pulling the gun from his taped hand, “And as for you, look what happened you went running in here without thinking and now you’re tied up and worst of all the kidnapper’s got your gun.” Halo held up the nine-millimeter, “Worst thing that can happen to a cop.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Eddy said, fighting with the tape at his chest, the men fighting to gag him.

  Halo carried the gun to Tim, now standing at the bar, chest bent over it, arms pulled behind his back, Detective Hammamann searching his pockets. “What’s this, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m arresting him,” Harry said, trying to remember where he left his handcuffs. Did he have them in the Delphi, or were they still in the Royale. Too tired to think, like he hadn’t slept in a week. The noise from the sound techs, the grips and cameramen running in, wires around his legs. One of the cops outside might have cuffs, or he could get a pair off the props truck.

  “Your name’s Harry, isn’t it,” Halo said, his arm heavy around Harry’s shoulders. “Let’s talk a moment,” turning him through the door.

  Rita sat on the floor, cops at the windows and at the door, cops on the TV over the bar. It was five o’clock in the morning, the most miserable night of her life, which had started as one of the best. And nothing to do but wait for the end, her headache getting louder with the voice on the screen above, Anthony King’s face talking behind the wheel of a police car. Arnold Pascovic sitting in a uniform beside him, snapping peanut shells out the passenger window, the tumbling lights of Lemmings Avenue.

  98

  “We catch criminals,” King said, “we put ’em away.” He glanced quickly at the rain-slicked windshield, searching the side window before turning again to Rob’s camera in the back, pausing intently there, “And sometimes we get shot doing it.”

  He held the look an extra second, coolly ignoring the honking on his left before returning his good eye to the front, punching the siren at the red overhead. King believed the best TV cops were the ones who could speak into the camera without trailing their eyes or having to swerve the car. It took some getting used to, especially with the eye patch. A rhythm to it, back to front, saving the best lines for the lens. Actually, it was almost impossible with the eye patch, but King was determined to try. He’d never seen a cop wear one on TV.

  “Just look at Don’s rap sheet,” he went on. “Starts off jacking cars as a juvie, then moving up to armed robbery at knife-point, robbing banks with a gun, now he’s shooting an old man over a loaf of bread, and nowhere to go except more killing.” King faced the camera, “Unless we put him away or we kill him, ain’t that right, Arnie?”

  Arnold was in the middle of opening his tenth bag of peanuts. Where did they come from? “Look out the dog,” he said.

  King braked, jerking his eye frontward, just enough time to see the dog go under, the dog’s owner running alongside, still holding the leash, the animal caught in the bumper. For half a block they kept it up, the owner jogging patiently at first, his leash leading to the front of the car, like he was taking it out for a run. King stepped on the gas, the leash snapping. Arnold opened another bag, “You hit the dog,” he said.

  Brian Halo’s voice started barking in Rob’s headphones, “Pause and get off the dog.” Rob cut the audio and swung the camera to the rear window, a simple pan of the night streets, tracking to a man walking alone at the edge of the lights, a tall man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, dragging a black bag on his hip. It was a great shot, the man’s face in shadow, shoulders bent to his chest. Rob stayed with him, zooming in as the distance between them grew, the man walking up to the dog owner, now sitting dejectedly on the sidewalk, hands raised empty in the rain. The two together, as if joined by the camera, smaller and smaller, until they went to commercial.

  99

  Don stood over the man and his empty leash as the lights of the Fort Worth turned green and disappeared behind Dyre. The man crying, “My baby. My baby.”

  Don took a wrap of fifty from his bag, placing it on the ground by the man’s feet. Then he walked up the block, a left on Haight, the bag heavier with every step, rocks in there. He killed that man in the store, no amount of cash could buy it back, or anything else he’d done, the life of a dog. He wanted to give the money to Rita, but to do that he’d have to see her, and to see her would only hurt her, because sooner or later everything he touched got bitten.

  He passed a doorway piled with shopping bags and wet paperbacks, a man shivering noisily underneath. Don stopped and stared at the blackened feet, the head stuffed into an old airline tote.

  He shook the guy and said, “Hey you, wake up, it’s your lucky day.” He dug into his bag for a fresh bundle, “You just won the Crumbtown lottery,” punching it into the man’s hand.

  “What?” the man lifted his head, making several attempts to lift the rest.

  “Five thousand dollars.” Don pulled off the wrapper for him, “Tax free.”

  Misha rose in one motion crossing his legs. “What?” Examining all corners of the bundle before taking off the top bill, sniffing and rubbing it between his thumbs, “I do for this?”

  “You spend it,” Don said. “You win.”

  Misha slowly looked left, down the street to the next corner, then right, then up, waiting for something to fall. “I win?”

  Don nodded and the man leapt forward, “I win,” knocking him backward onto a car, embracing his middle, then his shoulders, kissing each cheek twice, “My friend.”

  Don shoved him off, “That’s enough,” the man still kissing. Don pushed again, no power in his arms. He was laughing too hard.

  “I pay to kill my wife today,” the man said.

  “Hey i
t’s your money, but I’d start with some shoes.” Don turned and walked up Haight, still laughing, the first time since he’d been with Rita. He couldn’t go back to her but at least he’d have this. Before they took him away, he’d give it away, everything.

  100

  Rita watched the screen above the bar. She saw the car hit the dog, the camera spinning to the rear window, the long night down Lemmings Ave, then closer, to a man walking on the sidewalk, wearing a hooded shirt, carrying a black bag. She recognized the walk first, the lean of him, the way his head fell on her shoulder when they danced. “It’s Don,” she shouted, and then to herself, It’s Don. Already on her feet, picking up her bag, running to the street.

  The cops stood outside in a circle of umbrellas, smoking, one of them shouted hey you and another who’s that, each waiting for the first to give chase, no one wanting to get his hair wet.

  She kicked off her shoes at the corner, up Lemmings her stockings tearing under her feet, slapping through puddles ankle deep. She guessed ten blocks but she couldn’t be sure; had to keep slowing down to see, the rain in her face. Past the bank, down the hill, a man sitting on the curb, the one she’d seen on the TV. He wore a dog’s leash around his neck, a pile of money at his side, more money spread out on the wet street in front.

  “Excuse me,” she said, “the man he was here before, with a black sweater on his head. Where?”

  The man didn’t look up. He took a hundred-dollar bill from the pile and placed it on the street, spreading it flat with his hands.

  “He give you this money?”

  The man nodded. Spreading another bill down, at least thirty of them on the ground, the shape of a dog.

  She ran the rest of Lemmings to the end, the tide coming over the fence, spilling into the street. Lights coming on in the houses over the bay, up the hill where the water couldn’t reach, where one morning was like another. She turned and walked back the way she’d come, her arms crossed over her head, checking every street. To Haight where she made a right, running again, her apartment two blocks down.

  Misha was sitting in her doorway, counting another pile of wet money. “Misha,” she cried, almost hugging him when she saw the bills. “Don was here,” she said, again in Russian, “tell me where he went.”

  “Your little bank robber Don Reedy has not come. But I am going now to pay the man who will kill you both so I can go home.”

  She grabbed his shoulders and shook him until his Red Sox cap fell over his head. “No, no, Don Reedy is the man who gave you this money. Where did he go?”

  “Oh Rita, my wife. Now you have two Don Reedys. How many have there been.” He stood next to her, still counting. “Now I see, Don Reedy on the bus in Gorky. Don Reedy the man who fixed the TV.”

  “I have to find him,” she said, running up the block. She turned onto Thorn, the street where Crazy Louie lived, two men in wheelchairs parked in front of the building, both in dark glasses, hand-painted signs chained to their necks— Help the Blind. Each man counting through a pile of big bills.

  She pressed the buzzer, banging until Louie’s dazed voice told her to hold on. “Don,” she cried, running past him into the living room, the stack of bills on the table. Around to the kitchen, the back bedroom.

  “He was sleeping on the couch.” Louie picked up some money from the table, stuffed the bills into his kimono. He looked at her dress, the stockings torn off her feet. “You need some shoes.” He ran to his closet. “What are you like a six?”

  She couldn’t speak, the pain in her chest forcing her to the couch, out of breath, her hands on her heart trying to slow it down, slowly, “Where did he go?”

  Louie came out with three boxes of shoes, pulling the first pair, pushing them on her feet. “Everybody’s wearing these.” Her head falling back, the TV remote on the table to her left. She clicked the power on, channel 63, the picture from inside the bar, of Tim standing under the camera, staring dumbly at the lens.

  101

  Harry Hammamann sat in his Delphi, a notebook on his lap, writing his resignation. Brian Halo had just offered him a substantial raise for not arresting Tim, and the long conversation he’d just completed with the production supervisor, Miss Delouise, had helped to clarify Harry’s role on the set. A recent edict Harry wasn’t aware of, signed shortly before the mayor’s death, giving the production companies complete jurisdiction over their sets, as well as the right to establish courts, build prisons. Harry didn’t have a problem with that. His reason for quitting rested somewhere else, something he was having trouble explaining.

  He tore up the paper and started another, a letter to Loretta. If there was anyone he could tell this to it was her. He stared at the page, five minutes, nothing. He could wait here five years and still the space would be empty. That’s why he was leaving, the words were gone. Like a light switched off in a room, that second heart where his language was kept, the drawers full of poems, three of them published, his definitions of love. Harry was dying here.

  He left his resignation, his badge on the dash, walking east to the precinct where his own car was parked. He’d drive it to his uncle’s place, the other side of the state, a quiet cabin without antennae. Write his letters to her from there, a whole book of them, the words he couldn’t say. Looking ahead as he crossed the street, two headlights in the rain, an Eltra coming toward him. He walked faster, running when he saw it wouldn’t stop, the car bouncing over the curb, forcing him to the hood. The driver door open, Loretta heeling her way to his side. “Oh Harry,” she said, “I came as soon as I saw it. On the TV. Oh you killed him.”

  She kissed him hard, like a slap. “I missed,” he said.

  “Oh no,” she pushed her finger at his chest, whispering, “Harry you’re no good with the pistol.” She grabbed for his shirt, and missed, “You’ve got to use the rifle,” punching his arms. “Oh Harry for chrissakes get it over with.”

  102

  Tim stared at the picture of himself on the screen, hands in his pockets, leaning on the bar. He turned to the camera above the TV, took his hands out of his pockets, back and forth, sitting on the stool, standing. He smiled, then frowned, then turned around, his brother Tom on the floor behind him. “Tom, what am I feeling here?”

  Tom lay on his side, the blood in a pool to his neck, the soft cervical collar acting like a sponge. “Tom, did you hear what I said? What are you looking at?” Tim stepped over to his brother, bending his head next to Tom’s, eyes turned up at the ceiling. “I don’t see it.” He shook Tom’s elbow and neck, then put his arm under his brother’s head, pulling him onto his lap. “What’s wrong?” He lifted his beer and poured it over Tom’s lips, down his shirt. Tim turned to the camera above, “I need help here,” he said. “Please get my brother an ambulance.” The picture on the screen below, of King driving the Fort Worth.

  103

  King drove slowly, keeping to the right side of the street. Every person they passed Arnold shook his head and said, “That’s not him,” until King had to yell at him to stop. He held the wheel straight, turning to the camera behind them. “This is the best job in the world,” he said, “and sometimes it’s the worst. And that’s just the way I like it.” He turned back to the road just in time to hit the brakes. A man standing in front of them, waving a handful of money.

  “That’s not him,” said Arnold.

  Misha came to the window, speaking in Russian. Arnold waved him off. “Drive away,” he said to King. “I know who this person is. He wants to pay me to kill his wife.”

  Misha pulled out another handful of bills, all hundreds. “Wait a minute,” King said. “Let’s hear what the man has to say.”

  104

  Rita sat on the couch in Louie’s apartment shouting at Misha on the TV, the lies he was telling. “I wasn’t in bed with Don Reedy. That wasn’t Don Reedy.”

  Louie came out of the bathroom with a blow dryer and pointed it at her ear. “You’re going on TV,” he said, “you always look your best.” Outside in
the street a car alarm started to ring, followed by a loud cheer, as if a vandals’ parade was passing through. Rita went to the window; ten people out there now, standing on the steps, the two blind men leaving their wheelchairs to stand with the rest, together raising their arms, shouting “Throw it. Throw it here,” falling over each other as the bills fell, the money separating in the wind, hands running to catch it, to the ground, shouting for more.

  She ran into the hall, up the stairs two at a time. Of course he was here, the sick lady’s apartment. By the third landing she could hear the music, Duke Ellington.

  105

  Don looked back at the TV, a commercial for the gates of heaven. He grabbed a pack of bills and pulled off the wrapper and threw the money out the window, far as he could. Cars stopping, people running in from both sides of the street, all the losers and freaks, the bad breath and smelly feet, sons and daughters of Crumbtown. He threw another handful, watching them run, another. “More,” came the screams from below. “More more more.”

  “Don,” she said, the voice from his grave, in the door, in the room, kissing him as he turned. The touch of her hair, the breath of her ear, forgiving him for leaving, for thinking he could stay away. “I love you,” he said, her arms in his back. “I love you,” she said, tying his legs, his knees to the floor, the bulge of her skirt, more more more.

  She pushed him back, “Look.” He looked in her eyes, staring at the TV, breaking from his arms to stand at the screen. “They’re coming.”

  106

  Rob got out of the car first, the camera panning the street, the people massed at the steps, their arms up the line of windows to Don on the top floor. Rob waved to King and Arnold to get out, tracking them around to the front of the car, guns over their heads as they moved through the crowd. Rob raised the camera again, zooming in on Don’s face, the money coming down, the hysterical crowd, cops swinging their guns to get through, heads and backs and arms to the front door, King shooting the lock, holding it open, “After you, partner.”