The Bum's Rush



AVON BOOKS

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

First Avon Books paperback printing: March 1998

Avon Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca

Registrada, Hecho en U.S.A.

HarperCollins is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A. 10 9876543

If you purchased this book without a cover, you
should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as
"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the
publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

To Arnold Jay Abrams, the friend of a lifetime.

To rock-and-roll hearts on the

long and winding road.

Go softly, my friend.

In the low darkness of the alley, the sole
delineation of blood from blackness was a certain vibration of line
where the animal movement ended and the uneven bricks began. Ahead in
the gloom, a succession of shoulders moved as a single beast, ears hot
and full of blood, lips mumbling encouragement to some bizarre ballet
being danced down on the rough gray stones.

George lifted a stiff hand to my elbow as we closed
the distance. Twenty years on the streets had filed his instincts
smooth. He knew. This was trouble. Without willing it so, I found
myself stopped. George's hand fell to his side. Harold wedged himself
tight between my right shoulder and the wall. Inside the circle of men,
white smoke from a trash fire rose up the west wall, adding further
insult to the overhead ocean of airborne waste that had been hanging
low over the city for the better part of two weeks. An inversion, they
called it.

"That's it, git 'er." A slurred voice rolled along
the alley, oddly amplifying the silence left in its wake. I could hear
it now. Under the shoe noise and the grunting. First the sporadic
ticking of the fire, then, down at the bottom, a continuous, rhythmic
keening, at times almost a whistle, rising insistently from the ground.
I willed my legs forward, but apparently they had other plans. Before I
could get a grip, Norman shouldered me aside and strode out ahead.

Arriving at the circle of men, he reached in and
separated the nearest pair with enough force to create a staggering
chain reaction around the entire circle. On his left, the force
ricocheted the heads of two loose-necked drunks. A bottle shattered on
the pavement. An emaciated guy of about thirty, his blue watchcap
dislodged and rolling at his feet, stumbled to one knee, clutching his
ear. On the right, the old guy in the tweed overcoat was squeezed,
seedlike, out into the center of the circle where he stood blinking and
chewing his gums, waiting for his numbed nerves to give him some sort
of hint as to what in hell had just happened. I followed Norman through
the breach.

Two figures rolled and kicked amid the damp refuse.
Up close, the sound I'd heard back in the mouth of the alley was less a
whine of terror and more a groan of strained resistance. Sitting
astride a struggling figure, blue bandana worn pirate style, was a
ragged specimen forty going on seventy-five his leathery face a maze of
booze-etched crevices, landscaped here and there by a thin beard and
mustache. He tore at the clothes of the other figure, who was scrunched
into a defensive posture, one hand with a death lock on the belt line
of a sagging pair of trousers, the other clawing at the dangling sleeve
of a green satin jacket, torn to strings at the shoulder, revealing an
oblong breast, big brown nipple slightly off center, peeking from
beneath a bunched flannel shirt.

With a single lengthened stride, Norman punted the
pirate back to Penzance. The ungodly force of the huge boot completely
separated him from his victim, propelling him airborne express to the
far side of the circle of men, where he came to rest, rocking silently
on his spine, face smoothed with purple blood, bug-eyed paralyzed at
the feet of a'pair of Indians who seemed unable to comprehend this
sudden change in tonight's entertainment schedule.

The remaining figure immediately regained her feet
and tottered toward the east wall, the free hand hauling her drawers
back up over her hips, one eye, visible through her hair, never leaving
Norman. Instinctively, I reached to help. She backed against the wall,
pulled her right fist back into her sleeve, and waited for my next move.

George stepped between us. "Leave her be, Leo," he said. "Don't be such a goddamn social worker."

"She needs " I started.

He stepped in closer. "Yeah. She needs a lotta
shit, Leo, and ain't none of it gonna come from you neither. 'Less of
course you wanna take her away from all this. You gonna marry her or
something?"

Over George's left shoulder, I could see that she
was halfway back the way we'd come, eyes welded to us, using the wall
for support.

The pirate had rolled onto his side and retched up
a small pool of thick liquid that struggled to spread itself upon the
dirt. The eight or nine spectators began to stagger off into the
darkness.

"Ally ally infree." Norman roared from behind me.
He held down the center like a ragged obelisk. Bigger even than usual.
Wearing everything he owned. The better part of six-seven, his massive
arms spread as if in embrace, his gnarled hands beckoning. On the
street they called him Nearly Normal Norman, or sometimes just Normal.
It was a joke. You only had to once look into Norman's eyes to be
absolutely certain that this person was not watching the same channel
as the rest of us. A couple of years back, the last time he'd earned
himself a state-mandated tune-up, I'd watched six cops and a couple of
paramedics fail to get him into an ambulance. The third wave of
reinforcements finally tracked him down over in Hing Hay Park, where he
was contentedly feeding corned-beef hash to the park's feral pigeons.

As the gathering crowd jeered, they'd cornered him
in the pagoda and Tasared him six times. He'd seemed to devour the
voltage like some walking storage battery, his eyes glowing ever
brighter after each shot of juice. It wasn't until they'd busted the
third syringe off in him that he even began to slow down. I don't care
what anybody says, I still contend that if he hadn't been naked, they'd
never have taken him.

The pirate, resting now on his knees and forehead, groaned piteously and again began to heave, this time dry.

Normal slid a massive arm around the nearest Indian. "They call you Little Bird, don't they?"

"Some do," the guy agreed, looking straight up at Normal.

Normal inclined his head toward the other fellow. "What's your buddy's name?" he asked.

"Na-Ke-Dan-Sto-Li," the guy answered slowly,
carefully wrapping his moist mouth around each syllable. "What's that
mean?" I asked. "Dances with vodka," the guy said. Normal embraced the
pair as they yukked it up. George approached the old guy in the
overcoat. "Hey, Monty," he said. "Your name's Monty, ain't it?" The old
guy's eyes, thick and milky with cataracts, rolled in his head like a
spooked horse. A constant marination in fortified wines had begun to
tenderize the old boy. Begun to separate skin from bone, leaving the
impression that the slender sinews holding the face could, at any
moment, give way and allow the whole mess to slide south, circle the
drain of his toothless mouth, and disappear altogether down the cosmic
gullet.

"I ain't done nothin'," he said, looking around, searching for the voice. "I was just watchin'."

Harold stepped around me, pulled a wad of singles
out of his pocket, and hustled over to the two younger guys, who stood
stock-still, eyes frozen on Norman. George approached the old guy.

"It's me, George Paris. Remember me?"

The dazed look on his face suggested that the old guy didn't remember anything more distant than his last fortyouncer.

"Used to live in that room across the hall from you down in the Pine Tree, back in eighty-five. You remember?"

The old guy squinted, the act nearly throwing him off balance. For the first time, a glimmer of recognition crossed his face.

"Oh," he stammered. "George, yeah, you and that other guy."

George pulled a pint of peach schnapps from his coat pocket, unscrewed the top, and handed it to the old codger.

"Right, Ralph. Ralph Batista. You remember old Ralph? That's who we're lookin' for. We're lookin' for Ralph. You "

The old man's face closed like a leg trap. He licked his lips and handed the pint back without taking a drink.

"Don't know nothin' about none of that," he said.

He turned to leave. A low growl from Norman stopped
him cold. He turned back to George. His eyes were full of water. "Come
on, man. I ain't done nothin'. I don't know nothin'. Come on." They
stood, lockjawed, staring at each other for a long moment.

"Go on, get outta here," George said finally. The guy didn't need to be told twice. He started down the alley toward the woman.

"Go the other way," I said. He did. I stood and
watched as the boys alternately bribed and threatened the rest of them.
Even from a distance, it was apparent that they were getting nowhere.
It had been that way all night. I checked my watch. Twelve-fifteen. A
sudden wind cut through the alley, carrying the smells of fryer grease
and salt water, swirling the white smoke to the walls, leaving a
foul-smelling landscape of muted shadows and fog. I

We'd started at noon, down under the viaduct,
kicking J cardboard houses, rousting sleeping drunks, passing out
sandwiches, singles, and booze. We'd braced every derelict in a
ten-block area. We'd been by the Gospel Mission twice. We'd worked our
way through the flocks of juicers and junkies congregated in Occidental
Park. We'd pulled 'em out of their warm hideyholes in parking garages
and vestibules. Nada. Nobody had seen Ralph. Guys he'd known for twenty
years were suddenly having trouble remembering his name. My mouth was
dry and smooth like ceramic. My stomach felt like it was full of scrap
metal.

The pirate had pulled himself to his feet. I could hear the breath wheeze from his wet lips as he lurched off.

George appeared at my side. "Nobody knows shit," he said.

Back in the early seventies, George's banking
career had fallen victim to both merger mania and an unquenchable taste
for single-malt Scotch. His grim demeanor, well defined features, and
slicked-back white hair made him look like a defrocked boxing
announcer. Anyone who didn't look into his eyes or down at his
mismatched shoes could quite easily mistake him for a functioning
member of society.

Harold and Norman pushed their way through the oily
smoke to my side. Harold shook his head sadly. Harold had, for better
than twenty years, managed a shoe department for the Bon, but like many
of the denizens of the district, had surfed himself into the streets on
a wave of cheap booze and failed marriages. He used to be taller. Every
year seemed to carve more meat from his already skeletal frame. I'd
always figured his huge Adam's apple and cab-door ears would surely be
the last to go, found on some Pioneer Square sidewalk, mistaken by some
wino for an escaped cue ball and a couple of dried apricots.

"We've been about everywhere I can think of," I
said. ' 'Any of you guys got an idea?'' This led to a prolonged round
of head shaking and foot shuffling.

"Maybe he left town," said George, finally.

"Oh, bullshit," shot Harold. "Other than that time
Leo took us all out in the sticks, Ralph ain't been out of Seattle in
thirty-five years. You just feel guilty, that's all, so shut the fuck
up."

Harold's attitude was tantamount to a peasant's
rebellion. Shovels, rakes, flaming torches, the whole thing. Since
Buddy Knox's death, George had always served unchallenged as leader and
spokesman for this little group. To my knowledge, other than some
occasional bickering when they were out of booze for a protracted
period of time say, fifteen minutes George had never been challenged.