The Bum's Rush (2 page)

"Guilty," he spat. "What in hell have I got to be
guilty about? I wanted to hear that kinda shit, I'd call one of my
exes." "If you hadn't thrown him out--"

"He's a fucking wet-brain. He spends his whole god damn check and then sponges off--"

"Hey, hey," I interrupted. "This isn't getting us
anywhere. Are you guys sure you never seen this guy who came by for his
check?"

"I told you," George said impatiently. "Some little
mulatto in a fur hat said Ralph had sent him for his pension check. I
told him to piss off. Ralph wanted his check, he could hustle his ass
up and get it."

Norman was stomping out the remains of the fire,
using both feet, turning, dancing to his own music. "Global warming,"
he said when he noticed I was watching. "Average world temperature is
fifty-eight degrees now. Up two degrees in twenty years."

I knew better than to disagree with him. "I need a drink," George mumbled. Couldn't say I disagreed with that either.

I Waited for the Ethiopian cabdriver to give me even the smallest hint that he understood English. No such luck.

"Let them off at the Zoo. On Eastlake." I talked
slowly, emphasizing each syllable, as if time and sincerity would most
certainly overcome any pesky language barrier.

He remained focused on George, Harold, and Norman,
whose synchronized swaying movements gave the impression that they were
ice-skating while standing still.

"You know where that is?" I asked. Nothing. "East lake--" I started, louder this time.

"No," he said.

"It's easy. Just take the Lakeview exit off--"

He cut me off. "I know where the Zoo is, man. Don't
get your panties in a wad." He pointed. "It's them I don't know about.
I don't think I want 'em in the cab."

I handed him two tens. "Here's ten for the ride and ten for you. They'll behave. I guarantee it."

"I don't ride no bums," he protested.

"They're not bums," I said. I reached in my pocket
and pulled out a business card. leo waterman investigations. He held
the card at arm's length, using only his fingernails.

"They're undercover," I said. "We're on a case."
George belched and began to slide under the cab. Nor-^ man jerked him
upright by the collar. The air was suddenly! alive with the smell of
mothballs and recycled beer. [

The driver squinted at me. "Hell of a disguise," he commented.

"We go to great lengths," I assured him.

He boosted himself up, looked down at George's mismatched shoes, and then back at me. "It's all in the details," I tried.

He sneered and reached for the shift lever. I waved another ten at him. "Just to the Zoo."

Before he could decide, I dropped the money in his
lap, reached in, opened the rear door from the inside, and pushed the
boys in.

"I'll call you guys in the morning. Don't worry. We'll find him tomorrow. Get some rest."

He slammed the cab into drive. The force of the
start closed the door. I watched as the cab headed up past Pioneer Park
and turned right up Cherry. The lights from the oncoming traffic
silhouetted the trio in the backseat. On either side of Norman's
tangled mane, a head rested on his shoulder. Male bonding.

I turned and headed back down First Avenue toward
my car, which was parked under the viaduct, down by the OK Hotel. The
breeze from the Sound had freshened into a serious wind, bringing with
it the smells of wet newsprint, day-old fish, and diesel fuel.

First Avenue was forlorn, the square's usual
glitter and rattle reduced to low-wattage bulbs over locked cash
registers. Melancholy, like a nobly appointed Victorian parlor,
thrashed and reeking after a fraternity party. A huge sigh escaped me
as I walked. It wasn't good. We should have found Ralph by now. Harold
was right. Ralph was either living within ten blocks of where I was
walking, or he wasn't living at all. My stomach ached.

A Graytop cab rounded the corner of Main and
started toward me. My first thought was that the Ethiopian had changed
his mind and was bringing the fellas back. No; this time it was a guy
with an impeccable white turban and full beard. He roiled down his
window and made eye contact with me. Even across the median he caught
my attention. I shook him off and kept walking.

Oriental Rug Express was in the twenty-seventh year
of its going-out-of-business sale. This time they meant it. Everything
must go.

I turned west down South Washington, straight into
the wind, thinking about Ralph. Stifling a shudder, I pulled my canvas
jacket close at the throat as I walked.

I had my head in two places; that must have been
why I missed her. One was down, watching the sidewalk, cutting the
breeze; the other was stuck firmly up my ass, worrying about Ralph. She
must have been trailing me. Skittering through the maze of alleys, one
step ahead at all times. I never saw her until she put a hand on my arm.

I believe that had video replay been available at
that moment, mankind would surely have had its first documented case of
human levitation. The tape would certainly have shown me losing all
terrestrial traction and gliding unpowered over to the nearest car.
Future TV experts could count on years of profitable debate as to
whether the tape had been doctored and, if so, whether I'd acted alone.
Next thing I knew I was sliding along a fender, using my ass to feel
for a break in the cars where I could tumble out into the street and
run.

She stood with her hand still extended at the
shoulder, her long, lank hair fanned by the wind. The green satin
jacket was still mangled at the shoulder, but she'd secured her pants
with a doubled piece of rough red twine. "Hey," she said.

"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.

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.