Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [141]
But the Cobra was out there—I could smell him. He hadn’t left. Not yet. Going underground was impossible for him—I lived there and he’d just be a tourist. But time was pressing against us and we weren’t any closer. All he had to do was go hop a Greyhound to anyplace and he’d be out of our reach. My one hope now was that the cub reporter would do a newspaper number in his column by tomorrow’s edition and Wilson would snap at the bait. He didn’t have the credentials to work professional crime—no working thief would include a freak like him as part of a team. He’d need the VA money soon. Did he have a passport? And if the government bagged him before I did, could I work something out? Getting him canceled in prison was no problem, but it would be too long a wait. For Flood. For me too.
Max sensed my feelings, reached over, and put a hand on my forearm. He clasped his hands in front of his chest to say that patience should be my ally, not my enemy. Sure.
I was so depressed I hadn’t even checked to see who was running at Yonkers that night. I hadn’t played a number in days. The only thing I had to look forward to in the morning was a newspaper column by a kid who wouldn’t know a mercenary recruiter from a polo pony.
I dropped Max at the warehouse, went back to my office, and called Michelle to check on things. Nothing happening, but she was holding strong. So I went up there, brought her a bag of food, spelled her for a few hours while she napped on the floor in the sleeping bag I’d brought. It was getting light outside when I left to buy a paper.
51
THE STREETS WERE still calm and quiet when I hit the sidewalk, heading down Fifth toward Twenty-third Street, looking for a newstand. There’s a little park right across from the Appellate Division Courthouse between Fifth and Madison. Usually it’s packed with three-card monte operators and soft-dope dealers, but it was nearly deserted at that hour. I spotted an old man wearing four or five layers of clothing, catching a piece of sleep, guarding his plastic shopping bag full of God knows what. He opened his eyes as I approached, too tired and too weak to run, probably thanking whatever he still believed in that I wasn’t a kid looking to douse him with gasoline and set him on fire for the fun of it.
The weather was changing, you could tell. In the country they look for the robins—in the city we look for the old men coming out of the subway tunnels into the daylight. Those abandoned tunnels are nice and warm, but the territory belongs to the rats and it’s hard to sleep. Somehow the bag ladies can operate above the ground even in the winter, but the old men can’t cut it. They have to go for the Men’s Shelter down on the Bowery or the TB wards or the subway tunnels. So when they finally come up for air you know the good weather can’t be too far behind.
I cut through one of the crosspaths in the park, walking slowly. When I stopped to light a smoke I spotted a youngish white man slouching on one of the benches. He was wearing an old army jacket and a light-blue golfer’s hat, engineer boots, dark glasses. Smoking a joint. I knew the type—too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work. He was out there watching—a finger for some kind of operation, not a face-to-face man or a planner. I walked past him, puffing on the butt, hands in my pockets. I could feel his eyes focus behind the sunglasses, but I kept rolling along out of the park.
I found a newsstand on Twenty-third where I bought a copy of the late edition and the coming night’s racing form. This was unfamiliar territory, so I turned and headed back through the park until I found a bench behind the punk in the army jacket, stretched my arms, and took a deep breath to give myself a chance to look around. The park was still quiet and empty. I opened the racing form, took out my pen, and started on the evening’s handicapping. I wanted to have the form well-marked in case some strolling cop got inquisitive.
I was working on the fourth race, the newspaper still untouched next to me, when I felt something