Chapter 13

 

                So step by robotic step, they marched, stumbling, bumbling back in the exact direction from which they had come, back towards the Greasy Spoon, with more and more people up and around, more people staring, and Maxwell -- despite being so obvious -- struggling to ignore them, the constant stink of his filthy companion curling up around him as he walked, he, wondering how to translate into her limited vocabulary the concept of a bath.

                The growing busy crowd of workers and shoppers hardly noticed the stink for the  continued oddity of Maxwell -- in his expensive jogging gear -- walking side by side with one of the usually nearly invisible people. And so, by comparison, with his apparently normality, her mannerisms became comical, rather than tragic, and people -- who would have under other circumstances -- averted their gazes, now started openly and laughed and pointed at them for others to laugh at.

                For the first time, Maxwell walked on the other side of that awful social barrier, and it was as if he stank and walked in the way Suzzane did, as if their laughter was directed at him. He resisted the urge to yank a few of the smart alecks aside and teach them manners with a kick to the groin, but found himself wondering more and more at Suzzane, as well as the others of her kind, who went through their days and nights subject to the mockery and disgust of the working masses around them. Why didn't she protest? Why didn't she tell them to fuck off?

                When they arrived at the Greasy Spoon, the lack of a crowd of impatient customers, puzzled Maxwell, until he found the security gate thrust aside and the front door unlocked, and the grumbling, Winnie-the-Pooh-shaped Jack behind the counter, grumbling, the grill filled with bubbling eggs and flap jacks, and he flipping each over like a brick layer, one after another after another, filling plates with the unhappy result and shoving the plate at the waiting hands.

                Then Jack saw Maxwell and howled.

                "Where the hell have you been?" Jack bellowed, the sound of which startled many of the customers, who might have believed the room invaded by an angry cow. "And who the hell is that?"

                "She's an old friend," Maxwell said, easing Suzanne into the store, she not quiet comfortable in any place with four solid walls and a door shut behind him. "She's the reason I'm late."

                "Your friend stinks," Jack, said, nose crinkling as Maxwell edged the woman closer. Several patrons slid out of her way. "Where did you find her, in a sewer?"

                "Not quite," Maxwell said. "But she's hungry and I promised to feed her. Why don't you cook her up something while I get her cleaned up."

                "In our bathroom?"

                "Can you think of a better place?"

                "A fire plug or carwash might be more appropriate," Jack said. "Can't you wash her down outside somewhere. She'll leave a stink in our bathroom we'll never get out."

                "She's not a horse, a dog or a car," Maxwell said.

                "It's cold out and she's dirty, and she's entitled to get cleaned up if she wants."

                "But does she want it?" Jack asked, flipping an egg onto a plate, siding it with hashbrowns, two piece of toast before sliding it across the counter to one more impatient hands. "Or is that what you want for her?"

                Jack stared across the counter at Kenny as the next patron slid up to order eggs in broken English.

                "It's what she needs," Maxwell said, "And she wants food. I've already asked her that."

                "Fine," Jack said, throwing his hands up as he turned sharply away. "Go clean her up. But you'd better make sure the stink gets out of the bathroom by the time Mr. Harrison gets here. Because he'll like you're bringing her in here less than I do."

                "No problem," Maxwell said, gripping Suzanne by the shoulders to aim her through the tangle of patrons, tables and stools towards the single door to the store room along the back wall.

                Men shuffled out of her way, jabbering among themselves in rapid fire Spanish, though none seemed to laugh the way the Italians had on Broadway. Perhaps these men and women here just lived a little too close to the edge to laugh, Maxwell thought, one small disaster in any one of their lives capable of sending them too the street as well.

                Once to the door, Maxwell had to steady her as he reached around her to turn the knob -- the door, fortunately, pushing in. Then, he eased her through the opening, closing the door behind, leaning against, breathing out heavily, only to notice how much stronger the smell was here, not just of Suzanne, but of mustard and catsup, mayonnaise and pickles, all mingling into a sickening brew.

                But Suzanne's smell grew more and more potent, her skin and clothing soaked with the rancid odor of urine, sweat, shit and trash. Maxwell could even catch the smell of motor oil, fish oil, cat food and old hamburgers, as if she carried a trash dumpster on her back.

                "Come along," Maxwell told her, straightening himself. "Your bath is waiting."

                He eased her left, passed the shelves and barrels and boxes lining both long walls, each time labeled for quick reference in black magic marker, soup, soda, bags, napkins. Some boxes stood open revealing mounds of plastic forks or knives or spoons, while other Maxwell had tacked tight in an effort to keep the roaches out, yet despite this, a pack of them scurried towards shelter as he flicked on the back light.

                A few scurried out of sight even when he flicked on the light in the bathroom, inch long black shapes rushing under the leg of the sink or in a crack behind the toilet. Maxwell cursed and stamped his foot, but killed nothing, and vowed under his breath to spread more boric acid. But the more he killed, the more roaches seemed to breed. It was an unending war, one he had fought to a truce in front, but could not in here or the store room where the roaches feasted in the cold.

                Suzanne, standing on the brink of the pink-tiled bathroom, shivered, and Maxwell wondered just how he was going to accomplish cleaning her.

                Standing chest to chest with Suzanne in a room meant for hone human being at a time, Maxwell shifted uncomfortably, not just from the appalling smell, but from being so close again to a warped version of the woman who had stepped out of his life. He studied her face, and accepted the woman as the same, and yet could not come to grips with the alien transformation. This face, however, lacked all the important elements that had made up the face of the woman he loved, the humorous glint in her eyes changed into something rather foggy.

                "Let me turn up the heat," he said and reached out the door to the wall, flicking on a switch that started the invisible boiler downstairs. Within a minute, hot air flowed up through the tiny metal grate on the floor.

                Then, looking over her again, he sighed and reached for the faucet, twisting on the hot tap, slightly brown water spurting from the crooked spout, spitting and burping for a few moments. Maxwell pushed the rubber stop into the drain as the steam filled the room, making the five-inch distorted mirror above the sink look translucent, Maxwell's own face fading into a hulking dark shape that only vaguely resembled a human being.

                Maxwell, taking up the cracked and dirty bar of ivory soap from the back of the sink, turned towards Suzanne, his eyes squinting at her and her grey arms and face, like a sculptor studying a block of marble contemplating where he should start. He looked at the bar of soap and then her again.

                "This is like trying to chisel through the Rocky Mountains with a screw driver," he mumbled, knowing that the small bar barely removed the everyday grease he and Jack acquired during cooking. It would do nothing to chip away at the year's of grime she had collected. He dropped the bar into the water, and then reached under the sink where he found a half-used box of Tide, something he kept for those rare occasions when the laundry service forgot to come and take the aprons and shirts, leaving him or Jack to wash their own as a temporary solution.

                Moisture had soaked through the cardboard, making the orange and blue paper soggy and turned the soap powder into hard clumps. Maxwell broke a piece of this into small pieces, dropping them one by one into the water, each plopping as it landed, each beginning the transformation into suds.

                Maxwell had to shut the water off to keep it from overflowing, and then taking up the stick from the toilet cleaner, stirred up the contents, mixing the powdered soap, thinking about how all this seemed like a bit of Creeley's demented magic, a witch or Warlock stirring a brew in a caldron, he hoping this one small bit of magic will bring back some of the Suzanne he knew.

                "Wait here," he told her when the stirring was done, and he dropped the stick again, retreating back into the store room, where he glanced around for a moment trying to locate the box of disposable blue wash rags. He had let Jack put away the last order, and naturally, Maxwell could find nothing where it was supposed to be, despite the labels he had so carefully put up. Eventually, he found what he wanted with the soda cups, rather than on the shelf with the cleaning supplies.

                Maxwell grabbed a handful and charged back into the bathroom where Suzanne swayed, but had not move, her face moist from the room full of steam and heat. He dumped two or three of the rags into the water, each floating for a moment on the surface before absorbing the soapy water. Then he turned to Suzanne again, realizing that he could not just wash her face and hands and make her clean.

                "Get undressed," he said.

                The words reverberated in the tile room, not quite an echo, and her grey-green eyes opened sharply to stare at him, some stirring of thought reflected in them, some new more human emotion registered in the resetting of her lips. She might have even smiled, though this was so faint Maxell could not be sure she even understood him. He repeated his request, while making a cleaning gesture with his hand he thought unmistakable in its meaning.

                Her smile clicked on like a light, and her eyes took on a sudden understanding that seemed too willing, as her long, dirty fingers flexed at her slide then slowly rose, making their wiggling way towards Maxwell and Maxwell's zipper.

                It took a moment for Maxwell to understand what her fingers were up to and the single, mistaken urge commanding them.

                "NO!" he shouted and jumped back, banging the door closed as he squirmed to avoid those fingers. "That's not what I meant. Your clothes. I want you to take off your clothes."

                He touched her frayed blue blouse with the tips of his fingers, feeling the grit long embedded into the denim-like fabric. She started down at his hand, as puzzled as ever, and when finally the glow of understanding showed again in her eyes, he mouth formed another twisted little smile. Maxwell lowered his hand; she began what he asked, slipping out of her shirt and jeans, her bare, unprotected breasts plopping out like two small pears, pear-colored, too, from the accumulation of filth.

                Maxwell remembered those breasts. He remembered how well his hands had fit around them in preparation for making love, so smooth and fire and yet sensitive to his touch, quaking as his fingers encircled the nipples. Their unchanged condition startled him now, as if he had expected them and the rest of the woman to be shriveled and wrinkled like those old, old women she'd seemed to have become. He resisted the urge to touch them again, surveying the rest of her as she undressed.

                Her underpants -- whose presence surprised him as much as her lack of a bra -- showed ill use, stained with traces of urine and fesses, both so ground into the fabric they had dyed the material permanently yellow and brown, weeks of lacking toilet paper and other such amenities, and possibly even the lack of a toilet. Much of her stink came as a result of this, and exposing it to the air increased the stench in the bathroom, making Maxwell gag, making him lose any further desire to touch her, or even remain in her general vicinity. Her flesh, fore and aft, showed much chafing, and must have ached like hell. Or perhaps she had grown accustomed to the pain the way she had to the odor.

                Then, the minute she was free of her clothing, Suzanne leaped into Maxwell's arms, once more mistaking his intentions, her fingers clawing at the zipper of his jogging jacket and his jogging pants with the ferocity of a wild cat.

                Maxwell, unable to escape, slapped at her hands, and failing to discourage her that way, attempted to grab her wrists. But she wiggled and wrestled as if this was a routine part of the foreplay, a very familiar part of what she had done for those on the steps when sold off to the police as their rent. As quick as Maxwell was, Suzanne had managed to tear open the front of his jogging jacket before he finally pinned her against the far wall.

                "NO!" he said, his face inches from hers as it had been so many times in the past when poised for a kiss, his bare chest inches from her pointed breasts, his hips inches from hers. "No, no, no, that's not what I want."

                Utter perplexity flooded into her eyes as her hands -- now firmly in Maxwell's grip and pinned against the wall over her head -- went limp, and her still soft mouth, despite the cracked grey lips, formed an acknowledging "oh," followed by the relaxing of tense muscles through the rest of her body. Then, just as suddenly, she stiffened again, seemingly afraid.

                "It'll be all right," he whispered, in a voice not so different from the one he'd used years earlier when making love to her. "I just want you to clean yourself up a little."

                "Clean?"

                He indicated the soapy water and she stared at it without understanding at first, then gradually, she made a connection, and her eyes narrowed.

                "No," she said.

                "Come on, Suzy, it's only a bath."

                "No," she said more firmly.

                "If you don't do it for yourself, I'll wash you," Maxwell said.

                But her shoulders stiffened and she shook her head once more.

                Maxwell sighed and reached into the sink for one of the cloths. Suzanne bolted, attempting to shove passed him, her fingers clawing at the door handle the way they had clawed at his zipper a moment before. But she could not get a grip on the knob, and he dragged her against the wall.

                "Damn it, Suzy," he hissed through clenched teeth. "You're not a child despite how you act. But if you're going to make me do this, then we're in for quite a wrestling match."

                Maxwell pressed his left forearm against her chest to keep her pinned, then reached back towards the sink with his right hand, fingers just able to grip one of the rags floating amongst the suds. It flopped out, suds dripping down his arm, the sink, his leg, the leg of the sink, her breasts, legs and finally her face. She grunted, groaned, and even tried to bite him once, as if the soapy water scalded her like acid. He did not try to scrub, content just to spread soap on her grey skin, even then, the froth quickly became grey from the contact.

 

                She twisted her face to avoid the touch, spitting and spewing the soap when it reached her mouth, her weak, hard fingers clawing at his arm, which prevented her escape, an arm soaked through with the filthy foam.

                "Hold still," he said. "I'm not hurting you and you know it. You're not an animal. You shouldn't have to smell like this."

                She glared at him, and would have bit him if he had removed his arm. Instead, he worked around the arm, washing her shoulders when her face was reasonably clean, and with more difficulty, under the arms and along the arms to the hands, she shifting and turning the whole time, and he adjusting to each twist, giving up on the hands when they proved too wily, and turned instead to her chest, her pointed breasts reacting to his touch, the nipples growing firm beneath his cleaning.

                He grit his teeth, feeling as if he was trying to clean a squiggling pig, the more soap and water her managed to get onto her, the more slippery she became, and the more difficult it was for him to maintain his grip.

                "I told you to hold still," he growled when his cleaning had reached the more private regions around her thighs, and her resistance became more acute.

                "Hurts," she said, her teeth gritted, too.

                "I'm sure it hurts," he said, looking over the splotched flesh, where the dirt had made raw. "I'm trying to be gentle. But the dirt is doing more harm than the soap will. Those raw patches will only get worse unless I clean them. Just hold on. We're almost done. I'll have you clean in a minute."

                As with the hands, her lower legs and feet would have to wait. He couldn't reach them with one arm and didn't think he could pin Suzanne once he relaxed his grip from her chest. He washed the thighs and buttocks with as much care as he could, and would call it quits for the moment.

                "Don't want clean, want food," Suzanne said.

                "You'll get food in a minute," he said, coldly, finishing what he was doing, only to find her staring at his face intently, her stare stern but less dark, as if one more inspiration had come upon here. Maxwell stiffened anticipating another attack.

                "Like mission?" she asked.

                "Mission?"

                "Wash, pray, then eat," she said, beaming like a school kid who's figured out a complicated concept. "Wash, pray, then eat."

                This time, it was Maxwell who stared, his eyes taking on a lighter shade as he struggled to make meaning from her words.

                "You mean they make you wash before they feed you at the mission?" he asked.

"And Pray, too," Suzanne said with an enthusiastic nod. "Pray, pray, pray."

                Maxwell laughed, his voice again reverberating in the small tiled room. It sounded tired, perhaps a little frantic, but relieved, too, echoing the relief he felt at this first true breakthrough in communication.

                "No one is going to make you pray here," he assured her, touching her cheek with his wet and soapy fingers. "We just want you clean."

                "I clean," Suzanne said proudly.

                "Hardly" Maxwell said, looking down at her hands and legs, which still bore the same grey ting as before, looking worse now because of the pink color of those areas he was able to reach. It almost looked as if she was wearing grey gloves and matching stockings.

                "I clean!" she insisted, making the scrubbing motion with her grey hand.

                "Are you trying to tell me that you can clean yourself?" Maxwell asked.

                She nodded again. Maxwell eyed her, wondering how adequate a job should would make of it considering the kind of care her clothing and condition conveyed. Yet her willingness made for a hopeful sign and he decided to encourage her.

                "All right," he said, relinquishing the now tattered blue rag to her possession. "Do the best you can, okay?"

                Again came the nod, as if she was a child, and this was a game, yet a child to whom Maxwell had made love many times, to whom he had once professed being in love, and one whose mind he had respected immensely. He searched for the answer to this riddle, in her eyes, and when he could find nothing there, he stared around the room, his gaze falling upon the pile of rags on the floor, rags from which the old smell still rose, like smoke.

                "I'll take those," he said, snatching them up. "It wouldn't do to have you climb back into them when you're done. You'd get as dirty as when you’ve started."

                "No others," Suzanne said with a sad shake of her head.

                "I'll worry about that," Maxwell told her, though admitted to himself this could be a problem. Mr. Harrison's visits were rare, yet unexpected, and the last thing Maxwell needed was for the man to find a naked woman in the bathroom. Half the reason Maxwell had the man's trust involved a certain amount of level-headedness. Harrison liked the way Maxwell saved his money and his sense of purpose (even if Harrison didn't totally approve of Nashville as a worthy goal.)

                "Business, Mr. Zarra," the grey-headed, suit-and-tie man told him, "That's the secret to success in this world. If you can do it right, put up the adequate capital, managed your materials, personnel and product correctly, you'll be on top of the world."

                Maxwell stumbled back into the stock room, as Suzanne scrubbed herself behind him. The air in the larger space smelled so sweet, full of the scent of food, rather than trash, piss and shit. The slightly open jars of catsup oozed with the perfume of tomatoes and vinegar. The carelessly sealed buckets of pickles also helped cast away the ghosts of the street with the sharp scent of undefeatable pickle.

                For the first time, Maxwell silently thanked Jack for his carelessness rather than vowing to scold the man, and thanked other more spiritual entities for leaving a few still unstained sets of white pants and shirts on the shelf in the far rear corner. They were meant for Jack, but he rarely wore them, and thus were two or three times larger than Suzanne needed, and would require the use of a belt, something Maxwell did not have. He had to settle for the self-opening plastic straps that provided support for the heavier bundles of paper bags, cardboard trays, and wax paper wrap. Maxwell lifted one or two, seeking the smaller, trying to imagine Suzanne's waist size, not as he remembered it, but as it was, so thin she could have been a model. But each seemed inadequate, and he abandoned both when he saw a roll of dusty twine in the corner near the door, hemp that had once had a particular purpose in the store which he could not recall.

                Fortunately, one of the shirt was more Maxwell's size, otherwise Suzanne would have swam in it, rather than wore it, and with this, the hemp and pants, he returned to the bathroom where Suzanne, true to her word, had continued to clean, catching spots Maxwell had missed, although the effort was not as through as his, leaving the skin of her hands and legs a little greyer than Maxwell would have liked. But it was a sincere effort, and she appeared to him much more human than when she had first arrived.

                "Here," he said, thrusting the clean clothing towards her. "Get into these."

                She held the pants open and made a face, the waist coming up to her chin with still an inch dragging on the web floor. She giggled.

                "Big," she said.

                "I know they're big," Maxwell said. "But for the moment they will have to do. It's just something to keep you covered while we get you food. I'll go find something better while you're eating."

                She looked dubious, but shoved one leg into the pants, then the other. Maxwell bent and rolled up the leg bottoms until they fit her legs. Even then, she looked the part of some child, walking around in her father's clothing. With the hemp and a few folds at the waste, Maxwell managed to keep the pants up. Even though the shirt was smaller, it still hung down on her, some small benefit since the tails hid the rope at the waste, giving it all a slightly better look. She might have been a girl dressed in her father's pajamas.

                Maxwell nodded in approval, and was reminded of those early times before he and she had moved to Oak Stret together, when he used to sneak her up to his room in the loft, passed the snorts and snores of old man Creeley, and how she used to look in one of her Maxwell's shirts after they had made love, her hands swallowed up by his sleeves while her long glorious legs poked out the bottom.

                "Finish washing your face," Maxwell said. "Then come out and Jack will feed you. I'm going to find you some proper clothing."

                Then to the sound of splashing water, Kenny once more retreated, grabbing up her dirty rags from the stock room as he did, grabbing up a large black trash bag from one of the shelves into which he thrust everything, tying the smell shut with a plastic twist. He did this slowly, and with great ceremony, feeling odd, as if he was trying to bury a still-living wild cat, half expecting claws to tear open the bag again from the inside. Then, he dumped the bundle into one of the trash cans as he came back into the store area.

                The change in aroma stunned him, although the stench of the street still clung to Maxwell's own clothing as he crossed the room to the counter. But the other smells grew in intensity as he neared the counter, relieving his senses. The greasy odor from the grill -- which in the past he had found so offensive -- now reminded him of home, of the sunny kitchen in the old house with his grandmother before the stove, bacon, eggs, coffee, toasts, even the pencil shavings smell of coffee grounds, warming him, seeming so utterly wholesome to him. He sucked in their scent as he mounted one of the stools.

                Jack was just then finished with the last of the rush, an old Latino man with silver streaks in his hair, arguing with Jack over the change.

                "Twenty-five cents more," the old man said, jabbing a yellowed finger down at the palm full of pennies and dimes.

                "Like hell," Jack said. "You got your food. You got your change. Go away."

                "Twenty-five cents more," the old man insisted.

                "I told you," Jack said with a frustrated snort. "I don't owe you any more money."

                "Twenty-five cents."

                Jack stared across the counter at the man, his thick eyebrows folding in towards his pudgy nose. He looked ready to kill, but then sagged, weary, sad, shaking his head.

                "All right, all right," he finally said, moving over to the 1900s-style cash register and punching the key marked "no sale," the grave stone marker popping up inside the greasy little window with the same inscription. He pinched a quarter out of one of the wooden slots and pitched it at the man. "There. Take it. Go away."

                The Latino man stared down at his hand, moved the coins around in his palm with the tip of his other forefinger, calculating their value, then, when apparently satisfied, thrust the money into his worn cloth coat pocket, took up his tray and shuffled away towards one of the empty tables.

                "That was very liberal of you," Maxwell said with a chuckle, drawing one of Jack's wrathful stares.

                "Don't you start your political rhetoric with me," he snarled. "I did it to be rid of him. I'll replace the quarter later when I get paid."

                "I'm not getting political," Maxwell said. "I'm too weary for that kind of argument right now. All I want is a cup of coffee and a breath of fresh air."

                "Coffee? Is that all it'll take to shut you up?"

                Jack moved over to the coffee urn, flapping open one its of its small black spouts, streaming brown liquid gushing into a cup. Then, with coffee sloshing over the sides and into the saucer, Jack marched over to where Maxwell said and slid it onto the counter.

                "There," Jack said. "Drink it and be silent."

                Maxwell sipped at the overfull cup, the strong, even a little burned liquid scalding his tongue. Yet as it went down, the coffee cured him, warming his insides, satisfying a need he'd not been completely aware over the hours since first waking. He took a second sip, and then, a third deeper draught, shoulders and back seeming to unkink with each.

                "So who is the bitch?" Jack asked after pouring a cup of his own, but ruining it -- to Maxwell's mind -- by adding his usual four spoons of sugar and two ounces of half and half. "Is this the famous go-go girl you've been so hot about?"

                Maxwell snorted, nearly choking over his fourth sip of coffee.

                "Be serious, Jack," he said. "Does she look like a go-go girl?"

                "She looks like a bag lady," Jack said. "Which raises the question about how you met her, since we both know very well how badly you feel about such people."

                "I didn't initially meet her as a bag lady," Maxwell said, concentrating on his coffee, although it was nearly gone.

                "You want to tell me about it?"

                "No."

                "Then tell me what you intend to do with her now that you have prettied her up?"

                Maxwell put down the cup with care, then looked up at Jack.

                "My primary interest is in getting her fed and clothed," he said.

                "Clothing? What was wrong with what she had on?"

                "Be serious, Jack. You can't expect her to live in those rags."

                "Why not," Jack said. "They seem to fit her lifestyle on the street well enough, or did you have something else in mind?"

                Maxwell stared down into the nearly empty cup, struggling to count the grounds of coffee on the bottom, his mouth suddenly very dry. He wanted another sip of coffee, but found himself unable to ask.

                "Why don't we worry about that later," Maxwell said, "after I get her fixed up."

                "I prefer to deal with it now," Jack said, his voice stern, and Maxwell -- without looking up -- knew the eyes showed concern if not fear. The loft was not big enough for three people, or private enough for two men and a woman. This was a lesson drilled into Maxwell by Creeley when the old man finally caught him sneaking Suzanne in.

                "It won't work, son," Creeley had said, much more mildly than Maxwell expected. "This is a man's place, a place where you and I dress and undress, cook and eat, sleep and make up. You bring a woman in here, she would only mess that up. We'd have to worry about when we went to the bathroom, whether or not we closed and locked the bathroom door, and whether or not to close our eyes when she used the facilities. There are not enough walls here for all that, and I certainly don't want to get dressed every time I have to pee at night, or stop up my ears in the middle of the night when you two decide to test the bed springs."

                "I'm not asking for her to come home with us," Maxwell said told Jack.

                "Then what are you going to do with her?" Jack asked, leaning forward onto the counter. "You don't strike me as the type that collects useless stuff."

                "She's an old friend," Maxwell said. "I'm only trying to help."

                "Suppose she doesn't want to be helped?"

                Maxwell glanced up, a startled look in his eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

                "People make choices," Jack said. "They generally wind up where they want to be, and all your pushing and shoving isn't going to budge them."

                "This isn't like that."

                "How do you know?"

                "I know."

                "And you don't have anything better than to rescue people?"

                "Let's say I'm partially responsible for her condition."

                "YOU?" Jack exploded. "What did you do, issue those rags to her yourself?"

                "Not like that."

                "How then?"

                "Never mind what," Maxwell said. "I'm stuck with her. I fell that I have to do something about it. So stop grilling me about it, okay?"

                "Fine," Jack said. "But that still leaves you with my initial question. What do you do with her. Where were you thinking of bringing her if not to our place?"

                "I was thinking of cleaning her up, feeding her and then maybe getting her into one of the shelters," Maxwell said. "She said something about a mission."

                "A shelter?" Jack said. "I thought you said you liked the broad?"

                "What's wrong with the shelter?" Maxwell asked, studying Jack's dark eyes as some new aspect of the man came to the surface there.

                "Just take my word for it," Jack said. "They are not nice places."

                "Neither is the street -- especially where she'd been. Besides, I've heard religious shelters are better than those provided by the city."

                "Better, maybe, but not good."

                "I can take a look, can't I?"

                "Sure, but that will take time. Even if you found a place reasonable acceptable, they might not have room to take her right away. Some of those places are one-night places. You come, take a room and in the morning you're back on the street. The better places have a waiting list. You don't get in those places until someone moves out or dies."

                "I told you, I don't have all the details yet," Maxwell said angrily.

                "Like the most important one," Jack said. "Like where she is going to stay while you make arrangements."

                Maxwell fingered the curved handled of the coffee cup, picking at a flaw in the ceramic glaze with his thumb nail. it sounded like a bird packing at the seen, or the uneven tick of a clock, a beat soon picked up across the counter by Jack's drumming fingers.

                "Well?" Jack asked, finally unable to contain his impatience.

                Maxwell sighed, stared towards the front of the store and the silhouetted shapes of shoppers moving along the side walk outside, the details of the face blurred by the steam on the greasy class.

                "I was thinking that maybe we could keep her here," Maxwell said.

                Jack's expression did not change. His face did not explode into a geography of outraged lines, nor did his mouth spew a series of verdictives. His nostrils, however, did widen a little, and his eyelashes increased their flapping, and his dark eyes did take on the slightly glazed look of someone who did not comprehend.  When he finally did managed to say something, the word emerged as more of a horrified whisper than a shout: "What?"

                "It makes sense, Jack," Maxwell said. "It's warm here and clean and there is plenty of food."

                "Are you crazy?" Jack asked in the same slow and deliberate way, apparently too shocked to scream.

                "No, not if what you say about the shelters is true. We could rig up sleeping facilities in the store room, and with the toilet right there, what more would she need?"

                "She's not the one I'm worried about," Jack said, finally putting some vehemence into his voice. "It's you and me. When Mr. Harrison finds out about this, we'll both be looking for new jobs."

                "Mr. Harrison only comes when we're here," Maxwell said. "I'm sure we can make her seem like one of the customers."

                "A customer with a bed in back?"

                "We can fold that up when we come in," Maxwell said, staring away as if calculating all the elements and how they fit together. "Whoever comes in first will fold things up and sit here at one of the tables and..."

                "JESUS CHRIST!" Jack finally exploded. "As if we don't have enough to do with all your rules for trash and setting up."

                "It won't be that much more work, and it won't be for that long. I'll try and find her a space in one of the missions as soon as possible."

                Jack covered his face with a splayed hand, so that a portion of his broad face showed between the finger, his nose poking out between thumb and forefinger, while a dark eye stared at Maxwell through the space left between two of the other fingers.

                "I'll deny knowing anything about this when it all falls through," he said finally. "I'll swear that you did it all behind my back."

                "If that's the way you want it," Maxwell said. "But the plan won't fall through."

                "We'll see," Jack said, and gulped down his own now lukewarm coffee, only to spout out the brown liquid when he saw Suzanne make her appearance at the store room door. "What the hell?"

                She looked as odd here as she had in the bathroom, although far less dirty. She had tucked in the shirt, and rolled up the sleeves and pants legs. But still, the clothing seemed to swallow her, emphasizing just how small her bones were. But now, she didn't look like a child any more, even in the monstrously large clothing, but more like an old, old woman that had grown smaller over time, lacking only the mass of wrinkles to make her look 90.

                Her walk -- that atrocious robotic walk Maxwell had found so horrifying on the street and the subject to so many people's ill humor -- made her seem even less credible, she making her way across the room towards the counter.

                The stink of the street remained, though faint, like fumes of a bus that had long passed. The scent of detergent had little power over such a smell. Filth that had worked its way into the flesh for so long could not be easily erased by a superficial scrubbing. She needed a real bath, one which allowed her to soak in perfumed water for hours, even days, soaking the filth out of her pores -- and even then, not all of it would come out.

                All this taken into account, Suzanne looked wonderful. The cleaning had done wonders for her face, giving her cheeks the look Maxwell had seen on hospital patients recovering from a near fatal disease. Even her gaze seemed clearer, seeming to register distinct images rather than the haze or fugue in which she had previously floated. She smiled slightly as she neared the counter, and glanced around as if asking permission to sit. Maxwell motioned her towards one of the tables and she complied.

                Jack snorted, then in a hushed voice aimed at Maxwell said: "She needs more than food or clothing or anything else we can give her."

                "Maybe," Maxwell admitted. "But at least we can give her those things for now. Later, I can worry about finding her the right kind of help."

                Yet even as he spoke, Maxwell was aware of Suzanne's wounded eyes, deep slashes of pain only partly disguised by her blank stare. He had seen such look in the eyes of Vietnam veterans after the war, a look desperately seeking to deny those horrors they had witnessed. In some ways, those eyes had stopped being human, and behind them, the mind pulled strings allowing the body to go through the everyday motions.

                To cure that, to bring back the humanity into her face, needed a caring and healing hand -- not to mention the patience -- of a professional.

                "Feed her," Maxwell said, sliding off the stool, his sneakers squeaking on the tile as he stood.

                "Where the hell are you going?"

                "To get her some clothing," Maxwell said, working his way around the counter to the small metal box kept on a shelf beneath the cash register, hidden behind a stack of sandwich bags.

                "You mean you're leaving her here, alone, with me?" Jack squawked, as Maxwell undid the lock, his small silver key turning its insubstantial mechanism. He removed five twenties, and then locked it again, and headed out to the street, determined to find -- of all things, women's clothing.

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