Chapter 28

           

 

                All the snow had melted by May 2, 1880, and the mud -- so prevalent in the gullies along Garret Mountain -- dried. It was, in fact, a fine and sunny day, very well suiting the annual picnic of the German Singing Society, which met each year on the first Sunday in May.

                No one expected trouble, since these events generally inspired cheer among its participants. So all were shocked when William Dalzell, a local property owner, stroke up into the middle of the affair, pulled out a pistol, and shot Joseph Van Houten in the chest.

                Dalzell claimed Van Houten's crowd had trampled his garden during the previous year's festivities, when they cut across his land. The shooting, he said, would keep these people from crossing his land in the future.

                The infuriated German singers went crazy and tried to lynch Dalzell on the spot. Failing to grab him, they burned down his bard after he fled into it. Dalzell shot at the mob and wounded a little girl. This news spread faster through the town than the fire did through the dry wood and hay of the bar. Although Paterson police thundered up and plucked Dalzell away, thousands of people flooded up from the city to join the fray, trapping Dalzell and the police on the farm of John Ferguson. They tried to burn this man's barn down, too, when Dalzell refused to come out of the farm house.

                Dalzell and the police, however, managed to flee out the back door, taking refuge in another house, one owned by John McGuckin. But the mob was hot on their heals and eventually, Sgt. John McBride -- for whom a street was later named leading into West Paterson -- sent for a priest from St. Joseph's Cathedral. In response to McBride's urgent call, Bishop William McNulty came, driving straight through the crowd to the front door of the house. The bishop parked his buggy at the gate and got out, walking calmly through the enraged mob. He returned the same way, leading Dalzell out. The bishop and the killer drove back down to Paterson as the ranting mob looked on.

                ************

                "That bitch called," Jack said as Kenny slid through the door of the Greasy Spoon. He had spent most of the night driving around the streets of Paterson, hoping to get a glimpse of Suzanne.

                "What bitch?" Maxwell asked as he grabbed a cup and filled it to the brim, slipping it black.

                "The fucking dancer," Jack snapped. "The Boss' girlfriend. I thought you said you were through with her?"

                "So, she called," Maxwell said, taking another long sip from his cup. "No one said I have to call her back."

                "So what did you do with the hobo?"

                "I didn't do anything with her," Maxwell said. "She vanished. She slipped out of the hospital when I wasn't looking."

                "Thank God for small favors."

                "She could get hurt."

                "So could we," Jack said. "And right now, I have enough to worry about. The family found out about the girl being pregnant."

                "Maxwell did not say anything for a long time. He just stared at his hands, particularly at the tips of his fingers -- where callouses had developed from playing guitar, and at the sides of his hands, from practices on the boards at the dojo.

                "So why haven't her brothers been here to get you?" Maxwell asked finally.

                "Word's out about you," Jack said. "You're a big man in town these days, nobody wants to mess with you -- except for the Boss. He's put a contract out to have you killed if you see her again. I'm safe up until you go running back to her arms."

                "I won't."

                "So you say."

                ***********

                Outside on the street, the pack of street punks waited, giggling as Maxwell and Jack came out for the day.

                "Get the hell out of here," Maxwell barked, scattering them as if they were dogs, several paint cans clattering on the sidewalk as they ran. On the window, they had left a half completed message in black, block letters.

                Maxwell squinted to read the message against the dark interior of the store.

                "What does it say?" Jack asked, easing closer to his shoulder.

                "Who's the boss?"

                "Shit!" Jack hissed. "Let's get out of here."

                ************

                Patty paced before the furniture store door, her sharp step echoing against the glass, halting abruptly when Maxwell and Jack stumbled around the corner. She looked scared.

                "Where have you been?" she asked.

                "At work," Maxwell said.

                "And you didn't return my calls?"

                "I was busy."

               

                "Then you're just like all the rest, letting yourself get scared off?"

                "I'm scared, but not of Puck," Maxwell said.

                Patty frowned. "Who of?"

                "You."

                "Me? Why on earth would anybody be scared of me?"

                "If I have to explain it, then you'd never understand," Maxwell said.

                "You're confusing me. Who is this, your male lover?"

                Jack choked.

                "No, he's my roommate," Maxwell said. "I told you about him. So what's so important that you would leave your precious kingdom to come find me?"

                Patty glanced around, searching the street as if expecting someone to be listening. Traffic was thick with trucks and buses, and cars fleeing back to Wayne as dark fell on Paterson.

                "It's Puck," she said in a very low voice. "He's gone absolutely crazy with jealously. He said he would kill me if he saw me with you again."

                "So you come prancing over here?" Jack said. "That's fucking love, if I've ever seen it."

                "Shut up, Jack," Maxwell said, then he turned to Patty. "So what do you expect me to do?"

                Patty bit her lower lip. "I was wondering if you hide me out for a while."

                "Don't you know how to hide yourself?"

                "I don't have any place to go Puck doesn't know. A couple of years ago I went out to see my sister in L.A., but she doesn't want me out there any more. Puck's goons beat her up pretty bad for helping me."

                "So now he can beat up on Max, too?" Jack said.

                "I was hoping Max would come with me," Patty said.

                "I think we should talk about this upstairs," Maxwell said, glancing around. "Puck has ears out here."

                 Maxwell held open the door as Patty entered. Jack followed quickly behind him, thumping up the stairs to unlock the upper door. Maxwell lingered for a moment before closing the door on the street, catching glimpse of movement in the shadows.

                ***********

                Upstairs, Patty hovered over a drink Jack had mixed from an assortment of airplane bottles he kept in a drawer in his room. Maxwell sipped black coffee.

                "How long did you figure on staying away?" Maxwell asked.

                "A couple of days."

                "Would any place out of Paterson do?"

                "What did you have in mind?"

                "Trust me. I have a place."

                "What about you? I can't go alone."

                "You're a big girl, and the place I have in mind is safe. At least, the old man prefers boys to girls. I have something to do here in Paterson."

                "I can't go alone," Patty said. "I'd go crazy."

                "Max should go with you," Jack said, unexpectedly.

                "What the hell are you talking about?" Maxwell growled. "You know I can't leave Suzanne on the street. Besides, if we both disappear, Puck will know I'm with her."

                "He'll think that even if you stay," Jack said. "And he'll hound us the whole time she's gone. He might even have his goons break up this place and the Greasy Spoon trying to find her."

                "Won't he do that if I leave?"

                "Maybe, but I don't think so. It's natural the two of you should run. He might send Hutch over to grill me about where you've gone. But that's all."

                "And what will you tell them?"

                "That I don't know. That you just skipped off one night, leaving me with a shitload of work and no explanation. They'll believe that."

                "What about your problem?"

                "You mean with the brothers grim?"

                "Yes."

                "They won't believe you're gone. Not right away. They'll hold back until they're sure, and hopefully you'll be back by the time they make up their minds to come get me."

                "That still leaves Suzanne wandering around on the streets," Maxwell said. "I can't go off and leave her like that."

                "I'll look for her."

                "You? But you wanted me to get rid of her."

                "Let's call it pay back for you protecting me. I'll find her and bring her back to the priest."

                "He won't take her."

                "I'll convince him. I'm a naturally born salesman, remember."

                "I don't like it," Maxwell said. "But it does make sense." He turned to Patty.  "Can you leave now?"

                "I'd have to go back and throw some things together."

                "Fine, we'll do that."

                ***********

                The car ran smoothly. It was Maxwell that shook as nervous now as when he had let Puck out in front of liquor store. But now, he searched for goons not cops.

                "Do you want me to come upstairs with you?" Maxwell asked.

                Patty paused, one Pony sneaker out on the curb. She shook her head.

                "I can handle anyone I might find upstairs better if you're not with me," she said. "Just keep the engine running. Once Hutch sees me with a suitcase, he'll know something is up."

                Maxwell watched her go, her blue shimmering Giant's jacket fading into the shadows near the door. The huffing and puffing of the engine kept him from hearing her foot fall rising up the stairs, but he imagined the curried climb, and pictured each turn, calculating in his mind just how long it would take her to get to the top. By this, he could determine if she ran into any trouble along the way. The light came on in her apartment window, just about the time he expected, so he relaxed a little.

                He turned his attention back to the street, studying the recesses of the dark store doorways -- any one of which could have contained trouble or nothing more than a slumbering bum.

                Then, upstairs, the light went out again, and his mind reversed the route he had imagined previously, the stumbling and bumbling of Patty's retreat her suitcase banging at every step. Yet, the suitcase she carried when she emerged was much smaller than one he'd imagined, a mere overnight case into which she had tossed a few vital items.

                "Okay," she said, slamming the car door. "Let's go."

                ***********

                They drove west, darkness veiling the side of the highway and the changing of seasons. While the air remained cold, Maxwell could smell spring seeping through the car vents -- that crisp scent of soil breaking free of ice.

                He had stopped at a rest area to call Creeley. The old man had not sounded pleased.

                "Guests?" he said. "Here?"

                "Only for a couple of days," Maxwell said. "She's in trouble and so am I."

                "She?" Creeley crackled, his voice repeating the word at a high pitch. "I thought we had gone through all this before..."

                "It's not like the last time," Maxwell assured him.

                "It's always like the last time," Creeley said. "You can't put men and women together and expect things to turn out well."

                "Which means we shouldn't come?"

                "I didn't say that," Creeley said, tapping his fingernails on the back of the receiver. "You know you're always welcome."

                "As long as I'm alone? That seems a bit unfair. You can't reject out of hand someone I care about."

                "So you're in love?"

                Maxwell stayed silent for a moment, staring out across the gravel at the lot towards the impatient face framed by the front windshield of his car. She stared towards the woods, as if struggling to make sense of that thing other people called wildlife.

                "No," Maxwell said finally. "I'm not in love. But this woman needs help."

                "I thought I taught you better than to pick up strays."

                "I thought so, too," Maxwell admitted. "Can we come or not? Or should I find someone else to take us in?"

                "If you put it that way, I have no choice," Creeley said. "I supposed I can put up with a woman for a day or two. But I won't promise I'll be good company."

                Since then, Patty seemed poor company to Maxwell, seated in utter and insulting silence as the miles rolled under the wheels of the car.

                "So how did you meet him?" Maxwell asked, seeking to break that silence.

                "Meet whom?" Patty asked, blinking away some vision of her own.

                "Puck."

                "Where does anybody meet anybody else?" Patty asked. "In a bar, naturally."

                "You were dancing?"

                "After a fashion. I was singing in a rock and roll band."

                "You perform? I didn't know that."

                "There are a lot of things you don't know about me."

                "Like you're drug dealing?"

                "A girl has to make ends meet."

                "You learned that from him?"

                Patty shrugged. "I was much younger then. So was he. We sort of taught each other."

                "I can't imagine any relationship with Puck involving mutual learning."

                "Then you don’t know much about him either."

                "I know enough to dislike him."

                "But you don't know him the way I do."

                "It sounds as if you still care for him."

                "For part of him," Patty admitted. "Part of him is tender, loving and..."

                "We're talking about Puck?"

                "Of course, we're talking about Puck."

                "In the year's I've known him, he never showed any of that."

                "He never showed that side to anyone but me."

                "Is that what made you take up with him?"

                "I took up with him -- as you put it -- because he was cool."

                "Cool?"

                "Scary, then, terrifying, mysterious -- whatever name you want to put on it. He walked into that club and I nearly fell over. People stepped out of his way in respect."

                "Or fear."

                "Sometimes they are the same thing. And when he looked at me, I just melted."

                "Why?"

                "You're a man, you wouldn't understand."

                "No, I suppose not," Maxwell admitted. "How long did it last?"

                "Last? You might say it's still not over."

                "Then you still love him?"

                "Of course not. But you don't shake off the King of Paterson so easy. He owes everything and everyone in Paterson, including me."

                "He doesn't own me."

                "That's where you're different from everybody else. That's why I like you," she said, glancing over at Maxwell for the first time. She almost smiled. "And you're not scared."

                "Of course I'm scared," Maxwell said. "I'm scared I'll have to kill him."

                ***********

                Creeley stood at the head of the walk like a gnarled lawn ornament, his gray hair too long for his age, and his back bent as if he had spent his life over a silk loom. In many ways, he resembled a purple finch, bearing the same bony frame and nervous habits. But now, after not seeing him daily, Maxwell was struck by how old the man looked: shriveled and ancient with the fading glint of dying in his eyes.

                He wore the same worn green field jacket that had served as his uniform during his tours of the Great Falls, only now the some of his name had faded so that only the C and the R could easily be decerned. The other patches, the stripes on one shoulder and the unit patch slightly higher on the other, were testimony to an even older life, symbols of his Army duty in World War Two when he worked as a clerk.

                "That's him?" Patty said, sounding disappointed, as Maxwell steered the car to the gravel shoulder and stopped.

                "But he looks like a fucking parrot."

                "He's old," Maxwell said. "And wise after a fashion. He would seem odd to most people. But come on, if we sit here too long he'll tell us to leave."

                Maxwell thrust open his door and climbed out. The dirt and gravel road was dented from the passage of four-wheel-drive vehicles, pickup trucks and a variety all terrain motorcycles. Survival meant something different here where a mostly white culture prevailed, drawing its customs not from Mecca, Africa or Latin America, but from the primitive roots of early pioneers, stabling their vehicles in driveways the way cowboys had horses a century earlier. Only Creeley's cottage lacked such a vehicle.

                Everything about Creeley's cottage differed from his neighbors, thick with circles of dead flowers, not lumber, rusting cars or paint-pealing boats. Wind chimes hung before his front door, not the American flag. In spring, his property bloomed with life, where as others gave testimony to death by hanging the dead carcasses of deer shot during hunting season.

                "It's about time you got here," Creeley scolded. "Much later, I would have shut off the lights and gone to sleep."

                "Sleep?" Maxwell laughed. "You've never been to sleep before midnight in your life."

                "Maybe not in Paterson, but out here my habits have altered. I think it might be the fresh air. Is this your secret romance?"

                "Creeley, I told you..."

                "Romance?" Patty exploded with an amused outrage as she turned her leering eye on Maxwell. "What exactly have you been telling him about me?"

                "Nothing, honest," Maxwell said, casting a dark glance at the old man. "Creeley had a vivid and twisted imagination."

                The old man cackled. "Very well, then, you'll have to suffer a tour of my kingdom, then," he told Patty.

                It was old routine, something he put his few guests through as if continuing the tradition he had started at the Great Falls, unable to shed the lime light completely. He walked them through the yard, guiding Patty by the elbow as Maxwell stumbled behind, like an unwanted child.

                Inside, the smell of dead flowers dominated, a thick perfume shaped out of the many bowls of dried flowers. It was a testimony to death that Maxwell had endured for years, each Autumn part of a gathering of pedals before the snows came to seal them from him. All Winter these pedals would fill the loft with their scent, growing more intense with closed windows. Here, with winter fading, the smell was overwhelming, relieved only by a subtler scent from the front porch, where Creeley had begun his seedlings. There, the scent of earth relieved the sweetness, just as the green sprouts rising from each small container vanquished the perception of death the rest of the house contained.

                Creeley in rare form gave out the details of each plant, listing their proper place in the annals herb lore, giving their attribute for healing or other purposes.

                "Do they all have names?" Patty suddenly asked.

                "Of course, I've told you..."

                "I mean individual names. Like people."

                A mingling of admiration and alarm sparked in the old man's eyes. "There are some things we don't talk about," he said.

                "Why not?"

                "Because real names make things vulnerable," Creeley said.

                "For Christ's sake!" Maxwell moaned. "We're not starting on that crap again."

                "My young companion does believe in such things.," Creeley told Patty.

                "I do, too," Maxwell said. "I'm just not in the mood for one of your long lectures on magic."

                "I am," Patty said. "He makes sense."

                "Not you, too!" Maxwell groaned. "Am I surrounded by witches and warlocks?"

                "This is not the stuff of warlocks," Creeley said. "It goes back farther than that. Things don't mean anything until you give them a name. Haven't you ever read the Bible. If you walk on a blade of grass, it is just a blade of grass. If you shoot a deer in the woods, it is simply meat. But give a seed a name and nourish it to life, its death becomes a tragedy. Go out and shoot a deer a boy has raised from a deerling, it becomes murder."

                "I found a cat in a Dumpster as a kitten once," Patty said. "I didn't want to take it home. I didn't want to look at it. But I did, and a name came into my head, so I had to take it home."

                "How about making some tea?" Maxwell asked Creeley.

                "A good idea," Creeley said and shuffled back towards the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with a tray of steaming cups, a sugar bowl and a cream pitcher. "You mentioned trouble, but didn't tell me the nature of it. Is someone pursuing you?"

                "Yes, your son or some of his thugs."

                "I have no son," Creeley said, although his hands shook as he passed a cup to Patty.

                "Call him what you like, he still calls you father."

                "Father?" Patty said, glancing at Maxwell then at Creeley, clearly struggling to make sense of their conversation.

                "Creeley is Puck's father," Maxwell explained.

                "I deny responsibility for that monstrosity," Creeley said.

                "But he talks about you all the time," Patty said. "Or at least he curses you all the time."

                "I have no doubt," Creeley said. "But I have no time for such sentiments towards him. He was the great error in my life, the mistake I cannot remake. I can only erase him from my mind."

                "And leave him for others to correct?" Maxwell asked.

                Creeley stare would have shriveled a plant, but Maxwell had steeled himself against it.

                "That was uncalled for," Creeley said.

                "You taught me the truth never is," Maxwell said.

                "You're a guest here," Creeley said, still staring. "You dare to insult me."

                "I'm not insulting anyone."

                "But you dredge up the bones of a past I wish to hear nothing about."

                "You can't hide your head in the sand, old man," Maxwell said. "If you created that monster, then you have to help destroy him."

                "I will not!" Creeley shouted, his shrill voice echoing through the small house like a tortured mouse's. "And if you insist on speaking about him, I'll have to ask you to leave."

                "But you said we could stay here for a couple of days," Maxwell said.

                "I did not know you trailed such evil with you," Creeley said, still shrill and still shaking.

                "My God!" Maxwell said. "I do believe you're scared."

                "Outraged is more like it," the old man said.

                "No, scared," Maxwell maintained. "In fact, I'm beginning to understand things better now. Why you moved out of Paterson. Part of it was your addiction, but there was something else. Wasn't there."

                "Maxwell!" Creeley shouted. "I won't have this!"

                "Something happened to you down there, something to do with your son."

                "Get out!" Creeley screamed, jabbing his crooked forefinger towards the front door.

                "He confronted you," Maxwell said. "He threatened you with something dark."

                "I SAID GET OUT!" Creeley screeched. "Don't make me have to call the police."

                ***********

 

                "Aren't you going a little fast?" Patty asked, drawing Maxwell out of his fog. He glanced down at the speedometer. The needled hovered at 100 miles per hour.

                "Sorry," he mumbled and eased his foot off the gas.

                "So what do we do now?"

                "Go back to Paterson," Maxwell said. "Hide out there."

                "You can't hide from Puck in Paterson."

                "We've got to try," Maxwell said. "You said Puck talked about his father. What did he say?"

                "That depended on Puck's mood," Patty said. "If something went wrong, Puck cursed the old man and blamed him for his fouled up life. He kept talking about being cast out, and how he might have turned out all right if not for that."

                "That hardly seems likely," Maxwell mumbled.

                "He used to blame someone else for his troubles, too, someone he claimed had taken his place."

                Maxwell glanced across the car at Patty. "Did you ask who?"

                "Sure," Patty said. "But he would only scowl at me and tell me to mind my own business. But he promised he would kill both of them someday."

                "You said he cursed the old man when things went wrong," Maxwell said. "What about when things went right?"

                "That's the odd part about it," Patty said. "At those other times, he would mumble about whether or not he could ever make things right with the old man."

                "Make things right? In what way?"

                "I don't know for sure," Patty said. "But he used to talk in his sleep sometimes. From what I gathered, Puck might have killed his own mother."

                ************

                Maxwell couldn't find the dog.

                Never had the beast failed to greet him on his arrival, and climbing out of his car, Maxwell felt its lacking. But he did smell something sour, like singed hair.

                "What's the matter?" Patty asked, slipping out of the garage as Maxwell made to close the door.

                "Achilles isn't here."

                "Achilles?"

                "Our dog."

                "Maybe someone took him for a walk."

                "Not at this time of night."

                "Then maybe he ran away."

                "He wouldn't do that either," Maxwell said, and began to circle the yard, peering into the car port's many crevices -- the shadows of each reminding him of the open graves he sometimes encountered during his wanderings as a boy in the cemetery.

                Maxwell found the dog's body outstretched behind a car in other of the unlocked garages, a pool of red leaking out of it like draining oil. The back half of its head had been blasted away. Someone had carefully put a bullet between its eyes. The smell of gun smoke swirled around it, although it had clearly been hours since the act of violence. The dog and its blood were already cold.

                "Did you find him?" Patty asked from out in the open.

                "Stay there," Maxwell snapped as Patty's approached, her sneakers squeaking on the concrete.

                "What did you find?" Patty asked, her tone suggesting she might have guessed already.

                "Never mind," Maxwell said, reemerging. "Let's go upstairs. Jack's been holding down the fort. He must have heard something."

                Maxwell pulled down the ladder leading to the fire escape, it groaned and vibrated as it descended -- the bottom rung sticky with red liquid, causing Maxwell to let go. The ladder jerked back up into position.

                "Damn it!" he said and grabbed at it again. "I'll go up first. But stay close behind me."

                Their climbing caused the ladder to ring, like a door bell announcing their arrival. Once on the roof, Maxwell found pots of dead plants overturned, as if a cyclone had passed through. The roof top door down to the loft hung open on one hinge. A foot print of mingled blood and potting soil showed clearly on the first step down. Inside, the sound of static rose from the loft itself, like a mistuned radio, catching several radio stations at once.

                "Stay here," Maxwell told Patty, positioning her near the door. "If I yell, run back down the ladder and hide."

                "No way," Patty said. "You're not leaving me up here. Besides, you don't want the same thing to happen to me that happened to the dog, do you?"

                "All right," Maxwell said. "But give me room. We might have to fight our way out again."

                Maxwell eased through the sagging door, leading with his left foot, feeling the step below for possible obstacles, and finding none, eased his other foot down. The trail of dirt and broken pottery continued down into the loft, and as he lowered himself down the next step, Maxwell realized the static came from Jack's room. He heard no other sound, no nervous motion to indicate a trap. As with the dead dog, the scene seemed cold. The storm had passed through her hours earlier, expending its fury. Yet the silenced hinted of a remaining horror, Maxwell could not immediately discern.

                Jack had been here, a waiting, nervous Jack, driving himself crazy with fear. But where was he now? Maxwell feared he would find Jack in a similar condition as the dog's. He ran his hand along the rough wall, feeling for the light switch, then finding it, flipped it on. Light flooded the area at the foot of the stairs as well as the room beyond, showing continued devastation, more shattered flower pots, but in addition items dragged off the shelves: books, audio tapes, sheet music. The invaders had even ripped the rock and roll posters off the walls. Some of the book shelves were toppled. His cot had been overturned. The spindle that served as his table was split down the middle as if by an ax.

                Maxwell made his way towards the kitchen and the cluster of rooms that looked down on Main Street. Each of these rooms had suffered a similar indignity -- although Jack's usual disorder hid some of the fury expended in there. Yet the mess did not hide the splotch of red near the pillow on Jack's bed, blood as cool as the dog's had been, yet enough voluminous enough to suggest more than a bloodied nose.

                Aside from the wreckage, the apartment was empty, and Maxwell made his way back to the main room where he found Patty staring around at the disaster. She looked stunned.

                "I think someone wanted to send me a message," Maxwell said.

                "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to have this happened to you..."

                "It may not have anything to do with you," Maxwell said. "I have to find Jack. I'm hoping he wasn't here when this happened. He could have heard them coming and fled out the front."

                "You think?"

                "Only one way to tell," Maxwell said, crossing the room to the hallway door leading down to the front. The brass latch was not hook, nor broken. Jack could have fled. But to where? He had no friends in Paterson he could trust, and he wouldn't have sought out the police.

                "I want you to stay here," Maxwell told Patty.

                "In the middle of this? What if they come back."

                "That's not likely," Maxwell said. "I have to go find my friend and I'd rather not have you with me. If I have to fight, I'd rather not have to worry about protecting you at the same time."

                "Will you be gone long?"

                "I hope not," Maxwell said. "I'll fix the door before I go. Both doors have dead bolts. If Jack had kept them locked, this might not have happened. Or at best, whoever did this would have had to have come through the skylight. Don't open the door again unless you know it is me."

                ***********

                Maxwell heard the car before he saw it -- the rap-tap-tap of the Trans Am's engine reviving the shadow of Market Street as it bolted out into the light. The sound gave Maxwell time to duck back into the doorway just inches away from it bumper. The car slammed on its breaks and shifted into reverse, its thick rear tires screeching and spewing smoke as it backed up as quickly as it had come, stopping again. But it did not come at Maxwell. In fact, if the driver was aware of Maxwell in the shadow, he showed no sign.. Instead, the driver's side window went down, Puck's red face exploded.

                "Wilson!" he hissed. "Get your ass over here."

                Out from another shadowy doorway, the fat cop appeared, huffing and puffing as if he had run a great distance.

                "Where the fuck is she, Wilson?" Puck hissed again. "You said you would find her."

                "I said I would keep my eyes open," the fat cop said. "That Zarra's a devil. He seems to have vanished."

                "Did you check the apartment?"

                "His or hers?"

                "Both, you boob."

                "Hers is empty. His is a wreck. Your boys did a real good job up there."

                "My boys did nothing. What about his roommate?"

                "We couldn't find him. We thought your boys had him."

                "You think too much and do too little," Puck said. "I'm not sure you could find your own fat does in a bath tub. That fucking poet has taken her somewhere and I want her found."

                "I told you, we're keeping our eyes open."

                "The only thing you keep open is your fucking zipper."

                "That's not fair! I've done my best by you even when the mayor says I shouldn't."

                "I'll deal with the mayor later," Puck said. "Right now, I want the girl and the poet, and the poet's fucking roommate."

                "You might not get the roommate."

                "Why not?"

                "He knocked up a black girl and I hear the family's looking to skin him alive. They may be the folks that wrecked the poet's apartment, if so, you're not going to see that fellah again."

                "You over estimate the niggers," Puck said. "I know all about the roommate, how he was down at the Straight Street house trying to cop a fix a few hours ago. From what my boys reported, he didn't have nothing wrong with him except for a bloody nose."

                "Well, if you saw him, maybe you should have snatched him, and saved us all some trouble."

                "Don't tell me what I should have done, just do what you're told. Find the poet and bring me his head."

                Then the window closed and the car roared off, leaving Wilson standing in its wake of smoke. The cop sniffled, then spat onto the sidewalk. He shook his head, then meandered off in the opposite direction, but at a pace that suggested he had no where to do. Maxwell listened to the cop's tuneless whistle until it faded from hearing, then eased out of the dark doorway and headed off in another direction entirely, in fact, in the direction of the Greasy Spoon.

                ***********

                Shards of broken glass glittered on the ground just inside the steel gates. The windows behind the crisscrossed arms of metal were shattered and the smell of the grease from inside the store oozed out like blood from its dark interior. A few broken bricks lay among the ruins as well. Red spray paint dripped from a recently scrawled message: "You die."

                Yet despite the assault, the gate's lock remained in tact, telling Maxwell that the attackers had not gained access to the store itself. He swung open the gate and stepped across the sea of glass, his footstep crunching with every footfall.

                Behind him, another footstep sounded, and Maxwell spun around expecting the flash of a pistol firing or a baseball bat aimed at his head, expecting Hutch and his hoard leaping on him like the pack of rats they were.

                Instead, a lone, rather frail figure stood, a black teenager, complete with dragging beltless pants and a sideward tilted baseball hat.

                "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" Maxwell asked sharply.

                "My name's Bruce," the boy said. "Your partner has been seeing my sister."

                Maxwell stiffened, but controlled his sense of panic. "If you're looking for Jack, he isn't here."

                "I know," Bruce said. "I wasn't looking for him. I was looking for you."

                "For me? Why? You and your brothers think I had something to do with his affair?"

                "Hey man, it's not like that. I'm not like my family. My sister talked plenty to me. She told me how she felt about your partner. My bothers and cousins didn't want to listen, didn't want to learn."

                "Learn what?"

                "That he loved her."

                Maxwell tilted his head, trying to get a better look at Bruce's expression, trying to make out if this was a con-job or not, and whether or not to expect an attack from outside the store.

                "Was it your family that did this?" Maxwell asked.

                Bruce nodded. "They were trying to get in at Mr. Jack."

                "He was in here?"

                Another nod. "I guess he figured they couldn't get passed the gates, and they didn't. Although they did a lot of shooting, until the police came and chased them off. Then Mr. Jack ran out, too. I tried to catch him, but he shouted for me to wait for him until he got back. I thought you was him when I heard the gate open. But I thought you might be one Mr. Hutch's boys, and so I waited until I was sure."

                "Hutch was here, too?"

                "No, but he's been around. Word on the street is that he's making his move."

                "What kind of move?"

                "Him and some others from the Palace are figuring to take over. Apparently, he made some kind of deal with the mayor to split the rackets up once Hutch kills the Boss."

                "And Puck is putting up with that?"

                "Hutch has been shooting down anyone who stays loyal to the Boss, and the mayor's ordered the cops not to take a side."

                "But I just saw Puck talking to Wilson not ten minutes ago."

                "Wilson's pretending he's still loyal, but he's got something else on his mind, though I don't know what. I'm pretty worried about Mr. Jack. He should have been back by now."

                "Back from where?"

                "He said something about catching up with some crazy woman in a crack house there."

                "Crazy woman? Suzanne?"

                "He didn't give me no name. But I think it was the same lady The Toad's been pimping. She's pretty much a regular down there or was. People hadn't seen her there for some time."

                "The poor fool," Maxwell said. "With people hunting him, he still thinks he has to keep a promise to me."

                Bruce shook his head. "I don't think that's what sent him down there," the boy said.

                "What makes you say that?"

                "I think he heard news about my sister."

                "What about your sister?"

                "The toad's got her, helped get her fixed from being knocked up, and now she's supposed to do some tricks for him. And I think Mr. Jack's got it in his head she's down there, too, with The Toad, and is figuring on taking her back."

                "You know where this place is?"

                Bruce nodded.

                "Take me there."

                ************

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