The Bum's Rush (3 page)

"Selena."

"You know that hotel at all, Selena?"

"Scumbag chinks run it," she said.

Wildly politically incorrect, but essentially accurate.

"Right. So usually there's an old Asian woman at the desk."

"Same old squinter all the time."

"You think you can whip her in a pinch? 'Cause I
can't have her getting on the phone warning anybody while I'm upstairs
looking for Ralph."

"I'll kick her ass," she said without hesitation.

"Get in."

I threw the tire and the metal box
back into the trunk, slammed the lid, and ran around to the driver's
side. I backed the car out of the spot, turning as I backed, until I
had it pointed south, the wrong way down Alaskan Way. I jammed her in
gear and went bouncing up the street. Within the limited confines of
the tiny car Selena smelled remarkably like a freshly opened can of
Campbell's vegetable soup.

"What the hell's wrong with this car, anyway?" she asked as we turned left up Jackson.

"It's a long story. The frame isn't quite straight with the car."

"Cool." She sounded relieved. "I thought it was me."

"It takes a little getting used to."

"You ain't shittin'. If we was goin' very far, I think I'd puke."

Last year, while running for my life, I had, in a
moment of drug-induced euphoria, driven the Fiat through the family
room of Ester and Rudy Oatfield's lovely new modular home. The old girl
had been pronounced a total wreck. Dead. A goner. Scrap metal on wheels.

In one of those defining moments when any man
smarter than a crocus, regardless of his ability to rationalize, is
forced to confront at least momentarily his own endemic stupidity, I
decided I wouldn't hear of it. Against the heated insistence of my
insurance agent, the best advice of three body-and-frame specialists,
and the general laws of physics, I'd insisted that she be rebuilt.
Despite the best efforts of modern unibody technology and a couple of
thousand out of my own pocket, she now crabbed down the road at a
horribly oblique angle, giving the impression that she was constantly
driving directly perpendicular to hurricane-force winds, which forced
her to tack her way from place to place like a sailboat. Selena's
reaction was not unique. While I had over time become accustomed to
driving at a thirtydegree angle, passengers uniformly found the
experience to be quite unsettling. Their loss, I figured.

I gave the little car all she had. Disregarding
the lights, leaning on the adenoidal horn, I bounced roughshod over the
intersections, hoping I would attract a cop. I figured that if I could
get them to chase me inside the hotel, they'd have no choice but to
roust the place, thus keeping me away from that goddamn hooked knife.
No such luck. Every espresso bar in the city was safe tonight.

I took a right on Fifth Avenue South, then slid the
car around left in front of the Red Front Tavern, abandoning the horn,
shifting up King now toward the Alpine, a block and a half up the
street. I slowed to a crawl as we cruised past.

"There she is," said Selena as we eased by the
entrance. The blue light of a TV, mounted down under the counter,
illuminated the old woman's face behind the battered kiosk.

I pulled the car to a stop at the corner, fished a red keychain flashlight out of the glove compartment, and got out.

"So listen " I started. "You and I are going to go
stumbling in there like we want a room. Then I'm going to get the old
woman out from behind the desk, and you're going to keep her out of
trouble while I go upstairs. Right?"

"I got it," she said.

"What are you gonna do if she gives you a hard time?" I pressed.

"I'll knock her scrawny ass out," she replied.

You had to admire the woman's confidence.

"Take my arm," I said as we approached the door.

We stumbled in through the door, arm in arm, leaning on
one another, heads together, giggling like a couple of horny drunks.
The old woman rose from the stool behind the counter, lacing her long
fingers together on the desk as we shuffled across the room.

Her nearly lipless mouth formed a perfect circle as
she began to speak. Since it was open, I stuck the barrel of the gun in
it. Using only the slightest pressure to the left, I sidestepped her
out from behind the desk and sat her down on the tattered red couch. I
stepped back.

"Hooker and his friends," I said. "What room?"

"You're not police," she said, her eyes as hard as gravel.

I put the little gun on her forehead and cocked the hammer.

"You're right," I said. "We're not the police. The
police would need a warrant. The police would respect your rights.
Unlike me, they might even give a shit whether you lived or died. Now"
I tapped her on the forehead with the barrel "one more time," I said in
a whisper. "I'm not going to ask you nice again."

For the first time her shark eyes flickered. "Four," she said.

"What room?"

She shrugged. I started to move the gun.

"I don't go there," she protested. "He rents the whole floor."

I turned to Selena. "Keep her on the couch and away from that damn phone."

The carpet in the stairwell was stained in the
center and slippery with wear. I took the stairs one section at a time,
covering the spaces like a swat team, satisfying myself that all was
secure before moving up. Each floor was protected by a metal fire door,
its deep burgundy paint chipped and Peeling, the once brass handles
soiled and green.

The fire door to the fourth floor was tied open; a
black nylon rope connected the doorknob to the handrail. The narrow
corridor was lit by a single light fixture a third of the way down, the
finger-like fluorescent bulb glowing like a welding rod. Four doors
lined each side of the hall. Even numbers on the left, odd numbers on
the right.

Holding the gun low, down by my right hip, I walked
to the far end and turned back to face the hall from the other
direction. I rested my back on the far wall and waited to see if my
entrance had attracted any unwanted attention.

Somewhere in the building something electrical
turned on, creating a deep underlying hum that swallowed all ambient
noise. The atmosphere smelled of old sweat and new urine. I waited in
the semidarkness. A fluttering sound escaped from under the door on my
left. Breathing deeply, I worked on slowing my heartbeat. A siren
rolled up King Street. The hum stopped as suddenly as it began. Someone
snored loudly, coughed twice, and then was quiet again.

Using my left hand, I tried the knob on room 400.
In spite of my care, the worn mechanism rattled as I eased it around.
With my back pressed to the wall, I reached over, eased the door open a
foot, and went back to waiting. The sound of congested breathing worked
its way into my consciousness. I shifted the gun to my left hand and
pulled out the mini-flash. In two quick strides I stepped across the
threshold and around the corner, now occupying the same spot on the
inside of the wall that I had just occupied on the outside.

The muted light from the hall showed a single bed
wedged against the right-hand wall. The floor was awash with old
newspapers, junk food wrappers, and aluminum cans. Somewhere out in
front of me, along the bottom ofthe rear wall, the sound of scurrying feet made my skin crawl.

I took three long steps to the side of the bed. She
slept on her back, wrapped in a shiny plastic shower curtain that was
covered with black-and-white pictures of movie stars. George Raft
smiled out from under her chin. Her scalp, nearly white, showed from
beneath her thinning hair. Her teeth, uppers and lowers, grimaced from
a glass of cloudy water on the floor next to the bed. The only other
object in the room was a particleboard dresser, missing two drawers, on
the wall opposite the bed. The proverbial dresser of deal.

Retracing my steps, I backed out into the corridor
and eased open the door across the hall. I ran my pathetic yellow light
around 401. It was empty and being used as a garbage dump. On the west
wall an embroidered missive, god bless our home, hung badly askew. A
galaxy of small red eyes dared me to enter. I decided to pass.

I moved up the hall to 403. He sat straight up in
bed the minute I opened the door. Under thirty, balding fast, a face as
bland and open as a cabbage, with that vaguely Asiatic quality of
Down's syndrome. He blinked and squinted into the light.

"Easy, partner," I said. "Wrong room."

"I don' wanna go," he said.

"You don't have to," I said as I reclosed the door.

I stepped across the hall and waited to see if he
was going to make any trouble. I gave it what I figured was a full
three minutes and then tried 404. The ancient hinges groaned for the
whole swing of the door. Same arrangement as the first room. Trashed
dresser, double bed against the right-hand wall. If liquor bottles were
returnable for refund, this person could clean up. The bed seemed to be
covered with a pile of old towels and rags. I was about to back outinto the hall when the pile sighed and then moved. a

Pocketing both the gun and the flashlight, I began
to rummage through the pile on top of the bed. I found his feet first.
He was upside down on the bed. I stepped down to the footboard. Like
the old woman, what was left of Ralph lay on his back. His skin lay in
pools against the striped mattress as if he had partially melted in the
sun. His normally portly frame had withered to little more than half
its normal size. In the half-light of the room, I could clearly see the
shadow of the corpse he carried.

I clamped one hand over his mouth and shook him.
Nothing. His warm breath whistled through his nose onto the back of my
hand. I shook him again. Still nothing.

I hauled him up out of the bed by the arms, bent at
the waist, stuck my left shoulder under his chest, and stood up. He
felt like he was made of balsa wood. I balanced him on my shoulder and
headed back for the door. The kid from across the hall stood in the
doorway.

"Where you goin' with Ralph?" he asked. "Ralph's my friend. He hasn't been feelin' too good. Ralph "

I ignored him, brushing him aside, double-timing it
up the hall with Ralph on my shoulder. I almost made it. As I took the
first tentative step onto the stairs, I was pushed hard from behind,
sending me headfirst down the stairwell, turning twice, bouncing hard
on my side, driving the wind from my lungs.

Ralph saved me. His unconscious body got between me
and the final concrete wall where we came to rest. Even with Ralph as a
buffer, the blow rattled my teeth and swam my vision. Ralph licked his
lips and snored quietly.

The voice came from the top of the stairs. "Where the fuck you think you're goin'?"

He was short. Some sort of Pacific Islander. Coffee, no cream,
complexion. Dark. From Fiji, someplace like that. Maybe five-three, no
more, his hair grown out into an illtended 'Fro that blocked the hall
light from his face. He held a bent tire iron with both hands.

I reached into my jacket pocket. Quickly I patted
the other. My throat tightened, and I began to sweat. I rolled off
Ralph. Keeping my eyes on the tire iron, I felt around the area
immediately around where we had come to rest. Must have bounced out
during the fall.

He came skittering down the stairs diagonally in a
series of small, mincing steps, the tool held out in front of him like
a lance. I was still pulling the sap from my pocket when he was on me.
As the iron descended, I stood upright and stepped inside, taking his
forearm on the top of my head, jamming my neck down into my torso.
Grabbing the arm with my left hand, I pinned his elbow on my shoulder
while I pistoned my knee at his groin three times.

He was quick, getting one leg in front of the other
and taking my knee harmlessly on the side of his thigh. With a grunt,
he wrenched his arm free and stepped back. This time I was ready.

In a panic, I forgot all the
simple-flick-of-the-wrist stuff Baby G had taught me. I hauled off and
smacked him squarely between his eyes with the leather-covered egg.
Gave it all I had. The sound was reminiscent of the time my aunt Sonja
lost control of a standing rib roast back when I was fourteen or
fifteen. The hollow, sickeningly wet smack, followed by the absolute
silence. The old man had risen, spread his downturned palms
dramatically to the sides, and pronounced the beef to be safe. Sonja,
as I recall, had been significantly less than amused.

The little guy never even twitched. He lay there as
if he'd been poured into the spot and allowed to dry. I started to
reach for Ralph, but stopped short as the light at the top of the
stairs blinked.

This one was no midget. A wiry six-two in a pair of
soiled boxer shorts. He held a glass crack pipe in his right hand. His
thinning hair stood out in all directions. Even shadowed, the face had
that corrugated quality so often found in smallpox victims. An angry
red scar ran diagonally across his chest from just under his left
nipple to just above his right hip. All that interested me, however,
wa| the hand at the end of his long left arm.

He stood the way knife freaks often do, with his
knife arm totally relaxed, his hip canted to that side. This both gave
the impression of street-corner nonchalance and allowed the hand to
dangle out of sight behind the knee. If you weren't paying attention,
it was a deadly combination.

I'd just caught a glimpse of it before it
disappeared. An oversize linoleum knife, its curved blade worn bright
from constant honing, resting out of sight now behind his leg. My
insides moved in upon themselves, converging toward a single spot like
a dying star.

"Ralph and I are leaving," I said, as much to myself as to him.

"You think so?"

He dropped the pipe to the floor and spread his arms for balance. I could see the knife's wooden handle between his fingers.