The Bum's Rush Read Free

good. We should have found Ralph by now. Harold
was right. Ralph was either living within ten blocks of where I was
walking, or he wasn't living at all. My stomach ached.
    A Graytop cab rounded the corner of Main and
started toward me. My first thought was that the Ethiopian had changed
his mind and was bringing the fellas back. No; this time it was a guy
with an impeccable white turban and full beard. He roiled down his
window and made eye contact with me. Even across the median he caught
my attention. I shook him off and kept walking.
    Oriental Rug Express was in the twenty-seventh year
of its going-out-of-business sale. This time they meant it. Everything
must go.
    I turned west down South Washington, straight into
the wind, thinking about Ralph. Stifling a shudder, I pulled my canvas
jacket close at the throat as I walked.
    I had my head in two places; that must have been
why I missed her. One was down, watching the sidewalk, cutting the
breeze; the other was stuck firmly up my ass, worrying about Ralph. She
must have been trailing me. Skittering through the maze of alleys, one
step ahead at all times. I never saw her until she put a hand on my arm.
    I believe that had video replay been available at
that moment, mankind would surely have had its first documented case of
human levitation. The tape would certainly have shown me losing all
terrestrial traction and gliding unpowered over to the nearest car.
Future TV experts could count on years of profitable debate as to
whether the tape had been doctored and, if so, whether I'd acted alone.
Next thing I knew I was sliding along a fender, using my ass to feel
for a break in the cars where I could tumble out into the street and
run.
    She stood with her hand still extended at the
shoulder, her long, lank hair fanned by the wind. The green satin
jacket was still mangled at the shoulder, but she'd secured her pants
with a doubled piece of rough red twine. "Hey," she said.
    "Hey yourself," I said between gasps.
    She lowered her arm, hiding her hands in her sleeves.
    "Didn't mean to scare ya."
    "You didn't--" I started.
    She smiled, showing fleeting crow's-feet that sailed up and away from her dark eyes. Her teeth were worn and discolored.
    "Actually, you scared the crap out of me," I said. "You're a whole lot faster than you look," she said seriously.
    She was a big, long-boned woman, all knobs and
elbows and angles. It was hard to guess at her age. Anywhere between
thirty-five and fifty was the best I could manage at the moment. Long,
dark hair, streaked with gray, parted down the middle. Big features.
Eyes set wide apart beneath thick black eyebrows. She gave me a kind of
amused grin that reminded me of Houdon's statue of the seated Voltaire,
elderly, way past any tawdry need for redemption, smiling that thin
smile of reason.
    "I wanted to thank you guys," she said.
    I waited, listening to the sound of my pulse still
raging inside, checking her out. She wasn't carrying everything she
owned, which meant she had a good secure place to flop.
    "For... you know ... the help back there in the alley," she went on.
    "No problem."
    "I was doin' okay back there, you know?" she said,
shifting her weight from foot to foot. "He wasn't gettin' none. No way.
I was just waitin' till he got his pants down. Then I was gonna fix him
up good."
    She punched her right hand out of the sleeve. What
looked like the business end of an old-fashioned hat pin stuck four
inches out from between the knuckles of her first and second fingers.
    "I was gonna fix him good," she repeated.
    I didn't have a response, so I kept my mouth shut.
    "He's right, ya know," she said.
    "Who's right?"
    "The old guy with the white hair. George, I think they call him."
    "Right about what?"
    "About there being' nothin' you can do for the likes of
    me."
    Years of keeping the wrong company had seriously
eroded my patience for street-corner philosophy. I started to leave.
"Listen, I gotta--"
    "Maybe I could help you, though," she