The Bum's Rush Read Free Page A

interrupted. "You ever think of that?"
    I stopped. "How's that?"
    She checked the street, then took two paces
backward into the shadows, lowering her voice. "They say you guys are
lookin' for the old guy with the one tooth in front. The goofy one
always hang with George and Normal and that other guy. That so?"
    "Who says?" I asked.
    "Everybody, man. You fuckin' kiddin'? You guys been
kickin' ass and taking names all day long. Don't be dumb. That Normal
put the fear of God in folks. Hell, man, nobody's talkin' about
anything else."
    "They haven't been talking about where Ralph is," I said. "They're scared, man. Scared shitless." "Scared of what?"
    "Sucker's dangerous. He cut a bunch of folks." "Who's that?"
    "They had to take one guy's arm. I seen him myself the! other day, mister. Got him a sleeve without a damn thing in it."
    "What's his name?"
    She bent at the waist, leaned out, and checked the
street again. A solitary bicyclist rolled past us down Washington, j
tires hissing on the wet pavement, his progress marked by J a
pedal-generated taillight, which flickered its way around the corner to
the left and was gone.
    "Hooker," she said.
    "His name is Hooker?"
    "Got him a big hooked knife too."
    I hate knives. The idea of a hooked knife made my intestines churn.
    "What's he got to do with Ralph?"
    "That's Hooker's gig, man. He gets the oldies and
the goners. The ones got monthly checks comin' in and he gets 'em a
room and keeps 'em wasted. Gets 'em to start havin' their checks mailed
right to the hotel so he can get his hands on the money."
    "What hotel?"
    "You know. Over in Chinatown. Across from the little park."
    "The Alpine?" "Yeah. That's it."
    "And Ralph's over there with him?" "That's what they say."
    The Alpine was a regular stop for anybody working
scumbags and skip traces. If your quarry was the dregs of the earth,
broke and on the run, the Alpine was always a good place to start
looking. It would have been kind to say that the Alpine Hotel had seen
better days. It would have been kind, but it wouldn't have been true.
The Alpine was not a grand old lady gone to seed. She had sprung to Me
as a boil on the ass of humanity. An afterthought, a corn crib for
people, raised from the mismatched, vagrant bricks of nearby projects,
the Alpine had originally provided temporary haven for starry-eyed
miners heading for the Klondike. Two weeks of being stacked in the
Alpine like cordwood among the wretched refuse did wonders for
alleviating the trepidations of a hazardous Arctic journey. By the time
the ship arrived, most men were more than ready to go. Most were
willing to swim along behind the ship.
    Only the lobby showed a concession to time.
Originally occupying the entire ground floor, the lobby had long ago
been converted into seven extra rooms and now gave the impression that
one had mistakenly walked from the street into a broom closet.
    "You know what floor, what room, anything like that?"
    "That's all I know."
    "I guess it's my turn to thank you," I said.
    "Except--" She hesitated. "--they say that after he starts gettin' your checks--" She let it hang.
    "Yeah, what?"
    "They say... they say you go out with the garbage. That him and that little nigger wrap you up in plastic real
    good and put you out with the trash for the trucks to pick up."
    My mouth filled with a taste that could only be
stomach lining. I reached in my pocket and pulled out what money I had
left. Looked like forty-three bucks. I held it out to her. She met my
gaze. She took the money and slipped it into her jacket pocket. "George
is right about you, you know"
    "I know," I said.
    I turned and began to jog toward my car.
3
    I jerked the spare tire out and threw it to the
ground, where it bounced twice and then began to waffle, each rotation
smaller than the one before, torn between the dictates of gravity and
centrifugal force. I rummaged down in the damp well where it had rested
and found the metal box just where I'd stashed it. I took it around