Flood

34

THE TINY BATTERY-POWERED alarm woke me just past eight. When I picked up the desk phone to call Flood I heard some freak yell, “Hey, Moonchild, are you on the line?” and hung up quietly. I could have used another shave for cosmetic purposes but it wasn’t necessary for the role I had to play. I had to be a guy waiting around the night court for a friend or a relative. I didn’t want to look too much like a lawyer-I don’t work the Bronx courts (neither does Blumberg or any of my regulars-you have to be bilingual to do it), and I didn’t want people talking to me. I didn’t want to look too much like a felon either-some smartass rookie might decide to ask me if there were any warrants out against me. There weren’t but I had to time things right. I had to be in front of the court at eleven-thirty like I’d been told, so I had to get there earlier to make sure. But not too early-I didn’t want to be hanging around there either.

I got out a pair of dark chino pants, a dark-green turtleneck jersey, a pair of calf-high black boots, a fingertip leather jacket, and one of those Ivy League caps. I changed quickly, shoved a set of I.D. in my pocket, added three hundred bucks, and snapped a second set of I.D. papers into the jacket’s inner sleeve. No weapons-the court’s full of metal detectors and informants, and Pablito’s people might have even a worse attitude than the law. So no tape recorder either, not even a pencil.

Now for the bad part-riding the subway without nuclear weapons, or at least a flamethrower. But it was early enough and I walked until I came to the underground entrance. I played with the local trains for a while, backtracking and crisscrossing until I got to the Brooklyn Bridge station. I found a pay phone there and called Flood-she said she was doing okay and she’d stay there until I called her, sounding subdued but not depressed. It’s bad to be depressed at night-that kind of thing is easier to handle in the morning. That’s why when I’ve only got a couple of bucks in my pocket I get some action down on a horse or a number or something before I go to sleep-something to look forward to. And if it doesn’t come through for me, at least it’s another day where I beat the system-it’s daylight, I’m not looking out through prison bars, the suckers are getting ready to go to work, and there’s money for me to make. It works for me, but I don’t think Flood’s a gambler.

I grabbed the uptown express, rode it to Forty-second Street, and crossed the tracks like I was looking for the local. I took a look around. Lots of freaks working the second shift tonight-chain snatchers, child molesters, flashers and rubbers, the usual. No Cobra, though. Sometimes you get dumb-lucky, not this time. I waited for two more express trains to come on through and took the third one.

A guy in the seat across from me was wearing a tattered raincoat buttoned to the neck, denim washpants, new loafers with tassels, no socks. He had neatly trimmed hair and crazy eyes. Nice disguise, but he’d left the plastic hospital tag around his wrist when he’d gone over the wall. He had one hand in his pocket and his lips were moving. I got up quietly and moved to another car.

A kid about the size of a two-family house was standing in the middle of the next car, playing his giant portable stereo loud enough to crack concrete. Everybody was looking the other way. A citizen with a delicate beard and a belted trenchcoat was complaining to the girl next to him about noise pollution. The kid watched the whole conversation with reptile eyes. I moved on to the next car.

A young transit cop with the obligatory mustache walked through the train listening to his walkie-talkie and nodding to himself. I saw a skinny Spanish kid about fourteen years old practicing his three-card monte moves on a piece of cardboard. He had very smooth hands, but his rap was weak-I guess he was an apprentice. Two blacks in Arab robes with white knit caps on their heads moved through the cars, rattling metal cups, looking for donations with a story about a special school for kids in Brooklyn. Some people went in their pockets and put coins in the cups.

I moved through a couple of cars again. Sat down next to a blond kid wearing only a cut-off sweatshirt, no jacket. He looked peaceful. I checked his hands-one large blue letter tattooed on each knuckle. H A T E. The letters were set so they faced out. I moved on before the fellows collecting money asked this boy for a contribution.

The last car had nothing more troublesome than some kids staring out the front window like they were driving the train, and it lasted all the way to 161st Street.

The South Bronx-not a bad place if you had asbestos skin. A short walk to the Criminal Court Building, almost eleven now. The Bronx Criminal Court is a brand-new building-the juvenile court is in the same building, just with a different entrance. I guess the city figured there was no point making the delinquents walk a long distance before they reached their inevitable destination.

I found a quiet bench, opened my copy of the News, and kept an eye on my watch. Nobody approached. It was getting near the end of the arraignment shift and only a few losers were waiting around. I spotted one of the hustlers, a young Spanish guy with a lawyer’s suit. I’d heard about this one-he works Blumberg’s game, only in the Bronx. Next to him, Blumberg is Clarence Darrow.

I left the bench with five minutes to spare, climbed out of the basement to the first floor, and went out the 161st Street exit. I lit a cigarette and waited. At eleven-thirty a dark red gypsy cab with the legend Paradiso Taxi on the door and a foxtail on the antenna pulled up. I walked out of the shadows, smartly said, “Hey, my man,” and the driver looked me over. “Where to, amigo?”

“Oh, someplace downtown, you know?”

“Like the Waldorf?”

“That’s it.” I climbed in the back without further negotiations. The cab shot straight up 161st like it was headed for the highway to go downtown and I leaned back and closed my eyes. Rules are rules. The local cops aren’t too bad, but some of the federal lunatics don’t believe the Constitution applies to banana republics like the South Bronx. If I ever got strapped into a polygraph, I wanted the needles to read No Deception Indicated when they asked me where Una Gente Libre had its headquarters.