‘Yeah? So what?’
‘Blood.’
‘Yeah? So what?’
‘Don’t you find it intriguing?’
‘Probably some babe sprung a leak in her…’
‘Don’t be disgusting.’
‘Hey, you’re the guy so interested in blood. You’ve got a real ghoulish streak, you know that?’
‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it.’
‘Screw you,’ he said, and walked across the road to his parked car. Byron waited until the car sped off, then continued to follow the trail of blood. He stopped at the corner of 11th Street. His apartment was five blocks straight ahead. But the drops of blood went to the right.
He paused for a moment, considering what to do. He knew that he ought to go on home. But if he did that, he would always wonder.
Maybe the bleeder needs help, he told himself. Even a slow leak could be fatal if it went on long enough. Maybe I’m this person’s only chance.
Maybe I’ll be a hero, my story will be on the news.
Then guys like Digby - gals like Mary and Agnes of the snack counter - wouldn’t be so quick to poke fun at him.
His mind made up, he turned the corner and began to follow the blood up 11th Street.
The television. He could see it now. Karen Ling on the five o’clock news. ‘Byron Lewis, twenty-eight-year-old poet and part-time usher at the Elsinore theater, last night came to the aid of a mugging victim in an alley off 11th Street. The victim, twenty-two-year-old fashion model Jessica Connors, had been assaulted earlier that evening in front of the theater where Byron worked. Bleeding and disoriented, she had staggered several blocks before falling unconscious where she was later discovered by the young poet. Byron made the grisly discovery after following Jessica’s trail of blood. According to paramedics, Jessica was only minutes away from death at the time she was found. Her survival is being attributed to Byron’s quick actions in applying first aid and summoning paramedics. She is currently recovering, and extremely grateful, at Queen of Angels Hospital.’
Byron smiled.
Just a fantasy, he told himself. But what’s wrong with that?
The bleeder will probably turn out to be an old wino who cut his lip on a bottle of rotgut.
Or worse.
You’ll probably wish you’d gone straight home.
But at least you’ll know.
Stopping at Harker Avenue, he found a spot of blood on the curb. No traffic was nearby. But Byron believed in playing by the rules. So he thumbed the button to activate the WALK sign, waited for the signal to change, then started across.
If the bleeder had left any drops on the road pavement, passing cars must have obliterated them.
He found more when he reached the other side.
The bleeder was still heading north on 11th Street.
And Byron realized, with some dismay, that he had crossed an invisible border into Skid Row.
In the area ahead, many of the streetlights were out. They left broad pools of darkness on the sidewalk and road. Every shop in Byron’s sight was closed for the night. Metal gates had been stretched across their display windows and doors. He glanced through the checkered grating in front of a clothes store, saw a face at the window, and managed to stifle a gasp of alarm.
Just a mannequin, he told himself, hurrying away.
He made a point to avoid looking into any more windows.
Better just to watch the sidewalk, he thought. Watch the trail of blood.
The next time he looked up, he saw a pair of legs sticking out of a tenement’s recessed entryway.
The bleeder!
I did it!
Byron rushed to the fallen man. It was a man, unfortunately. A man with holes in the bottom of his shoes, whose grimy ankles were blotched with scabs, whose trousers were stained and crusty with filth, who wore a ragged sweatshirt that had one empty sleeve pinned up.
No left arm.
His right arm was folded under his head like a pillow.
‘Excuse me,’ Byron said.
The man kept snoring.
Byron nudged him with a foot. The body twitched. The snoring stopped with a startled gasp. ‘Huh? Whuh?’
‘Are you all right?’ Byron asked. ‘Are you bleeding?’
‘BLEEDING?’ The man squealed and bolted upright. His head swiveled as he looked down at himself. Byron helped by shining the light on him. ‘I don’ see no blood. Where? Where?’
Byron didn’t see blood on the man, either. But he saw other things that made him turn away and try not to gag.
‘Oh God, I’m bleedin’!’ the man whined. ‘They musta bit me. Oh, they’s always bitin’ me. Why they wanna bite on of Dandy! Where’d they get me? They after ol’ Dandy’s stump again? Jeezum!’
Byron risked a look at Dandy, and saw that the old man was struggling with his single arm to pull his sweatshirt off.
‘Maybe I’ve got the wrong person.’
‘Oh, they’s after me.' The shirt started to rise. Byron glimpsed gray, blotchy skin of Dandy’s belly.
‘Gimme yer light, duke! C’mon, gimme!’
‘I’ve gotta go,’ Byron blurted.
He staggered away from the frantic derelict - and saw a spot of blood farther up the sidewalk.
Dandy wasn’t the bleeder, after all.
‘I’m sorry,’ Byron called back. ‘Go back to sleep.’
He heard a low groan. A voice sunken in fear and disgust said, ‘Aw, looky what they’s done to me.’
If only I’d left the guy alone, he thought.
Real neat play. I should’ve gone on home.
But he’d come this far. Besides, he couldn’t turn back without passing Dandy. He might cross to the other side of the street, but that would be cowardly. And he was no less curious than before.
The drops of blood led him to the end of the block. He waited for the traffic signal to change, then hurried into the street. This time, the trail continued over the pavement. A good sign, he thought. Maybe the bleeder had crossed so recently that no cars had yet come by to wipe out the spots.
I’m gaining on him. Or her.
Oh, he did hope it was a woman.
A slender blonde. Slumped against an alley wall, a hand clamped to her chest just below the swell of her left breast. ‘I’m here to help you,’ he would say. With a brave, pained smile, she would say, ‘It’s nothing. Really. Just a flesh wound.' Then she would unbutton her blouse and peel the bloody side away from her skin. She wore a black lace bra. Byron could see right through it.
He imagined himself taking out his clean, folded handkerchief, patting blood away from the cut, and trying not to stare at her breast. His knuckles brushed against it, though, as he dabbed at the wound. ‘Excuse me,’ he told her. ‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘Come with me,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll take you to my apartment. I have bandages there.’ She agreed, but she was too weak to walk without assistance, so she leaned against him. Soon, he had to carry her in his arms. He wasn’t huge and powerful like Digby, but the slim girl weighed very little, and…
‘Hey you.’
Startled, Byron looked up from the sidewalk. His heart gave a quick thump.
She was leaning against the post of a streetlamp, not against a wall. She was a brunette, not a blonde. She wasn’t holding her chest.