“That smells damn good.” The voice behind him was a gutter rasp that made Wolfman Jack sound like a soprano. Big Eddie turned to see a long, lean figure hugging the shadows between two buildings.
“Tastes better than it smells,” Big Eddie said. “So whyn’t you just come on up and get yourself some?”
Unsteadily, the figure emerged from the shadows into the mellow light cast by the paper lanterns donated by the corner sushi bar. Eddie could see the guy was even taller than he, better than six and a half feet, a white guy with a dark complexion and really bad skin, wild black hair, and Ray-bans hiding his eyes. His black suit-looked like it had been expensive once-was torn to shit.
“Man, what happened to you?”
“Dunno,” Stern said vaguely. “I’m all turned round.”
Even through the smoke curling up redolent of meat and juices, Big Eddie’s nostrils caught the tang of the dude’s odor, some funky dinosaur smell or weird shit.
“Well, lemme get you set up here.” Big Eddie heaped chicken wings and a burger, some potatoes and corn on a paper plate, held it out to him. The dude’s hands had been jammed in his pockets, but now he had to pull one out to reach for the plate. Light fell across it, caught the glint of a white-gold wristwatch. Eddie saw long, rough-ridged nails and a hand all blotchy and bubbly, like it was erupting from within.
Big Eddie yanked back his hand, dropping the plate. “Geez, man, you’re sick! What the hell you got?”
“I don’t know,” Stern said with absent neutrality. Man, the dude was trippin’.
“Well, keep your distance. You go over there, I’ll slide something to you.”
Stern tilted his head, regarding Big Eddie, and an insolence bloomed on his face that made him at once seem more together and formidable. “I don’t take orders.”
“You wanna eat, you better start.” Big Eddie kept his eyes on the other man, not backing down, as he assembled another plate.
“Friend,” Stern said, and there was no friendship in it, “you can kiss your tip good-bye.” With a sweep of one big arm, he sent the barbecue tumbling, meat and spuds and cobs all flying, red-hot coals spilling out. Big Eddie yelped and fell back, swatting the burning stuff away.
“Motherfucker!” Now others were coming on the run, yelling at the crazy sick asshole. “What the fuck is your problem?” More and more of them, surging together, tattoos and silk ties and brow studs and Versace, moving fast. “Mess him up, mess that fucker up!” Stern lurched away, broke into a run, sunglasses flying off his face.
And they were after him.
Sam Lungo heard the mob coming from behind his lace curtains and heavy oak door, screaming their trash talk, their obscenities.
It had been a frightful evening, jumping at every creak of the old house, every distant crash and yell. The anguish and fury of the night had shrieked outside like a storm, shuddering windows and doors. Huddled in the dark, he had witnessed Patel’s being smashed and torn apart, seen the wild ones descend on that mounted policeman in all their hunger and fear.
He had felt the briefest stirrings of sympathy, a fretful impulse toward action, but then Patel’s had always gouged, their prices twenty, thirty cents higher than any supermarket. And as for that policeman, well, the police never did a thing when you called them, never did their job.
Then Cal Griffin and that dykey girl from down the street had appeared, driven the mob off. Sam had watched, silent and still, as they had helped the bulky old cop to his feet, murmuring like his own caring children, obviously solicitous, though Sam couldn’t hear the words.
Sam’s heart had pounded so fiercely then that he feared it would burst his chest, be launched through the glass to land wetly at their feet, longing, longing. .
To have someone care about him, to have a protector, to be seen and heard and known, not an outsider or pariah, excluded from all confidences and joys.
The shouts and footfalls were louder now. Sam pressed his nose to the glass, squinting at the darkness. They were still around the corner but coming closer, and fast. The first one appeared, a huge, bony man in a tattered suit, gasping, stumbling, clearly frightened. Why, he was being chased.
The first of his pursuers emerged behind him, rounding the corner, a big fat man with a baseball bat. The one in the suit turned on him just as Fat Boy swung the bat at his head. Incredibly, Torn Suit caught the bat in his hands, snapped it in two-crack-and cast the pieces aside.
Now it was Fat Boy’s turn to be scared. He backed as Torn Suit advanced on him. Torn Suit grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt, then threw him. Fat Boy flew a good twenty feet, bounced off a wall and sprawled in the gutter.
The other voices were loud now; any moment they’d be here. Torn Suit spun about, looking for escape, a way out.
Sam threw open his door. “This way! Quick!” Torn Suit didn’t hesitate. Several bounding steps took him across the street and into Sam’s house. Sam quickly shut the door, careful not to slam it. He motioned the other deeper into the room, away from the windows, then hunkered by the glass, careful not to be seen from outside.
The pack of wild ones was on the block now, a smorgasbord of surly, flushed faces. They crushed flowerbeds, knocked aside trash cans. Slowing only a bit, a few helped Fat Boy (who wasn’t dead, surprisingly) to his feet, evaporated down the street.
Sam waited a moment to make sure they were gone, then turned to his visitor. Torn Suit was little more than a silhouette in the black room, massive and still, his head tilted to one side as though evaluating him.
Sam had kept the room dark so as not to draw attention. Now he lit one of Mother’s oil lamps; thank heavens she’d saved them.
But then she had saved everything.
The wick caught, and yellow light flared up, casting its glow over his guest. Sam let out a sound that was a little like a laugh and a lot like getting punched in the stomach.
Torn Suit was magnificently ugly, beautiful really, face all crags and angles and rough, leathery patches. No, not leather. . he recalled the cast he’d once seen of a tyrannosaur’s skin, with its ordered rows of ridges and bumps, so powerful and impervious. And the eyes that peered down at him, they gleamed like the twenty-dollar gold pieces Mother had shown him when he was little, the ones he’d never been able to find after she died.
“My,” Sam said softly, “what are you?”
Numbly, Torn Suit searched in a breast pocket, handed him a card. Ely Stern, it said, Lawyer.
“Oh,” Sam muttered. “Of course.”
Stern regarded Sam with a bemused expression. “Why’d you help me?” His voice sounded like a tuba lined with sandpaper; it raised the hairs on Sam’s neck.
Slowly, Sam approached, stretched out tentative fingertips to touch Stern’s sleeve, feel the hard muscle beneath.
“I need someone strong,” he said.
Sam had been a boy when Mother had bought the intricately carved Art Nouveau bookcase. It had taken three big men, sweating like pigs, to wrestle it into the house and against the wall.
But Stern lifted it off the floor where it had fallen and replaced it as easily as if it were cardboard.
“Holy cow,” Sam giggled.
“I play racquetball Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Stern murmured. He still seemed about one sandwich short of a picnic, but he was coming around. His pyrite gaze washed over the velvet and scrollwork furniture, the heavy wood bureaus and the dolls. Mostly the dolls. Sam had put them all back in place, as Mother would have insisted. Miraculously, not one had broken. They lined the tops of chaise longues and etageres, massed every surface in their pinafores and sausage curls, bisque cheeks and glass eyes, the Gaultiers and Brus and Jumeaus.