“Pete, it’s not like that. I swear—”
“Relax, kid, I’m only havin’ a little fun with you. The truth of it is, we all been watchin’ you. And every one of us thinks you’re doin’ a pretty fair job.”
“Thanks.” Florek blushed, scraped the sole of his shoe against the stones of the alley.
The Negro boy trotted over to Karras, stood in front of him. He rubbed his hands dry on his torn trousers.
“Finished,” said the boy.
Karras made a brief mock-study of the spotless Ford. “Looks okay, chum. Go on in and get your money.”
The kid ran through the open back door. Karras took a drag off the Lucky, hotboxed it with a tandem draw, pitched it away.
“Listen, Pete. I’m sorry I asked all those questions about your bum leg. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“That’s okay, kid. Most people don’t ask a thing. They just make like nothing’s wrong, or they look away. I’m tellin’ you, with most people it’s like I’m not even there. So don’t worry about it, hear?” Karras touched the mole on his face. “Where you from, anyway?”
“Western Pennsylvania.”
“God’s country.”
“I guess.”
“You get tired of it? That’s why you’re down here?”
“Not exactly. My sister’s here in D.C.”
“You visitin’ her for awhile?”
“I’m lookin’ for her,” said Florek.
Karras watched Florek pull a photograph from his jacket, smoothed the face on the picture out with his fingers as gently as if he were touching flesh. Karras took the photograph from Florek’s hand. The girl had an unformed, plain, doughy face, with lively eyes set wide above a thick Polack nose. The blond hair came from a bottle; he could see a crop of black sprouting at the part.
“Pretty girl,” said Karras.
“The picture’s a couple years old.”
“Well, she’s pretty.”
“You’re being nice. But if you knew her, if you knew her personality that is, you’d think she was pretty all right. Lola, when she got going, she could really make you laugh.”
Karras said, “She come down here with a guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Some guy your parents don’t approve of, or somethin’? Is that it?”
“It’s worse than that.” Florek swallowed. “A man she met introduced her to some kind of dope. A kind of dope you take with a needle. She fell in love with it, I guess, and then she followed this man down to D.C.”
Karras brought up phlegm from his throat, spat. “Have any luck hooking up with her yet?”
“Uh-uh. I showed her picture around... I showed it to a girl over at Thomas Circle. I came up with nothing there.”
Karras tried not to react. So the kid was down from some steeltown, looking for his hophead sister, now a whore. It didn’t get much rougher than that.
“Your parents must be crawling up the walls,” said Karras, because he could think of nothing smart to say.
“My father’s dead,” said Florek.
Karras nodded. “Mine too, kid. He died last year of a bad liver.”
A brief silence fell between them. Karras looked the kid over.
“Sometimes I’m glad he’s dead. I know it’s bad to say, but if he were alive, and he knew about Lola—”
“That your sister’s name?”
“Yeah.”
“What’ve you done so far?”
“Well, like I say, there was the girl at the circle, which didn’t amount to much. Other than that, I haven’t done a thing. Truth is, I don’t know where else to go. I don’t know the city, after all. I guess I just keep hoping I’m gonna run into her somewhere. They say D.C.‘s a small town—”
“Not since the war it isn’t.”
“Anyway, tonight I was going down to People’s to see this girl I know from my old job, a friend of mine who works behind the makeup counter. I thought maybe I’d stop at Thomas again on the way down, show the picture around.”
Karras looked at Florek: bone-skinny, shy, and just about as green as they come. A kid like that, walking around, asking questions to the wrong kinds of characters, that was a damn good way to get himself killed.
“This girl down at People’s,” said Karras. “She just a friend?”
Florek gave an aw-shucks grin. “Her name is Kay. Truth is, I was gonna ask her to take in a picture with me tonight. The Warner’s got a new one, John Loves Mary. Ronald Reagan’s in it, and this new gal—”
“Patricia Neal.”
“Yeah, her. It’s a romance picture, the girls like that. I was gonna see if Kay would want to go.”
“You gonna take a girl out, wearin’ that jacket?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It looks like something you’d wear to go hunting in!”
Florek lightly punched Karras’s shoulder. “Aw, come on, Pete, what would you know about hunting? You’re a city animal, all the way.”
Karras chuckled. “Tell you what. When you get a little money in your pocket, you and me, we’re gonna go out and get you some decent clothes.”
“Whatever. Look, I better get going.” Florek reached for the photograph.
Karras drew back his hand. “You got another copy of this?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“You know that cop I introduced you to? He’s a friend of mine from back in the neighborhood. I want to show this to him, see if he has any ideas.”
“I’m not looking to get Lola into any trouble.”
She’s already in trouble, thought Karras. He said, “Don’t worry. I’m only gonna have him ask around. And I know a few people myself. Maybe I’ll ask around a little, too.”
“I don’t want to put you out, Pete.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m all that busy now, is it? Anyway, you take off. Go enjoy yourself with your girl.”
Florek and Karras shook hands. Florek got off the crate, began to walk away.
“Hey, kid.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a little restaurant next to the Warner, place called the Crown. They got highballs there with bonded whiskey, only sixty cents. Take your girl there for a drink, have one after the show.”
“I’m a little shy of the drinking age.”
“There’s a guy behind the bar, a veteran by the name of Jackie Harris. Tell Jackie I sent you by.”
“Thanks a million, Pete.”
“Sure thing, chum. You take care.”
Florek went down to R, turned left toward 14th. Karras folded the photograph, slipped it into his apron. He fished out another cigarette, lighted it, watched the smoke of his exhale shimmer in the last of the sun’s rays.
Costa came out the back door then, wearing his coat and hat, a fishbone in his hand. A half dozen cats appeared from various hiding places and blind corners, circled his feet. Costa tossed the fishbone out into the alley, smiled for a moment as he watched the cats pounce on it, bat each other away. He brought up some spit, looked at Karras.
“Ella, re. I need you to take over for me out front.”
“Where you off to?” said Karras.
“Gonna go down to Hains Point, have a walk around.”
“You’re gonna go down to the Speedway in the dark?”
“What the hell I care? I just wanna get out of here a little while, that’s all.” Costa spat on the stones. “I’m sicka all these niggers.”
Costa walked down the alley, the smallest cat of the bunch following his trail. Karras crushed the cigarette beneath his shoe, got up off the crate, grunted from the pain in his knee. He went back through the warehouse and the kitchen to the front of the house, where the Negro boy sat at the counter, eating a hot meal. Stefanos and DiGeordano were splitting a bottle of ale.