“That barfly back there. Not exactly the chick type.”
“No, I guess not. Women never go to that bar.”
“Oh,” Guttmann says, as soon as he figures it out. He blushes slightly when he remembers the expressive, competent hands covered with dinner rings.
It is nearing eight o’clock, and the pedestrian traffic is thickening again. Blocking the mouth of a narrow alley is a knife sharpener who plies his trade with close devotion. The stone wheel is rigged to his bicycle in such a way that the pedals can drive either the bicycle or the grinding stone. Sitting on the seat, with the rear wheel up on a rectangular stand, he pedals away, spinning his stone. The noise of the grinding and the arc of damp sparks attract the attention of passers-by, who glance once at him, then hurry on. The knife sharpener is tall and gaunt, and his oily hair, combed back in a stony pompadour, gives him the look of a Tartar. His nose is thin and hooked, and his eyes under their brooding brows concentrate on the knife he is working, on the spray of sparks he is making.
He pedals so hard that his face is wet with sweat, despite the cold. His thin back rounded over his work, his knees pumping up and down, his attention absorbed by the knife and the sparks, he does not seem to see LaPointe approaching.
“Well?” LaPointe says, knowing he has been noticed.
The Grinder does not lift his head, but his eyes roll to the side and he looks at LaPointe from beneath hooking eyebrows. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“How’s it going?”
“All right. It’s going all right.” Suddenly the Grinder reaches out and stops the wheel by grabbing it with his long fingers. Guttmann winces as he sees the edge of the stone cut the web of skin between the Grinder’s thumb and forefinger, but the old tramp doesn’t seem to feel the pain or notice the blood. “It’s coming, you know. It’s coming.”
“The snow?” LaPointe asks.
The Grinder nods gravely, his black eyes intense in their deep sockets. “And maybe sleet, Lieutenant. Maybe sleet! Nobody ever worries about it! Nobody thinks about it!” His eyebrows drop into a scowl of mistrust as he stares at Guttmann, his eyes burning. “You’ve never thought about it,” he accuses.
“Ah… well, I…”
“Who knows,” LaPointe says. “Maybe it won’t snow this year. After all, it didn’t snow last year, or the year before.”
The Grinder’s eyes flick back and forth in confusion. “Didn’t it?”
“Not a flake. Don’t you remember?”
The Grinder frowns in a painful bout of concentration. “I… think… I remember. Yes. Yes, that’s right!” A sudden kick with his leg, and the wheel is spinning again. “That’s right. Not a flake!” He presses the knife to the stone and sparks spray out and fall on Guttmann’s shoes.
LaPointe drops a dollar into the Grinder’s basket, and the two policemen turn back down the street.
Guttmann squeezes between two pedestrians and catches up with LaPointe. “Did you notice that knife, Lieutenant? Sharpened down to a sliver.”
LaPointe guesses what the young man is thinking. He thrusts out his lower lip and shakes his head. “No. He’s been on the Main for years. Used to be a roofer. Then one day when the slates were covered with snow, he took a bad fall. That’s why he fears the snow. People on the street give him a little something now and then. He’s too proud to beg like the other bommes, so they give him old knives to sharpen. They never get them back. He forgets who gave them to him, and he sharpens them until there’s nothing left.” LaPointe cuts across the street. “Come on. One more loop and we’ll call it a night.”
“Got a heavy date?” Guttmann asks.
LaPointe stops and turns to him. “Why do you ask that?”
“Ah… I don’t know. I just thought… Friday night and all. I mean, I’ve got a date tonight myself.”
“That’s wonderful.” LaPointe turns and continues his beat crawl, occasionally making little detours into the networks of side streets. He tests the locks on iron railings. He taps on the steamy window of a Portuguese grocery and waves at the old man. He stops to watch two men carrying a trunk down a long wooden stoop, until it becomes clear that they are helping a young couple move out, to the accompaniment of howls and profanity from a burly hag who seems to think the couple owe her money.
They are walking on an almost empty side street when a man half a block ahead turns and starts to cross the street quickly.
“Scheer!” LaPointe shouts. Several people stop and look, startled. Then they walk on hurriedly. The man has frozen in his tracks, but there is a kinesthetic energy in his posture, as though he would run… if he dared. LaPointe raises a hand and beckons with the forefinger. Reluctantly, Scheer crosses back and approaches the Lieutenant. In the forced swagger of his walk, and in his mod clothes, he is very much the dandy.
“What did I tell you when I saw you in that bar last night, Scheer?”
“Oh, come on, Lieutenant…” There is an oily purr to his voice.
“All right,” LaPointe says with bored fatigue. “Get on that wall.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Scheer turns to the tenement wall and spread-eagles against it. He knows how to do it; he’s done it before. He tries to avoid letting his clothes touch the dirty brick.
Guttmann stands by, unsure what to do, as LaPointe kicks out one of Scheer’s feet to broaden the spread, then runs a rapid pat down. “All right. Off the wall. Take off your overcoat.”
“Listen, Lieutenant…”
“Off!”
Three children emerge from nowhere to watch, as Scheer tugs his overcoat off and folds it carefully before holding it out to LaPointe, each movement defiantly slow.
LaPointe chucks the coat onto the stoop. “Now empty your pockets.”
Scheer does so and holds out the comb, change, wallet, and bits of paper to LaPointe.
“Drop all that trash down into the basement well there,” LaPointe orders.
His mouth tight with hate, Scheer lets his belongings fall into the well fenced off by a wrought-iron railing. The wallet makes a splat because the bottom of the well is covered with an inch of sooty water.
“Now take out your shoelaces and give them to me.”
By now the onlookers have grown to a dozen, two of them girls in their twenties who giggle as Scheer hops to maintain balance while tugging the laces out of the last pair of grommets. Petulantly, he hands them to LaPointe.
The Lieutenant puts them into his pocket. “All right, Scheer. After I leave, you can climb down and get your rubbish. I’ll keep the shoelaces. It’s for your own good. I wouldn’t want you to get despondent over being embarrassed in public and try to hang yourself with them.”
“Tell me! Tell me, Lieutenant! What have I ever done to you?”
“You’re on the street. I told you to stay off it. I wasn’t giving you a vacation, asshole. It was a punishment.”
“I know my rights! Who are you, God or something? You don’t own the fucking street!” He would never have gone that far if there hadn’t been the pressure of the crowd and the need to save face.
LaPointe’s eyes crinkle in a melancholy smile, and he nods slowly. Then his hand flashes out and his slap sends Scheer spinning along the railing. One of the loose shoes comes off.
LaPointe turns and strolls up the street, followed after a moment by the stunned and confused Guttmann.
“What was all that about, Lieutenant?” Guttmann asks. “Who is that guy?”
“No one. A pimp. I ordered him off the street.”
“But… if he’s done something, why don’t you pick him up?”
“I have. Several times. But his lawyers always get him off.”
“Yes, but…” Guttmann looks over his shoulder at the small knot of people around the pimp, who is just climbing out of the dirty basement well. The girls laugh as he tries to walk with his loose shoes flopping. He takes them off and carries them, walking tenderly in his stocking feet.
“But, sir… isn’t that harassment?”