A streetlamp shone over his shoulder as he stopped in front of the garbage cans and put down his burlap bag. His nose had been broken in a street fight many years ago and his face was streaked with filth. Perched on the back of his head was a battered old fedora that he’d found in a trashcan last week. His grimy matted hair fell down over his wolfish eyes.
He lifted the lid off the garbage can and saw a paper bag full of garbage. Opening the top of it, his face lit up at the sight of a piece of fat with some meat on it. With his greasy fingers he brushed cigarette ashes off the lump of food and popped it into his mouth, chewing with the few teeth he had left. It was tender and juicy; must have come from an expensive piece of meat. He sifted through the rest of the garbage, finding a few more pieces of fat and some bones. Taking a plastic baggie out of his pocket, he put the meat into it, then dropped the baggie into his burlap sack.
He lifted the garbage bag out of the pail and saw another bag beneath it. At its top were some cigarette butts that only had been smoked halfway down. With trembling hands he put one of the butts to his lips, took a book of matches out of his pants pocket, lit up, and took a puff, holding the butt daintily in his fingers. His head swam for a moment as the nicotine hit his blood stream, so he inhaled again deeply, savoring the feeling. If only he could find cigarettes more often, he thought, it wouldn’t be so bad.
He blinked and saw a paper bag leaning against the iron fence in back of the garbage can. He probably wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t fallen down. You never know what’s going to bring you good luck, he thought with a silly grin. Reaching over, he pulled the bag toward him and opened it up. There were banana peels and tin cans inside. He pawed at the stuff gingerly, so as not to cut his fingers on the cans, and perceived that there were some rags underneath.
Standing, he emptied the tin cans and banana peels into another garbage can, then sniffed the rags at the bottom of the bag. They didn’t smell of paint or turpentine. Might be good for something. He reached into the bag, grabbed the rags, and pulled. The bag nearly slipped out of his arm and he realized it was one big piece of cloth, not little rags. Peering inside the bag, he could see that the cloth was wool with big red and black squares. Impatient to see the booty, he tore open the bag and held the cloth in the air. It was a jacket, a nice jacket like lumberjacks and dockworkers wore. But there must be something wrong with it: nobody would throw away a nice jacket like this. He held it in the light of the streetlamp. There were no tears and no holes. It didn’t smell too bad and was perfectly fine except for the stain on the left sleeve. A stain wouldn’t hurt anything.
He put on the jacket and looked at himself.
It was a little too big but that was no problem. He could wear it until the weather got warm, and then get three bucks for it at one of those used clothes places on the Bowery. For three bucks he could get a bottle of muscatel and drink himself into a stupor.
“Hey—whataya doin’ down there!”
Jackie Doolan looked up the stoop and saw a big guy with blonde hair. “I’m just lookin’ around.”
“Get the fuck out of here before I break your ass, you goddamn bum!”
“I ain’t hurtin’ nobody,” Jackie whined.
The man on the stoop pointed his finger. “You’re makin’ a mess on the sidewalk you cocksucker bastard and I’m the one who’ll have to clean it up! Get the fuck movin’!”
“Aw shit,” Jackie mumbled, because he really wanted to search through the other garbage cans in front of that building. It had been a big score so far and he just knew there were more valuable and edible things in the other cans.
The man took a step down toward him and made a fist. “I said move your fuckin’ stinkin’ ass.”
Jackie grimaced and slung his burlap bag over his shoulder. Some people won’t let a man live, he thought as he shuffled away. They won’t even let you have their garbage.
Chapter Seven
It was five o’clock in the afternoon four days later on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village, Patrolman Anthony Benelli and Patrolman George Shussler stood at the corner of Seventh Avenue, twirling their billy clubs and having a conversation. Benelli had black hair that covered his ears, and Shussler wore a thick brown mustache.
Walking past the street corner were pretty young girls, local businessmen dressed like hippies, and local characters. Benelli and Shussler looked at them while speculating on the terms of the contract currently under negotiation between the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association and the City.
“We oughta have a clause that guarantees no more layoffs,” Shussler said.
“Yeah,” agreed Benelli, “and they oughta restore the overtime clause we had in our other contract.”
Benelli noticed an old bum searching through trash barrels a short way down Barrow Street. He told Shussler that he thought the Civilian Review Board ought to be done away with.
The bum finished with the trash barrels and stumbled toward the two cops. Benelli’s trained eyes checked him out, noticing the red and black wool jacket too big for him, wondering where he had stolen it from. Then he saw the bloodstain on the sleeve. To an ordinary citizen the bloodstain might look like dried coffee or vomit, but Benelli had seen lots of blood in his professional career and knew what it looked like in its various forms.
“Hey, pick up on the bird in the bloody jacket,” Benelli said.
Shussler focused on the bum. “Looks like somebody must’ve busted the poor fucker in the snoot.”
Benelli wrinkled his forehead. “Wasn’t there something on an APB about a red and black wool jacket?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “The Slasher’s jacket—But that bummo doesn’t fit the Slasher’s description.”
“The jacket does.” Benelli waited until the bum came closer, then pointed to him and said, “Hey you!”
Jackie Doolan looked at the cop through his old rheumy eyes, then looked around to see if he meant somebody else. “Me?”
“Yeah you. C’mere.”
“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
“Nobody said you did. C’mere.”
Jackie Doolan huddled in the collar of his jacket and crab-stepped toward the two cops. “I ain’t done nothin’,” he repeated.
“Where’d you get that jacket?” Benelli asked.
Doolan pinched the stained sleeve. “You mean this jacket here?”
“No, I mean that one up there.” Benelli pointed to the sky.
Doolan looked up and squinted. “I don’t see no jacket up there.”
“I’m talking about the one you got on. What’s your name?”
“Jackie Doolan.”
“Where’d you get that jacket, Doolan?”
“This one here?”
“That one there.”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“Then where’d you get it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you buy it?”
“Yeah, I bought it. I think.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where’d the blood on the sleeve come from?”
“What blood?”
Benelli pointed to the sleeve. “That blood.”
Doolan looked and wrinkled his nose. “Is that blood?”
“Yeah, that’s blood.”
“I don’t know where it came from.”
“How come you bought the jacket too big for you?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think you bought that jacket, Doolan. I think you stole it. We’re gonna have to take you over to the precinct house.”