Gangway! (5 page)

    The sign on the corner was wreathed in fog but there was a gas street lamp next to it and Gabe could make out the printing. It seemed very important to know that they were at the intersection of Sansome and Pacific Streets. Not that Gabe would ever find it again without a guide. But he liked to know the names of places where there might be opportunities. And Pacific Street looked like such a place. Jammed from sidewalk to sidewalk with moving bodies, most of them unsteady on their feet. And it wasn't even sunset yet.

    "Pacific Street," he murmured.

    "We call it the Barbary Coast."

    "Is that right. What's that mean?"

    "I don't know. But I heard a politician say it's the most vice-infested square mile of corruption in the world." She said it with a note of triumph which Gabe didn't miss; suddenly she turned and jabbed a pretty little finger into his chest. "Nobody's ever said that about New York. Hah!"

    "Only because New York's bigger than a square mile. We like to spread the joy around a little."

    "Oh you're so smart." She lifted her chin and swung away toward a side street.

    "Where you going?" He had an instant's panic.

    "You wait there," she said.

    "For what?"

    "Don't you want dinner?"

    "We both know my stomach's empty."

    "Well, we won't get much for fifty-five cents."

    "You mean I'm the only one you hit on that boat?"

    She frowned for a moment. "I guess you must have distracted me. But anyway, you wait right here. I'll be back."

    And she drifted away into the crowd.

    It wouldn't do, he thought. He wasn't going to have a wisp of a girl picking pockets to feed him. It might be standard behavior out here, but back East where men were men…

    Pacific Street ran down from where Gabe stood to a flight of slippery stone steps that gave onto a crude little pier. Both sides of the street were lined with casinos, grog shops, whorehouses and a variety of dives the nature of which was fairly easy to ascertain from a quick study of the people emerging from them. The opium dens were particularly easy to spot that way. Nearby he spotted a Melodeon with a huge poster, eight feet square, the better to illustrate the full proportions of the two very fat lady dancers whose forms were artistically painted above the words THE GALLOPING COW and THE DANCING HEIFER. The whole of it, like the other signs he'd seen, was X-ed out with a huge slash of red paint. Why were all the dance halls closed? It could hardly be for lack of potential business, he observed; the street was teeming with drunks just begging to be separated from their money.

    The smells were thick and multifarious, the noise close to earsplitting. It was hard to stand in one place without being whacked and jostled; Gabe faded back against the face of MME. HERZ'S CLOTHING EMPORIUM, which was possibly the most disreputable Cheap John shop he had ever seen.

    He remembered briefly the panic that had jabbed him when he'd thought, for an instant there, that Vangie was just going to turn away and leave him in the street. What a ridiculous way for a full grown man to behave. But still, it was the first time in his memory that he'd been in a city where he didn't know every alley and every doorway.

    City? Not really. I mean look at these buildings. Not a substantial-looking structure in the lot. Everything was woodframe; it had all been built in a hurry out of green lumber. Everything was splintered, warped, the paint weathered. A sulfur match and one good breeze and the whole thing would go up in smoke.

    Was that why she'd got so upset when he'd mentioned fire?

    His speculations were interrupted by the arrival of two burly guys who came meandering along, glanced at him, stopped to give him a second look, went past him, stopped to give him a third look, turned around, came back to him, and eyed him up and down.

    One of them licked a thick avaricious lip and said, "Howdy there."

    "Hi."

    "You lost, friend?"

    Right there he knew it was time to get alert. He pushed his shoulder away from the wall so he could stand up straight; he spread his feet a little and gave himself maneuvering room. "No. I'm just waiting for somebody."

    "That so," one of the burly guys said. "You're from the East, huh?"

    "Damn right I am."

    The two guys were starting to move around. One of them sort of turned left, and the other sort of turned right. Like the revolving wooden ducks he'd seen in shooting galleries. They kept shifting, and Gabe had to keep moving around too because otherwise one of them would have got behind him.

    "Just get to town, did you?"

    "Yeah."

    You learned in Hell's Kitchen not to let a stranger get around behind you. You learned that right away, by the age of five, because if you didn't there wasn't too much chance you'd see the age of six. But also there was the matter of being polite. You should face the person you're talking to.

    "Well what do you think of our fair city, friend?"

    "It's all right," he said without much enthusiasm as they figure-eighted around the sidewalk.

    "All kinds of interesting things to see in Frisco," one of the burly guys said.

    "All kinds," the other burly guy murmured. His teeth flashed in what he evidently thought was a friendly grin. Gabe had seen some of Twill's toughs grin like that.

    Maybe that was it. Twill's associate? Nobody had said anything about two associates. But that didn't mean anything. An associate could have an associate, couldn't he?

    "Look, are you guys looking for somebody in particular?"

    They both stopped figure-eighting around him long enough to look at each other and then look back at Gabe. "Huh?"

    "Sorry. My mistake maybe."

    The two guys were a little confused but they regained their footwork quick enough. One of them said, "Listen, there's lots of fascinatin' things to see in Frisco. What say you come on along with us; we'll show you the sights. How about it?"

    "Thanks just the same. Like I said I'm waiting to meet somebody."

    "Well you've been waiting quite a while. Maybe your friend's decided to stand you up, friend."

    "I'll just wait a while longer and see."

    "Wouldn't take long to see the best part of Frisco. It's all right around here."

    Gabe put his hand in his hip pocket and clutched the knuckle-duster, out of sight of the two guys. "Thanks just the same," he said again, and he put an edge on his voice this time while he inspected them more closely. They both looked like the sort who lit sulfur matches on their jaws, but there was a little difference here and there. The one who did most of the talking was slightly higher and wider than the other one. He was also somewhat gamier-a fact to which the breeze attested every time Gabe got to his leeward side. In fact, he smelled like either a whole buffalo herd or a wolf that hadn't been rained on in three months. If he took a bath he'd be about twelve pounds lighter; if they didn't they'd soon be after him to pay real estate taxes on all that dirt.

    The dirt was caked in his hair, crusted on his skin, imbedded in his clothes. The closer Gabe looked at him the more awed he became. This was definitely the filthiest guy he'd ever seen, and he'd seen them pretty filthy.

    The reason he had time to scrutinize them both was that they had stopped pressing him in order to stand and stare at the vicinity of the front door of
Mme. Herz's Clothing Emporium
behind him. Their expressions changed, and Gabe turned to see what it was they were looking at.

    Nothing. Or anyhow next to nothing. The guy who was emerging from the door and looking furtively over his shoulder was not exactly designed physically to strike terror into the hearts of men. In fact he was about the puniest specimen Gabe had seen since he'd stepped ashore.

    "Ittzy Herz," the gamy guy whispered in awe. "Look at that, will you? Right out in bare-ass daylight!"

    "Jeez, he must've slipped his leash."

    Ittzy Herz's face looked as if it could hold a three-day rain. He was a little sorrowful sparrow with no shoulders and a caved-in chest. He had no visible chin. He was dressed in a little round hat and a cheap black suit that looked as if its seams would come apart any minute. His eyes looked like repositories for the anguish of the ages. Gabe had seen a look like that once in the hollow eyes of a ninety-six-year-old slum priest. Maybe you got to feeling that way and looking that way after you'd seen ninety-six years worth of disappointment and had finally come to the conclusion that there was nothing you could do about it.

    The only trouble was, Ittzy Herz wasn't ninety-six years old.

    In fact it wasn't clear whether he was even old enough to vote. Maybe it was just his diminutive size, but he looked nineteen.

    None of which explained why the two tough guys were regarding him with such undisguised awe.

    Ittzy Herz either ignored their stares or didn't even notice them. Probably the latter, Gabe judged; the little guy didn't seem to be aware of anything around him at all.

    Ittzy Herz turned away from them and walked sorrowfully up the street. When he had gone out of earshot Gabe said, "Who is that guy anyway?"

    "You never heard of Ittzy Herz? He's one of the world-famous sights of San Francisco."

    The tough seemed to be draping his arm in friendly fashion around Gabe's shoulders. Gabe shifted away, and the guy moved with him. Gabe kept his hand on the knuckle duster in his pocket. He didn't want a donnybrook with these guys-he wasn't sure he could stand the smell-but he was ready if one came. He said, just to keep the conversation friendly, "What's he world-famous for?"

    "Just watch him. You'll see."

    Gabe moved out of the encircling grasp and looked up the street. Ittzy Herz was leaving the curb to cross the street. A dilapidated junk cart was coming down the street above him, but Ittzy Herz had plenty of room to get across the street ahead of it. But two things happened. First Ittzy's little round hat fell off, and Ittzy bent down to pick it up. Second a piece of white paper blew across the street under the cart-horse's nose, causing it to shy, rear and bolt.

    Suddenly the junk cart was a runaway, and Ittzy was square in its path. Gabe stiffened involuntarily, but behind him he heard the gamy guy's unruffled chuckle.

    Ittzy Herz didn't even seem to see the cart thundering down at him. He merely stepped aside to avoid dirtying his boot in a horse pie on the cobblestones. It took him to the left a pace. At the same time the cart horse, for no discernible reason, jerked to Ittzy's right and bolted past him up onto the curb, scattering panic-stricken pedestrians like a fox chasing chickens in a barnyard.

    Eventually the cartman brought the runaway under control. A lot of people picked themselves up and dusted themselves off and shook their fists and hollered at the cartman.

    Not Ittzy Herz. He didn't seem to realize what a close call he'd had. He was still walking across the street, without hurry. And as he reached the sidewalk a woman leaned out a second story window and knocked a flowerpot off the sill with her elbow. Gabe opened his mouth to yell a warning because the flowerpot was on a collision course with Ittzy Herz's head.

    But somebody had left a bucket on the sidewalk, so that Ittzy Herz had to walk around it. As he did the flowerpot clanged into the bucket, and he strolled on unscathed. Not merely unscathed; he also seemed totally unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

    "You just can't beat that little son of a bitch," the gamy guy said with unconcealed admiration.

    "I don't get it," Gabe said as the partner eased in closer and hugged his shoulders.

    "Old Ittzy," the gamy guy said, "he's the luckiest son of a bitch ever born. You know one time he fell out of a third story window up at the Odeon, and there just happened to be a hay wagon going by, and he just happened to land in that nice soft hay?"

    "Hell that's nothing," the partner said, "I heard a guy tried to roll Ittzy in Dead Man's Alley, but a boa constrictor grabbed the guy just before he was about to sap Ittzy on the head."

    Gabe said, "A boa constrictor?"

    "Yeah, some clown had it in a circus wagon, and it escaped that night. They found it next morning wedged into a hole in the back fence. Seems it couldn't fit through because it had this huge lump in its middle, where it swallowed the guy that'd tried to roll Ittzy."

    "Nobody's tried to lay a finger on Ittzy since then," the gamy guy said. He was around on Gabe's other side and getting closer. Gabe's nostrils wrinkled.

    The partner said, "I'll tell you, friend, Ittzy's so lucky his mother keeps him locked up in a room in the back of the store here. She charges people twenty-five cents just to look at him through a hole in the door."

    "And people pay it," the gamy guy said. "They figure maybe a little luck'll rub off on them too."

    Gabe was trying very hard not to breathe at all. "Kind of stuffy right here, wouldn't you say?" And he shook off the partner's arm, took two quick paces out to the edge of the curb, and dragged in a deep breath while he was upwind of them.

    The two guys looked at each other. The gamy guy shrugged, the partner nodded. Then the gamy guy pulled a sack out from under his coat. "You know what I got in this sack?"

    "It looks empty to me," Gabe said.

    "Well just take a closer look."

    "GABE!"

    They all three looked up, startled. Here came Vangie. She was waving a wallet in front of her as if to shoo away horseflies. "You two get away from him. Get away! Go on git!"

    The two guys looked at each other. The gamy guy shook his head, the partner shrugged.