The Losers (29 page)

“Why?”

“Because I’m not going to let you ruin her life.” “She needs us, Raphael.”

“Statistically? I’m going to make another anomaly out of her, Frankie. I’m going to train her to make it on her own—without you.”

She threw her notebook across the roof, jumped to her feet, and began yelling at him in snarling, spitting Italian, waving her arms and shaking her fingers in his face. It was fairly obvious that she was not talking about the weather.

He sat grinning impudently at her.

“You dirty, rotten, miserable son of a bitch!” “Why,
Francesco,”
he said, “I’m shocked at you. Don’t you love me anymore?”

She stormed across the roof, picked up her notebook, and bolted down the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

He didn’t even think. The fact that his crutches were leaning against the railing fifteen feet away did not even cross his mind. He had meant to irritate Frankie—to make her think. He had not meant to hurt her.

It was the most natural thing in the world to do. He stood up, intending to follow her, to call her back. And of course he fell.

His stomach suddenly constricted in a moment of icy terror. He was completely alone on this roof. It might be days before anyone came up those stairs.

“Frankie! Help me!” His voice had that shrill note of panic in it that more than anything else strikes at the ears of others.

He heard her running back up the stairs. “Raphael!” She was there then, kneeling beside him, turning him over. She was surprisingly strong. “Are you all right?”

“A little scared is all. I have nightmares about this.”

“You idiot! What the hell were you thinking?” She cradled his head in her arms, pulled his face tightly against her breast, and rocked back and forth with him. If there had ever been any doubts, they vanished. Frankie was definitely a girl. She exuded an almost overpowering girlness.

Raphael began to feel very uncomfortable. “I’m all right, Frankie,” he assured her, his words muffled by her body. “I just panicked, that’s all. I could have managed—crawled inside to the phone or something.”

“What the hell were you
doing?
You
know
you can’t get around without your crutches.”

“Maybe I was hoping for a miracle—spontaneous regeneration or something.” He wished that she would let him take his face away from her body. He laughed a muffled little laugh. “I just didn’t think, Frankie,” he admitted. “Would you believe that I actually forgot that I don’t have a left leg anymore? What a dumb thing.”

“What did you think you were going to do?”

“I was going after you. I got cute and hurt your feelings. I had to try to fix that.”

She pulled him tighter and nestled her cheek in his hair. Then he felt the quiver of a strange little laugh run through her.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’ve
really
got you now, Raphael.” Her voice was strangely vibrant. “You’re completely helpless, do you know that? I can do anything to you I want to do—and you’ve got no idea of the kinds of things I’d like to do to you.”

“Quit kidding around, Frankie.”

“Who’s kidding?” Then she sighed and let him come up for air. “I’m sorry, Raphael,” she apologized. “That was a rotten thing to say, wasn’t it? Here.” She pulled his chair closer and helped him into it. Then she went after his crutches. “Are you all right now?” she asked him.

“Yes. Thanks, Frankie.”

“Good.” Then her eyes narrowed. “I’m still pissed off at you, Raphael. Don’t start thinking that you’re off the hook just because my hormones got the best of me there for a minute.” She stormed back to the door and opened it. Then she slammed it shut. Then she slammed it again. And again. “I get a kick out of doing that,” she said in an almost clinical tone. Then she gave him an impish little grin. “See ya,” she said, went through the door, and slammed it behind her.

viii

And then, early one evening, there was a crashing, gutter-flooding thunderstorm, and the heat wave was broken. For several days the storm fronts that had stacked up in the western Pacific crossed in

successive waves. The sky glowered and dripped, and the burned grass began to turn green again.

Flood came by one afternoon, still moving stiffly from the tape on his ribs and with his forehead still bandaged. Raphael had not seen him since the night of the brawl in Hillyard. “What are you up to?” he asked, coming into Raphael’s apartment.

“Nothing much,” Raphael replied. “Reading.”

“You ought to get yourself a TV set.” Flood sprawled on the couch.

“What for? So I can watch soap operas?”

“The great American pastime. How do you expect the economy to expand if you don’t give all those hucksters out there in TV land a chance at your bank account?”

“You’re in an odd mood today.”

“Edgy. I’m bored—God, I’m bored. This is a singularly unattractive town when it rains. I wandered around downtown for a while this morning. What a dump!”

“I could have told you that.”

“When are we going to get out of here? Haven’t you had about enough? Tell you what. Why don’t we throw a few clothes in a bag and run down and see ‘Bel? Get out of here for a couple days.”

Raphael shook his head. “No. ‘Bel and I didn’t exactly part friends last time. I don’t think it’d be a good idea to stir all that up again.” He had not told Flood about the letter from Isabel. He had almost forgotten that he had it in fact, and for the first time he wondered what she had said in it.

“Oh hell,” Flood scoffed. “ ‘Bel doesn’t hold grudges. Forget it then. It was just a thought.”

“Why don’t you go ahead?” Raphael suggested. “Maybe if you get away for a while, it’ll clear your head. You’re starting to vegetate, Damon. This place is all right for me, but it’s not doing you much good.”

“I can stand it as long as you can. Oh, hey, I saw your friend again this morning. ‘

“Which friend is that?”

“The public speaker. He was standing on a corner downtown delivering a sermon.”

“It’s nice to know he’s still around. What was he talking about?”

“It was a sermon. He preaches rather well, actually—a bit hell-fire and brimstone for my tastes, but impressive. You could hear him for a block and a half.”

Raphael laughed. “I’ll bet he scares hell out of the tourists.”

“Really,” Flood agreed. He looked out the window with distaste. “It’s going to rain again.”

“Probably.”

“Well, now that we’ve exhausted
that
particular topic of conversation, what’ll we do? Shall we go out and get drunk?” “I’ll pass.”

“Goddammit,
do
something!” Flood exploded in sudden exasperation. “All you ever want to do is sit. Let’s go pick up some girls—get laid or something.”

“I don’t know that I’m ready for that yet,” Raphael said carefully. He had never discussed that particular issue with Flood.

“You’re a regular ball of fire. I think I’ll go down and see how Heintzie’s doing.”

“Didn’t you get enough last time? It looks to me as if Heintzie’s parties usually wind up filling the emergency rooms at the hospitals.”

“Oh, Heintzie’s not so bad. He isn’t very bright, but he’s good to his friends.”

“Why don’t you tell that to Jimmy and Marvin? Look, Damon, you’re getting in over your head with that bunch. Why don’t you stay away from them?”

“They amuse me.”

“It’s contagious, you know.”

“What’s contagious?”

“Being a loser. If you hang around with them long enough, it’s going to rub off.”

“Bullshit! You’re getting all hung up on that theory of yours. There’s no such thing as a class of losers. It’s not a disease, and it’s not a syndrome. It’s simply a matter of economics and intelligence. People get
off
welfare, too, you know. They smarten up a little, get a job, and boom! End of theory.”

“I don’t think so. There’s more to it than economics. It’s the whole business of crisis, disaster, turmoil. Right now you’re just itching to go out and get into trouble.”

“I’m
bored,
for Chrissake!”

“Sure. That’s part of it too.”

“Bullshit! Anything at all is a symptom the way you look at it. I’ve got a hangnail. How does that fit in, Herr Professor?” “Don’t be silly.”

“Shit!” Flood snorted. “I’ll come back when you’ve got your head together. Right now you’re just babbling.” He got up and stamped out of the apartment.

Raphael watched out through the window as Flood crossed the rooftop to the door at the top of the stairs and disappeared.

ix

After a few days of rain the sun came out again, but the temperatures were no longer as extreme as they had been in July. Raphael noticed that the sun came up later and that evening came earlier as the summer wound down into those last dusty, overripe days of mid-August. It was an unusual period for him. For the first time since his childhood, late summer was not accompanied by the anticipation of a return to school. There was a certain pang involved in the fact that the turn of the seasons would not be matched by that ritual return from vacation. The stately, ordered progress of the year seemed somehow disrupted. It was as if he had been cast into some timeless world of endless now with nothing to distinguish August from November except the weather. He even considered enrolling for a few classes in one of the local colleges simply to maintain some kind of continuity with the past, but he dropped that idea. He was not quite ready for that yet.

Very early one morning, almost before the sun came up, Flood came by. His eyes were very bright, and he seemed enormously keyed up.

“What are you doing out of bed so early?” Raphael asked him a bit sourly. The mornings were his, and he rather resented Flood’s intrusion.

“I haven’t been to bed yet,” Flood replied. He had obviously been drinking, but his excitement seemed to have nothing to do with that. Without asking, he went over and turned on the scanner.

“There’s not much doing in the morning,” Raphael told him. “The assorted perpetrators tend to sleep late.”

“That’s all right.” Flood grinned broadly. “You never know what daylight might turn up.” He lit a cigarette, and Raphael was startled to see that his hands were actually shaking.

“You want some breakfast?” he asked.

“God, no. You know I never eat breakfast.”

“Coffee then?”

“Why not?”

Raphael went toward the tiny kitchen. “District One,” the scanner said. “One,” came the curt reply.

“We have a report of a man down in the alley behind the Pedicord. Possible DOA.” “I’ll check it out.”

“You’ll have to come and get this,” Raphael said after he had poured Flood a cup of coffee.

“Yeah,” Flood replied tensely. “In a minute.” He was staring intently at the scanner.

Raphael shrugged and went to the small refrigerator for a couple of eggs. “You sure you don’t want any breakfast?”

“What? No, none for me, thanks.” Flood was still concentrating on the scanner.

“This is District One,” the tinny voice came from the small speaker. “You’d better have the coroner come down here to the alley behind the Pedicord. We’ve got a DOA here. Gunshot wound to the head—at close range.”

“Any ID on the subject?”

“I don’t want to disturb the scene until the detectives get here, but the subject’s pockets are all turned inside out, and he doesn’t have any shoes.”

Flood suddenly laughed. “Picked clean. Vultures couldn’t have done it any better.”

“You’re in a charming frame of mind this morning.” Raphael put a frying pan on the stove and turned back to the refrigerator for bacon.

“God’s in his heaven, and all’s right with the world,” Flood said expansively. “Where’s that coffee?” “Sitting on the counter there.”

Flood came to the kitchen, picked up the coffee cup, and returned to the scanner. Raphael continued to make his breakfast as his friend listened to the progress of the investigation. Predictably, there was no immediate identification of the dead man in the alley behind the Pedicord.

“Funny that nobody heard the shot,” Raphael said, sitting down to eat.

“A gun doesn’t make that much noise when you hold it right up against something before you pull the trigger,” Flood told him. “Just a little pop, that’s all.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Read it someplace.” Flood shrugged.

Raphael frowned. “A wino like that couldn’t have had more than a few dollars on him. Doesn’t seem like much of a reason to shoot him.”

“Not to you, maybe—or to me either, for that matter, but there are strange passions out there in the garbage dump, Raphael. There could be all kinds of reasons for putting the muzzle of a gun against a sleeping wino’s head and sending him on to his reward.”

“How do you know he was asleep when it happened?”

“Deduction, Raphael, pure deduction. Put a gun to a man’s head, and he’s going to shy away—it’s instinctive.”

“How do you know he didn’t?”

“No report of a shot, remember? Somebody just walked through the alley, saw him sleeping in a doorway, and blew him away—just for the hell of it.” He laughed again and stuck out his finger, imitating the shape of a pistol.
“Plink.
Just like that, and there’s one less sodden derelict stumbling through the downtown streets. No reason. No motive. Nothing. Somebody just plinked him like a beer can.”

“That’s a shitty attitude.”

“Does anybody really care about what happens to a drunken bum? Basically, what happened to him was nothing more than a form of street cleaning. If the street cleaner hadn’t got him, cirrhosis of the liver would have in another year or two.”

“He was still a human being.”

“Bullshit. He was garbage.”

“That’s no reason to blow his brains out.”

“It’s as good a reason as any.” Flood stood up. “I’m going to split. Thanks for the coffee.” And without saying anything more, he left.

X

Although the worst of the heat had broken, the girl from downstairs still came up to the rooftop occasionally. They would sit and talk through the long, idle hours of evening, watching the people in the streets below. Often, for no reason other than the simple need to talk, they sat until long after midnight, their conversations drowsy and their voices blurring on the edge of sleep. Perhaps it was chance, perhaps not, but not once during any of her visits did Flood appear. Raphael was apprehensive about that. For some reason it was quite important to keep Flood and the girl apart.