The Ragman's Memory (17 page)

Still, life on the streets encourages tolerance, and these people, if nothing else, were experts at handling adversity, even if it came in odd shapes. So after he’d given me hell for the torture he was suffering, Phil had once more become cooperative, trying to remember if anyone might’ve known what Milo had been up to recently.

The man he suggested, to my chagrin, currently lived in the building I was now visiting.

I’d never heard of John Harris, but according to Phil, he was one of the few, like Milo, who actively sought his own company. Bums don’t tend to favor large groups, but as Willy Kunkle once pointed out, most of them like to know that at least somebody will be close enough—and care enough—to make sure they haven’t drowned in their own vomit overnight.

Milo and Harris were loners. They avoided the soup kitchens, the Salvation Army-style organizations, and the summertime camps that sprouted up in the weeds behind Brattleboro’s urban facade. They lived off the land, stalking the back doors of restaurants, foraging through Dumpsters, and finding out-of-the-way nooks and crannies to sleep in. Like cats, they wandered their turfs alone, self-protective, self-absorbed, and silent.

Which was why I wasn’t heading upstairs, toward the apartments, but down into the basement, where Phil had told me to look for anywhere warm, remote, and close to a discreet exit.

That proved easier in theory than in fact. Stepping through a once padlocked, now shattered door, I found the building’s basement reminiscent of a laboratory-rat maze.

The image was reinforced by the floor being dirt, the ceilings low, and the lighting nonexistent. Even with the flashlight Phil had advised me to take, I kept planting my face into cobwebs, and feeling—the farther I went—that somehow, somebody was watching and taking notes.

The “warm” portion of Phil’s equation was the easiest to find. The entire building’s heating system, as far as I could determine, was based on the same principle applied to hot air balloons. Any radiators above me—whether functional or not—had to be playing second fiddle to the pulsating dry heat pushing up against the floorboards. For all its dank, subterranean appearance, the entire basement had the climate of a desert at high noon.

Locating a half-hidden exit was more of a challenge. Aside from the door I’d used, and which I doubted John Harris favored, since it led only to the building’s front entrance, I could find nothing that served a similar purpose. There were no windows, and the only doors I discovered merely led farther into the catacombs.

I therefore opted for the third condition—remoteness—and began weighting my search toward those areas farthest from either the furnace, the electrical panel, or the staircase, all of which I figured Harris would avoid as being potentially too frequented.

It was following this logic that I discovered an abandoned coal bin, littered with personal belongings and equipped with a large, waist high wooden storage box, comfortably lined with bedding. High on the outside wall, an abandoned coal chute showed signs of alternate use—a crudely built platform was strategically placed beneath it, with footprints marring its top, and the walls of the chute itself had been wiped clean, presumably by the repeated passings of a clothed body.

There was no way of knowing if this was in fact John Harris’s lair or, assuming I’d gotten lucky, that he’d be returning anytime soon. But it obviously belonged to someone and, humble though it was, represented all that person’s worldly goods. If I had the patience to wait, I knew I’d be joined eventually.

I removed my coat, wadded it up to make a passably comfortable backrest, and positioned myself against the wall opposite the coal chute.

· · ·

A police officer’s life is largely spent sitting—in a car, at a desk, outside a courtroom, even in an interrogation room, facing a suspect, using stillness to undermine the latter’s confidence. But it is during surveillance that the immobility becomes most telling—and occasionally most taxing. Whether hidden in darkness or standing in a crowd straining to pick out one face from among many, the time spent waiting for something to happen has to be made to count. It is a contest of sorts, between the cop and the hours, with each side competing to make the other wither and vanish. The hours take their toll through boredom, discomfort, sleepiness, or a steadily mounting impatience. The cop fights back with a dwindling arsenal of curiosity, endurance, and finally, coffee, cigarettes, and a growing need to pee. It is common for the hours to win.

In the decades I’ve spent engaged in this struggle, I have tried every strategy I could think of to keep alert and have failed in various degrees, up to and including falling asleep. But over the past few years, whether through practice or some gift bestowed only on those nearing retirement, I have found a shelf on which I can park my brain, and from which I can merely observe—to the exclusion of all else. I think very little, move even less, and gather my conscious mind around the simple, single task of watching. My claim to Gail is that I have achieved the perfect meditative level she’s been striving for her entire adult life. She says I’m merely losing my mind.

Whatever the truth, one trade-off is that I lose track of time, so when the peaceful dull murmuring of the dark basement all around me was suddenly and raucously disturbed by a grating sound followed by a loud metallic clang, I had no idea how long I’d been waiting for just such an interruption.

Despite my eyes being fully adjusted to the gloom, all I could see was the vaguest outline of a body slowly lowering itself through the coal chute, its feet outstretched and groping, until its toes touched the top of the platform. The bulky shadow of a man quickly followed, clambering handily down to the floor.

This was a moment to which I’d given some considerable thought. Hermits like John Harris are not best surprised in the dark, and I had no interest in giving a man I’d never met either a heart attack or good cause to try to kill me. I had therefore decided to let him discover me, rather than force the issue, and so I stayed as silent as before, watching him place a bundle on the ground next to him, cross the room to a spot near the door, and fumble with something invisible near the low ceiling. A small, bright spark sputtered between his hands, and a lightbulb suddenly burst to life over the toolbox.

His back still to me, he returned to the bundle, removed a six-pack of beer from its bowels, and took one step toward the toolbox.

That’s when all my planning went down the drain. Catching sight of me, Harris screamed, jumped back, dropped the six-pack, and fell head over heels over the low platform behind him.

I leaped to my feet to see what was left of him. He was wedged upside down, between the platform and the stone wall, with his head at an angle I didn’t think was survivable. His eyes looked about ready to explode, whether from fright or lack of oxygen, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I could tell, if only from the strangled breathing, was that he was still alive.

I helped topple him over onto his side, where he lay thrashing feebly. “Who the fuck’re you?” he gasped.

“Joe Gunther. I’m a cop.” I was loosening the scarf he had tightly wound around his neck, hoping I had no open cuts on my hands. The smell this man put out was starting to affect my own breathing.

“A cop. Jesus Fucking Christ. You damn near scared me to death.”

I stepped back to stop my eyes from watering. “Sorry about that. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Talk to me? So you hide down here? Why not walk up to me in the street?” He had struggled to a sitting position by now and was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes.

“I didn’t know where else to find you.”

There was a slight pause as we looked at each other. Finally, he pulled his cap from his head and rubbed his neck. “I could sue for brutality.”

There wasn’t much punch to the comment. “I didn’t touch you,” I answered. “Besides, you’re not in any trouble. I just want to talk.”

He considered that. “I’m not wanted for nothin’?”

“Not that I know of.”

He gave me a crooked, brown-toothed grin. “Then fuck off. Why should I talk to you?”

I returned to my padded seat and watched him slowly regain his footing. “Because it’ll be worth your while.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know what you got to tell me. A little could get you five. A lot might get you twenty.”

He took his coat off, revealing a second one under it. “Okay.”

“You know Milo Douglas?” I asked him.

“Sure. I know he’s dead, too.” Harris removed his second coat. Underneath was a ragged herringbone sports jacket. “You think he was done in?”

“Do you?”

He shrugged and took off the jacket. The next layer was a sweater. “Nah. I heard his ticker quit.”

“Were you two friendly? Had you seen him recently?”

Harris sat on the edge of his platform, still breathing hard, and retrieved one of his beers from the ground. “He was all right. Took to the life for the right reasons.”

He popped the beer can and drank deeply.

“When did you see him last?”

“A few days ago.” Harris paused to belch loudly. “Maybe a week. We were sharing a Dumpster. But he’d picked up a bit of money. Was at a restaurant the night before. ’Course, he coulda’ been bullshittin’ me.”

“He say where he got the money?”

“Nope.” Harris took a second long swallow, finishing the can. He dropped it at his feet and reached for another.

“Did Milo have a regular route?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Up Putney Road early in the week, maybe spend the night at the north end, come back the next day. He’d work Canal end of the week. Sometimes he’d go by the kitchens, dependin’ on the weather. He didn’t like hangin’ around other people.” He opened the next can and half-killed it in a swig.

“Did he ever talk about using that new construction site?”

The other man was dubious. “To sleep, you mean? I don’t know—he never talked about it.”

“Did he say the money would keep on coming? Or was it a one-shot deal?”

Harris considered that for a while. “I don’t remember the words exactly, but I thought he’d hit on somethin’ pretty good. It’s like he had the best of both worlds, you know? The freedom of the life and steady cash for the necessaries.”

He drained his second necessary and dropped it next to the first.

“We didn’t find any money on him, or with his belongings.”

He burst out laughing. “Well, shit. We get money, the last place we stash it is on us.” He smiled as he reached for a third can.

“Would the stash be nearby? Where was he living last?”

Harris drank, wiped his mouth and eyed me craftily. “Where’d you find him?”

“Storm drain under the Whetstone bridge.” He toasted me with the can, obviously beginning to feel no pain. “Bingo. But the stash wouldn’t be there—too exposed. Depends. I knew a guy once with a bank account—I shit you not.”

“You sure he didn’t say where the money came from?”

John Harris killed the third can and made a pantomime of seeming thoughtful. “What’s the meter readin’ so far?”

“Twenty if you get this last one, but it’s got to ring true.”

He smiled and removed his sweater, dazzling me with a red-and-black checked wool shirt. “He said he was set. I said nobody was. He said maybe not, but he wasn’t goin’ to live forever neither, and this would sure as shit see him that far. I flat out asked him what his scam was. But he just said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ ”

I pulled my wallet from my pocket and removed a twenty-dollar bill. “Did he say
when
he got lucky?”

“Nope. Like I said, it coulda been all bullshit. He was Dumpster-diving, right?”

I got up and handed him the twenty. “Thanks, Mr. Harris. You’ve been a big help.” I motioned toward the door. “By the way, I saw how you got that bulb going—good way to burn the whole place down. I’m going to get an electrician in here to put a switch in, so keep out of sight till he’s done.”

“I don’t want no fucking electrician.”

“Live with it or leave—your choice. See you around.”

· · ·

It was cold and dark on the street, and well after 10 p.m. I’d waited almost six hours for Harris.

Elliot Street butts into Main, a ten minute walk from the Municipal Center. Considering where I’d just been, the fresh air, frigid as it was, had become a near-medical necessity. I walked along the well-lit, mostly empty streets with my coat open, willing the cloying heat and lingering smells to disappear. It was one of my favorite combinations of weather and time—late night in midwinter. Brattleboro was at its most benign—its businesses mostly closed, its workers dispersed to surrounding towns. It murmured of warm homes, people with their feet up and their stomachs full. Even the John Harrises were settling down, albeit less wholesomely, preparing for a comfortable night’s oblivion. When I’d been on patrol, years ago, I’d looked forward to hitting the streets near midnight, less to catch bad guys and drunks, and more to experience the peace of mind I was longing for now.

Instead, with the little John Harris had given me, I was beginning to sense a threatening pattern forming. It was illusory as yet—a fragile linkage of names and events—but it had purpose behind it. A girl had been killed after being sedated for a week. A bum had been paid off, who’d then died of an unlikely disease. A once outspoken activist had become inexplicably mute. And hovering near them all, vague and yet oddly persistent, was the biggest single real estate deal this town had ever seen.

Somewhere in this quiet, peaceful town, behind a set of windows throwing yellow light upon the snow, there was ambition brewing and ruthless conniving. I only hoped I could identify it and stop it, before it reached its goal—and disappeared.

CIRCLING THE MUNICIPAL CENTER
to reach the parking lot, I had been planning on heading home without stopping at the office. I wasn’t anticipating a good night’s sleep—I knew how my brain worked better than that. But I thought I might try thinking horizontally, maybe getting lucky around four in the morning, and passing out for a few hours.