SEVEN
"577," Eddie said.
"Nineteen," Jake said.
"Beg pardon?" Callahan asked again.
"Five, seven, and seven," Susannah said. "Add them, you get nineteen."
"Does that mean something?"
"Put them all together, they spell mother, a word that means the world to me," Eddie said with a sentimental smile.
Susannah ignored him. "We don't know," she said. "You didn't leave New York, did you? If you had, you'd have never gotten that." She pointed to the scar on his forehead.
"Oh, I left," Callahan said. "Just not quite as soon as I intended. My intention when I left the hospital really was to go back down to Port Authority and buy a ticket on the Forty bus."
"What's that?" Jake asked.
"Hobo-speak for the farthest you can go. If you buy a ticket to Fairbanks, Alaska, you're riding on the Forty bus."
"Over here, it'd be Bus Nineteen," Eddie said.
"As I was walking, I got thinking about all the old times. Some of them were funny, like when a bunch of the guys at Home put on a circus show. Some of them were scary, like one night just before dinner when one guy says to this other one, 'Stop picking your nose, Jeffy, it's making me sick' and Jeffy goes 'Why don't you pick this, homeboy,' and he pulls out this giant spring-blade knife and before any of us can move or even figure out what's happening, Jeffy cuts the other guy's throat. Lupe's screaming and I'm yelling 'Jesus! Holy Jesus!' and the blood is spraying everywhere because he got the guy's carotid--or maybe it was the jugular--and then Rowan comes running out of the bathroom holding his pants up with one hand and a roll of toilet paper in the other, and do you know what he did?"
"Used the paper," Susannah said.
Callahan grinned. It made him a younger man. "Yer-bugger, he did. Slapped the whole roll right against the place where the blood was spurting and yelled for Lupe to call 211, which got you an ambulance in those days. And I'm standing there, watching that white toilet paper turn red, working its way in toward the cardboard core. Rowan said 'Just think of it as the world's biggest shaving cut' and we started laughing. We laughed until the tears came out of our eyes.
"I was running through a lot of old times, do ya. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I remember--vaguely--stopping in at a Smiler's Market and getting a couple of cans of Bud in a paper sack. I drank one of them and kept on walking. I wasn't thinking about where I was going--not in my conscious mind, at least--but my feet must have had a mind of their own, because all at once I looked around and I was in front of this place where we used to go to supper sometimes if we were--as they say--in funds. It was on Second and Fifty-second."
"Chew Chew Mama's," Jake said.
Callahan stared at him with real amazement, then looked at Roland. "Gunslinger, you boys are starting to scare me a little."
Roland only twirled his fingers in his old gesture: Keep going, partner.
"I decided to go in and get a hamburger for old times' sake," Callahan said. "And while I was eating the burger, I decided I didn't want to leave New York without at least looking into Home through the front window. I could stand across the street, like the times when I swung by there after Lupe died. Why not? I'd never been bothered there before. Not by the vampires, not by the low men, either." He looked at them. "I can't tell you if I really believed that, or if it was some kind of elaborate, suicidal mind-game. I can recapture a lot of what I felt that night, what I said and how I thought, but not that.
"In any case, I never got to Home. I paid up and I went walking down Second Avenue. Home was at First and Forty-seventh, but I didn't want to walk directly in front of it. So I decided to go down to First and Forty-sixth and cross over there."
"Why not Forty-eighth?" Eddie asked him quietly. "You could have turned down Forty-eighth, that would have been quicker. Saved you doubling back a block."
Callahan considered the question, then shook his head. "If there was a reason, I don't remember."
"There was a reason," Susannah said. "You wanted to walk past the vacant lot."
"Why would I--"
"For the same reason people want to walk past a bakery when the doughnuts are coming out of the oven," Eddie said. "Some things are just nice, that's all."
Callahan received this doubtfully, then shrugged. "If you say so."
"I do, sai."
"In any case, I was walking along, sipping my other beer. I was almost at Second and Forty-sixth when--"
"What was there?" Jake asked eagerly. "What was on that corner in 1981?"
"I don't . . . " Callahan began, and then he stopped. "A fence," he said. "Quite a high one. Ten, maybe twelve feet."
"Not the one we climbed over," Eddie said to Roland. "Not unless it grew five feet on its own."
"There was a picture on it," Callahan said. "I do remember that. Some sort of street mural, but I couldn't see what it was, because the street-lights on the corner were out. And all at once it hit me that wasn't right. All at once an alarm started going off in my head. Sounded a lot like the one that brought all the people into Rowan's room at the hospital, if you want to know the truth. All at once I couldn't believe I was where I was. It was nuts. But at the same time I'm thinking . . . "
EIGHT
At the same time he's thinking It's all right, just a few lights out is all it is, if there were vampires you'd see them and if there were low men you'd hear the chimes and smell rancid onions and hot metal. All the same he decides to vacate this area, and immediately. Chimes or no chimes, every nerve in his body is suddenly out on his skin, sparking and sizzling.
He turns and there are two men right behind him. There is a space of seconds when they are so surprised by his abrupt change of direction that he probably could have darted between them like an aging running back and gone sprinting back up Second Avenue. But he is surprised, too, and for a further space of seconds the three of them only stand there, staring.
There's a big Hitler Brother and a little Hitler Brother. The little one is no more than five-two. He's wearing a loose chambray shirt over black slacks. On his head is a baseball cap turned around backwards. His eyes are as black as drops of tar and his complexion is bad. Callahan immediately thinks of him as Lennie. The big one is maybe six-feet-six, wearing a Yankees sweatshirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. He's got a sandy mustache. He's wearing a fanny-pack, only around in front so it's actually a belly-pack. Callahan names this one George.
Callahan turns around, planning to flee down Second Avenue if he's got the light or if it looks like he can beat the traffic. If that's impossible, he'll go down Forty-sixth to the U.N. Plaza Hotel and duck into their lob--
The big one, George, grabs him by the shirt and yanks him back by his collar. The collar rips, but unfortunately not enough to set him free.
"No you don't, doc," the little one says. "No you don't." Then bustles forward, quick as an insect, and before Callahan's clear on what's happening, Lennie has reached between his legs, seized his testicles, and squeezed them violently together. The pain is immediate and enormous, a swelling sickness like liquid lead.
"Like-at, niggah-lovvah?" Lennie asks him in a tone that seems to convey genuine concern, that seems to say "We want this to mean as much to you as it does to us." Then he yanks Callahan's testicles forward and the pain trebles. Enormous rusty saw-teeth sink into Callahan's belly and he thinks, He'll rip them off, he's already turned them to jelly and now he's going to rip them right off, there's nothing holding them on but a little loose skin and he's going to--
He begins to scream and George clamps a hand over his mouth. "Quit it!" he snarls at his partner. "We're on the fucking street, did you forget that?"
Even while the pain is eating him alive, Callahan is mulling the situation's queerly inverted quality: George is the Hitler Brother in charge, not Lennie. George is the big Hitler Brother. It's certainly not the way Steinbeck would have written it.
Then, from his right, a humming sound arises. At first he thinks it's the chimes,
but the humming is sweet. It's strong, as well. George and Lennie feel it. And they don't like it.
"Whazzat?" Lennie asks. "Did you hear sumpun?"
"I don't know. Let's get him back to the place. And keep your hands off his balls. Later you can yank em all you want, but for now just help me."
One on either side of him, and all at once he is being propelled back up Second Avenue. The high board fence runs past on their right. That sweet, powerful humming sound is coming from behind it. If I could get over that fence, I'd be all right, Callahan thinks. There's something in there, something powerful and good. They wouldn't dare go near it.
Perhaps this is so, but he doubts he could scramble over a board fence ten feet high even if his balls weren't blasting out enormous bursts of their own painful Morse Code, even if he couldn't feel them swelling in his underwear. All at once his head lolls forward and he vomits a hot load of half-digested food down the front of his shirt and pants. He can feel it soaking through to his skin, warm as piss.
Two young couples, obviously together, are headed the other way. The young men are big, they could probably mop up the street with Lennie and perhaps even give George a run for his money if they ganged up on him, but right now they are looking disgusted and clearly want nothing more than to get their dates out of Callahan's general vicinity as quickly as they possibly can.
"He just had a little too much to drink," George says, smiling sympathetically, "and then whoopsy-daisy. Happens to the best of us from time to time."
They're the Hitler Brothers! Callahan tries to scream. These guys are the Hitler Brothers! They killed my friend and now they're going to kill me! Get the police! But of course nothing comes out, in nightmares like this it never does, and soon the couples are headed the other way. George and Lennie continue to move Callahan briskly along the block of Second Avenue between Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh. His feet are barely touching the concrete. His Chew Chew Mama Swissburger is now steaming on his shirt. Oh boy, he can even smell the mustard he put on it.
"Lemme see his hand," George says as they near the next intersection, and when Lennie grabs Callahan's left hand, George says, "No, dipstick, the other one."
Lennie holds out Callahan's right hand. Callahan couldn't stop him if he tried. His lower belly has been filled with hot, wet cement. His stomach, meanwhile, seems to be quivering at the back of his throat like a small, frightened animal.
George looks at the scar on Callahan's right hand and nods. "Yuh, it's him, all right. Never hurts to be sure. Come on, let's go, Faddah. Double-time, hup-hup!"
When they get to Forty-seventh, Callahan is swept off the main thoroughfare. Down the hill on the left is a pool of bright white light: Home. He can even see a few slope-shouldered silhouettes, men standing on the corner, talking Program and smoking. I might even know some of them, he thinks confusedly. Hell, probably do.
But they don't go that far. Less than a quarter of the way down the block between Second Avenue and First, George drags Callahan into the doorway of a deserted storefront with a FOR SALE OR LEASE sign in both of its soaped-over windows. Lennie just kind of circles them, like a yapping terrier around a couple of slow-moving cows.
"Gonna fuck you up, niggah-lovvah!" he's chanting. "We done a thousand just like you, gonna do a million before we're through, we can cut down any niggah, even when the niggah's biggah, that's from a song I'm writin, it's a song called 'Kill All Niggah-Lovin Fags,' I'm gonna send it to Merle Haggard when I'm done, he's the best, he's the one told all those hippies to squat n shit in their hats, fuckin Merle's for America, I got a Mustang 380 and I got Hermann Goering's Luger, you know that, niggah-lovvah?"
"Shut up, ya little punkass," George says, but he speaks with fond absentmindedness, reserving his real attention for finding the key he wants on a fat ring of them and then opening the door of the empty storefront. Callahan thinks, To him Lennie's like the radio that's always playing in an auto repair shop or the kitchen of a fast-food restaurant, he doesn't even hear him anymore, he's just part of the background noise.
"Yeah, Nort," Lennie says, and then goes right on. "Fuckin Goering's fuckin Luger, that's right, and I might blow your fuckin balls off with it, because we know the truth about what niggah-lovvahs like you are doin to this country, right, Nort?"
"Told you, no names," George/Nort says, but he speaks indulgently and Callahan knows why: he'll never be able to give any names to the police, not if things go the way these douchebags plan.
"Sorry Nort but you niggah-lovvahs you fuckin Jewboy intellectuals are the ones fuckin this country up, so I want you to think about that when I pull your fuckin balls right off your fuckin scrote--"
"The balls are the scrote, numbwit," George/Nort says in a weirdly scholarly voice, and then: "Bingo!"
The door opens. George/Nort shoves Callahan through it. The storefront is nothing but a dusty shadowbox smelling of bleach, soap, and starch. Thick wires and pipes stick out of two walls. He can see cleaner squares on the walls where coin-op washing machines and dryers once stood. On the floor is a sign he can just barely read in the dimness: TURTLE BAY WASHATERIA U WASH OR WE WASH EITHER WAY IT ALL COMES KLEEN!
All comes kleen, right, Callahan thinks. He turns toward them and isn't very surprised to see George/Nort pointing a gun at him. It's not Hermann Goering's Luger, looks more to Callahan like the sort of cheap .32 you'd buy for sixty dollars in a bar uptown, but he's sure it would do the job. George/Nort unzips his belly-pack without taking his eyes from Callahan--he's done this before, both of them have, they are old hands, old wolves who have had a good long run for themselves--and pulls out a roll of duct tape. Callahan remembers Lupe's once saying America would collapse in a week without duct tape. "The secret weapon," he called it. George/Nort hands the roll to Lennie, who takes it and scurries forward to Callahan with that same insectile speed.
"Putcha hands behind ya, niggah-reebop," Lennie says.
Callahan doesn't.
George/Nort waggles the pistol at him. "Do it or I put one in your gut, Faddah. You ain't never felt pain like that, I promise you."
Callahan does it. He has no choice. Lennie darts behind him.
"Put em togetha, niggah-reebop," Lennie says. "Don'tchoo know how this is done? Ain'tchoo ever been to the movies?" He laughs like a loon.
Callahan puts his wrists together. There comes a low snarling sound as Lennie pulls duct tape off the roll and begins taping Callahan's arms behind his back. He stands taking deep breaths of dust and bleach and the comforting, somehow childlike perfume of fabric softener.
"Who hired you?" he asks George/Nort. "Was it the low men?"
George/Nort doesn't answer, but Callahan thinks he sees his eyes flicker. Outside, traffic passes in bursts. A few pedestrians stroll by. What would happen if he screamed? Well, he supposes he knows the answer to that, doesn't he? The Bible says the priest and the Levite passed by the wounded man, and heard not his cries, "but a certain Samaritan . . . had compassion on him." Callahan needs a good Samaritan, but in New York they are in short supply.
"Did they have red eyes, Nort?"
Nort's own eyes flicker again, but the barrel of the gun remains pointed at Callahan's midsection, steady as a rock.
"Did they drive big fancy cars? They did, didn't they? And how much do you think your life and this little shitpoke's life will be worth, once--"
Lennie grabs his balls again, squeezes them, twists them, pulls them down like windowshades. Callahan screams and the world goes gray. The strength runs out of his legs and his knees come totally unbuckled.
"Annnd hee's DOWN!" Lennie cries gleefully. "Mo-Hammerhead A-Lee is DOWN! THE GREAT WHITE HOPE HAS PULLED THE TRIGGAH ON THAT LOUDMOUTH NIGGAH AND PUT 'IM ON THE CANVAS! I DON'T BE-LEEEEVE IT!" It's a Howard Cosell imitation, and so good that even in his agony Callahan feels like laughing. He hears another wild purring sound and now it's his ankles that are being taped together.
George/Nort brings a knapsack over from the corner. He opens it and ru
mmages out a Polaroid One-Shot. He bends over Callahan and suddenly the world goes dazzle-bright. In the immediate aftermath, Callahan can see nothing but phantom shapes behind a hanging blue ball at the center of his vision. From it comes George/Nort's voice.
"Remind me to get another one, after. They wanted both."
"Yeah, Nort, yeah!" The little one sounds almost rabid with excitement now, and Callahan knows the real hurting's about to start. He remembers an old Dylan song called "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and thinks, It fits. Better than "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," that's for sure.
He's enveloped by a fog of garlic and tomatoes. Someone had Italian for dinner, possibly while Callahan was getting his face slapped in the hospital. A shape looms out of the dazzle. The big guy. "Doesn't matter to you who hired us," says George/Nort. "Thing is, we were hired, and as far as anyone's ever gonna be concerned, Faddah, you're just another niggah-lovvah like that guy Magruder and the Hitler Brothers done cleaned your clock. Mostly we're dedicated, but we will work for a dollar, like any good American." He pauses, and then comes the ultimate, existential absurdity: "We're popular in Queens, you know."
"Fuck yourself," Callahan says, and then the entire right side of his face explodes in agony. Lennie has kicked him with a steel-toed workboot, breaking his jaw in what will turn out to be a total of four places.
"Nice talk," he hears Lennie say dimly from the insane universe where God has clearly died and lies stinking on the floor of a pillaged heaven. "Nice talk for a Faddah." Then his voice goes up, becomes the excited, begging whine of a child: "Let me, Nort! C'mon, let me! I wanna do it!"