Footsteps of the Hawk

there— you live or you die.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

It's safe up here. Besides Pansy, I've got all kinds of security systems. The Mole fixed it up for me. He arranged it so I could use the telephone line of the aging hippies who live in the big loft just below me too. He even has my electricity wired into their line. Only thing he couldn't pirate was the cable TV— Con Ed doesn't care what's going on so long as it makes its money, but the cable TV people get big–time serious about piracy. I make do with a wire coat hanger for an antenna on my old B&W set,

I found a Mets game on TV That collection of egotistical maladroits was blowing still another opportunity to climb out of the cellar. Somebody must have put a curse on them— no team is as bad as they were playing. They say baseball is a game of inches, but those suckers were a couple of yards off the mark.

Pansy growled her disapproval— baseball bores the hell out of her. I played with the dial until I found some pro wrestling. She snarfled her approval, settling down into a huge lump on the floor next to me. I closed my eyes, one hand absently patting her sleek head.

When I came around, it was dark outside. I let Pansy out one more time, promised I'd bring her a treat when I got back.

Rain slanted down through the polluted air, dirty–dancing in my headlights. The blue–dragon tapestry was in Mama's window I drove right on past, found a pay phone, called in.

'It's me. You have visitors?'

'All gone now. Lady.'

'Lady cop?'

'Yes.'

'Anything else?'

'Man call. Say he from Targets. Say somebody looking for you there.'

'Lady too?'

'No. Man. Angry man.'

'Thanks, Mama. I'll see you later.'

'Lady cop, she not have uniform.'

'How'd you know, then?'

'I know,' Mama said, and broke the connection.

I was on the move early the next morning. I felt boxed. Not trapped yet, but close. I needed a place to think things through. Not my office— if they came there, the best I could do would be to hold them off for a while— I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

I aimed the Plymouth north and let it roll toward the Mole's junkyard, sensors on full alert. When I was in prison, when I was studying all the time, I learned about artifacts. When psychologists do a series of interviews with the same guy, they sometimes insert a piece of false information and wait to see if the guy feeds it back to them. That would mean the guy's faking the symptoms. Malingering, they call it. What else would you expect from a business where they say you're 'in denial' instead of just calling you a fucking liar.

Artifacts work like verbal trip–wires. Doc told me about them. He was doing a pretrial screening interview with a guy they'd dropped on a couple of dozen rapes. This guy, he said he was a multiple personality. You know, it wasn't him who did it, it was the other one. So what Doc did, he left some of his notes lying around on top of the desk. He gets an emergency phone call and he runs out. The guy, naturally, takes a look. Doc's notes said the guy sounded like a multiple all right, but one thing was missing— all male multiples complain of bad toothaches even when there's nothing wrong. Some mumbo–jumbo about the nerve endings in the lower jaw. Pure bullshit.

Anyway, a couple of days later, the guy starts screaming in his cell. When the guards come, he tells them he's got this incredible pain in his back teeth. They give him a couple of painkillers, stand there and make sure he swallows them. Next morning, he goes out on Sick Call. Sees the dentist. They take X–rays. Nothing shows. They mark the guy down for a hustler, send him back to his cell. So the next time he sees Doc, he doesn't want to talk about the rapes— all he does is complain that his teeth are killing him and begs Doc to make the dentist look at him again.

The guy went from NGI— Not Guilty by reason of Insanity— to NFG— No Fucking Good— in that session. Last I heard, he was still Upstate.

That's where I got the idea. What I do is carry these matchboxes around. The fancy kind you get in some joints— wooden matches in shiny little boxes. Free advertising, I guess it's supposed to be. Only I've never been in Targets except for one time. It's a tiny joint over on the West Side— only open from six at night to two in the morning. The guy who works the bar, he's actually the owner. But he's got a felony fall on his sheet, so he can't be listed that way. I know him from Upstate. He knows how things work. We made a deal— if anyone comes around asking for me, he drops word to Mama. I call him back, get a description. It costs me five yards each time, but it's worth it for the safety net.

I didn't need the description this time— it had to be Morales.

Morales on one end, Belinda Roberts on the other. I went back far enough with both of them so it couldn't be an accident— I was in a vise.

Hunts Point— a giant open–air discount market, from slightly used car parts to very used whores. I stopped for a red light on Bruckner, glancing to my left, toward the shantytown squatting below the overpass. Even out there, in the middle of a war zone, the homeless felt safer than they ever would in one of the city shelters. They weren't wrong, either.

As soon as traffic stopped for the light, the street was filled with young Latino men, all brandishing some form of sign. AUTO GLASS was the most common. They're all commission salesmen, shilling for one of the nearby body shops. You need a new windshield for your Chevy? Why pay four bills when you can get it done at the Point for one and a half, tops. The Point is an all–cash economy, everything's negotiable.

Everything. The Point is so dangerous, it can kill cliches. Down here, things are as bad as they seem.

I drove through slowly, staying smooth at the wheel— erratic movements in this neighborhood, they're like a fish going belly–up…the predators are always next on the scene. The Point— where the feral dogs fear the feral children, and even the STOP signs are bullet–pocked.

You get a flat tire around here, you just keep driving on the rim until you're over the border.

Terry opened the back gate at the junkyard. I docked the Plymouth in the space he pointed to. We walked back to the Mole's bunker together. Terry was getting his growth. Filling out some too. No point in wondering who he'd look like when he was done— his bio–parents sold him to a kiddie pimp when he was small— all he remembered from them was the pain. He was the Mole's son now. The Mole's and Michelle's.

That's the way it happens down here. Somebody always picks up the strays. Most of the time, they're just table scraps for freaks. Terry, he got lucky. But he paid heavy for that luck before it came to him.

I half–listened to the kid going on about some experiment he and the Mole were doing— I already knew from experience I wouldn't understand it even if I focused on every word. The dog pack swirled around us, not herding so much as flowing along with us.

'Where's Simba?' I asked Terry. Simba was the pack leader, a mixed–breed murderer who'd held his position against all comers for years. Usually, he'd be the first one up when a stranger came through the gate.

'He's down at the other end,' the kid said. 'With a girl…Remember Orchid? The white pit bull? The one who had puppies last year?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, the next batch of puppies, Simba's going to be the father,' Terry told me proudly.

The Mole's deck chair was standing by itself in the afternoon's slanting sunlight, a cut–down oil drum with a cushion on top. But there was no sign of the Mole himself.

Terry saw me looking, asked: 'You want me to get— ?'

'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm okay. I just wanted a quiet place to be by myself for a bit, all right?'

'Sure,' the kid said. He turned around and started back the way we d come.