the dirtiest trench coat I?ve ever seen. You could smell his breath from across the street.
“Don?t anybody light a match,” Salvatore said as they approached.
“Saw something,” Callahan said, explaining the bum in tow.
The drunk sniffed a few times, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“D?wanno trouble,” he mumbled.
Dutch leaned over him, his hands stuffed in his pants pockets and an unlit Camel bobbing in his
mouth. “I?ll tell you what,” he said. “You don?t spit it out, you?ll have more trouble than a constipated
goose.”
The bum looked offended at first, until it dawned on him that he was, for the moment, the centre of
attraction. Suddenly he started singing like a magpie.
“1 was down in the park near the pond, see, grabbing forty on a bench, and, uh, first thing I know, see,
I hear a lotsa like clicks. Sounded like, uh, m?teeth.” He hesitated and laughed but the laugh turned
into the worst cough I?ve ever heard.
“Keep talkin?, pops,” Dutch said. “You?re doin? fine. Just don?t cough up a lung before you?re
through is all I ask,”
The bum?s Sterno eyes glittered feebly. “What?s in it fer me?” he demanded. Then, looking around,
he said, “Got a butt?” to everybody in earshot.
The Stick gave him a cigarette, steadying the old man?s hand while he lit it.
“What?s your name?” he asked.
“J. W. Guttman,” he said proudly. “My friends call me Socks.” He grinned and pointed to his feet. He
wore no shoes but his toes wiggled through holes in a pair of rancid, once-white sweat socks.
“Okay, Socks, so you were on your favourite bench down there, you heard somebody?s teeth
clicking,” Dutch said.
“That?s what it sounded like.” He flicked his uppers loose with his tongue and rattled them sharply
against his lower plate. “Tictic-tic-tic, like that.”
“Fine,” Dutch said, rolling his eyes.
“And then all them lights down to the movie start blowin? up. Sounded like the Fourth of Julahrrgh.”
He coughed again, cutting off the end of the sentence.
“Did you see anything?” Dutch asked him.
He gathered his breath together and sighed. “Been tryin? to tell yuh—seen, uh, this car.”
“Where?”
“On Pelican Avenue, goin? toward the beach.”
“What kind of car?” Dutch demanded.
