that irritating groaning was me. I stopped, hoping to avoid attention.
“What yo fo, bo?” somebody asked me, a treble bass voice.
“Attempted murder,” I said to the single bulb a mile out of reach through a grid that covered our domain. It was hardly a glim, but hurt. I closed my eyes.
“Who’d ya trah?”
“International art dealer.” I’d worked it out. By the time this lot learned the truth, I’d be deported, shipped home for my long-awaited trial elsewhere.
This time I got “Whafo?” and “How?” I was among sociologists. A doze was called for, out of all this. If they’d let me. Gaols and violence are synergistic, not mutual exclusives.
Somebody was picking my pocket. Talk about inexpert. Where I come from he’d starve. I roused to answer when somebody shook me, asking.
“Eh? Oh. I’d done him a load of antiques. He didn’t…” Americanisms might save me from being butchered as an Olde Worlde guest on these shores. “… he didn’t make wit de bread, man. I threw a hotel stand at his motor, uh, automobile.
As improvision it wasn’t bad.
“Shoulda trahd yo gun, man,” the resonant voice said. I’d never heard such a bass, quiet as that.
“Boss says no guns. He’ll be…” What was Americanese for infuriated? “… real sore at me for this.”
A desultory talk began while I tried to rest. They discussed ways of inflicting death and/or destruction without guns. They thought my effort with the stand feeble.
The clamour from the clink intensified. Like living in a foundry. A couple of people came and went, subjected to the same interrogation I’d undergone. My few dollars went from my back pocket. I dozed fitfully, was hauled out for interrogation twice—reason for blamming a vehicle, causing mayhem in Manhattan — was thumped back to the cell. We’d shrunk to eight, one clearly stoned out of his mind on spiritual substances. He was clobbered to the floor by the treble bass voice. I did my weary slide, now blacker and bluer.
“Hey, man. Bettune? East 74th?”
“Eh?”
The bloke who’d slammed the druggie was crouching by me. He was a giant, even bigger than Josephus.
“Yo dealer man. Bettune? East 74th?”
What the hell was he on about? I squinted up at him. “Boss saysno names, man.”
“Rahd own.” Right on. The great head nodded slowly, big as a bison’s and biblical with it. He waited a moment, staring at me with vast bloodshot eyes, then snapped his fingers and without having to look caught a clutch of dollars somebody instantly passed him. “Yo cash, man.”
“Thank you.”
I remember very little else for seven or eight hours after that. Somebody playing a mouth organ, everybody having awkward pees with everybody else grumbling, the druggie waking to the shakes in a screaming fit, that persistent clanging, occasional shouts, vehicles wahwahing outside.
They called me about six in the morning. Except it was the brightest-suited lawyer I’d ever seen, all smiles and brilliant teeth. A holiday camp of a lawyer if ever I’d seen one. He knew everybody, slapped backs, had a million jokes, a cheroot, expensive tan, and a briefcase chained to his wrist. It held one sheet of paper which he produced with a magician’s flourish. I never did learn what was on it, but it sprang me.
“See yaz, Lovejowa,” boomed the bass after me.
“Oh, yes. Bye. And thanks, er…” How did he know me?
“Busman. West 42nd station, yo in town.” The bass varoomed a laugh octaves down.
“Name of Gordino,” the lawyer told me, shaking my hand. I blinked at the light while he signed at a desk. I’d never seen so many police in such a hurry. Like a commuter rush, barging past and yelling things like “Yo!” They had more hardware on their belts than most tinkers’ carts. “This way, Lovejoy.”
“Er, thank you, Mr Gordino. It’s most kind of you to —”
“That’s all, Lovejoy.” He muttered the instruction from the side of his mouth, impressing me. I knew I’d be trying to do it in front of the mirror as soon as I made it back to the hotel.
As we left the cop shop he made a regal progress, acknowledging everybody, any rank and role. “Hey, Al! How ya goin’?” and “Tom? Okay Thursday, get beaten by a slicker handicap?” Our departure was a crazy crosstalk act, him the cheerleader, pally police an amiable gauntlet.
We made the car park and he changed into a bitter unsmiling man.
“You bastard,” he said, lips tight, sinking into a saloon. Tye Dee was sitting beside the driver. It was Tony the roof-tapper. He said nothing, so neither did I. Gordino cursed me. “You double mother of a bastard. Never try that on me again, ya hear?”
“Right, sir,” I said anxiously.
“Why the frigging fuck you not lay out the wire?” he said through his slit. If he loved the police, he hated me for not laying out his wire. I nodded blankly. “It took me nine—repeat nine—long hours to find you.”
“I’m sorry. I promise.” But promise what? So far, nobody in America had understood me. And I was lagging in the comprehension stakes by a mile.
Gordino mopped his face with a crimson handkerchief. He was trembling, here in broad daylight. I looked out, trying to see where we were going, but Tye’s eyes caught me in the rear mirror and I sank -down so as not to see.
