“Hey, Lovejoy! You ain’t such a rube!”
“He was the one watching the hotel?”
“Him, a bad news pig and two brothers.”
Whatever that meant. “Brothers? He had brothers?”
Zole guffawed, a gaping mouth filled with a mash of ketchup-soaked hamburger, and mocked, “Ah mean
Leaving, I made him replace the cutlery and two saucers which had somehow fallen under his tee-shirt. We parted, me to get an armful of newspapers from an all-nighter, him to hustle a mark for Magda, he said. I nearly didn’t believe him, but worried in case it was true.
The Benidormo was jumping, forgive the pun. Magda’s room thumped to an ancient rhythm. The other side was a pandemonium of a man and bird having a brawl, best of six pinfalls and threats of murder with free abuse.
Before I could settle down to tranquillity, the Bad News Pig shouldered in and stood there apologetically.
“Sorry, Lovejoy. I gotta do this.”
My heart sank. Between the orgiastic moans from Magda’s and the howls from screamsville, my own pad had somehow earned a bludgeoning.
“What’s up, Tye?”
“Gina says you aren’t following orders, okay?”
He said the same okay four times, each time hauling me erect and clouting me in the belly so I whoomfed double. I tried asking what orders for chrissakes but he didn’t answer. He was really sorrowful, though, and expressed sincere regret as I crouched and retched onto the bare linoleum.
“It’s not me, unnerstand,” he said with compassion. “It’s Gina, okay? You didn’t report in.”
I gagged. My sweat dripped onto my hands, into the puddled sick between them. God, I felt like death. “Okay. Sure.” What else
An hour after Tye’d left I finished mopping the floor and went down the corridor to wash my towel. Magda came to stand in the doorway behind me. She looked sympathetic. My heart sank further. I definitely needed no more help.
“No compassion, Magda. I’ve had enough to be going on with, ta.”
“Lovejoy, honey,” she said softly, “leave N’York. Soon.”
“Am I allowed one phone call first?”
She sighed. “Dumb,” she said.
For the next hour, until midnight, sprawled on the mattress between two shaking walls, I ogled my gift TV and read the newspapers, under a snowfall of flaking plaster. I’d at last set to, learning New York’s news. Then at the witching hour I phoned the number Fredo had given me, and told a recording machine a negative report, but that I was invited to see the lady in question next day when I’d report in full.
And slept, fitfully dreaming of Bill’s body being lobbed under an approaching car. I didn’t go to see Rose that night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
« ^ »
AMERICA’S not perfect, mind. Disillusion’s the bus station, West 42nd Street.
Sheer size is agoraphobia’s ally. I’d learnt the word panhandler from Zole the day before. The world centre of hustling, panhandling, drug pushing, aggressive dereliction, is surely here. I’d never seen so many buses in my life, commuter roarers and long-distance racers all the colours of the rainbow. It seems they’re all private companies. Passengers too are all shades and sizes. Tip: don’t go for a pee —bottle it until you reach home.
A whole hour it took me, finding the times and places of the California runs, for my escape. The drifters with their aggressive sales pitches frightened me to death. One shabby bloke wide as a barn stopped me in the open crowd by simply shoving a flat hand on my chest.
“Hey. Whachoo want, man?” he threatened.
“Er…” I tried to edge away among some passengers.
“You gotta want somethin’, man.” He dragged at me.
“I’ve no money,” I said feebly.
“Sheet.” He let go so I fell, got up and scarpered to palpitating safety among a horde of people queueing for hamburgers.
The trick is to stay ungrabbable, which means beyond arm’s reach of passers-by. This means deep in a queue of ordinary folk, or ensconced in a nosh bar where the proprietor is protection for as long as you’re buying. Remember that. Solitude prevails in any loo, except here it’s a mangler’s mart, with blokes of all ages soliciting, injecting, selling syringes, even fighting over vulnerable travellers with knives. Police are on hand, sometimes. But bloodstained tiles do nothing for confidence.
Japanese tourists are useful, going in clusters like they do. I found them a practical aid, and hopped from group to camera-loaded group like a child crossing a turbulent stream on stepping stones.
And got taken forcefully just when I’d discovered the bus numbers, price, and worked out a policy to avoid the
