perils of passengerhood. Perhaps midday departure to San Francisco would be the best? Being trapped on a charabanc with a load of streetwise hustlers scared me. Or maybe these weapon-toting clutchers never actually went on the buses at all? “This way, man.”
Three blokes grabbed me. I tried squawking for help, struggling, shouting for police, anything. I was yanked down some stairs, God knows where. Two prostitutes were having a wrangle on a landing while a bemused city dresser looked on. Four or five blokes were trading money for screws of paper, slick as light. The staircases were concrete. I got bruised against the handrails in the rush downward. A couple were fornicating in a doorway, the woman against the wall, nonchalantly smoking, gazing into space. The tunnels and staircases reverberated to the echoes of shouts, quite casual, distant thunder of traffic, people talking, cars starting up. My mind reeled backwards. Incongruity’s supposed to be the essence of humour, not chaos. Down here all rules vanished. We reached some level which stank of urine. My three captors were talking quite offhandedly among themselves, as if they weren’t hauling a struggling captive along dank concrete terraces. We seemed to be near an umpteen-tiered car park. The sweet smell of excess mingled aromatically with petrol’s thick scent. A man whooped as if in some echo chamber. I glimpsed some geezers around a trestle table under a naked bulb. “After you wit’ heem,” a bird called laconically, squeezing past going the other way and tutting in annoyance when they shoved her aside.
“Hey, Lovejoy ma man!”
We’d stopped in a concrete bunker of some style, the door not hanging off and a score of television monitors on the go round the walls.
I was plonked in front of a desk—desk, if you please, in this warren. Numerous people sat about, several birds. They were talking, watching the consoles, professionals of a sort. I tried to get breath, but got giddier the more I inhaled. The fumes were literally intoxicating, sending my mind on a strange unplanned trip. A control room?
“What you doin’ here, Lovejoy?” He pronounced it love-jo-a. “Why’ncha come ta me, man?”
A little unused air happened into my lungs and I found voice. “For chrissakes, Busman!” I yelled. “What the hell you do that for? You scared the hell out of me, you stupid burke!”
The place stunned into silence. Busman rotated his chair, smiling hugely at his people.
“Ain’t he somethin’?” he demanded. “He ain’t crazy, jess sorta weird. Squat it, Lovejoy.”
A chair rolled under me. I fell into it, sucking where my knuckles had scraped along the walls.
“Silly sod.” I was really narked, mostly from having been terrified.
He boomed a laugh from forty fathoms. I swear the ground vibrated. “Lovejoy’s the bad who got me shucked, people. Believe it.”
They resumed talking, glancing between their consoles and me. The screens showed the concourses, departure points, ticket agencies, the nosh concessions. Even the stairwells were there, hustlers and activities in all their glory.
“Is this where you work, Busman?”
His amusement thundered out. He shook, his desk throbbed, his teams fell about. Typical. I was getting narked and said so. I’d thought I was being polite.
“Love-jo-a,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “You
More rolling in the aisles from all and sundry. I sat, nodding with a feeble show of interest. Whatever turns this lot on, I thought, then let me get out of here and I’ll go by train, canal, hire a yak. Anywhere’d do.
“I
Who pays them to watch the concourse so fervently, I wondered idly. I didn’t really care. If I asked the question they’d only roar and shake their heads. Even the birds were eyeing me, tittering.
“Lovejoy.” Busman came in to land, leaning forward. God, he was big. He’d make ten of me and have leftovers. “You sprung me. Why?”
I brightened. A sentence I could recognize, at last. Berto Gordino must have got him out.
“It wasn’t me, Busman. I just asked a lawyer to try.”
He closed his eyes, shook his head, roused as if coming round from an anaesthetic.
“You don’t work fo’ no Bethune, Lovejoy.” It was an accusation. I swallowed, nodded.
“I lied, Busman. I was scared. I’m only a bar help at Manfredi’s. I did extra waiting for some society folk. It was Mrs. Aquilina in the car. Her lawyer —”
“I got it, Lovejoy.” He beckoned a confrere, sounding mystified. ”See what I mean, Trazz? Anybody else’d claim
“It was my idea, though,” I put in quickly, not wanting to be left out of any free praise.
Trazz was a tiny man of skeletal thinness, warped by some deformity so he stood at an angle from his waist up. He had a cigarette between his lips, eyes crinkled against ascending smoke
“He’s not so dumb,” Trazz said. It was a hoarse whisper so slight you had to strain to listen. “Not like today’s mob. See the screen, Busman? They’ve hacked the delivery. Makes two times, Busman. We godda
“They stupid they have, Trazz.” Busman rolled his chair across the floor, staring intently from screen to screen as buses disgorged passengers and bags. “Who’s the shipper?”
“They’s Sarpi’s. Got hisself Miamis, Haitians, Jamaican.” Trazz crinkled, went tsss-tsss. I watched a second, scored it as wry laughter. “He knowed best, Busman, tsss-tsss.”
“Hit his smurfs, Trazz. How many he got?”
“Today? Sixty-eight, not counting Mexican.”
