ease.
When it was all over the wino had fallen into a deep sleep. Socrates carried him to an attic room on the fourth floor of the house. He laid Hoagland out on a cot. Luvia covered the man and brushed his forehead with her hand. A smile came across the hard woman's face.
?If you gimme a hunnert dollars a mont',? Luvia said in clipped words. ?I could get that much again from the city an' then my church will come in with any extra if it's needed.?
?That's what everybody stay wit' you has to pay??
?Somebody got to pay it. I cain't make water into wine or pull bread out from a hat.?
They were sitting in a small room on the bottom floor. Socrates sat on the sofa because no chair in the room looked like it would support him. Annie Rodgers, the feeble-minded woman whose mother had died when Annie was forty-two, stood in the hall watching Luvia.
?Who paid for Right?? Socrates asked.
?Right Burke was a guest in my house,? Luvia said proudly.
She was still angry at Socrates. She would always blame him for Right's death. He accepted the burden. Guilt seemed to be the proper change for the kind of love he could give.
?My daddy was like that,? Socrates said.
?Like what??
?A drunk. Died on the street just like Mars was gonna do. They brought us to the hospital when they found him. He smelled just like that, just like Hoagland did.?
?I don't have no sense'a smell,? Luvia said as she batted the fingers of her left hand against her nose. ?Smell don't bother me. I don't have to worry about it.?
?You don't smell nuthin'??
Luvia almost snarled as she shook her head.
?I'll come up with the money for at least three months,? he said. ?After that I'll put a clothespin on my own nose and mind my own business if he goes back on the street.?
?How much a produce manager get?? Socrates asked Marty Gonzalez the next morning at eight fifteen.
?It's a level twelve,? the short man said.
?How's that in dollars??
?Eleven forty-five an hour based on a forty-hour week,? Marty replied. ?But we expect a man in that position to work until he gets the job done. You only get paid for overtime if you have to come in special or stay overnight.?
?That's near about five hundred a week.? Socrates had always been good with numbers. He just thought about the equation and had a general notion of the result.
?Four fifty-eight,? Marty said nodding. ?A lot more than you get now.?
?They might look at my record,? Socrates said.
?Not if I don't check that box,? Marty countered.
?I'll be sixty next year.?
?Newman worked till he was sixty-nine down on Sepulveda. He only retired because his wife got sick. The way it works now is that a man's not old till he proves it. And you're stronger than any other man in the store right now.?
Marty was smiling at the glower on his employee.
?You got three people workin' in produce right now,? Socrates said. ?What about what they say when you promote me over them??
