“I’ll feed him, Daddy. I’ll build him a house in the backyard.”
“But honey, it’s not that. I know that you’d take care of him. But he’s not ours. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah,” she said through pouting lips. “Can I go play now?”
“Don’t you want to tell me what happened in school today?”
“No. I wanna go play with Frenchie.”
MR. HONG SENT a few bottles of barbecue sauce along with the steaks. He had no idea of how devious my mind was at that time.
THE POLICE CARS were gone from in front of Roman Gasteau’s building by the time I returned. I took the white carton of steaks from the trunk of my car and went into the external entranceway through a corridor of coral-colored plaster. Once inside I went from door to door. The inner walls of the atrium were also coral. They shone from electric lights and doors that opened on evening TVs. There was talking and music and shows playing. In the courtyard children darted and screamed among the rubber plants and dwarf palms.
My plan was simple. I was Brad Koogan, a name borrowed from a friend who died at the Battle of the Bulge. Brad was going from one apartment to another trying to sell two-pound porterhouse steaks for a dollar each. He got the steaks from a truck driver friend of his. My reasoning ran like this: If somebody thought that I stole those steaks but they were still willing to do business with me, then they might know something about Roman and the circles he ran in.
Nobody answered the first door I knocked on. Maybe they weren’t home or maybe they got a peep of me and decided that I was bad news.
The next door was answered by an elderly black woman in a red-and-black-checkered robe. Thick bifocals dangled from her neck on a fake pearl necklace. She was small and almost bald.
“Yes, mistah?” Her nearly toothless smile was down-home friendly.
I hesitated for a moment because she was so old and frail. But the street is a wild place and compassion there is more dear than gold. I had to ask myself was this woman worth that much to me.
My answer went like this:
“Hi. My name is Brad Koogan. I’m sellin’ porterhouse steaks, two pounds each at a dollar apiece.”
“Hi. My name’s Celia,” she said. “But, Mr. Koogan, I ain’t tackled a steak in over ten years.”
“Celia,” a man’s voice called from the back of the apartment.
When he came into view I saw that he was the male version of her, checkered robe and all.
“Celia,” he said again.
“Yes, Carl,” she answered, slightly perturbed. “I hear ya.”
“Who is it?” he asked, looking right at me.
“Brad Koogan, sir,” I said. “I’m sellin’ steaks.”
“I don’t buy my meat offa the street, mistah,” he said.
He was gruff but I liked him anyway. Celia was smiling at her man. I lost heart then.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I’ll move on.”
“What’s your name again?” Celia asked.
“Koogan,” I said. “Brad Koogan.”
“We’re the Blanders,” she told me.
It was an apology for her husband’s rude behavior. I thought that when I’d gone they’d spend a good two hours enjoying themselves arguing back and forth about how she shouldn’t have opened the door to a stranger and how he should learn to be more courteous to people.
I steeled myself to be more ruthless from then on.
The next few doors were closed politely in my face. I was happy to know that there were so many honest people in the world but at the same time it cut into my ability to exploit the situation. I knew that some of the people who closed their doors would call the landlord and ask him to keep hustlers away from them and their kids. If he was a good landlord, like I hoped that I was, he would come down to see what was going on—or he would call the cops.
I had no desire to talk to the police, so I hurried on my way.
Cassandra Vincent wanted three steaks but she didn’t know anyone who lived in the apartment building.
Butch Mayhew wanted me to give him a sampler before he’d agreed to buy. When I told him no he tried to convince me by saying, “I’ll buy all of ’em if the one I taste ain’t tough.”
I wasn’t fooled by Butch. He’d try to get me to leave him a steak to taste. If I refused he’d offer to cook it up right then and there. At least he’d get a few bites in.
“You wanna taste, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Butch had something wrong with his back. His chest jutted forward and his stomach hollowed back toward his spine as if someone were trying to tickle him. He wore a tattered T-shirt and striped boxer shorts.
“You could leave me a small one and go on,” he said. “An’ when you come back around I’ll buy what you got left—if the one I et is tender.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll cook it for ya. Just show me the stove an’ I’ll burn it right now.”
Butch had a two-burner Phillips-Regent gas stove. It was so crusty and greasy I was surprised that the jet caught the flame from my match. I had to fry the steak because the oven was beyond repair.
