'Stencil's just been shot at,' he said.
Private eye, indeed. 'Are you all right, where are you.' He gave her the address, in the east 80's. 'Sit down and wait, she said. 'We'll come get you.'
'He can't sit down, you know.' He hung up.
'Come,' she said, grabbing her coat. 'Fun, excitement, thrills. Stencil has just been wounded, tracking down a lead.'
Fu whistled, giggled. 'Those leads are beginning to fight back.'
Stencil had called from a Hungarian coffee shop on York Avenue known as Hungarian Coffee Shop. At this hour, the only customers were two elderly ladies and a cop off duty. The woman behind the pastry counter was all tomato cheeks and smiles, looking like the type who gave extra portions to poor growing boys and mothered bums with free refills on coffee, though it was a neighborhood of rich kids and bums who were only accidental there and knew it and so 'moved on' quickly.
Stencil was in an embarrassing and possibly dangerous position. A few pellets from the first shotgun blast (he'd dodged the second by an adroit flop in the sewage) had ricocheted into his left buttock. He wasn't especially anxious to sit down. He'd stowed the waterproof suit and mask near a walkway abutment an East River Drive; combed his hair and straightened his clothing by mercury light in a nearby rain-puddle. He wondered how presentable he looked. Not a good job, this policeman being here.
Stencil left the phone booth and edged his right buttock gingerly onto a stool at the counter, trying not to wince, hoping his middle-aged appearance would account for any creakiness he showed. He asked for a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and noticed that his hand wasn't shaking. The match flame burned pure, conical, unwavering: Stencil, you're a cool one, he told himself, but God: how did they get on to you?
That was the worst part of it. He and Zeitsuss had met only by accident. Stencil had been on the way over to Rachel's place. As he crossed Columbus Avenue he noticed a few ragged files of workmen lined up on the sidewalk opposite and being harangued by Zeitsuss. Any organized body fascinated him, especially irregulars. These looked like revolutionaries.
He crossed the street. The group broke up and wandered away. Zeitsuss stood watching them for a moment, then turned and caught sight of Stencil. The light in the east turned the lenses of Zeitsuss's glasses pale and blank. 'You're late,' Zeitsuss called. So he was, Stencil thought. Years. 'See Bung the foreman, that fella there in the plaid shirt.' Stencil realized then that he had a three-day stubble and had been sleeping in his clothes for the same length of time. Curious about anything even suggesting overthrow, he approached Zeitsuss, smiling his father's Foreign Service smile. 'Not looking for employment,' he said.
'You're a Limey,' Zeitsuss said. 'Last Limey we had wrestled his alligators to death. You boys are all right. Why don't you try it for a day.'
Naturally Stencil asked try what, and so the contact was made. Soon they were back in the office Zeitsuss shared with some vaguely-defined estimates group, talking sewers. Somewhere in the Paris dossier, Stencil knew, was recorded an interview with one of the Collecteurs Generaux who worked the main sewer line which ran under Boulevard St. Michel. The fellow, old at the time of the interview but with an amazing memory, recalled seeing a woman who might have been V. on one of the semimonthly Wednesday tours shortly before the outbreak of the Great War. Having been lucky with sewers once, Stencil saw nothing wrong with trying again. They went out to lunch. In the early afternoon it rained, and the conversation got around to sewer stories. A few old-timers drifted in with their own memories. It was only a matter of an hour or so before Veronica was mentioned: a priest's mistress who wanted to become a nun, referred to by her initial in the journal.
Persuasive and charming even in a wrinkled suit and nascent beard, trying not to betray any excitement, Stencil talked his way downstairs. But had found them waiting. And where to go from here? He'd seen all he wanted to see of Fairing's Parish.
Two cups of coffee later the cop left and five minutes after that Rachel, Fu and Pig Bodine showed up. They piled into Fu's Plymouth. Fu suggested they go to the Spoon. Pig was all for it. Rachel, bless her heart, didn't make a scene or ask questions. They got off two blocks from her apartment. Fu peeled out down the Drive. It had started to rain again. All Rachel said on the way back was, 'I'll bet your ass is sore.' She said it through long eyelashes and a little-girl grin and for ten seconds or so Stencil felt like the alter kocker Rachel may have thought he was.
Chapter Six
In which Profane returns to street level
I
Women had always happened to Profane the schlemiel like accidents: broken shoelaces, dropped dishes, pins in new shirts. Fina was no exception. Profane had figured at first that he was only the disembodied object of a corporal work of mercy. That, in the company of innumerable small and wounded animals, bums on the street, near-dying and lost to God, he was only another means to grace or indulgence for Fina.
But as usual he was wrong. His first indication came with the cheerless celebration Angel and Geronimo staged following his first eight hours of alligator hunting. They had all been on a night shift, and got back to the Mendozas around 5 A.M. 'Put on a suit,' said Angel.
'I don't have a suit,' Profane said.
They gave him one of Angel's. It was too small and he felt ridiculous. 'All I want to do,' he said, 'really, is sleep.'
'Sleep in the daytime,' Geronimo said, 'ho-ho. You crazy, man. We are going out after some cono.'
Fina came in all warm and sleepy-eyed; heard they were holding a party, wanted to tag along. She worked 8 to 4:30 as a secretary but she had sick leave coming. Angel got all embarrassed. This sort of put his sister in the class of cono. Geronimo suggested calling up Dolores and Pilar, two girls they knew. Girls are different from cono. Angel brightened.
The six of them started at an after-hours club up near 125th Street, drinking Gallo wine with ice in it. A small group, vibes and rhythm, played listlessly in one corner. These musicians had been to high school with Angel, Fina and Geronimo. During the breaks they came over and sat at the table. They were drunk and threw pieces of ice at each other. Everybody talked in Spanish and Profane responded in what Italo-American he'd heard around the house as a kid. There was about 10 per cent communication but nobody cared: Profane was only guest of honor.
Soon Fina's eyes changed from sleepy to shiny from wine, and she talked less and spent more of her time smiling at Profane. This made him uncomfortable. It turned out Delgado the vibes player was going to be married the next day and having second thoughts. A violent and pointless argument developed about marriage, pro and con.
