to your probation officer, committed treason. They don’t tell us a damned thing.”
“What do you do to him?” Bad Hands asked. “Where do you take him?”
“Who are you?” Dashee asked.
“We take him down to Holbrook,” Chee said, “and then we turn him over to the sheriff’s office and they hold him for the federals on the fugitive warrant, and then he goes back to somewhere or other. Wherever he did whatever he did. Then he goes on trial.”
“Who are you?” Dashee repeated.
“My name is Gomez,” Bad Hands said. “Rudolfo Gomez.”
Cowboy nodded.
“I’m Jim Chee,” Chee said. He held out his hand.
Bad Hands looked at it. Then at Chee.
“Pardon the glove, please,” he said. “I had an accident.”
As he shook it, Chee felt through the thin black leather an index finger and, perhaps, part of the second finger. All else inside the glove felt stiff and false.
That was the right hand. If his memory was correct, the right hand was Bad Hands’ better hand.
Chapter Five
« ^ »
Leroy Fleck enjoyed having his shoes shined. They were Florsheims—by his standards expensive shoes—and they deserved care. But the principal reason he had them shined each morning at the little stand down the street from his apartment was professional. Fleck, who was often after other people, felt a need to know if anyone was after him. Sitting perched these few minutes on the Captain’s shoeshine throne gave him a perfect opportunity to rememorize the street. Each morning except Sunday Fleck examined every vehicle parked along the shady block his apartment house occupied. He compared what he saw with what he remembered from previous days, and weeks, and months of similar studies.
Still, he enjoyed the shine. The Captain had gradually grown on him as a person. Fleck no longer thought of him as a nigger, and not even as one of Them. The Captain had gradually become—become what? Somebody who knew him? Whatever it was, Fleck found himself looking forward to his shoeshine.
This morning, though, Fleck had other things on his mind. Things to do. A decision to make. He examined the street through habit. The cars were familiar. So was the bakery truck making its delivery to the coffee shop. The old man limping down the sidewalk had limped there before. The skinny woman was another regular walking her familiar dog. Only the white Corvette convertible parked beside the Texaco station down the street and the dark green Ford sedan immediately across from the entrance to the apartments were strangers. The Corvette was not the sort of car that interested Fleck. The Ford he would check and remember. It was one of those nondescript models that cops liked to use.
Fleck glanced down at the top of the head of the shoeshine man. The hair was a thick mass of tight gray curls. Darky hair, Fleck thought. “How you doing there, Captain?”
“About got ’em.”
“You notice that green Ford yonder? Across the street there? You know who belongs to that?”
The man glanced up, found the Ford, examined it. Once his face had been a shiny, coffee black. Age had grayed it, broken it into a wilderness of lines. “I don’t know it,” the Captain said. “Never noticed it before.”
“I’ll get a check on the license number down at headquarters,” Fleck said. “You tell me if you see it around here again.”
“Sure,” the Captain said. He whipped his shine cloth across the tip of Fleck’s right shoe. Snapped it. Stood up and stepped back. “Done,” he said.
Fleck handed him a ten-dollar bill. The Captain folded it into his shirt pocket.
“See if you can get a look at who gets into it,” Fleck said.
“Your man, maybe?” the Captain said, his expression somewhere between skeptical and sardonic. “You think it’s that dope dealer you been after?”
“Maybe,” Fleck said.
He walked the five blocks down to the telephone booth he was using today, thinking about that expression on the Captain’s face, and about Mama, and about what he was going to tell The Client. The Captain’s expression made it clear that he didn’t really believe Fleck was an undercover cop. The old man had seemed convinced enough last summer when Fleck had first taken this job and moved into the apartment. He’d shown the Captain his District of Columbia police detective credentials the third morning he had his shoes shined. The man had seemed properly impressed then. But weeks ago—how many weeks Fleck couldn’t quite decide—Fleck’s subconscious began registering some peculiarities. Now he was pretty sure the old man didn’t believe Fleck was a cop. But he was also fairly sure the Captain didn’t give a damn. The old man was playing lookout partly because he enjoyed the game and partly because of the money. The Captain was a neutral. He didn’t give a damn whether Fleck was part of the law, or outside it, or the Man from Mars.
At that point, Fleck had even considered talking to the Captain about Mama. He was a nigger, but he was old and he knew a lot about people. Maybe he’d have some ideas. But talking about Mama was complicated. And painful. He didn’t know what to do about her. What could he do? She hadn’t been happy out there at Bluewater Home outside Cleveland, and she wasn’t happy at this place he’d put her when he came to D.C.—Eldercare Manor. Maybe she wouldn’t be happy anywhere. But that wasn’t the point right now. The point was Eldercare wanted to be shut of her. And right away.
“We just simply can’t put up with it,” the Fat Man had told him. “Simply cannot tolerate it. We have to think of our other clients. Look after their welfare. We can’t have that woman harassing them.“
“Doing what?” Fleck had asked. But he knew what Mama was doing. Mama was getting even.
