'Well,' said Franklin, 'are you sure you want to be alone? Betty tells me that Liebowitz-'
'Lieberman,' Harvey corrected.
'Liebowitz, Lieberman-a Jew name. What difference does it make? The man upset Betty, accused you-'
'He didn't accuse me, Ken,' Harvey said. 'He was careful not to accuse me. He said others were accusing me.'
'Hearsay, clever,' Franklin said with a sigh. 'Those people are cunning. I have to deal with them more than you imagine, and they are cunning.'
Harvey kept from responding to Franklin's prejudice. He had heard it before, disagreed with it, and made his disagreement known. Race, religion, belief meant nothing to Harvey Rozier. Everyone was equal. Everyone lived and died and was nothing. In the greater scheme of things, race and belief were small differences, not worth the extension of prejudice, the time and effort, A waste of time. Prejudice was stupid and unproductive.
'Just let yourselves in,' Harvey said. 'I'll be back by six. I promise.'
'By six, Harvey,' Ken emphasized like a concerned father hearing that his son might be home late from a date.
Harvey hung up and checked his wallet. A little under four hundred dollars. He called a cab and went into the station to wait.
He would have the cab drive him to Rush Street From Rush Street he would jog to the zoo. Plenty of time.
At the zoo he would get George Patniks to go with him through the bushes to Harvey's supposedly parked car where the money and toolbox were in the trunk. In the bushes Harvey would beat George Patniks to death with his own crowbar.
Harvey didn't want the rain to stop. He wanted it to come down hard. A monsoon would have suited him, something that would keep people indoors and out of the park.
When the cab pulled into the Shell station, Harvey was outwardly calm, determined. He would keep it simple mis time. Into the bushes, strike, throw the crowbar down a sewer, catch a cab back to the Shell station and home, free.
It could be done. It had to be done.
Circles and Confrontations
Three old men in baseball caps smoking cigars sat on rickety chairs under the awning of Uncle Will's Used Furniture. With nothing else to do but talk about old enemies and watch the rain, they watched Lonny Wayne swaying down the street muttering to himself.
'That there's a crazy boy,' said Herbie McCallister, pointing his wet cigar at Lonny,
'That there's a street junkie, is all,' answered Eddie Jackson. 'Ain't you see 'nough of 'em to know? You gettin' shortchanged by the Lord in your old age?'
'Crazy boy,' insisted Herbie as Lonny almost went into the curb.
'You both blind as snakes,' said Little Whitney Styles, a near dwarf with thick glasses. 'That boy's bleedin' from the head.'
'No he ain't,' said Herbie with contempt.
'I ain't lyin'. You'll see.'
Lonny stumbled past them, and the three men went silent till he was a good twenty yards away, and even then they whispered.
'Bleedin' all right,' said Eddie Jackson.
'Dispute ended,' said Little Whitney. 'Pay up, gents.'
'You a damn fool or what?' asked Herbie. 'Ain't no one bet with you.'
'Herbie's right,' echoed Eddie Jackson.
'He's goin' into the Ease Inn, look,' said Little Whitney.
They looked, and Lonny Wayne pushed open the tavern door and staggered in, swallowed by darkness.
Rain and sweat and maybe a little blood were trickling into Lonny's eyes as he tried to adjust to die near darkness. In the corner over the bar a guy on television was giving baseball scores and saying that games all over the Midwest were being canceled by rain.
'Man,' a voice came from behind the bar. 'You know you lost your ear? You're bleedin' all over my floor.'
'Skilly Parker, you here?' Lonny said, making out shapes now, a shape at the bar, two or three shapes in one of the booths near the front.
Signs for Coors, Bud, and Swedish vodka were lit up over the bar. Photographs of boxers, all autographed, were taped to the mirror behind the bar. John Mogabi, Kid Gavilan, Randy Sandy, Joe Louis. The only one Lonny had heard of was Joe Louis, but he didn't know much about him other than he had been champ and had died crazy thinking the wop gangs were trying to kill him.
'Skilly,' Lonny insisted, feeling heavy and dizzy. The smell of alcohol wasn't helping any.
'Here,' called the bartender, and something hit Lonny.
He yelped and pulled out his gun.
'Hey, man, easy,' the bartender said. 'Just a towel to clean yourself and slow the bleeding. You can put the piece away.'
Lonny could see better now. The bartender, Howard Caroline, who also owned the place, stood behind the bar. At the end of the bar sat Skilly Parker nursing a drink, wearing black pants and a black sweater, his hair konked back like an Uncle Tom. Skilly couldn't have been more than twenty.
'What's happenin', Lonny my man?' Skilly said brightly.
Lonny pressed the towel to his ear. First a stab of pain and then warm comfort 'I got two hundred eighty- three dollars,' said Lonny, walking toward Skilly, the gun at his side.
'No problem,' Skilly said. 'I can live with that.'
Lonny was swaying in front of Skilly Parker now.
'Here's the key. Car's right outside around the corner,' Skilly went on, pulling a lone key from his pocket and sliding it down the bar to Lonny, who almost missed it.
Skilly tamed IBS eyes away from Lonny and examined the list of rain outs on the television.
'You want your money or you don't?' asked Lonny, confused.
'Just put it on the bar. Howard'll take out what I owe him and give me the rest. Car's full of gas. Needs oil every hundred fifty miles or about. Papers in the glove compartment.'
'Take your keys and go, boy,' Howard said. 'Keep the towel.'
Lonny tore bills out of his pocket and dropped them willy-nilly on the counter. He pocketed the key and began backing out of the Ease Inn when an arm came around his neck and he felt something press against his still-good ear.
'You got one ear left, man,' the man behind him said with a Spanish accent 'You wanna keep it or you wanna look like the snake boy in the circus?'
Lonny tried to point his pistol over his shoulder into the face of the man behind him, but something hard and heavy hit his hand and the gun was torn away. In front of Lonny were two men. They were very black and very similar.
'Hombre,' said the older of the two, 'don't be an asshole. Put your hands down, keep what you got left of your eyes and your balls. You know what I'm saying?'
'Get him out of here,' said Howard the bartender.
'We're goin',' said the man in front of Lonny, the one who had spoken.
The man behind Lonny holding a knife to his ear reached into Lonny's pocket, pulled out the car key, and threw it to Skilly Parker, who caught it in two hands.
'Lonny my man,' said Skilly. 'They didn't give me no choice.'
Lonny Wayne began to cry.
The weather was with Harvey Rozier. It was raining, raining hard when he pulled the hood of his raincoat
