sixty degrees or so. The sound of slowly dripping water boomed all around him. He stood near the center trying to figure out which way to go, when he heard a voice: “Psst! Hey, kid! This way!” Milo followed the voice as well as he could.
Moving into one of the small passageways, the quality of sound changed so abruptly that he felt someone had boxed his ears. Or else he was walking inside a sea shell, or inside the labyrinth of his own ear. The passage opened into a small, concrete courtyard with showers along the perimeter and a few benches near the middle. The hard floor sloped down toward a drain in the center. Milo looked up. The sky was the color of iron. He was cold.
Suddenly Lenny was at his side. “Surprised you, huh?” He had come from a shower stall beside the entrance. “I had to take a leak. Mr. Jones used the regular facilities. He’ll be right here…You a pal of Sylvie’s? She never used you before.”
Milo heard steps echoing behind him. He turned and backed out of the way, toward the benches. Mr.
Jones was a thick, crewcut man with a flaccid face. He wore a stiff, white short-sleeved shirt that fairly glowed in the stormy light. He squinted and cocked his head at the sight of Milo. “This isn’t a girl.”
Lenny laughed. “So what? So she sent an associate. You’ll notice he’s got the merchandise.”
Jones rolled his eyes. He looked disgusted. “That ain’t all he’s got, Lenny.”
“Huh?”
“This associate here has got a weapon in his belt,” Jones said. Milo looked down around the hat box to his waist. The soaked shirt was bunched around the handle of the ice pick. Jones stepped toward Milo and extended one hand, palm up. “Give.”
“Come on, kid,” Lenny said. “You don’t need that. We trust each other here. God! I’m sorry, Mr.
Jones. The kid doesn’t know how we do business, is all.”
“Sure. So give.”
Milo didn’t move. He looked back and forth between Lenny and Mr. Jones. For some reason, he didn’t feel worried about them. He was worried about something else. Something Lenny had said.
“Sylvie doesn’tuse me.”
Lenny smiled. “Tough. Very tough. Very impressive. Okay. Sylvie doesn’tuse you. Just give Mr. Jones the knife.”
“It’s an ice pick,” Milo said. He looked straight at Jones. “And I’m keeping it. Sylvie didn’t say anything about giving it to you-unless you try to cheat me.”
“He’s akid, for crissakes!” Lenny laid a hand on Mr. Jones’s shoulder. Mr. Jones kept his hand extended and his eyes straight on Milo. “Nobody’s got anything to gain by violence here, am I right?
Let’s just do our business and adjourn. Okay, Mr. Jones?”
Jones nodded slowly. “I’mnot impressed. I’m notpleased. But we’ll let it go, because I respect Lenny, and because I think this little boy would lose his lunch before he pricked anybody with that steel dick.
Also, I have a gun…So, let’s seethe goods.”
Jones stepped back. Lenny gave Milo a sheepish look. Facing Milo, so Jones couldn’t see, Lenny mouthed the words: “He doesn’t have any gun.” Lenny shrugged. Milo held out the box to Mr. Jones.
Jones took it from Milo and carried it to one of the benches, where he laid it down and undid the ribbon.
Lenny stayed a few feet back with Milo. “You’re wet, kid. Quite a downpour, huh?”
“Don’t get the box wet,” Milo said to Jones. The wooden bench was damp. Jones shot him a black look and snarled something under his breath. Jones lifted the cover from the round box and laid it down on the bench beside the box itself. He reached in and pulled out a roll of cash. He fanned it, then removed the rubber band around it, pulled out one of the bills and held it at arm’s length to look it over. He did the same thing with a few others, turning them over, flapping them and pulling them out with a snap. Then Mr.
Jones took a magnifying glass from his pocket and examined one of the bills more closely.
He returned the magnifying glass to his pants pocket. He stacked the bills together and bound them with the rubber band again. He put the cash back into the box, closed it and tied the ribbon with the same sort of bow it had had before.
“So?” said Lenny.
Mr. Jones handed the box back to Milo and smiled. He turned to Lenny. “It’s crap.”
“What do you mean, it’s crap? You can’t tell me this is crap. This is the work of a goddam artist. Uncle fucking Sam himself couldn’t tell this stuff from the real thing.”
“I can. It’s crap.”
“You’re trying to weasel a better deal out of me, aren’t you, Harold? You said if this passed muster you’d front me the ten thou. I told you I could guarantee delivery of the rest in two weeks. Okay, you said. Two weeks, you said. Ten thou up front on approval, you said.”
“On approval.”
“There’s nothing wrong with this job. I’m telling you Sylvie’s guy is an artist. He’s a Da Vinci, Harold.
Nothing’s wrong with it. What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s off, that’s all. The border’s off. The weave is funny. We won’t work with it. Find another distributor-it’s your funeral.”
“Somebody’s supposed to give me some money,” Milo said.
Jones turned on him, laughing. His face was like bread dough being folded and kneaded. His lips curled back, showing the gums, big and pink, like a horse’s. “What, are you gonna pull out your ice pick now?
You an artist too? You gonna make me into an ice sculpture, kid? You guys are a million laughs.”
Jones walked into the passage to the main chamber.
“Harold!” Lenny turned his head to shout after him, but didn’tmove an inch. He looked beaten. “Harold!
Hey! Wait a minute here! Harold…Shit!”
“Are you gonna give me the money?” Milo asked Lenny.
“You’re a real piece of work, kid, you and that bitch of a sister you got.”
“She’s not my sister.”
“Give me the box. Screw Mr. Jones. I’ll find another Mr. Jones.”
“I’m supposed to take the box back to Sylvie. You’re supposed to pay me.”
Lenny grabbed at the hat box. Milo swung it out of his reach.
“I don’t need this, kid,” Lenny said. “I don’t need your whore sister either, not after this. She screwed up. Give me the damn box. I’ll pay her when I getmy advance, see? This is supposed to be our sample.
This is supposed to buy me a little time while our printer gets his act together. You see how many people you’re holding up here, kid? Me, the printer, the printer’s family,my family…” He was walking forward as Milo walked back, between the benches, toward the far showers. “…and Sylvie too. She’s got no use for it, without I get some dough on it for her. Now,gimme.”
Milo was backed against a wall under a shower head. Lenny took another swipe at the box. Milo reached back and turned on the shower, spraying Lenny full in the face. Milo grabbed the ice pick from his belt. The point gouged Milo’s own stomach, and his soaked shirt reddened. He looked down, uttered a small cry of surprise, and dropped the ice pick.
Lenny stopped sputtering and flailing. He stood still, with the spray pelting his face and plastering his sparse hair down in absurd curls. He stared at the blood welling up along Milo’s belt. He stepped back out of the shower. “Oh, God, what a mess! Kid, you keep it. You keep the damn paper. Tell Sylvie she screwed up. Oh, God! Equidecomposabullshit! I musta been out a my gourd! Tell her this is the last time she does a job for anybody east of Topeka. And get a doctor, kid!” He turned and ran.
“She’s not my sister,” Milo said. He turned off the shower. There was a shallow pool of red before him, pushed outward by the force of the spray and streaming back again toward the drain behind his heels.
Like a drunkard navigating one sensum at a time, Milo looked at his right arm and saw that the hat box was still cradled there, soaked; then he found his feet and walked back to the benches, trailing bloody water.
He laid the box down on a bench. He started back toward the main chamber, but as soon as he entered the passageway, the air filled with bright Paisleys, and he found himself on his knees, gasping. He pulled up his shirt to look underneath. He could see the lip of the wound, where blood oozed. “It’s not so bad,” he said. He slumped down onto his buttocks. He was about to black out, but he forced himself awake.
He rolled onto all fours, then stood up, a little at a time. He leaned his shoulder against the wall of the passage
