The Cold Smell Of Sacred Stone

driven-for eleven years. He spotted me when he was halfway up the block; his face went white, his jaw dropped open, and he turned and started to run away. I caught up with him three blocks later, in a small shopping center, when he tried to duck down a narrow alley between two shops. Gasping for breath, he wheeled around and threw a garbage can lid at me. I sidestepped the flying lid, then hit him in the stomach with sufficient force to knock the rest of the wind out of him and sit him down hard on a stack of old newspapers.

'You and I have a lot to talk about, Mr. D'Agostino,' I said as I took a sheaf of papers out of my jacket pocket and waved them in his face. 'For a blind man, you've led quite an active life for the past few years.'

Harry August was starting to get his breath back-and with it, a semblance of calm and his usual cunning. 'Fuck you, dwarf,' he said, rising to his feet and brushing off his pants. 'I've got nothing to say to you, and nobody's going to believe anything you say about me.'

'No? How about the driver's license you've had since you were sixteen years old, and which has been renewed like clockwork every five years? You even got a speeding ticket two years ago-which is understandable, I suppose, since it would be hard for a blind man to see a speed limit sign or know how fast he was driving.'

'Nobody's going to pay any attention to you, Fredrickson.'

'Certainly Garth's People won't, but I don't intend to try to deal with them. Actually, I was thinking of going to the authorities with proof that you've been defrauding the city and state of New York, not to mention a couple of insurance companies, for years.'

Harry August ran a hand back through his long, greasy hair, studied me with his one good eye, swallowed hard. 'What are you talking about?'

'You know exactly what I'm talking about, Harry. You were injured in an industrial accident fifteen years ago, when a battery you were handling exploded and acid splashed over your face. You got a lot of money from insurance companies for that accident, including a lump sum in cash which you were supposed to use for plastic surgery. I don't know what you did with that money, but you obviously didn't use it for plastic surgery. My guess is that you decided to use it for something else-the horses, maybe, or a stock market flyer. You pissed it away.'

'It's none of your business, Frederickson. Besides, Garth's People will protect me; those fools think you've been marked by God.'

'Pretty soon, everybody-fools and others-will know all about you, Harry. You've been collecting disability, which you're entitled to, since the accident, but somewhere along the line, early in the game, an examining physician made a mistake, or put the wrong entry in your file. The accident left you legally blind-20/200-in your left eye, but the right is perfectly all right; that's in the original medical report. But New York State and the insurance companies have you listed as totally blind, in both eyes, and they've been paying you accordingly.'

'The disability payments are nothing, Frederickson. Nobody could live on them.'

'Seven years ago you applied for welfare assistance. Not only did you declare yourself legally blind in both eyes, but you neglected to mention the disability payments-which you were legally required to do. About three years ago you set up shop on that street corner to bring in a little extra income.'

'People owed me, Frederickson,' the other man said tightly, looking away.

'Ah. Bitterness. It seems to me that you were being pretty well taken care of. Why did people owe you?'

'You think you know the whole story, but you don't. That money I got at the beginning wasn't nearly enough to get me the kind of plastic surgery I needed-but I didn't find that out until the insurance company had pressured me into signing a settlement for a lump-sum payment. At the time I thought it was a lot of money, but then I found out it wouldn't fix my face. They screwed me good.'

'Why did your lawyer let you sign a settlement like that?'

'Ask him,' Harry August said, and spat. 'He did a lot of. work for the insurance company-something my own company didn't tell me when they recommended him to me.' He paused, suddenly thrust his face at me as if it were a weapon. His one good eye flashed black fire. 'How'd you like to go through life looking like this, Frederickson? I couldn't get any kind of a decent job with a mug like this, and I knew it. What the hell good is money if you have to keep looking like something cats have been chewing on? So this guy who'd read about the accident and the settlement in the papers comes around and says he's got this really great deal for me in real estate, where I can triple my money-and don't laugh, Frederickson.'

'I wasn't even thinking of laughing, Harry,' I said quietly. 'You haven't said anything that's even remotely funny.'

'Sure, I was stupid-but I was desperate for money for the operations I needed, and I didn't know then the things I know now about people. I believed him, Frederickson; he was a real smooth-talking guy. I ended up losing everything, including every penny I had in savings. After that … it's like you said. But disability and welfare don't go far in this city. That's why I started begging. I'd certainly been fucked over enough, so I figured I'd fuck over other people for a change.' He paused, licked his lips. 'What are you going to do, Frederickson? What do you want?'

'The answer to both questions is that I'm not sure yet. It sounds like you've had-have-enough miseries without my adding to them. That's assuming any of the agencies involved would want to press charges.'

'Are you going to report me?'

'Let's just say that I'd prefer not to.'

'Which means that you want something from me.'

'The first thing I want from you, Harry, is a videotaped repudiation of the notion that my brother restored your sight. We'll tape it at a time and place of my choosing.'

'Why are you doing this, Frederickson? Your brother hasn't done anything to hurt you, and neither have I. I haven't hurt anybody. You really are jealous of Garth, aren't you? And you want to use me to dump on him.'

'Harry, the motives for my strange behavior will have to remain a mystery to you. I will say that I'm not sure yet how I want to handle this; if possible, I'd like to minimize any damage to the people Garth has helped. But that's for me to worry about. For the time being, you just go on about your business with Garth's People as though this conversation had never taken place; that's important. I'll contact you about the videotaping after I've decided what I plan to do with you.'

'This is blackmail.'

'Yeah; something like that.'

'When the authorities see that tape, they'll want to prosecute me anyway.'

'Not necessarily. The whole world knows you as Harry August; knowing the way a lot of governmental agencies operate, nobody may even make the connection between Harry August and Lawrence Harold D'Agostino.'

'Unless you spell it out for them.'

'Right-but I doubt that I'd feel compelled to do their work for them if you cooperate with me.'

'What the hell am I supposed to tell people?!'

'Your problem. No matter what you say, there's no way you're going to come out of this looking like Albert Schweitzer. All I'm concerned with is that you make it very clear that you could see perfectly well-at least with one eye-before you ever bumped into Garth. That part had better be convincing.'

'Okay.' Harry August mumbled. 'I guess I knew this whole business was going to catch up with me one day.'

'You reacted instinctively when that kid tried to take your money, right?'

'Yeah,' the other man said, shaking his head in disgust. 'Your brother was driving me out of my gourd, and I just wasn't thinking.'

'Then your glasses got knocked off. Suddenly you found yourself staring back at all those people who were staring at you. It was an ugly, possibly dangerous, situation, and you grabbed hold of the only life preserver at hand-my brother. He got you out of there. What I don't understand is why you stuck around. Why didn't you just split when the danger had passed? For that matter, why are you hanging around now?'

Harry August mumbled something I didn't quite catch, and I asked him to repeat it.

'Money,' he said. 'Even the way his operation was back then, I could see that money was starting to come in. And I could smell more-a lot more. I had this feeling that I'd stumbled into something that could become very big.' He paused, laughed bitterly. 'I figured that one right, didn't I? A lot of good it's done me. The story of my life.'

'You also figured it would be a good opportunity for a con man like you to get your hands on some of that money, right?'

'I'm cooperating with you, Frederickson. I just hope you're not going to give me any more grief.''