Rose wasn’t smiling at all now. “No,” she said. She stared at Henry. “No. This guy wasn’t in the army. Not for any time at all. They wouldn’t take him. They never wanted him.”

  “But he might be the guy. Where does he live?”

  Rose shook her head. “Sorry. If you’re looking for him for what you say you are, it ain’t him. If you’re not, he’d beat hell out of me for puttin’ you on him. Sony.” She turned away and called to the bartender. “Hey, Charlie, bring me another champagne, will you?”

  Henry pushed off the stool and walked out of Nicky’s Place, leaving Rose to pay for her “champagne” herself.

  * * *

  He went to the boarding house next door. He described the man again. The landlady sniffed and shook her head. Henry knew then. They weren’t going to help him down here. If he found the man, he’d do it alone.

  He pushed his hat back from his forehead. There was a fruit stand that looked as if it were set up in a lean-to. Seeing a fat man in a straw hat and dirty apron staring at him, Henry walked over to the cluttered stand.

  “Where could I buy a drink around here, mister?” he asked. “If you wanted a drink of whisky that wasn’t ninety-proof water, where would you go?”

  The fat man chewed at his moustache, “You tried Luigi?” he said. He pointed halfway up the block. “No dames, no TV, just drinks.”

  “Thanks.” Henry walked slowly along the street towards Luigi’s bar. He passed a Greek restaurant, a Chinese laundry and a loan company. When he came to the bar, he didn’t bother giving it a once-over. After he’d had a drink, he’d feel better. He could start again.

  It was dark in Luigi’s and half-filled with men busily drinking at tables or booths along the wall.

  There were only a few men at the bar. Henry stared towards it and stopped. For the space of a breath, his heart stopped too. There the guy was, near the back of the room, nursing a drink and staring at nothing. It was the slug, the one Henry was looking for.

  CHAPTER VII

  At first, Henry didn’t do anything. He stopped staring at the slug because he was afraid the very intensity of his gaze would cause the man to turn around.

  Suddenly. Henry wished he could merge into the background. He realised he hadn’t really thought he would find the slug. Anyhow, he’d made no plans for what he would do when he did find him.

  This was the slug’s home field. Probably all the men in the place were his friends. Even when the guy was alone, Henry had been helpless against him. He looked around at the men in the room. So far none was paying any attention to him. The bartender was busy, but Henry knew that in a moment he would turn to him and speak across the bar. Would the slug look up then? And if he did, what chance did Henry have against him?

  Great, Henry thought. You’re here. He’s here. Now what?

  Unarmed, against a professional mugger, and among people who’d never seen Henry before, he knew his chances weren’t worth much. He backstepped from the bar, went between a row of crowded tables and started towards the rear of the room. He saw then that there was a mirror on the wall behind the bar. He had only one chance. That mirror was dark, the room was poorly lighted. Maybe the reflection was no more than a blur.

  He moved steadily, aware that he wasn’t even breathing. If the slug so much as saw him. Henry doubted that he’d get out of the place alive.

  He was directly behind the slug. He saw the man lift his head slightly. Henry went weak. Did he see him in the surface of the bar, or was he aware only of movement behind him, and with animal instinct was also aware of danger?

  Me, danger? Henry thought. He drew in a deep breath and stepped between the tables. There was less than two feet between him and the slug’s cream-coloured back. He saw the lean back go tense, knew the man was about to run.

  Henry leaped forward. He shoved his right arm across the wide shoulder, bent it and came back with all his strength against the slug’s Adam’s apple. He forced him-self to chortle with laughter.

  “Fred!” he said, the hysteria under his voice adding to the quality of unrestrained laughter. “Why, you old son of a gun. I haven’t seen you in years. Fred! How have you been?”

  “Agh,” said the white-faced man.

  Henry had dragged him off the stool and turned himself so that he had the slug between him and most of the room.

  He laughed again. “Imagine meeting you here, Fred! I tell you, Fred, this is wonderful.”

  Men had stopped drinking, some of them had stopped breathing for the moment. Decision hung suspended in the room. The slug was trying to gain his footing. Henry closed his arm against the Adam’s apple again and moved two steps backwards. The slug lost his balance and by now was clawing at Henry’s arm.

  The slug’s face was twisted and had gone slightly purple so that his eyes looked like small grapes bursting from a large bunch. The slug couldn’t even breathe. Henry knew his arm was viced on the slug’s throat with all his strength, and he was aware he might kill him. But he was afraid to release his grip even to allow the mugger to breathe.

  He laughed again. “Where have you been keeping yourself, Fred?”

  He jerked his arm again, felt the life stop in the slug for an instant. The white claws stopped pulling. The men in the room weren’t sure. There was Henry’s laughter, but the slug looked as if he’d suddenly acquired a Miami sunburn.

  “Come on back here where we can talk, Fred,” Henry said.

  He danced the lean man along like a straw scarecrow, keeping him off balance, not giving him a chance to cry out.

  Henry watched those men in the room. He knew that one word from the mugger would be his death sentence. He kept moving backwards. He saw some of the men turn to their drinks. The tension relaxed. His laughter had sold them, as well as the fact that the mugger didn’t protest. Henry saw that the decision was in his favour. For the moment at least.

  There was a door at his back. He fumbled behind him, found the knob. He opened the door and laughed aloud again. “Fred, you old dog!”

  The slug tried to turn, writhing. He tried to set himself on his heels. His hands dug into Henry’s arm and his breath rasped across his mouth. He was trying to pull in enough air for a loud yell. Henry clamped his arm together again. The slug went limp all over for a moment, and the small reserve of air burst across his mouth.

  He tried to yell, but he made only that same sound again. “Agh!”

  Henry let the door close behind him. For the moment he felt better. At least, he couldn’t see those faces in the barroom. The room was piled high with cases of beer, the bright labels leering at him from the webbed darkness. The lane between the cases and the barrels was a narrow one.

  The slug grabbed at the cases, trying to stop them long enough to get set. His fingers closed on a full case and held fast. Henry felt the slug pull forward and in fear, he clamped his arm tight. Too tight.

  The slug relaxed against him, and now be was like straw. Henry looked around, feeling sick. There was another door. It was locked. He kept listening for steps of men coming in from the front.

  He turned the key and sweating, he pulled the slug’s limp body outside into the alley and slammed the door behind him. There were two steps down. The slug’s heels bumped down to the bricks. His arms hung loose and he was no longer fighting.

  It was a boxed-in alley. Walls reared high on three sides. The only opening was far between these close walls, and at the end of it a street light glowed foggily. That was the only light. Everything else was in shadows. Refuse cans lined the unbroken walls, and cats slithered through the darkness. Henry felt as though every shadow was full of other shadows. It was the darkness of a nightmare. In the rest of the town it was early twilight, but the sun never poked down in here except at noon.

  He dragged the slug a little way along the alley and found a recessed doorway that was shielded from view by high-stacked garbage cans. He dropped the slug to the puddle of water beside the door. The slug lay still for a moment and Henry started to bend over him.

  Suddenly the slug twisted and lunged upwards. However, Henry was too full of terror to be anything but tense and alert. He brought the side of his hand down across the man’s face. The slug was coming up to meet the blow, and the impact sounded like crushing bones. The slug fell away, turning with his arm over his face.

  Henry caught the front of the long-tailored cream coat and pulled the slug back around. For a moment they stared at each other. Henry sensed those long arms moving upwards. He doubled his fist and struck the slug on the point of the jaw. He knew he was hitting him too hard. The head snapped to the side and the slug passed out again.

  Henry hunkered over him there in the darkness behind the garbage cans. Then he moved his hands, in rapid pinching movements along the man’s inert body. He made a haul. First was the switch-blade knife, gleaming and vicious even in the dark. He found brass knuckles and a sheathed ice pick. He felt a shiver move along his spine. But when he found the nylon cord, he sat on his haunches staring at it, seeing in his imagination just what sort of animal this being was.

  The slug stirred. Henry caught him by the coat lapels and hoisted him upwards so that the man half-sprawled against the wall. His vision cleared slowly and he stared up at Henry.

  “Do you know me?” Henry said. “Do you know who I am?”

  The slug’s head nodded, those dead eyes didn’t blink.

  “I want to know why you slugged me this morning,” Henry said.

  “Go to hell.” The man barely said it. There was none of that assurance that had been in his voice this morning. The words rasped out of his throat. The slug was hurt.

  Henry doubled his fist. “You ever been hit—like you hit me?” he said.

  The slug tried to writhe away. Henry reacted violently. He drove his doubled fist down, the third finger jutting into the slug’s temple. The man flopped over, crying out. Henry twisted him, his fist doubled.

  “No.” There was agony and terror in the slug’s voice.

  “It’s up to you,” Henry said. His body was drawn up taut and his stomach was in knots. But he knew he wasn’t going to let up until this man talked. “Why’d you do it? Who hired you?”

  “A man.”

  “Don’t be smart with me.”

  “A blind man.”

  Henry felt some odd sensation inside him. A blind man?

  “What blind man?” His fingers tightened on the coat front.

  “Man named Malachi. Sam Malachi.”

  Malachi. The name meant nothing to Henry. But Sam did. Sammy—the man who wrote the letter.

  “Where is he?” Henry said.

  The slug was getting some of his strength back. He tried to twist away. Without stopping to think, Henry struck him in the other temple. The slug cried out and flung himself face down on the bricks.

  Henry caught up the long tail of the cream-coloured coat and yanked it upwards with all his strength. He pulled it forward over the slug’s head so that it caught the man’s chin, forcing his head back. The drape cut of the coat permitted Henry to pull it under the slug’s armpits. Then he buttoned it at the middle of the man’s back.

  Henry stood up. The shadows seemed to be crowding in closer upon him. A cat upset a garbage cover, the noise clattered and echoed in the pit of his stomach. He stared down at the slug. The man looked like some strange kind of an animal, flopping on the ground with his head bent back on his neck and his mouth open, gasping for air.

  Henry looked around. He was crowding his luck. He had two facts he had never even hoped to get: the man’s name, and the fact that the man was blind. Sam Malachi, a blind man.

  The slug was waving his arms, trying to free himself. He couldn’t even cry out and every time he moved his arms, the coat choked him.

  “You won’t believe it,” Henry said, “but you look a lot better like this.”

  There was movement somewhere in the alley. It might have been a cat, but Henry knew he couldn’t take any chances. He looked one more time at the slug, then he turned and started away, leaving the slug lashing around in the slime of the alley.

  It was a long way to the street. Henry stayed in the middle of the alley, his hand clenched around the slug’s switch-blade knife. His mind was working, racing ahead of him in the dark street. A blind man? Now he remembered that he had seen a blind man that morning when he’d started to work. The man had been sitting in the sun across the street. Hadn’t that same man been sitting there when he came home?

  He remembered the last lines of Sammy’s letter. He didn’t need to see that letter to remember it. He knew that he would remember it all the rest of his life. The trick was going to be forgetting it. I’m too close to you now, Henry. I’m real close. You don’t know how close, Henry.

  What could be closer than the house right across the street from 916 Oak? Henry shivered and glanced over his shoulder.

  I’m watching you all the time. Ain’t that a joke, Henry? Watching you all the time. Ain’t that a joke? What could be a bigger, uglier joke than being watched by a blind man?

  Henry pressed his hand against his stomach to steady the shaking he felt in it. He knew he was right. The blind man... Sam Malachi... watching him from across Oak Street.

  He was almost to the corner of the alley. He looked back over his shoulder one more time, and then he started to run.

  CHAPTER VIII

  It was a long way from Market Avenue to Oak Street. Henry had never known before just how far it was. But now he was in a hurry to get back up there. He wanted to get away from the slug in that alley. He wanted to find the blind Sam Malachi. He wanted to see Lila.

  He came running out of the alley on to Market Avenue. The street was bright and brassy. The evening was just beginning. Punks, pimps and prostitutes—all were wearing the uniforms of their trades. A Salvation Army band added to the din, playing with all its strength at two bums watching from the kerb: Neons glittered, rose red and bile green, and reflected in the dirty puddles at the kerb.

  Henry stood still a moment, his heart pounding, and looked along Market Avenue. A taxi wasn’t anywhere in sight. Henry started through the crowded sidewalk towards Bailey Boulevard. He moved in a shambling, half-running, half-walking gait—something like what he’d called a “Scout pace” when he’d been a kid. He couldn’t slow down to a walk and the street was so jammed it was almost impossible to run.

  He jostled a fat woman and she turned, glaring, her face twisted. “Look where you’re going, already!” Her eyes went over Henry, softening as they moved.

  He apologised, turning sideways to move through the crowd past her.

  She was smiling, a fat, sticky smile. “It’s all right, honey.”

  She called something else after him but he was already too far away to hear.

  Market Avenue seemed strange, like a nightmare place. Every shop and bar and restaurant was wide open. People were crowded on the front stoops of the buildings, or standing along the kerbs, or hurrying like a river of people, rushing somewhere ... rushing nowhere.

  He got to the corner of Bailey Boulevard and still was unable to find a cab. Up here the buildings were better; this was fringe country. He saw a cab stand in the next block. He stepped out in the street to cross to it when he saw a bus that would pass Oak Street. Hailing it, he jumped aboard.

  The bus was not very crowded and Henry sat down next to the window, halfway back. The city streamed past him, like lights strung on the wind. He was glad he’d caught this bus instead of a cab. He wanted to think.

  Things were confused for Henry. He was sure he could straighten everything out as soon as he could talk to the blind man, Sam Malachi. He knew nobody by that name, surely no stranger wanted to see him fired, discredited, beaten or dead.

  It was a mistake. Sure it was. Everything would be all right as soon as he got to Sam Malachi and convinced him he’d made an error. He tried to believe this. He was drawn up in a tense knot, and he knew he had to relax. But he couldn’t do it. He kept thinking about the slug, and the way he’d left him in that alley. He thought about the nylon cord, the sheathed ice pick, the switch-blade knife. Somebody had hired a man who played for keeps. Henry shivered.

  Before it seemed possible, Henry saw the bus was near Oak Street. The driver pressed on his horn, and it wailed through the early night. Henry sat forward in his seat. He saw there were people spilling off the sidewalk into the street, and he spied cars parked along both kerbs. A cop was clearing a path on the boulevard for the bus. A wreck probably, Henry decided.

  Henry yanked the signal cord and the bus hissed to a stop in the middle of Bailey Boulevard. Henry stepped out the rear exit, and the bus sped away through the opening in the crowded street.

  Henry walked towards the kerb, his gaze fixed on Oak Street. The whole street was lighted up like a carnival. Every house was bright with fight. Cars were wedged along the kerbs, and all their headlights were burning.

  He pushed through the knot of chatting people at the corner and started to cross Oak Street. He stopped. He taw the ambulance backed up before his house. His house was as lighted as all the others, more, because the beams of cruiser lights were fixed on it.

  Confused, he stood still on the walk a moment and stared at the police cruisers parked before his house.

  He caught a man by the shoulder. “What’s the matter?” he said. His voice sounded hoarse. “What’s happened down there.”

  “Man killed his wife.”

  Another man turned. “Man named Wilson, battered his wife up. Ran.”

  “Henry Wilson.” another said. “Henry Wilson. Beat his wife to death and then he ran.”

  “The ambulance came for her.”

  “The police are looking for the killer.”

  “Henry Wilson killed his wife.”

  The lights started to wheel in front of his eyes. People were not talking around him now, they were yelling. The words were the same, but now they screamed at him over and over, whirling in his brain, pounding at the backs of his eyes. He felt tears burning at his eyelids. His hands were shaking and he was afraid he was going to fall.