Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

into the ocean, except in this case the water was inside. Felt thirty degrees cooler once in the ozone so I zipped up my jacket. My shoes clicked on the bricks underfoot as I headed for the passageway to the street. Over the entrance was an idea-sized light bulb; at the far end of the tunnel, a streetlight. Then I thought I saw something move at the end of the tunnel as well; whatever it was slipped into the ink. I hung back, my brothers, listening for the sounds of lurkers in the dark; mugs and thugs loitering by the exit, picking off party guests one by one as they stumbled home. I gave the passageway another onceover. One second the streetlight was still there; then the eclipse started.
    »Here chick-chick-chick.«
    Young snarl, Polish or Irish or Italian, full of Catholic blood. I’m no gunslinger, brain takes brawn down two falls out of three and when it doesn’t, that’s where feet come in handy. Problem was, in this courtyard there was no place for feet to go. The guy started to come out of the passageway, pasty white, a head taller than me and a foot wider, Puerto Rican fence climbers on his feet and something long and metal in his right hand. Didn’t think he was looking for the eighteenth hole.
    »Hand it over, faggot,« he said. »Whatever you got –«
    If you’d been watching this on film you’d have figured some big wind came along, just then; his feet lifted a good six inches off the pavement and he disappeared head first into the passageway. I gave a look down the passageway, but saw no light; something big still blocked it. Noise I heard sounded like a dog cracking chicken bones.
    »Chlojo?«
    No answer, but I had a hunch. Those dames were first class when it came to going incognito. The streetlight appeared at the far end of the passageway and I started in. Listened to broken glass crunching underfoot but thank Valentine didn’t step into anything slippery. I gave the sidewalk a one-two when I made it outside.
    »Chlo? Eulie?«
    A street or two away I heard a garbage truck crushing up the day’s leavings. A beaten up Rambler rumbled down the street, some old codger behind the wheel. Under the streetlamp shine I saw a pair of mens’ shoes in the gutter. The toes were as pointy as fence climbers get. Mysterious debris indeed so I sidled across the sidewalk to get a better view. The shoes seemed to be propped up over a sewer opening in the curb. When I stepped into the street, though, I saw that the shoes still had feet in them. The feet were still hooked onto the legs, but those disappeared some short distance into the opening. Couldn’t say how much more of my unlucky assailant was still attached but I decided I could live without knowing.
    So I walked briskly toward nominally safer Avenue A, at which point I headed north to Fourteenth. Didn’t see my lady pals anywhere; although this kind of suggested to me that even though they weren’t there, they were keeping an eye out. Can’t say that made me feel more comfortable, though I wished it had. When I reached Fourteenth I went over to Second, and then up and finally back home. My ghosts must have caught a cab; they were waiting for me when I got there.
     
    Time came soon after that when I realized I had to let Jim know I was already in on his game. Clearly this wasn’t a subject he liked to brag about. Now as I said, in my field of interest there are a lot of handy techniques that work when it comes to scoring info. Ingratiation is the easiest, long as you’ve got any personality at all. A little cadging here, a little cajoling there, and soon enough they’re eating out of the palm of your hand. (Something all ladies know from birth, but it amazes me how hard it is for gents to comprehend). Problem was, though, that ingratiation is a two-way street. During the weeks I’d spent hanging out with him I’d gotten to really like old Jim – for one thing, he was the only obsessive I ever met who knew more about those golden discs than I did. Martin was lying low, and that was just as well; but whatever it was I was doing, for whatever reason I was doing it, started to gnaw at me. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be upfront with him, at least about my being more than a little aware of who those relatives of his actually were.
    Next time I went to the record store, however – couple of days after that party – I didn’t get a chance, at least right off. »Look at this, Walter,« he said when I strolled in late one afternoon. He