Mohawk

explained by many as the result of being dragged up Steele Avenue hill by a half-wit to a hospital that was demolished almost a decade before, as Wild Bill himself had good cause to remember.
    Harry Saunders, up early to open the diner, hears the sirens wail up Steele Avenue and feels ill. “You better get up there,” his first customer tells him, and so he goes, slower now than on the day the Nathan Littler came down. In the middle of the parking lot Harry sees a small circle of men in work clothes, who step aside when they see him. The grotesque mystery on the macadam holds no fascination for Harry, who goes white and immediately starts back down the hill. While the other men whisper in wonder of how a man with two holes in his chest had managed to carry a two-hundred-fifty-pound man up Steele Avenue hill, and why on earth he would’ve wanted to, Harry Saunders, as he stands before his grill, bacon spitting angrily, can only imagine the wonder and confusion of his good friend when he discovered himself mistaken and alone under the night sky in Mohawk.

58
    At the bar in Greenie’s were five men, along with another small group clustered around the shuffleboard machine. They all mumbled hellos to Dallas when he came in, but they weren’t the usual hellos and Dallas knew it. People had been acting peculiar all day, and whenever he entered a room he felt he was already the subject of conversation. Nothing malicious, of course, and he didn’t blame anybody. People just didn’t know how to behave in times like this, and he wouldn’t have either. Instead of joining the men at one end of the bar, he instinctively took the stool next to the one reserved for Untemeyer. It was a little after three-thirty, and the bookie showed up at four o’clock sharp.
    Woody brought Dallas a draft. “Anything I can do?” he said.
    “You can let me take four or five grand.”
    “Sure enough. I’ll just take it out of petty cash.” He paused. “Rudy hit the number yesterday.”
    Dallas shook his head. “Five hundred wouldn’t help, even if he still had the five hundred, and he wouldn’t be Rudy if he did.”
    “I’d give it to you, if I had it.”
    “I know that, Woody.”
    The bartender hovered, wondering how to start. Finally he said, “I never met your kid, but I don’t believe he done that. Where they got him?”
    “Up in the hospital, still. They haven’t even let his mother see him yet.”
    Benny D. came in and pulled out the stool next to Dallas, waving Woody away. “You’re something,” he said to Dallas.
    “What.”
    “Anybody else would be chasing me, but not Dallas Younger. I gotta chase him. He not only doesn’t bother to show up for work, he can’t even call to let people know where he’ll be.”
    “I’m right here.”
    “Asshole,” Benny D. took out a wad of bills and stuffed them in Dallas’s pocket. “It’s two grand, in case you’re wondering. Say thanks.”
    “Thanks.”
    “You’re tough.”
    “I mean it. Thanks.”
    “I want it back someday. They set bail?”
    Dallas shook his head. “Ten grand is John’s guess.”
    “Jesus.”
    “I got a thousand from a guy I know pretty good. Your two makes three. My ex-wife says she’s got seven hundred or so in a savings account.”
    “Rudy hit the number last night.”
    “So I heard.”
    “Probably back in the local economy by now. The kid got a lawyer?”
    “John said he’ll go see him, but I don’t know. He’s still pretty sore about his face.”
    “He’s an asshole. Let me have Dominic do it.”
    “I can’t pay him.”
    “You can work it out later. Dominic’s all right.”
    “Yeah, let’s do that.”
    When they finished their beer Benny D. left, passing the bookie on his way in. Untemeyer assumed his usual perch. “You picked a bad time,” he grumbled, brushing cigar ash off his sleeve.
    “When’s a good one?”
    “I’ve been taking a beating.”
    “You’ve been taking a beating for fifty years. I don’t need to hear about it.”
    “What do you need.”
    “A bundle. John says bail’ll be around ten grand.”
    “I hear he’s out of bookmaking.”
    “He had some tough luck.”
    Untemeyer nodded. “I figured he would. A man shouldn’t have more than one racket. I can spot you a couple grand if it’ll help.”
    “It would.”
    Untemeyer wrote out a check and, from habit, a small slip.
    Dallas’s pocket was getting thick, its bulge reassuring. “How the hell old are you anyway,” he asked.
    “Never