The Coffin Dancer

no fuckin’ bottle. I got beat up. Some kids, they beat me up. They busted something in me. It don’t feel right. I need medicine. Not crack or smack or fucking T-bird. I need something stop me hurtin’. I need pills!” He climbed to his feet and teetered, swaying toward Bear Man.
    “Nothing, man. We don’t got nothing.”
    “I’ma ask you a las’ time, you gonna give me somethin’?”He groaned and held his side. They knew how crazy strong some crackheads were. And this guy was big. He could easily break both of them in half.
    Leon whispered to Bear Man, “That guy, th’other day?”
    Bear Man was nodding avidly though it was a fear reflex. He didn’t know who the hell Leon was talking about.
    Leon continued, “There’s this guy, okay? Was trying to sell us some shit yesterday. Pills. Pleased as could be.”
    “Yeah, pleased as could be,” Bear Man said quickly, as if confirming the story might calm Cats down.
    “Didn’t care who saw him. Just selling pills. No crack, no smack, no Jane. But uppers, downers, you name it.”
    “Yeah, you name it.”
    “I got money.” Cats fumbled in his filthy pocket and pulled out two or three crumpled twenties. “See? So where this motherfucker be?”
    “Over near City Hall. Old subway station . . . ”
    “I’m sick, man. I got beat up. Why somebody beat me up? What I do? I’s pickin’ some cans’s all. And look what happen. Fuck. What his name?”
    “I don’t know,” Bear Man said quickly, squiggling up his forehead as if he were thinking fiercely. “No, wait. He said something.”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “You remember . . . He was looking at my bears.”
    “An’ he said something. Yeah, yeah. Said his name was Joe or something. Maybe Jodie.”
    “Yeah, that was it. I’m sure.”
    “Jodie,” Cats repeated, then wiped his forehead. “I’ma see him. Man, I need somethin’. I’m sick, man. Fuck you. I’m sick. Fuck you too.”
    When Cats had staggered off, moaning and muttering to himself, dragging his bag of cans behind him, Leon and Bear Man returned to the curb and sat down. Leon cracked a Voodoo ale and they started drinking.
    “Shouldn’ta done that to that fella,” he said.
    “Who?”
    “Joe or whatever his name was.”
    “You want that motherfucker round here?” Bear Man asked. “He dangerous. He scare me. You want him to hang round here?”
    “Course I don’t. But, man, you know.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “You know, man.”
    “Yeah, I know. Gimme the bottle.”

 . . . Chapter Twenty-three
    Hour 25 of 45
    S itting next to Jodie on the mattress, Stephen was listening through the tap box to the Hudson Air phone line.
    He was listening to Ron’s phone. Talbot was his last name, Stephen had learned. He wasn’t exactly sure what Ron’s job was but he seemed to be an executive with the charter company and Stephen believed he’d get the most information about the Wife and Friend by listening to this line.
    He heard the man arguing with someone from the distributor who handled parts for Garrett turbines. Because it was Sunday they were having trouble getting the final items for the repairs—a fire extinguisher cartridge and something called the annular.
    “You promised it by three,” Ron grumbled. “I want it by three.”
    After some bargaining—and bitching—the company agreed to fly the parts into their Connecticut office from Boston. They’d be trucked to the Hudson Air office and arrive by three or four. They hung up.
    Stephen listened for a few minutes longer but there were no other calls.
    He clicked the phone off, frustrated.
    He didn’t have a clue as to where the Wife and Friend were. Still in the safe house? Had they been moved?
    What was wormy Lincoln thinking now? How clever was he?
    And who was he? Stephen tried to picture him, tried to picture him as a target through the Redfield telescope. He couldn’t. All he saw was a mass of worms and a face looking at him calmly through a greasy window.
    He realized that Jodie’d said something to him.
    “What?”
    “What’d he do? Your stepfather?”
    “Just odd jobs mostly. Hunted and fished a lot. He was a hero in Vietnam. He went behind enemy lines and killed fifty-four people. Politicians and people like that, not just soldiers.”
    “He taught you all this, about . . . what you do?” The drugs had worn off and Jodie’s green eyes were brighter now.
    “I got most of my practice in Africa and South America but he started me. I called