Yesterday's News

tonight.”
    “Where?”
    “In the alley behind your favorite establishment.”
    “Bun’s?”
    “That’s what he said. You sure you bat from the right side of the plate, Cuddy?”
    “He give you a time?”
    “I asked him that. He said you were too goddam cheap to give him your watch, so you could just hope he’d still be there when you arrived. Goddam uppity bum.”
    “Thanks, Emil. Sorry to inconvenience you.”
    “I won’t let it turn into a habit.”
    He hung up.
    Liz leaned her elbows on the balustrade above me, shifting her weight from bent leg to bent leg, rolling her rump in a one-two rhythm. Probably an aerobics exercise.
    She said, “Sounds like you’re leaving me.”
    “Sorry. Thanks for dinner. It was terrific.”
    “So are the stars. Over the water you can see them real clear. Count them even.” She accentuated one repetition of the exercise. “Especially good viewing from the wheelhouse.”
    Climbing the stairs, I drew even with her as she slid her arms up and around my neck.
    I looked into her eyes. “If I were to say, ‘Maybe next time,’ I’d be lying.”
    She shook her head. “I know.”

The Strip had one strong point: parking never seemed to be a problem, even at ten-thirty on a Thursday night. Leaving the Prelude near Bun’s, I entered the alley just as a cloud passed across the moon, followed by a flash of lightning and the eventual rumble of distant thunder. Liz would be missing her stars. A second flash allowed me to spot Vip, curled around the wheels of a dumpster maybe ten feet from the back door of Gotbaum’s bar.
    Bending down, I said, “You called me?”
    His feet, shod in old combat boots, squirmed and resettled.
    I tugged on one of the boots. “Vip, it’s John Cuddy. You called me?”
    Using an elbow as a fulcrum, he passed a palm over his face. “Awake, officer. I’s awake.”
    “Vip, it’s John Cuddy.”
    “Cuddy?”
    “Yes. You called me, remember?”
    “Right, right. You don’t gots to spell it out for me, you know? I’m not a fuckin drunk, like some peoples I could mention.”
    “You ready to talk now?”
    “You ready to pay now?”
    I took a twenty from my pocket and held it close enough for him to see the denomination. “Start talking.”
    “Not till I gets the twenty.”
    “You said you trusted me because of how I handled those three teenagers, right? I give you the twenty first, and I don’t like what I hear, I can just take it back. So why don’t we exchange value like gentlemen here, okay?”
    Vip grunted. “You wants it short or long?”
    “Long would be nice.”
    He arranged himself into a sitting position, back against a bag of trash that hadn’t quite made it into the dumpster. I found a beer case, stamped it flat, and lowered myself Indian-style.
    “Shaping up to be a dry night, that one. Not much action, nobody gots no bottle. Gets me some supper up along the mission off Second, some kind of seafood shit gots more potatoes in it than anything, but what else be new under the sun? One of the boys say Charlie out and about, so I comes down here.”
    “Charlie Coyne?”
    “ ‘Course Charlie Coyne. Who the fuck you wanting to know about?”
    “He’s the one.”
    “Then hows about you shuts up and listens to what I gots to say about him?”
    “Fine.”
    Vip seemed mollified. “Charlie, he a piece of work, that one. Gets hisself shit-faced over in the bar. Buys hisself some cheap shit offen the barkeep. Then come out here, pass it ‘round to the boys.”
    “You talk with him that night?”
    “Talk with Charlie? You gots to be shitten me, man. Charlie, he don’t start coming out here till he so shit-faced, he lucky he still raise a hand for to drink with.”
    “What happened after he started passing the bottle around?”
    “They’s a fight over it, like they always is. Fuckin bums, they goes up the alley a piece, squabbling over the thing like hens over a new bandy-cock. I lets ‘em go, ain’t gots no time for fighting over things.”
    “Then what?”
    Vip looked around melodramatically, a confidant in a silent movie. “Biggish dude kind of crawl over to Charlie. Never laid eyes on him before, and I been in this here alley mosta two years now. I figures maybe he gonna rip old Charlie off, buy his own bottle. Dude gets close onto Charlie, starts going through the pockets, you know? Not like a queer, more searching for something. Anyway, musta struck a sweet spot, ‘cause old Charlie, he come ‘round, shouting