It was past midnight and I was bushed. I'd wasted the whole day on the outskirts of downtown One–West under the low, fat clouds, so low that the brilliant tip of the Spaceship was lost in them, setting them aglow. I kept to the shadows of the tiny manufacturing buildings, but all the while I was attracted to the Cathedral Complex. I found myself tracing an arc a dozen blocks from the blinding domes, the white wires, the Spaceship itself. I had nowhere to sleep that is, nowhere I was willing to pay for. The two hundred bucks must remain intact, I kept vowing as I wandered the deserted streets, sure the cops were about to scream out of the night, slam me to the pavement, and snap on the handcuffs.
But the soles of my feet were screaming. I knew I couldn't keep moving all night. I'd been on my feet since two in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten since morning. Around eight PM I'd taken a leak on a wall behind Gracker's Tires my big accomplishment of the day. I began to eye each building I came across most for the twentieth time as a possible place to crash. I'd see an abandoned gas station and consider how to be an inconspicuous lump behind it. But when I'd get there I'd be bathed in headlights cutting around a corner. There was no satisfying my paranoia. I reluctantly moved even further from the glowing Spaceship and found myself on the wide grounds of a grammar school.
A maze of sidewalks led past rusted swingsets to a three–story building. There were hollow places under the stone stairs leading to the second floor and I slid into one of them without thinking. I could still feel the radiance of the Spaceship coming over the top of the school, spilling onto the playground, penetrating my lair, its artificial moonlight glinting on the moist swingsets and tree leaves.
I was warm in my jacket and my head was comfortable against the stone. I closed my eyes and thought about the old gang. Danny and Pete and Rick and all the others. And the women who hung out with us. Cruising through the lake district of Drulgoorijk on Sunday afternoons all fifteen of us on our choppers, bombed out of our minds. And Melissa. God, she was fine. After six years, I could barely remember her ...
I woke to the sight of my wallet being unfolded in front of my nose. Two puffy hands pulled it every which way. Beyond was a mass of dirty red hair and beard, and a huge flat face that looked as if it had been ripped apart a hundred times. The bum was drunk, straining to focus on the wallet. Finally he noisily cleared his throat.
"So, bub," he said, eyeing my One–West Correctional I.D. card, "yuh say yer name's Harry?"
"No, man, I didn't say that " I muttered. "What the hell are you doing with my wallet?"
"Hey, craphead, me and Ronnie here are rippin' ya off," the bum said. By this time he'd removed my ten twenty dollar bills. The money fluttered in the wind.
"Careful with my money," I said. I was having trouble breathing with his knee on my chest.
"Screw you, turdface," he said. "Ronnie, how much we got?" He handed the bills and my wallet to a tall, skinny guy in a glistening motorcycle helmet. But at least Ronnie rounded up several bills that had sailed to the ground.
"Two hundred," Ronnie said, voice muffled by a black visor obscuring his entire face. "This guy was loaded."
"I am loaded, you mean," I said. "That's my money."
"No, I'm loaded," the bum said, leaning over me with foul wine breath. "I'm gonna puke all over ya!"
"Eric, let's split," Ronnie said. "No use hangin' around "
"Maybe we better kill this guy," Eric said. "No evidence then "
"Idiot," Ronnie said. "A body is evidence."
Eric turned to Ronnie and said: "Hey, pisshead, don't mess with me. If the vibes are right, we waste the guy. If they aren't, then ... then we just beat the bejeezus outa him. Or something. I don't know."
As Ronnie argued back as the muffled voice of reason and Eric spat out obscenities, I lay contemplating Eric's swollen left ear. Ronnie appeared to be unarmed, but Eric had a huge knife sheath at his waist pressing on my thigh.
I knew I had bad position, wedged in the shallow grotto with my knees up and my hands behind them. This space wasn't half as big as I'd thought when I'd gotten into it just wide enough for my shoulders and high enough to sit in. Eric crouched with his head above and outside the top of my little crypt.
I jerked my hands free, grabbed Eric by the shoulders and snapped him towards me. His forehead thudded violently into the stone wall and then he was a limp bundle of bad smell on top of me. I whipped his fat knife out and screamed: "One false move and I'll slit this guy's throat! I mean it!"
Ronnie backed away in disbelief. "Yeah, whaddya think I care? I got the damn two hundred!"
I struggled with Eric's body. "Goddamn bastard run out on your buddy like that that's really crap, man " Finally I pushed Eric off and leapt to my feet with the knife.
Ronnie's voice went up a couple octaves inside his helmet. "You can't call me no bastard! I didn't do nothing! I got the two hundred fair and square!"
I kicked Eric away, noting in shock the ugly mass of blood all over his forehead. I'd punched and slit my way around with the gang, but I'd never ... never knocked somebody's brains out before. My head ballooned.
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