“HOWIE’S LIKE MOST OF US HERE,” Little Joe muttered as he pushed his trolley back toward the elevator. “Has his bad moments, but he’ll get over it. Just needs a touch of the moodies, that’s all…”
Clark’s own thoughts were churning. He could still see that hunched and ruined figure at the far end of the gantry. It had seemed for a moment to be not one Howard Hughes but many, a thin blur of tremulous, agonized voices and scrabbling hands.
“How long have you been here, Joe?”
“Oh, I’m a newbie. Just the last five or six years is all. Only got to be a trustie these last couple.”
“This may sound like an odd question, but does my name ring any kind of bell? I mean my last name, Lamotte? Or else a guy called Hogg?”
Little Joe thought for a moment, then pressed the elevator button with an oddly stubby finger before shaking his head. “Can’t say it does.”
“How about something called Thrasis?”
“Say what?”
“Thrasis.”
Little Joe shook his head.
They ended up back in the Met’s main entrance hall, with Little Joe parking his mop trolley in the same spot beneath the same severe portrait of one of the city fathers from which Clark had taken it.
“Come back any time you like,” he said. “That is, if you fancy some more research. Now that you got the uniform an’ all.”
“Thanks. I’d be happy to see you again, Little Joe, but I’m not so sure about the rest. You shouldn’t be in here either. Should ask to get yourself re-assessed…”
Little Joe’s askew eyebrows rearranged themselves into something resembling a frown.
“Needn’t worry about missing the moodies,” Clark added. “You can spend all day and all night tucked up in the feelie houses in the city for all anyone’ll care. And there’s always plenty of work for a guy who can handle a mop.”
“Wish it were that simple, Mr Lamotte.” His gaze was sad and soft. “Truth is, the city air don’t agree with me. I got this skin condition, see. Gets me all antsy so I can’t move for scratching and a’nibbling. That’s why I bit my nails so bad.” He held out his big hands. All that was left of his nails were nubs of shiny scar tissue.
“That’s why I had to pull out my teeth, an’ all. My kids and my wife, they got the same problem. So I did them too.” Little Joe balled up his hands and pulled his arms close around himself. “So I reckon I’m probably better in here ’til I stop getting the itches an’ they get that city sorted.”