I woke the next morning drenched in sweat. Dreams of an undertow I’d wrestled during the night kept trying to insinuate themselves into my wakefulness but I fought them off. I didn’t need the details. Awake, I already felt pulled into the underside of people’s lives, and it made me uncomfortable to remember Richard’s comment that the work suited.

I showered off the frights and dug around in my dresser for clothes. Most of them were dirty. I stood naked and transfixed in front of two almost empty drawers.

I yanked myself away from the bureau and grabbed yesterday’s pants. I walked into the alley to get the paper and was hit with a strong smell of ocean. It was going to be another chilly day. I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and guarding my rolled-up paper. The clothes seemed symbolic. When I had nowhere to go I had plenty of clothes. Now I had places to go but I didn’t know where, or what to wear. In a perverse way the idea gave me pleasure. I prepared to do a wash.

After the changeover from washer to dryer I pulled on a tee shirt and sweats and marched barefoot through the building to Julius’ apartment. If I got there early enough he might still be around. I banged on the door and waited. I heard him rustle and then call out.

“Who’s there?”

“Me. Matt.”

“Well, pick the lock. No need to get me on my feet in the middle of the fucking night.”

“If I do, the landlord will evict.”

The door opened and I stood staring at Julius’ saggy face. His eyes were red and blurry and his breath smelled like he had just used bourbon for mouthwash. For a moment I thought about leaving him alone but he was already grunting me through the entrance. All the blinds in the apartment were down but there was enough light from the bathroom fixture to make finding the kitchen possible.

“Jesus, Julie, you ain’t a bat.”

He walked over and put the stove’s hood light on. “I don’t like light when I’m sleeping. Or when I’m supposed to be sleeping.”

“It’s not that early.”

He just looked at me.

“Okay, it is that early. But hell, you woke me up the other night.”

“I brought you shit when I came over.” He looked at my hands. “Your arms are empty.” He looked down at my bare feet. “Damn, even yourieet are empty.” He walked into the bathroom and came back with a bottle of bourbon. He sat across the table from me and took a drink. Or was it a rinse? He offered but I just made a face. I didn’t want to swallow and it wasn’t polite to spit on the floor. My refusal made him smile. Or grimace. I wasn’t sure.

“Are you doing rent collecting, s’lord?”

“Look, I’m sorry about disturbing you. If you want we can meet another time.” I put my hands up. I’d been party to Julie’s bad moods before and I wasn’t about to instigate another.

He took another swallow from the bottle, stood, walked into the bedroom and returned with a fat joint. He sat back down, snuffed out his cigarette, and lit the joint. I watched as he smoked. Eyes closed, settling back in his chair. I could almost see the smoke work its way through his body. I wanted some.

As if he could read my mind, Julie opened his eyes and offered me the joint but I didn’t want to get high until I made a final decision about calling Boots. I shook my head and lit a cigarette instead. Julius continued to focus on the joint. I didn’t see the percentage in rushing him.

When he finally spoke the edge of hostility was gone. “Doesn’t seem like you’re here about the building.”

“I’m not.”

He carefully put the joint on the rim of the ashtray and watched as it slowly burned itself out. He took another drink of the bourbon and lit a cigarette. Everything seemed to be moving in three-quarters time.

“How is your body?”

“You heard, huh?”

“Be hard not to.”

“It seems like people around here have been confusing humiliation with heroism. I’m all right. Down to twice a day reminders. Couple more days it’ll be normal.”

“Nothing’s ever normal with you. Why did it go down?”

“I don’t know. The closest I come has the police protecting whoever’s been breaking into the building I’m interested in.”

He raised his eyebrows underneath a cloud of smoke. “Police. Why police?”

I summarized the beating and yesterday’s discussion with the black guy. “Neither of them showed a badge or warrant but something inside of me is certain.” I lit another cigarette. Talk of the beating had gotten me angry. The glowing tip of the joint in the brown glass ashtray was fading. I wanted some before it extinguished but pushed the feeling away. Julius just sat there with his fucking eyes closed. At least he didn’t go for another toke. I’d a had my hand out if he had.

He opened his eyes. “What do you suppose I can do?”

“You can think. And you know what to think about. See, I can’t get it to add. Whoever is busting in doesn’t seem to realize the cops are buffering him. He keeps trying to cover his tracks.”

“Or making it look that way.”

“Maybe. But why twice? He could have spent the entire night there if he knew he was protected.

“Maybe he had to git home to his momma.”

“No curfew in this town, Boss. Why would police cover for someone who isn’t a cop?”

“Did you describe the meat to Phil?”

“No. The guy in the car tried to squeeze me about where I got the report. I managed to talk my way out of answering and I haven’t wanted to chance leading anyone to Phil. Hell, he did me a favor; I don’t want to get him fucked.”

Julius relit the joint. “This time give me a detailed painting of the situation and the tag team.”

I did the best I could. When I was studying for the ticket I spent most of the time with the gun. I had imagined that little things, like detecting, came with common sense. Of course back then I didn’t have any. Now it was on-the-job training. Julius just sat there and listened to my account of Dr. James’ case and the beating. I figured Simon was personal business.

The only questions he asked were about the pit bull’s shoes. At first I wondered whether he was ribbing me about kissing floor, but he stayed serious and so did I. When I finished, a good chunk of my anger had dissipated. I hoped he would light the joint. He did. We passed the dope back and forth. It almost seemed like the other night when we smoked together at my place. But it wasn’t. The beating, my deepening involvement with the cases—I was starting to think of them as cases—added a somber note nonexistent the last time.

“Your jokes are missing.”

“I’m not used to being trashed in my own house.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

I took a deep inhale on the roach and held my breath. I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. Right now I want to know what it’s about. Later I can think about what to do.”

“If you keep on with this you got to be ready to do it all.”

“What’s all?”

“Everything, I mean everything.” His voice had grown even softer. It sent a chill through me. “Jail, Mr. Jacob. How’s that for starters? You be fucking with cops that’s where you got a good chance of getting.”

He opened his eyes a little wider. “This is a very grownup game, slumlord. You don’t get a little bit pregnant.” His voice became a sarcastic hiss that stung like the spray from a riot hose. “So you got hit. You still got all your parts and most of your blood. Let it go. Violence is like this, man. You are involved or you are not. There’s plenty of crossover but, if you are going to live on my side of the fence, you best be ready to do it all. You got to give a beating as well as take one.”

His voice lost all traces of sarcasm. It was almost tender. “Are you ready, Matthew, to give a beating? Feel your hands break someone else’s bone? See a piece of skin rip off a body? Crush an eye with your boot? You don’t even wear boots, do you? The guy that kicked you was wearing a boot. Are you ready to shoot someone and watch the life drip out of him? Let it go. You are a housekeeper, slumlord, not an asskicker.”

I felt stunned. Julie wasn’t the first to tell me not to get involved, everyone was doing that. But he was the first to give me good reasons. Real good reasons. I sat there for a long time thinking. Every once in a while Julius would lean forward and nip from the bottle or light a cigarette. I sat there thinking for a long time. He didn’t rush me.

“You know, I’ve been giving a friend of mine similar advice about a problem and all he keeps telling me is he can’t help it.”

Julius leaned back in his chair and gave me his best lizard imitation. “Sounds like your friend has woman trouble.”

I grinned. “That’s the trouble with advice from you. You’re too fucking smart to ignore.”

“But ignore me you will.”

“I can’t help it.” I lit a cigarette. “When I was growing up, the house was a free-fire zone. Anything went. I spent my time trying to figure out what was going on and stay ahead of it. It kept me alive, but didn’t prevent me from running my own life into the ground once I got out. I caught a reprieve, had my guts torn out again, and I’m back here hiding in a basement. I haven’t been interested in much of anything and that’s the way I thought I was going to play out the string. Only this shit interests me.” I let out a long breath. For a moment I wondered if I had just hired a new shrink.

“The shit that interests you might also kill you.”

“Probably not.”

“And the practicalities?”

“Practicalities? Julius, from you? Please, get us more dope.”

He smiled but didn’t move.

“The practicalities worry me. There are serious limitations to my learn-as-I-go method so I’m trying to ease into it.”

“Ease might not be slow enough.”

“It’s got to be. The violence scares me and jail worse. I intend to avoid both.”

“You do this detective work for real, not just in your mind, sooner or later you can’t avoid nothing. That’s what I been trying to tell you and what you spent all this time ignoring.”

“I’m not ignoring it. I just don’t know what to do with it. I’m not thinking beyond this situation and I don’t think I’m involved with something that’s going to get me killed or thrown in jail. Right now all I want to know is what the hell is going on.” I shrugged. “Later is later. It’ll take care of itself. Will you please roar the damn pipe?”

“You waited this long you can wait a little longer. You didn’t come marching down here with your naked feet to ask permission to do something you were going to do anyway.”

“I want to stay away from Phil, but I want to find out whether the Bobbsey twins are freelancing, or if there is something going on in the Department. You know, there could be a simple explanation for all of this.”

It was Julius’ turn to think. I drank a little bourbon to quench my thirst. It didn’t work but it felt good going down so I had another. I lit a cigarette and waited.

“I’m comfortable with you, slumlord. We ain’t what I’d call friends, but there’s not too many people I’ll share a high with. When you first got here you be like something out of a crazy house. Like they did surgery on your head. I seen you recover, but you’re still one tired dude.

“I thought you must be some kind of outlaw for me to feel easy with you, but my only clue was that dead license. Hearing that you’re waking up that license, that’s good and bad. Makes me feel more comfortable sharing my high. But it’s gonna change you. And you’re too green to know it.”

I wasn’t too green to know he was telling the truth, just too green to let it stop me. I waited for him to say something about my request.

“I liked what you told me about Phil. The way I see outlaws is you got two types. Decent ones and assholes. Has to do with character, not something you learn. Doesn’t matter which side of the law you’re on either. Your attitude about covering Phil is good character.”

For a moment I was hurtled back in time to my elementary school where they talked a lot about character. But they never talked about it as part of an outlaw’s makeup. Nor did they divide the world into decents and assholes.

Coming from anyone else the idea might have been funny, but sitting across the table from me was a man I believed did all the things he asked me if I could do. I just sat still and smoked.

He spoke in a clipped, unaccented, business tone. “I will ask around and see if I can find anything out. I doubt I can, but I will try. If I do hear about something there won’t be any simple answers. Prepare yourself for that. If you want more dope I will be happy to get some. If not, will you go the fuck away and let me sleep?”