It had been the kind of day that made his neck chaff—in spite of the slipped collar button and the loose tie—and he was heading home through rush hour traffic with a headache and an attitude. After crisscrossing the city chasing minor accounts all morning, getting stung for lunch by some publicity peon from W. F. Scott, and then jerked around for hours in the afternoon only to be curtly informed that there was no final decision yet on the new campaign his guys had worked up for one of The Big Three—in short, the usual shit—Tom was in no mood to wait for oncoming cars or anything else. His last cigarette was burning itself out in the ashtray. He needed a new pack and he needed it now. Gunning the engine of his luxury sports sedan, he slipped the transmission into gear and whipped across two lanes of traffic. Tires spinning, radio pumped up and blasting, he pulled into the over-crowded parking lot of a convenience store and double parked behind a battered white Impala.
As he exited the car and moved toward the store’s entrance, Tom flipped his shades up, clicked the remote door lock, and patted his wallet through his hip pocket. Though a mid-winter evening, the air was warm and dry. A stiff Santa Ana breeze blew dust and candy wrappers across the pavement. In the distance, the mountains loomed brown and massive, their tops chopped abruptly by the dirty twilight haze.
There had hardly been a rainy day since he’d moved from Missouri six years earlier. Half that time he’d lived with water rationing regulations so strict he wasn’t allowed to use the expensive automatic sprinkler system he’d installed on the new lawn at the house he and Becky bought out in the Valley. A crew of Mexicans had done the job in one day, arriving at first light with a rototiller and a truck full of rolled sod and white PVC pipe. Now the grass—Kentucky Blue—was long dead and the desert seemed to be bent on reclaiming the city. The newspapers kept calling it the worst drought of the century. Scientists predicted that if they didn’t get some snow pack in the Sierras this year the reservoirs would dry up completely in the coming months. In the past they’d diverted one big river and now there was even talk of building a pipeline from Canada. Hell, maybe they could re-route the damned Mississippi while they were at it.
Somehow things had been drying up all over. When he’d first brought Becky to California not long after they were married, Los Angeles was still booming. Real estate prices had soared to unbelievable highs, defense contractors were building enough fighter-bombers and missiles to police a dozen planets, and people on the inside track were still optimistically babbling about expanding Pacific Rim trade and investment opportunities. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there was money to be made if you weren’t shy about it.
Back then Tom had plunged right into real estate, signing on as an agent and taking courses for a broker’s license at night while he hustled other people’s listings during the day. Within a month everybody in the office was talking about how good he was. Clients trusted him, especially people with money. He made them laugh, told them stories about his childhood, complimented the wives on their looks. They liked the way he talked, his boyish enthusiasm, his home-spun humor. For him, selling big property was as simple as selling a dream. And no doubt about it, he had the gift.
Within six months he’d earned over a hundred thousand dollars in commissions and started his own office. Then he really racked it up and cashed it in, stuffing his pockets, rolling in dough, laughing all the way to the bank. Weekends when he wasn’t closing yet another deal, he took Becky on all-day shopping sprees to Rodeo Drive and dressed her up like a model. When he had the chance, he picked up the house in one of the best hill sections of the valley. To celebrate, on the same day he closed escrow he bought himself a new car and one for Becky, too, insisting on ordering for her a customized license plate that read, MY BABE. Of course there were other women, too. Lots of them. Women pretty enough to star in their own television shows. He met them everywhere he went. They liked the way he talked. They liked his car, his style. It was all too easy.
But it didn’t last. One of his biggest clients, a high-rolling, big-time former network television executive named Pinkston, had warned him it would eventually dry up. “Get out while you’re ahead,” he’d advised. He even invited Tom to come on board as a partner in a new advertising venture he was putting together. “You’re good, kid. Good enough to get in on some of the action out there, to turn a real profit.” But Tom, pumped up by his own success and put off by Pinkston’s blustering, had just laughed him off. No doubt he’d been a fool not to jump at the opportunity. And sure enough, when the bottom dropped out of real estate six months later, Tom was stuck with huge debts and a failing business. Somehow he’d managed to save the house. But his marriage was beyond salvaging, for Becky had already left him and gone back to Missouri.
After he’d straightened out the mess—laid off his agents, secretary and receptionist, closed down the office, got the creditors off his back—he looked up Pinkston, whose agency was located in a downtown high-rise with impressive views on clear days. Since the whole business depended on creating images, the executive suites of M.T. Media were designed to impress visitors. Pinkston’s own office was situated in a prime corner of the building, giving him a panoramic view of the city below. The desk and chair sat on a platform elevated a foot above the floor. “Sorry to hear about your tough luck, kid,” Pinkston told him, as they shook hands. They talked idly for a few minutes before Pinkston checked his watch and made excuses about a meeting. Just as Tom was standing to go, Pinkston said, “Look, buddy, I think I might be able use somebody like you in the field. Give me a call next week.”
So Tom had signed on as an account representative. That was two years ago. Since then he’d been hustling media advertising, selling concepts. It was a living.
When Tom stepped into the store, the first thing he saw was the barrel of a shotgun. A giant of a man with long black hair, wearing a sleeveless, embroidered jeans jacket, sunglasses and a black felt hat with a feather in the headband, held the gun inches from Tom’s face. Another smaller man with a short-cropped red beard stood behind the counter aiming a pistol at the head of the store clerk, who was filling a paper bag with cash from the register. Several customers lay spread-eagle behind the magazine rack, their faces pressed against the floor. “Get down on the fucking floor with the rest and close your eyes,” the one with the shotgun yelled at him. As Tom eased himself carefully onto his hands and knees, he felt the cold metal of the gun barrel kiss his temple. “Hurry up, motherfucker!”
When the register was empty, the man with the pistol filled the rest of the bag with cigarettes, snack cakes, and donuts from a rack adjacent to the counter while his partner collected the wallets and purses of the customers. They also took Tom’s keys. “Shouldn’t park behind another car,” shotgun told him, laughing. “You never know when people might be in a hurry.” Then they instructed everyone to remain on the floor for ten minutes. Behind him Tom heard a woman whimpering. When he was sure the men had had enough time to start the engine, he rolled over and watched through the glass as they pulled his car out of the parking lot and turned right into traffic. The blinker was flashing and they didn’t seem to be in any hurry. “Shit,” he said.
Tom spent most of the evening at the police station, where a detective asked him to describe as accurately and completely as he could, exactly what had transpired during the robbery. As he talked, another officer transcribed his statement in shorthand. Next he looked through a dozen thick binders of photographs of possible suspects, none of whose faces matched those of the robbers. Based on the descriptions he, the clerk and the other victims had provided, a police artist produced accurate composite drawings of the two men. Finally, a detective who seemed to be in charge of the investigation or perhaps the whole section, asked what seemed like dozens of irrelevant questions. “Do you think I’ll get my car back?” Tom said, finally.
“No telling,” said the detective.
When he finally got home that night, Tom tried to call one of his tennis buddies to talk about the ordeal. No one answered. Then he tried two different women he’d been seeing, but neither was home. He even tried Becky in Missouri, but hung up without speaking when her father picked up the phone, for he was in no mood to deal with the Judge. Finally, he poured himself a whisky and sat down in front of the television. Halfway through the movie he was watching, a commercial for pantyhose aired. The camera panned across a dozen pairs of chorus-line legs kicking out at the screen, settling finally on one sheathed in hideously run nylons. “Guess who isn’t wearing Hotlegs?” the voice-over asked. Then the legs resumed their dance to the tune of an insulting jingle. It was an old spot, one of the first big deals Tom had cut by himself. He’d since lost the account. In this business everything happened quickly and there was no such thing as loyalty. Tom got up and poured himself another drink. When, hours later, half-drunk and numb from the day’s events, he finally went to bed, the jingle was still playing in his head.
Tom called in sick to work the next day. He spent the morning replacing his lost keys, cancelling his credit cards and arranging a car rental. He took a taxi to the rental agency, then drove to a hardware store and bought new locks for the house. The following day the police called, interrupting an important concept presentation his team had arranged to show a new client. The detective he’d spoken to before at the station told him they’d arrested someone who fit the description he’d given them and wanted him to come down to try to pick the suspect out of a lineup. “We need positive identification to hold him. It will just take a minute,” the detective said. And no, he added, the car had not, as yet, been recovered.
Inside the station yet another detective escorted Tom to a screening area where, safe from view behind a two-way mirror, he could view the men in the line-up. “If you’re so sure you got the right guy, then who are these other people?” Tom asked when six men entered the room in front of him.
“Just some creeps we picked up for questioning in conjunction with this and other cases. Now, take a good look and tell me. Is our guy out there?” Tom looked carefully at the six men, pausing to study each one in turn. None seemed to match the appearance of either of the two gunmen. He shook his head.
“Sorry to disappoint you, lieutenant, but I’m positive it’s none of these men.” Still, something bothered him about the man on the far left, a thin, worn-looking fellow about his own age. Though he was sure he wasn’t one of the gunmen, Tom nonetheless felt a strong sense of recognition. “Who’s the guy on the left? I’d swear I know that face.”
The lieutenant shuffled the papers in his folder. “Let’s see,” he said, frowning. “Small-time hustler by the name of Sawyer. Huck Sawyer. Lists his occupation as an actor. Currently unemployed.” The cop snorted. “No address. Brought in on a drunk and disorderly. Probably a street person.” He paused and took a sip of coffee. “Why, you know this bum?”
On his way back from the bank, Tom wondered if he wasn’t making a terrible mistake. He knew that in all likelihood he and his childhood friend had drifted so far apart that they would probably have little in common except for their past, and thus little to say to each other. Still, his conscience told him that to turn his back on someone who’d once been like a brother to him would be an unpardonable sin.
Huck looked dazed as they led him out from the holding cell. When the police pointed to who had made his bail, he stared from across the room with eyes half closed into narrow slits of suspicion. When he’d collected his billfold and pocket knife and was free to go, Huck shuffled slowly toward Tom, his head down. “Mister,” he said, “I don’t know you from Adam, but I’m much obliged.”
Tom offered him his hand. “Tom’s the name,” he said. “We’re a long way from St. Petersburg, Huck, but it’s good to see you again.”
Suddenly Huck looked up and a smile cracked across his face. “Well I’ll be goddamned,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief and taking Tom’s hand in his own. “Say, Tom, you wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?”
Of course there was lots of catching up to do with so many years gone by, and as they got into the car and headed out of the underground parking structure, Huck soon enough persuaded Tom that the best way to go about it was with a bottle of bourbon. “This here’s a fine car you got, Tom. You musta got lucky. Though you always was one for books and such. What are ya now, a lawyer?”
“Nope, just a salesman,” said Tom.
“Well, I reckon everybody’s got something to sell. Me, I done sold everything I own at one time or another.” Tom thought better of asking him to elaborate. Instead, he told Huck about how he’d been robbed, his car stolen. “I maybe seen those fellers you’re talkin’ about,” said Huck. “Just give me a couple of days and I’ll foller ‘em next time I see ‘em. Then me and Jim’ll get your car back for you.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah, sure. You remember ol’ Jim, don’t ya? Me and him been on the road together pretty steady near to twenty years now. Ever since he come back from the war. Messed him up somethin’ awful, that did. We seen a lot, him and me. Traveled all over. Worked in construction—shovel work mostly—back when things was easier. Then Jim gets this brainstorm and says we ought to come to Hollywood an’ get us some into the movies, maybe westerns or something. Play little parts like the guys who get shot or beat up. So we did her. Me and him both started waitin’ ‘round the studio gates, talkin’ to the guards and shakin’ hands with everyone who went in and out. Finally they run us off, but not before this one guy told us how to go about it proper. That is to read up on all the casting calls and such and to stay informed about which picture needs what kind of extras and all. And sure enough we started gettin’ on. Me in a couple of commercials and Jim as an extra on all kinds of movies where they want black folks in the background. Things was surely lookin’ up for us. We had us a car and a hotel room and everything we needed. They feed you meals, too, just for being there. Big spreads of stuff piled on long tables, with paper plates and plastic forks. Then one day we both got fixed as extras on the same movie. Of course there’s lots of waitin’ around on these sets, so Jim, he figures why not him and me slide off somewhere to blow some weed. Next thing we know they’re running us off the studio and telling us never to set foot there again. But we settled in here, nonetheless. Gonna stay, too, on account of the weather.”
Tom nodded his head and pulled into the parking lot of a liquor store. He set his cigarettes on the dashboard. “I’ll get us some refreshments and be right back,” he told Huck. “Help yourself to a smoke if you like.” When he came back to the car, carrying a bag with a half gallon of Jack Daniels, some snack food and a carton of cigarettes, Tom found Huck going through the contents of the glove box. The pack of cigarettes had vanished from the dash.
Tom had no more set the bag down between them on the seat of the rented Cadillac and was fastening his shoulder belt when Huck cracked the seal on the bottle and took a long pull. He wiped his mouth on the dirty sleeve of his work shirt and held the bottle out before him. “That does a man a world of good,” he said.
Tom frowned. “There’s a law against open containers in cars, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Me and Jim done time in Mississippi once on account of that one.” He took another pull and screwed the cap back on. Then he opened the carton of cigarettes and flipped a new pack onto the dashboard. “I’ll just set her back in the bag and rest that down by my feet till we get where we’re goin’,” Huck said. “Say, we ought to go check up on Jim. I bet he could do with a snort of this here Daniels. And that way you can see our place, too. We been buildin’ it ourselves. It’s a ways from here, though. Out near to Burbank in the San Fernando Valley.”
“You live in Burbank?”
“Well, not exactly. But nearabouts.”
“I’m in Encino.”
“Well that makes us just about neighbors, then,” said Huck. He reached again for the bag, then thought better and pulled back, sighed, and instead grabbed the cigarettes off the dash. Huck and Tom smoked until they got on the freeway. Then Huck pressed himself against the door and closed his eyes. He snored as Tom drove.
When they descended into the valley Tom exited the freeway and reached over to gently shake his companion. Huck woke with a start, blinking his eyes and turning his head in both directions.
“Where we at?” he asked.
“Burbank,” Tom answered. “How do we get to your place from here?”
“Just keep headin’ straight till you get to the light yonder, then turn left and go a piece more. When you get to the river make another left and keep drivin’ till I tell you to stop.”
“The River?”
“Yeah. The L.A. River.”
Tom nodded and turned left. “You mean that storm drain?” Tom asked, pointing to a fenced-off concrete channel. Years ago every former stream in Los Angeles had been systematically transformed into a network of wide, deep ditches collectively called the Los Angeles River. Dry most of the year, during the rainy season, these concrete channels turned into raging torrents that carried the runoff from the surrounding hills and mountains quickly to the sea.
“That’s it,” said Huck.
Tom made another turn and headed into a warehouse district that ran parallel to the flood control channel. “Hey, wait a minute,” said Huck. “Stop the car and back up. You see that?” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “There’s a full sheet of half-inch plywood lying out by the curb like they was fixin’ to throw it away. We can surely use a board like that. You give me a hand with it now and me and Jim won’t have to fetch her all the way back on foot.”
Tom turned the car around and pulled up by the curb. He left the engine running while Huck got out to inspect the wood. “Nice and straight and dry besides,” said Huck, lifting it so that it set on its edge. “Now why don’t you turn the car back around and we’ll set her on the hood. It’s only another quarter mile or so, and if you drive real slow it won’t go noplace.”
Halfway down the street the board slid off the front of the car, caught an edge on the pavement and ripped the driver’s side mirror off the Cadillac. “Damn sorry about that, Tom,” Huck said, standing in the street with the broken mirror in his hand. “But I know we can fix her up again no trouble. Jim’ll know where to get another one.”
“That you, Hucky?” a voice called out when they got close to the shack beneath the bridge. They’d pushed the plywood over the chain-link fence and were carrying it down the sloping concrete wall, Huck clutching the bag with the whiskey close to his chest with one hand. The board wobbled considerably and Tom had just collected a handful of splinters trying to keep it from falling. When he turned around he was staring at a man with a blanket over his head. The man pointed a revolver at Tom’s head.
“Whoa, Jim, put that thing away,” said Huck. “This here is ol’ Tom Finn from St. Petersburg.”
“No shit?”
“Straight up, man,” said Tom.
“And we brought us a bottle of Jack Daniels and a nice piece of plyboard might serve as a new roof,” said Huck.
Jim grinned in the moonlight, then waved the revolver in the air. “Got to be careful,” he said to Tom, tucking the gun into the pocket of his fatigue jacket and extending his hand. Tom set his end of the board down and they shook hands.
“Good to see you again, man,” Tom said.
“Yeah. Lotta water under the bridge,” Jim laughed, pointing with his chin toward the dry channel bottom. “Anyway, like I was sayin’, you never know who might come poking around here. It’s a dangerous neighborhood for sure ‘cause we right in the middle of a fucking gang war. Seems about every night some of them kids in big pants come down here marking their territory like wil’ animals with spray paint cans.” He pointed toward the graffiti on the walls of the channel. “‘Bout a week back, two sets of them sprayers showed up on the same night, one either side of the bridge and us stuck here between. Pretty soon they was taking pot shots at each other to the point where we all had to clear out ’fore the police come. I thought for sure they were gonna root us out after that, but all them cops did is park their cars on the street and wait for their chopper to come shine some big-ass lights down here. Can’t see nothing much ’at’s under the bridge that way. We watched ‘em from the sewer mouth yonder. Safest place to be, much as I hate crawling into tunnels. Reminds me of them fucking death holes in the Nam.”
“I told Tom you was in the war,” said Huck. He took the bottle out of the sack, uncapped it and took a pull. Then he handed it to Jim. “Jim’s a hero. Got hisself a Purple Heart and every other kind of shit, too.”
“Now don’t get yourself started up on that again, Huck. Ain’t nobody wants to hear about them troubled times. Least of all a visitor. Ain’t that right, Tom?” Jim said, handing him the bottle.
The whisky burned down Tom’s throat as he drank. “I don’t know,” he said, “might be something to hear.”
“Oh, yessir, it’s somethin’ all right. Somethin’ I’d as soon forget about altogether only I could. But you wanna hear it, I’m one for the telling.” Jim paused to strike a match and Tom saw how his hand shook as he tried to touch the flame to his cigarette. “You see, two or three times a week I wake up in a big sweat, screaming my damn head off—ask Huck—the sound of AKs going off all around me. Other times I get these dreams where I’m ordered down a motherfucking tunnel at’s booby-trapped. Man, I seen enough guys buy it in Nam to keep me in nightmares the rest of my life. One buddy of mine lost his legs to an anti-fucking-personel mine with me walking not fifty feet from him. Blood soaking into the muddy grass all around him and the bunch of us standing around quiet as church not knowing what the hell we could do about it. Looked like a piece of meat chopped up on the sideboard. Dead in nothing flat. Another time I got tagged for a search and destroy and saw a head blown clear off a pair of shoulders. Christ hisself only knows all the death I seen.”
Jim looked hard at Tom as he took another long pull on the bottle. “But I’ll tell you somethin’, Mr. College. All that ain’t shit compared to what we done to them. No fucking shit. You understand what I’m sayin’? We butchered those motherfuckers. If a ville looked hostile we pulled first and asked questions later. You ever seen what a napalm strike can do to a bunch of them houses of sticks and grass? Jesus H. Christ, man. I seen kids and little babies looked like burnt toast after we went through some of them places. And that ain’t all. The worst part is living with what I done myself, Lord forgive me. You see, I’m a killer, Tom, sure as our Father sits in Heaven. I shot men—maybe girls, too, for all I know—took ‘em down like I was huntin’ for rabbits. And let me tell you this. I’m sorry as hell for my part in it. So damned sorry that now I figure I got it comin’, those bad dreams and all. Livin’ like a damn rat under this here bridge is all a murderer like me is fit for.”
“Aw, come on, Jim. You ain’t no murderer. You was only doin’ what they told you to,” said Huck. “I done just as bad or worse.”
“Maybe that’s why the good Lord throwed us into the stew together, Huck. You ever think of that?”
“Can’t say as I ever did,” Huck said. “But if you’d quit huggin’ that bottle like it was a new borned baby and pass it over this way, a man might have the chance to slack his thirst some.” Jim handed him the whisky and Huck drank. “Now Tom, I’m gonna tell you somethin’ I ain’t never told nobody before ’cept for Jim, here, on account of him thinkin’ he’s the only blasted sinner on the face of this earth. You remember when I first lit out, don’t you? I was no more than a child. I just up and disappeared one day and I ain’t never been back. You wanna know why? It’s ’cause I killed my own father, Tom. I killed that son-of-a-bitch, Pap.”
“You killed Pap?”
“That’s right. I know they figured it was one of them biker outfits that did him in, ’cause he had it comin’ for cheatin’ one of them outta his Hog in a card game. But it was me that done it. He was drinkin’ every night and whippin’ my ass to beat the band and I just got tired of it. So one night I laid for him and when he come in to whip me I fixed him good and that was that. I ain’t never been sorry about it neither.”
“He was one mean bastard, your daddy,” Jim said, shaking his head. “There was plenty folks around glad enough to see him laid out.”
“Well I reckon I fixed it for ’em,” said Huck. “I stopped Pap for good and forever.” Huck spit over his shoulder. “You think we could have some of them Vienna sausages, now, Tom? Maybe open that bag of chips and bean dip too? All this jawin’ done given me an appetite.”
After Huck had passed out from drink that night, Jim told Tom a bit of disturbing news. “I didn’t want to say nothin’ in front of him, Tom, but Huck’s not been feelin’ too good of late. Been losing so much weight there ain’t much left to him but skin and bone. That much you can see yourself. Most days he just want to lay around and not do much of nothin’ no more. I suspicion something bad, Tom, real bad. I don’t reckon he’d of told you nothing about exactly how we been gettin’ on all these years, but there been more than a few times we gone hungry and cold for days on end. That much you gotta understand. I mean such as what can drive a man to go so low he ain’t even a man no more.” Jim sighed deeply and fell silent, as if saying another word would cost him his last chance at salvation.
“What are you saying, Jim?” Tom asked. “This may be important.”
“What I’m sayin’ is that Huck done things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things for money. Things I hate to say aloud or even think about. Things no boy or man should never have to do just so we could have us somethin’ to eat and a place to lie down in for a night or two. And now I’m afraid the Lord is fixing to punish him some more for it, as if the doin’ weren’t a bad enough whipping at the time.”
Before Tom left that night, he took Jim with him in the car and drove to an automated teller machine in front of a bank, where he withdrew two hundred dollars. When he dropped Jim back at the river, he gave him the money and one of his business cards. “Look, Jim, take Huck to see a doctor. Try make sure he gets plenty to eat and, if possible, keep him away from the booze. I’ll come back here to check on you in a couple of days. We can all go to a restaurant and have a good meal together. And if there’s anything you need before then, call me at this number.”
After Jim had promised he’d get Huck to a doctor and thanked Tom, they shook hands. Then Jim slipped through the hole in the chain link fence and vanished into the darkness.
At work the next day Tom was tired and hungover. He pushed papers around his desk, made a few phone calls, drank coffee. Every time his phone rang, he jumped. That afternoon he called on clients. After work he played tennis and tried not to think about Huck and Jim living under the bridge. He felt bad, but here was nothing more he could do for them.
Two days passed and he still hadn’t heard any more from the police about his car. He called his insurance company and began making plans to lease a new Lexus. He’d almost completely forgotten about Huck and Jim when the phone rang.
“Say, Tom. We done found those robbers of yours.”
“Good, Huck. That’s wonderful. But I’m tied up right now. You can tell me about it later,” he said.
It took several minutes to get the information across, but Tom finally arranged to drive down to the storm drain after work and pick them up. He’d promised to take them to a restaurant and now he realized, with dismay, that he’d have to. Luckily, Huck suggested they go to a coffee shop close by, where they all ordered hamburgers and coffee. Jim, winking at Tom, insisted Huck drink a glass of milk besides.
“Say, this is wonderful, eating together here like this,” Huck said.
Everybody agreed. Then Jim told Tom, “We got some good news and some not so good news. First off, I seen that guy in the feathered hat you was talkin’ about not a mile from our place, walkin’ along the river bed. He and his buddy was each carrying something, though I couldn’t tell what, on account of I was on the street above. I watched ‘em crawl into one of them sewer holes. When they come out again a few minutes later, I waited for ‘em to get clear of the channel, then I went and fetched back Huck. He went into that ol’ sewer while I kept a look out from up above. Well, Huck, he wandered around in there a little ways, ’til he come to a kind of room down there with a ladder going up to a manhole that was padlocked shut. And sure enough, they been putting all kinds of stuff in the room for safe keeping. You tell him, Huck.”
“Yes sir, Tom, there was jewelry and guns and lots of silver pots and such they’d stole from who-knows-where. They was hidin’ it all away down there. I even found this.” Huck pulled a billfold from his coat pocket and handed it to Tom.
“My wallet,” Tom said, opening it. The cash and credit cards were missing, but everything else was intact.
“Yeah, I figure they’s probably plannin’ to hit up at your place one of these days, since they got aholt your address off the drivers license.”
“Well, they ain’t got it no more, thanks to Jim,” said Huck, laughing.
Tom said that he’d call the police and that they’d probably want to stake out the area to catch the robbers.
For a while after, no one said much. They were all waiting for the bad news to be sprung. Finally, Huck cleared his throat. “I been to see that doctor, Tom.” He looked down at his plate, picked up his fork and poked at a french fry. “Well, I guess it ain’t gonna go so good for me. You see, they run some kinda tests on my blood and when I called for the news yesterday the doctor told me I better get over there and talk about it. Me and Jim rode in a taxi to the clinic where this one feller tells me I got it bad. Said I’m already real sick and only gonna get worse. Said I been infected with some AIDS virus. Said I oughtta go down to County Hospital, but I told him I’d just as soon take my chances where I’m at.”
The next day, acting on the information Huck and Jim had provided through Tom, the police staked out the sewer and caught the robbers red-handed as they brought in an armload each of stolen merchandise. Huck and Jim watched from behind the chain-link fence on the street above as a dozen policemen wearing bullet-proof vests and blue baseball caps dragged the two criminals, handcuffed, out of the tunnel. “Sure glad they ain’t here for us,” said Huck, as they watched the police shove the smaller of the two into the back seat of a squad car.
As they were poking at the bigger man, herding him into yet another car, he suddenly turned on the officers and began kicking his legs wildly, in spite of all the drawn guns. “Jesus H. Christ,” said Jim, “That one’s a wild feller.” They watched as half a dozen police officers began beating the giant with their nightsticks. One of them ran toward him with a strange-looking device, an electric shock-gun, which knocked him to his knees. Then another officer cracked him hard across the back with his billy club and the big man fell face forward onto the street. The police continued kicking him in the ribs. Finally, they dragged him roughly up under the arms and threw him into the car.
Just then a white mini-van with a big number eight painted onto a three-dimensional billiard ball on the door pulled up beside Huck and Jim. “We just got an inside tip from a detective that two homeless men had a hand in breaking up a theft ring,” a woman said, unrolling the passenger side window. “You boys the heroes who reported those guys to the police?”
“I reckon,” said Huck, shrugging his shoulders.
“How about giving us an interview?” she asked, getting out of the van.
Jim scowled. “I don’t see much use of us gettin’ mixed up in all that,” he said. “Less ’o course you offerin’ to pay.”
The woman tossed her hair, insulted at the mere suggestion. She was, after all, a journalist.
“I didn’t figure.” Jim spat on the sidewalk.
“Aw, come on, Jim,” said Huck. “What’s it gonna hurt?” By now the cameraman was setting up his equipment. He handed a microphone to the woman and shouldered the video unit.
“I’m Amy Lawrence, KSXY News,” the woman said. “If it’s okay, let’s start out by me asking your names. Then I’ll introduce you on camera and ask a few questions about how you helped the police apprehend the suspects. Try to forget about the camera and just act natural.”
“Oh, don’t worry none, Miss, acting natural comes easy to us. We both been on television and even in the pictures lots of times. We used to do extra acting all the time for the studios,” said Huck. “I do believe I even got a knack for it.”
That night, relaxing at home after work with a whiskey sour in hand, Tom switched on the local evening news to find news reporter Amy Lawrence interviewing two homeless men who had helped solve a rash of burglaries, robberies, and thefts. “‘Tweren’t nothing,” Huck said, grinning into the camera. “Jim, here, done all the work. All I done is crawl into the sewer yonder and check for where they was stashing the loot. And it was our friend Tom what called the police.” (Watching Huck on camera, Tom cringed. He hoped that Huck wouldn’t pronounce his last name, for in spite of himself, he couldn’t help from thinking he’d never seen a more pathetic and ridiculous human being.) “And then when all them police started beatin’ on that big feller, I thought they was gonna kill him they was hittin’ him so hard and then kickin’ him all over whiles he was on the ground. I been beat a few times by the police myself, but I swear I never seen such a whippin’ as they gave that poor son-of-a-bitch. Guess that’ll learn him not to steal televisions and such that ain’t his.”
The rains came while Tom was on a week-long sales stint in the Big Apple. While he hustled new accounts, staged presentations, and did breakfast, lunch, and dinner with one client or potential client after another, a huge low pressure front slowly moved in from the Pacific Ocean and blanketed the entire west coast. Tom wasn’t even aware of the storm until he picked up a copy of the Los Angeles Times on the flight back and saw the lead story concerning the record rainfall. After two straight days of torrential downpour, the hills were saturated and the runoff had turned many low lying areas into lakes. Severe mud slides now threatened several exclusive canyon housing developments and had shut down the coast highway near Malibu. From Tom’s window seat, visibility was zero until the airliner broke the cloud barrier and Tom could finally see the wet and blurry lights of the city, closing rapidly below.
As he drove his newly-leased car from the airport, water rushed down the streets, pushing over the curbs and spreading like shallow rivers. Movement on the freeway slowed to a walking pace as accidents—cars that had slid out of control as they tried to change lanes, trucks that had jackknifed into the center divider or else overturned along the flooded shoulder—closed lanes of traffic. As he drove, Tom listened to reports on the radio of people in the valley who had become stranded while trying to drive their cars through an intersection in the flood control basin that normally passed for an expansive park and traffic network. Some had to be rescued in inflatable rafts as they clung to the rooftops of their stalled vehicles, water rushing dangerously around them.
As he moved his foot back to the brake pedal, he switched on his defroster. The car ahead of him crawled forward again. He lit another cigarette, and listened to the quick, rhythmic ticking of the windshield wipers. While the car was nearly new, the rubber on the wipers had been corrupted from sunlight, heat, smog and disuse, and they left wide streaks across the glass. “Bloody fucking hell,” he said out loud. Nearly two hours later he had finally made it the thirty-five or so miles from the airport through the canyon and into the valley.
When he got home he knew something was wrong immediately. Cardiff Lane was all but completely blocked by cars, fire trucks, and city vehicles. Crews in yellow rain slickers and hats were on his neighbor’s front lawn, shoveling a huge pile of sand into canvas sacks, while others carried them into the darkness beyond. A torrent of muddy water cascaded down the street.
“What’s going on here?” he asked a fireman.
“You live here?”
Tom nodded, pointing to his house.
“Part of the hill behind collapsed and came down. We got a lot of damage already and I don’t know if any of these houses will survive the night unless the rain lets up.”
Inside, Tom could hardly believe what he saw. The mud had come down so suddenly, and with such force, that it had completely overwhelmed his entire back yard, filling in his pool. It had broken the sliding glass doors and covered his living room, kitchen and master bedroom with six inches of wet clay. “Jesus Christ,” Tom muttered. Suddenly he thought of the river, the shack beneath the bridge. “Jesus H. Christ.”
By the time he got to Burbank, it was nearly midnight. The rain was falling, if anything, even harder than before. Tom parked his car on the street above the river, pulled his jacket over his head and ran to the chain link fence. Beneath the street lights, the white water roared through the channel. Under the bridge there was nothing but water, swirling and raging.
Tom ran up and down the street calling out Huck and Jim’s names, but got no answer. The rain water soaked his clothes and dripped down his face. He ran until he was out of breath, then leaned, gasping, against the fence.
Then he saw it bobbing crazily down the river channel. It approached with amazing velocity, carried weightlessly along. Yet he’d sat in it, secure in its heaviness, aware of its solid construction. Four doors, leather interior, a thousand-dollar stereo system, a goddamned burglar alarm. Loaded with all the options. His stolen car. He watched it pass by and charge beneath the bridge, disappearing on the other side. One last wild ride to the sea.
A lot of water under the bridge, Jim had said. A lot of water under the bridge.