The damned Union Pacific engineer blowing his horn deserves … okay, maybe not what the others got. But he deserves something, for tooting right when I’m trying to hear Ana Maria’s conversation with that old cop.
“I don’t know you.”
“What?”
A bum in a camouflaged parka pulled tight around his dirty neck walks up to me. His hands are deep in his pockets like he’s hiding something. A weapon perhaps? I can never tell with these street people, and my hand goes under my own parka and rests on the handle of my knife.
“Who the hell gives you the right to work this parking lot?”
“Get lost,” I tell him as I look around him at the parking lot.
The bum stops a few feet in front of me. His morning breath has carried over to the afternoon and just about knocks me out. But I’ve smelled worse, I tell myself. Those men ten years ago were worse, and I survived. I always will.
The man’s hands come from inside his pockets. He has no weapon, and I walk over, closer to Anderson’s open car window.
“I always work here. This is my corner!”
The man won’t go away. In another time, I might have set him up and flayed him. Just for fun. But this is the reformed me, and I motion him close. “You know me?”
The man shakes his head. “Never saw you before.”
I bring my knife out, careful to keep it hidden in the folds of my parka. “I’m the one who’s going to gut you. After all”—I smile wide—“it’s hunting season.”
The bum’s eyes widen. And I see that utter fear in his eyes as he realizes I intend to cut him.
I shake. Just a mild tremor at first. But it builds. The more frightened he becomes, the more I quiver with anticipation of what I could do. And I stand. I take a step toward him, and he falls. His legs backpedal. His arms scrape the pavement getting away. I have no desire to hurt the man. I am, after all, reformed, and the only thing I want to know is how close they are to finding out about me.
I pull the strings of my hood tight, and my watch cap down nearly covering my eyes, as I slowly step nearer to them when—
Anderson looks my direction. I turn my head, staring at the ground like I’m looking for loose change, and he turns his attention back to Ana Maria. She hands him a manila folder. It can only be police case files she’s somehow ripped off from the cops.
He passes her something through the window of his car. Damn that bum all to hell! If he hadn’t come along, I might have been able to inch closer to see what passed between them. It could only mean more information for the special she’s airing. I guess my little warning call to her meant nothing. I guess I’ll have to talk with her in person as soon as I talk to the bum. In my own special way.