Rock Island Line David Rhodes (ereader iphone .txt) 📖

mug me,” he told Charlie in the change booth. But he noticed, sadly, that Charlie was drunk.

“What’d ya expect?” came yamming out of the cage. “Just what the hell’d ya expect? Who said you’d be safe—walking around like some street urchin? The police, now, tell the police. Ha! You know what they do when someone calls in to complainof being robbed or for murder? Someone like you or me? They tell ya to stuff it.”

“I’ve got to hurry,” said July. “Thanks for the dollars.”

“It’s people like us who haven’t got a chance. They make it so whatever we do there’s always ...”

July walked away. It took him nearly a half-hour of waiting around before he got the chance to get back underneath the platform to his cement room. As soon as he was out of the light and into the darkness he felt a peacefulness overtake him. He knew he was safe.

He closed the door carefully and lit his lamp. Butch’s eyes were green inside his box. He carried the light back and sat down. “Someone tried to mug me today as I was going after cat food,” he said. Butch came out and jumped up on him. “How would you like to be mugged, huh? Answer me that. ‘Pull over there, cat. Your money or your life.’ How would you like it?” Butch sat on his leg and looked at him as though he would neither like nor dislike it—just that it would be beneath him.

Later that night July went out and bought a hamburger and french fries to go, with an extra helping of ketchup to dip the ends of the fries in, and a small cup of milk with a lid, which was put into the white paper sack along with the rest so that it would lose its chill before he got back. He went to the bathroom in City Hall for what he hoped would be the last time that night and went down to his room and ate dinner with his cat, who patiently lapped up the warm milk with his small sandpaper tongue.

The following morning, upon waking up, he felt sure that the experience of the day before was behind him. The memory of the voice—“Get him! Get him!”—was like something out of a dream and had no more right to his conscious attention than did any other blurb from a nightmare. He gave Butch the last ten swallows of milk, wound his alarm clock and mentally said good morning to all of his pictures while he dressed. No matter how cold it was up on the street, it was never less than aboutforty-five degrees in his room. Butch was reluctant, but with coaxing was talked into joining him. They were a little late in getting to the pickup. Most of the boys had already left. It was mid-March and the days were becoming noticeably longer and less mean. On a clear morning like this one the sun seemed to be up a whole hour earlier than just a month ago. Earl Schmidt, Al and another boy were the only ones still there and were talking quietly together. July had an urge to go up and tell them of how he’d almost been mugged the day before, but they obviously were talking privately and looked as though they wouldn’t like being disturbed. He picked up his two bundles, carried them aside and cut one open.

“He’s got a shiv,” said Earl. “Don’t look now, you fool! My guess is he’s on to us, and is trying to draw us into making a mistake and challenging him here in the open where he’ll have a chance to use his gun.”

“Come on, he doesn’t have a gun,” said Marty.

“Don’t kid yourself, buster. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had his cat’s claws dipped in poison either, and trained to hand command. We’ve already underestimated him once, let’s not make the same mistake twice—it might be our last.”

“He wouldn’t kill us.”

“Not if we outfigure him. Did either of you guys bring guns?” They shook their heads. “OK, good. Too many guns is a mistake. Besides, it’s better you don’t have any. An amateur with a gun is a danger to himself.”

“Look, Earl, I could start to resent—” began Al, who, though a year younger, had a good physical sense of himself.

“Skip it. No offense. Look.” He pulled out a .38—the kind usually worn by policemen—from under his coat where he’d had it stuck in his pants. The sight of it held the other two in a spell. July left for Pine Street, hoping to have the same luck there that he’d had the day before.

“Is it loaded?”

“Of course it is. It’s a danger to ever leave a gun unloaded. If you know it’s always ready to fire, then you’ll never make a mistake—thinking the chamber’s empty.”

A little after nine July saw the pretzel man across the street and went over to get one, carrying Butch because the traffic was heavy. Waiting for his turn, he sold a paper, then two and then three. He set Butch down on the sidewalk and began making change. He sold another. His turn for a pretzel came up and he stepped forward: “Just one,” put on mustard, hesitated, then decided against a hot chestnut and paid a nickel. When he walked back out of the small knot of people he didn’t see Butch anywhere. He called and looked around the corner, and up and down the curb. Then he checked the ledges and basement window casings. He began to panic. “Hey, mister. You seen a cat—a black-and-orange one?”

“No, sorry.”

He looked wildly out into the street. Nothing . . . just a wet paper bag which deceived him for a second. He crossed in the traffic to get to the other side. A car honked furiously and someone shouted at him.

“Hey, mister, you seen a black-and-orange cat?”

“No, sorry. How about a paper?”

“Sure.”

“Here, keep the change. What color did you say?”

But