Underground (10 page)
“I’ll see if I can find out,” Quinton agreed. “How many’s that make in Seattle since the storms?”
Rosa rolled her eyes in thought. “Uh . . . six. No, seven.”
“What about missing men?” I asked. “Do you guys count those as dead?”
Rosa looked at me like I was growing donkey ears. “No. If I wanted a shocking statistic to take to city hall, then I might, but we only count the ones we know died. It doesn’t matter where they died or how. That they died homeless is what matters.”
I felt a nudge and noticed that while we’d been talking to Rosa, the line of homeless men waiting for dinner had moved. Zip had disappeared inside and a new group had come abreast of us. Our witnesses were dwindling away into the food-scented warmth inside the mission. I looked at Quinton and Rosa caught it.
“You guys didn’t come out here to talk to me,” she said, “and I have a lot to do, too. So I’d better get to it. Spread the word, Quinton, and let me know what you find out about Go-cart.”
Rosa waved and walked past us, down the line of shivering people waiting for food. She buttonholed a few as she went, telling them to come to the vigil—she didn’t ask but couched it as a duty they had already agreed to perform, and each one nodded quickly, eyes downcast. I had the feeling people didn’t argue with Rosa Cabrera.
Quinton and I asked the remaining men about the recent deaths and disappearances, but most knew little that was useful. As we neared the end of the line, Quinton found Lass’s nemesis: a stocky, long-coated, spotted mutt named Bella who definitely had some kind of fighting dog in her ancestry. Quinton squatted down and scratched her ears and back, chattering to her.
In spite of the cold, Bella frisked around at the end of her rope leash as if it was the finest day of summer. She whined with joy, licked Quinton’s face, and tried to climb up his body as if she would curl up around his neck like a cat. I supposed that if Lass were spooked by dogs in the first place, that behavior might freak him out a little. To me it was endearing, in a sort of doggy-disgusting way. All right, so I like big dogs.
At the other end of the leash, the man I assumed was Tanker gave one sharp tug on the rope. His voice was soft and slow as he said, “Off, Bella. Don’t be such a kissy-face.” The hood of his sweatshirt hid his face as the man put his hand down to pat the dog’s huge head. His clothes were the most ragged of any man’s there, and he smelled of engine grease and sweat.
Bella sat down next to Tanker at once. Her stumpy tail went still and she looked up at her master in anticipation. Quinton got back to his feet and we all moved a foot or so closer to the door as the line of hungry men advanced.
“Hey, Tanker,” Quinton started. “This is Harper. Harper, this is Tanker.”
Tanker turned his head to look at me. As the light from the streetlamp fell on his face, I twitched with stifled horror. Tanker’s dark face was a lumpy mass of scars that covered him from collar to crown in a patchwork of burns, grafts, and emergency reconstruction that had never been prettied up afterward. In whatever disaster had overtaken him, his mouth had been reduced to a lip-less, twisted cut and his one visible ear was a misshapen knot. If he had any hair, it was on a part of his head I couldn’t see.
He ignored my start and offered a massive hand covered in a brown leather glove that didn’t match the blue ski glove on his other hand. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I replied, taking his offered hand.
“Sorry if I scared you.” I wasn’t quite sure from his expression and voice, but the sparks that danced around his head made me think he wasn’t entirely sincere. Some turmoil boiled beneath his blank surface.
Touching him sent a feeling of disquiet through me and I released his hand. “No, you’re not,” I said.
He made a wheezing, barking sound and glanced at Quinton. “Where’d you find her?”
“Couple of blocks up, on the skid.”
“Pig shit.”
“Absolute truth. Hey, you know about the vigil for Jan and Go-cart?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Where’re you sleeping tonight? It’s pretty cold.”
Tanker seemed to glower at Quinton, though it was hard to tell in the gloom. “Got a place in the bricks.”
“You better be careful down there. That’s where Jan was staying before he kicked it.”
“Nothing’ll bother me. Not with Bella.”
“Lass is probably staying down that way, too—”
Tanker interrupted him to say, “That little turd. Better keep his distance or I’ll tell Bella to rip his throat out.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to keep an eye open. Lass is flipping out about things following him around—”
“Man’s a freak, what d’you expect?”
“So,” Quinton went on as if he hadn’t been cut off again, “I gave him a stunner. I told him to keep away from you and Bella, but you know how Lass gets when he’s off the juice.”
“He should drink till he croaks.”
“Tanker, I know Lassiter’s a head case, but I’m not sure he’s just hallucinating. You see anything strange down there since the storms? Notice anything, anybody missing?”
“Aside from Tandy? And Hafiz and Go-cart and Jan?” Tanker asked with a snort. Then he turned aside and looked into the open door of the mission.
We’d come up the door as we’d been talking, and now Tanker stopped and looked at the mission worker inside. The man held out a small paper box, like restaurants give you for the leftovers.
“Can’t bring the dog inside, Tanker,” he said, looking nervous, “but we put some bacon aside for her and a couple of the guys brought some dog food samples.” He held up two small bags of dry kibble with green labels declaring the food within to be “natural” and “healthy.” Looked like the dog ate better than the people.
Tanker mumbled thanks and took the bags and the box and stepped out of line. We followed him a few feet away to an alley mouth where he put the box on the sidewalk and opened it before ripping open the bags and pouring them in. Bella sat still and stared at Tanker, though her eyes shifted toward the food once or twice before he said, “OK, Bella. Eat.”
Bella leapt for the food and began crunching it down. We watched for a few moments. I noticed the ease with which the mutt reduced even the hardest-looking kibble to dust and thought I wouldn’t like to be on the wrong side of her jaws.
“I saw a hand,” Tanker said, still watching his dog, “down in the stairs by the record shop.”
“You mean Bud’s? On Jackson?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure it was a hand?” I questioned.
Tanker glared at me and a swirl of black fury roiled around him. “You think I’m stupid? Think I don’t know what I see with my own eyes? It was a hand, sister. A hand just like yours.” He slapped my left hand with his right, and the dog stopped eating, going tense and alert, staring at us. “I seen body parts. I see body parts flying through the air like crazy birds. A freakin’ hand!”
Bella had begun to growl low in her throat.
Quinton, keeping an eye on the dog, grabbed Tanker by the shoulder. “Hey, hey. She’s not dissing you. She just wants to be sure. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening to people here. You know—like Tandy.”
Tanker breathed heavily through his mouth, staring at me. I stood still and looked back with as much blank calm as I could muster to cover my wariness. As with his dog, I didn’t think it would be wise to rile him. Finally Tanker waved at the dog, making a down-patting motion with his hand. “Peace, Bella.” The dog sat down by the remains of her dinner, but she kept an eye on her master.
He turned his focus to Quinton, cutting me out of the conversation. “Tandy’s gone, man.”
“I noticed that,” Quinton said. “I want to know who else you haven’t seen around lately. Who’s missing?”
Tanker stepped backward until he could lean against the stained wall of the alley. His breath had slowed down and the nightmare color around him had drained away, but he still seemed agitated. “John Bear. Haven’t seen Bear in a while.”
“Was he staying in the bricks, too?”
“Man, you know Bear wouldn’t sleep inside. He’s the bear, he sleeps with the bears. Crazy mofo.”
“But he hasn’t been sleeping in the park lately, has he? In this cold?”
“No. I haven’t seen him. I seen his blanket—Jay had it.”
“So Bear’s missing and so’s Tandy. Anybody else?”
“I don’t know,” Tanker snapped. “I don’t know and you and your questions can go to hell! And I don’t want your help!” he added as an afterthought. Then he grabbed Bella’s leash and gave it a sharp jerk as he began to stalk off down the alley. “You go to hell!” he shouted back.
Quinton took my hand and pulled me away, into the street. “We’d better move on.”
“What just happened?” I asked, falling into step beside him.
Quinton shook his head. “Tanker’s got problems.”
“I imagine most of the people down here have problems.”
“Yeah. Well. Tanker’s got more. He used to drive a gasoline tanker—hence the nickname—and he was in an accident that killed a couple of other people in a pretty ugly way and gave him those scars. The company blamed him, fired him, and refused to pay his medical bills. Later it came out that the company was using cheap retreads on the tractors and that was the cause of the accident, but by then it was old news and Tanker was on the skid. The icing on the cake is that Tanker got burned trying to save people in the cars, but one of them came apart as he was hauling him out—in the smoke, Tank didn’t realize the guy’d been sheared in half by the steering column. He kind of flipped out after that.”
The story shook me and I studied Quinton’s face; he looked grim and didn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t think of what to say, so we just walked on in silence.
We headed up the hill toward the Union Gospel Mission in Chinatown, hoping to catch some more of the undergrounders sitting still to have dinner.
UGM took in families and women as well as men and were a little more open to letting us come in and talk to people, though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have let me in without Quinton beside me. The volunteers running the kitchen and dining room told us we could talk to anyone in the common room, but we couldn’t go into the sleeping areas and that was fine by me. I figured most of the people we wanted to see would be awake, but I was surprised by how many people had already gone to bed.
“Homeless is hard work,” one of the volunteers said. “These people are on their feet all day, and having no home doesn’t mean a lot of them don’t work or try to get work. If nothing else, they panhandle, sweep sidewalks, wash windows, do manual day labor, and walk their rounds, looking for work, or food, or recyclables— whatever they do to put a little change in their pockets. They hit the hay while the night’s still young and it’s not only because the good places to sleep fill up fast. Sometimes going to bed early is the only way to get any sleep at all.”
That puzzled me. “It seems quiet compared to the street and it’s warm. Why don’t they sleep?”
“They’re worried about being robbed or attacked. Even in here where we try to make it safe.”
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