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he lunged.
Then the leader made his second mistake. In an attempt to show off, he began tossing the knife back and forth between his hands. Elliot edged back—feigning panic in an attempt to get the space he needed—then kicked the knife away while it was in flight between the leader’s hands.
Elliot did not wait to see the expression on the leader’s face before he went for his gun.
He had only managed to withdraw it from its holster—but not from his jacket—when one boy swung at him with the tire wrench. Elliot blocked the blow—painfully—with his left shoulder and found himself rolling with the force onto the ground. Nonetheless, he managed to free the gun and get a shot off in the direction of the leader. He missed. The leader shouted,
“The motherfucker’s got one!” and scurried down the street, followed in close order by his compatriots.
Elliot was still dazed when half a minute later a police car pulled up nearby. A blue-uniformed officer got out to see if Elliot needed medical assistance; another drove off in the direction of the gang. The officer helped Elliot up. Somehow, without quite knowing how, Elliot found that the gun was no longer in his hand, but on the sidewalk next to him. The jumble of thoughts following added up to, Well, I’ve had it now.
“You all right, son?” Elliot just nodded. Then the officer noticed Elliot’s revolver and picked it up. She examined it a moment, looked at Elliot, and handed it to him. “Better put this away before my partner sees it, or I’ll have to take you in.”
Elliot was still too dazed to be sure what was going on. Was this an attempt at entrapment? He coughed, managing enough air to get out “Thanks.” Then he risked taking the gun from the officer, holstering it.
“Sure you’re all right?”
“Uh—I think so.”
58
Alongside Night
“Then I’d better get my partner back before the blood-thirsty fool gets herself killed.” She started running down Fifty-ninth Street in the direction the police car had driven.
“Thanks a million!” Elliot shouted to his samaritan. Upon reflection, he realized a million was not very much thanks these days.
Fifth Avenue at night was even busier than in daytime, though the bumper-to-bumper traffic of automobiles and motor scooters had been replaced with an equally dense population of bicycles and pedestrians. Each night, between Fiftyninth and Forty-second streets, the avenue was closed off to all motorized traffic except the electric patrol carts of Fifth Avenue Merchant Alliance Security—and FAMAS had justified the privilege. By totally ignoring any nonviolent, noninvasive behavior—no matter how outrageous or vulgar—and concentrating exclusively on protecting its clients and their customers from attacks and robbery, FAMAS made Fifth Avenue a safe haven from the city’s pervasive street violence. Anything else went, from sexual displays of every sort to the street merchandising of neo-opiates or—for several hours, at least—your own personal slave.
Within his first five minutes Elliot was approached by two beggars (one of whom looked as if he had taken a graduate degree in mendicancy from the University of Calcutta), had been invited to a gay dance hall, watched a man in a dress and high heels chase a midget, and been approached by a blackmarket currency dealer. Elliot might have made a deal with this last if his rates had been better.
Nor was this discouraged by the avenue’s property owners. They knew it was precisely this atmosphere that attracted their customers. Neither did the city government interfere; its own OTB gambling casinos on the avenue were one of the city’s few remaining reliable sources of revenue—and more than Alongside Night
59
one city council member had secret business interests in the enclave.
As a result, Fifth Avenue had evolved into the center of the city’s nightlife, maintaining a carnival atmosphere—dazzling, noisy, and sensual—in which its patrons were as often as not more interesting than its own diversions, which were plentiful. Elliot checked his watch; it was only a little after eight thirty. He found it astonishing, but his entire life had been pulled apart in just over six hours. More immediate, though was the thought that the Rabelais Bookstore might still be open. After locating a pay phone, Elliot searched his pockets for a vendy. Officially named Federal Vending Machine Tokens, vendies were the same size and weight as the old dimes, nickels, and quarters, but had completely replaced coins in common exchange. By official definition vendies were not money: NOT LEGAL TENDER was conspicuously stamped on the obverse. They circulated as change anyway. Though vendies were sold legally only by banks and post offices at a price set daily by the Treasury Department, the official price tended toward the black-market one to prevent the hoarding that had greshamed all fixed-value coins out of exchange. In turn, the black-market price was a fixed ratio to the stable eurofrancs. Depositing a dime vendy—today worth about fifty New Dollars or E.04—Elliot obtained the Rabelais Bookstore’s telephone number and called it. There was no answer. It was still early. Surely it was prudent that he should avoid the streets as much as possible, but he was not sure where else was completely safe, either. Perhaps Phillip could be useful after all. Elliot redeposited his vendy, punching in Phillip’s number from memory. Ten rings later he gave up, deciding to try again later.