Hardscrabble Road(85)

Benedetti gave Gregor a very odd look. “There are still tramps. And people still feed them. But Mr. Demarkian, this is not a tramp we’re dealing with here, and neither are the homeless people you see most of the time on the street. It’s not the Great Depression anymore.”

“Give me a break,” Gregor said. “Do I look that old?”

“It’s not the 1950s, either,” Benedetti said. “Most of the people you see on the street these days, especially in a city like Philadelphia, aren’t just down on their luck. A large proportion of them are mentally ill. You could get yourself killed making contact with them if you don’t know how. Another large portion of them are addicted. The alkies won’t do you any harm, except to piss on your shoes, but the drug addicts can and do get violent and some of them can and will kill people who look like they have the price of a fix on them. You can’t go on some kind of personal crusade to fix things.”

“That’s what they say about giving them money,” Gregor said. “That you shouldn’t give them money, because they’ll only use it for booze or drugs. That you only encourage them to bother other people.”

“I give money to beggars all the time. I don’t worry about what they buy with it. If booze and drugs are that important to them, maybe they know something about themselves I don’t. And I don’t worry about them bothering other people. People could use being bothered more than they are. Do you know what I do worry about? I worry about them following me home, and following me day after day, until I have to have somebody arrest them, or they have a knife.”

“Do you really worry that all homeless people are violent?”

“No,” Benedetti said. “Almost none of them are. I worry I’m going to get the one in a hundred who is. Give it up, Mr. Demarkian. The homeless problem wouldn’t disappear if you were more careful to look these people in the eyes and give them money.”

“They’ve bagged the body,” Gregor said.

He and Benedetti both turned to watch the body being lifted up by the edges of the black body bag and carried down the alley to the ambulance waiting at the end. Gregor wondered why they always called an ambulance when they had a dead body, even when they were absolutely positive that the body was dead. It was as if they couldn’t bear the idea of someone dying without medical attention, although where any of these men and women would get medical attention, Gregor didn’t know. There was Medicaid, but most of these people were too confused to apply for it and too apt to have no address to use when applying. They were paranoid, too. They were afraid of doctors. They were afraid of social workers. Maybe that was the common thread in all their lives. Maybe they were all so afraid of people, and of living, that living like this was better than having to face the demand to communicate on a daily basis.

I’m blithering, Gregor thought. I no longer know what I’m thinking. If Tibor could hear me, he’d lecture me for an hour.

“Listen,” he told Rob Benedetti. “It’s freezing out here. Do we all really have to stand out here in the cold until forensics is through?”

“Nah. We can go back in. I was thinking that myself. Is this the man you saw pushing the cart before?”

“No. This one is short and chunky. Not fat but—”

“Yeah, I know. Some of them are fat, did you know that? It happens more with women than with men. How they get and stay fat, I’ll never know.”

“Yes,” Gregor said, “well, the one I saw was tall and thin. Very thin. I’d say a man, except I don’t really know that.”

“Because you didn’t really look,” Rob Benedetti said. “Let’s not start that again.”

“I wasn’t going to. He was tall and thin and wearing dark clothes. That’s all I know. We might be able to piece together a few things if we went back inside, though. I told your receptionist I was leaving and where I was going, for instance.”

“So?”

“So, she might remember the time,” Gregor said. “I told her I was leaving, I came downstairs, and right as I was walking out the building, there this guy was. I saw him pushing the cart along the sidewalk, and then I saw him turn into that alley we came down. The time would be a big help if, as I presume, we think that this is Sherman Markey and the person I saw pushing the cart is the person who killed him.”

“And Drew Harrigan,” Rob Benedetti said. “We can only hope. Okay, that’s good. We’ll get the time. I’d be happier if we could get the identification first. We’re all just assuming—”