Make Room! Make Room!(82)

“Make them good and salty, we can drink all the water we want up there.”

Andy pulled the chair out for Shirl so that she sat with her back to Sol’s charging bicycle; there was no point in her seeing something that might remind her of what had happened. She was laughing now, talking about their plans for the day, and he didn’t want to change it. It was going to be something special, they were both sure of that.

There was a quick rap on the door while they were packing in the lunch, and Shirl gasped. “The callboy—I knew it! You’re going to have to work today….”

“Don’t worry about that,” Andy smiled. “Grassy won’t go back on his word. And besides, that’s not the callboy’s knock. If there is one sound I know it’s his bam-bam-bam.”

Shirl forced a smile and went to unlock the door while he finished wrapping the lunch.

“Tab!” she said happily. “You’re the last person in the world … Come in, it’s wonderful to see you. It’s Tab Fielding,” she said to Andy.

“Morning, Miss Shirl,” Tab said stolidly, staying in the hall. “I’m sorry, but this is no social call. I’m on the job now.”

“What is it?” Andy asked, walking over next to Shirl.

“You have to realize I take the work that is offered to me,” Tab said. He was unsmiling and gloomy. “I’ve been in the bodyguard pool since September, just the odd jobs, no regular assignment, we take whatever work we can get. A man turns down a job he goes right back to the end of the list. I have a family to feed….”

“What are you trying to say?” Andy asked. He was aware that someone was standing in the darkness behind Tab and he could tell by the shuffle of feet that there were others out of sight down the hall.

“Don’t take no stuff,” the man in back of Tab said in an unpleasant nasal voice. He stayed behind the bodyguard where he could not be seen. “I got the law on my side. I paid you. Show him the order!”

“I think I understand now,” Andy said. “Get away from the door, Shirl. Come inside, Tab, so we can talk to you.”

Tab started forward and the man in the hall tried to follow him. “You don’t go in there without me—” he shrilled. His voice was cut off as Andy slammed the door in his face.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Tab said. He was wearing his spike-studded iron knucks, his fist clenched tight around them.

“Relax,” Andy said. “I just wanted to talk to you alone first, find out what was going on. He has a squat-order, doesn’t he?”

Tab nodded, looking unhappily down at the floor.

“What on earth are you two talking about?” Shirl asked, worriedly glancing back and forth at their set expressions.

Andy didn’t answer and Tab turned to her. “A squat-order is issued by the court to anyone who can prove they are really in need of a place to live. They only give so many out, and usually just to people with big families that have had to get out of some other place. With a squat-order you can look around and find a vacant apartment or room or anything like that, and the order is a sort of search warrant. There can be trouble, people don’t want to have strangers walking in on them, that kind of thing, so anyone with a squat-order takes along a bodyguard. That’s where I come in, the party out there in the hall, name of Belicher, hired me.”

“But what are you doing here?” Shirl asked, still not understanding.

“Because Belicher is a ghoul, that’s why,” Andy said bitterly. “He hangs around the morgue looking for bodies.”

“That’s one way of saying it,” Tab answered, holding on to his temper. “He’s also a guy with a wife and kids and no place to live, that’s another way of looking at it.”

There was a sudden hammering on the door and Belicher’s complaining voice could be heard outside. Shirl finally realized the significance of Tab’s presence, and she gasped. “You’re here because you’re helping them,” she said. “They found out that Sol is dead and they want this room.”

Tab could only nod mutely.

“There’s still a way out,” Andy said. “If we had one of the men here from my precinct, living in here, then these people couldn’t get in.”

The knocking was louder and Tab took a half step backward toward the door. “If there was somebody here now, that would be okay, but Belicher could probably take the thing to the squat court and get occupancy anyway because he has a family. I’ll do what I can to help you—but Belicher, he’s still my employer.”