Suttree(173)

He was going from phone to phone in the booths of the Park National Bank and he was whistling to himself when a heavy hand dropped across his shoulder. He stopped and looked down, placing the nearest black wingtip shoe. He leaped up and came down on the shoe with his heel, his knee locked. Small bones cracked under the leather. The hand went away. Harrogate never even saw the man. He crossed Gay Street in the noon traffic over the actual hoods and decklids of idling cars, faces white behind the glass, sounds of buckling sheetmetal.

Suttree sought him out under the viaduct among the debris. Gene? he called. There was no fire, no sign of having been one. Cars rumbled distantly overhead. Hey Gene.

Harrogate crawled out of the concrete pillbox and squatted in the dirt. He was ragged looking and shaking with the cold and he had shaved his mustache off.

Suttree squatted beside him. Well, he said. What are your plans?

The city rat hunched his shoulders. He looked frail and wasted with defeat.

You cant stay down here, you’ll freeze.

He shook his head slowly from side to side, staring at the raw ground. I dont know, he said. I been in there all day. I figured the law would of done had me by now.

Suttree stirred the dust with his forefinger. They will, he said. This is no place to hide out.

I know it. How’d you find me?

I didnt have any place else to look. Rufus told me you’d been up there.

Yeah. You caint depend on a nigger for nothin. I didnt know where else to go. All them sons of bitches. Many a time as I drunk whiskey with em. They didnt hardly know me.

Suttree smiled. A fugitive’s life is a hard one, he said. What happened to your mustache?

Harrogate rubbed his lip. Shaved it off, he said. Maybe they wont recognize me without it. I dont know. Shit.

Well what are you going to do?

I dont know. I was ashamed to come to you.

Maybe you ought to get out of town for a while.

Where to?

Anywhere. Out of town.

Harrogate looked up at him vaguely. Out of town? he said.

If you stay around here they’ll nail your ass.

Hell, Sut. I aint never been out of town. I wouldnt know where to go. I wouldnt know which way to start.

Just get on a bus and go. What difference does it make? You’ve scuffled in this town for three years, hell, you could make it somewhere else.

I dont have no friends somewhere else.

You dont have any here.

Harrogate shook his head. Shit, he said. Bus? I aint never even been on a goddamned bus.

All you do is get a ticket and get on.

Yeah yeah, sure sure, I’d get on the wrong damned bus or somethin.

There’s not any wrong bus. Not for you.

Well how the hell would I know where to get off at? And where would I be when I did?

They’d tell you.

He looked at the ground. Naw, he said. I’d never make it. I’d get lost and never would get home again ever. He shook his head. I dont know, Sut. Seems like everthing I turn my hand to. Dont make no difference what it is. Just everthing I touch turns to shit.

Have you got any money?

Not a cry in dime.

What did you do with all that money you were making?

Spent it, naturally.

You could go on the train.

Do they not charge?

You can sneak on. Get in an empty car over in the yards. I can let you have a few dollars.

Train, said Harrogate, staring off toward the creek.

You could go south for the winter. Someplace where it’s not so fucking cold. Hell, Gene. You’ve got to do something. You cant just sit here.

The city rat made a little shivering motion and drew up his feet but he didnt answer.

Who was it nailed you?

Fuck if I know.

Was it a detective? Plainclothes?

I dont know, Sut. I never seen nothin but his feet. I reckon it was the telephone heat. They tell me when them sons of bitches get on your trail you’re completely fucked. They wont rest till they get ye.

Telephone heat?

Harrogate looked up warily. You fuckin ay, he said. Them bastards take it personal. He looked at the ground. I knew that, he said. I knew it, but I went and done it anyways.

Dark was falling over the creek and a cold wind was moving in the dry weeds. On the hill among the shacks a dog had begun to bark. They sat quietly under the viaduct in the deepening chill. After a while Harrogate said: They wouldnt be a soul there that I knowed. I’d bet on it.

Where?

In the workhouse.

There wasnt anybody there you knew the last time.

Yeah.

You’re not there yet, anyway.

Me and old crazy Bodine used to have some good times racin scorpions in the kitchen. That was after you’d done left.

Scorpions?

Lizards I guess you call em.

Lizards?

Yeah. We’d get the yard man to get em for us. We’d race em on the kitchen floor. Get a bet up. Shit. I had me one named Legs Diamond that son of a bitch would stand straight up with them old legs just a churnin and quick as he’d get traction he was gone like a striped assed ape. Never would touch down with his front feet.