let him. So they drove back down toward the city where there were lots of cars, and the man with the broken nosesaid that he had had enough and he got out of the car even when it wasn’t all the way stopped.
Ellie said that they couldn’t go back to the house and they had to get rid of the car. She stopped at a gas station and made some telephone calls and then drove out to a market where a gray cat was sitting on top of the candy counter and a brown terrier was tied up to the water pump. Ellie stood outside the store and drank something from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. The dog didn’t even lift its head. Annabelle thought the dog didn’t look very happy and she was thinking about going over and seeing if she could get it something to eat or maybe just scratch his ears for a minute when Ellie came back to the car and told her that they were going to have to walk for a little ways down to a barbershop. Which they did.
They walked down the street, away from the market, away from the gray cat on the counter and away from the sad-looking dog that lifted its head just an inch off of its paws to watch them go. They would come back for the car a little bit later but the dog would be gone, its chain lying tangled in the mud and its big footprints filling up with rain.
FOUR
Slip woke up sleeping on the ropes. He rolled over and felt a jab of pain from the cut on his hip. He looked down the row where some dozen other tramps were slung up on the thick lines strung above the warehouse floor. He wasn’t the only one who had blood dripping from his clothes.
This was a warehouse where a shipping line stored the great mooring hawsers used for securing the big ships. The boys would stretch them across the width of the warehouse and make a kind of gigantic hammock out of two or three courses of the ropes. It wasn’t comfortable, but it beat sleeping in the mud under the blackberries and was certainly better than sleeping on the wooden floor of the warehouse where the rats would chew on your shoe leather.
Slip woke up slowly. For a moment he lay relaxed, warm with the feeling that everything that had happened the night before had been a dream. He could hear the sound of the water slapping against the pilings under the floor. The images from the car swept back and forth in his mind: the sharp voices, the blows, and the knife blade, then the smell of gunpowder in the close quarters of the sedan. Some tramp fell off the ropes and hit the floor with a thud, and a coldness grabbed Slip. He knew it wasn’t a dream. BenAvery was dead. He put one foot on the plank floor and wadded his shirt up against the weeping cut on his side.
He had no idea what time it was. It was morning when he had gotten there but that didn’t mean much. Guys came in and out of the warehouse at all hours looking for a place to hide from the cops. The bulls had swept through Hooverville just a day later than the old man with the coffin had said, so now it was easy to get picked up downtown on a vagrancy charge.
Downtown cops didn’t care much for loafers or tramps hanging around where people were making money. In other parts of town it was a little easier to hide out in the brush or in a vacant lot. But the boys just in off the freights or looking for work on the docks had to lie low if they wanted to stay out of jail.
A couple of tramps came in from the train yards and said the place was crawling with bulls. “Christ almighty!” one of them yelped. “They got city cops, railroad bulls, and Floodwater ops going through every car. They got so much juice down on the flats there can’t be any cops up here!”
One little hobo with a broken hand said he heard someone had killed a Floodwater op. Slip kept his collar up and his head down while he feigned sleep.
“Hell, I wouldn’t kill me no private dick. Shit, they never had it in for nobody but the Reds. I’d kill me a railroad bull.”
“I’d kill me a dock boss,” someone else said.
Then came
Ellie said that they couldn’t go back to the house and they had to get rid of the car. She stopped at a gas station and made some telephone calls and then drove out to a market where a gray cat was sitting on top of the candy counter and a brown terrier was tied up to the water pump. Ellie stood outside the store and drank something from a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. The dog didn’t even lift its head. Annabelle thought the dog didn’t look very happy and she was thinking about going over and seeing if she could get it something to eat or maybe just scratch his ears for a minute when Ellie came back to the car and told her that they were going to have to walk for a little ways down to a barbershop. Which they did.
They walked down the street, away from the market, away from the gray cat on the counter and away from the sad-looking dog that lifted its head just an inch off of its paws to watch them go. They would come back for the car a little bit later but the dog would be gone, its chain lying tangled in the mud and its big footprints filling up with rain.
FOUR
Slip woke up sleeping on the ropes. He rolled over and felt a jab of pain from the cut on his hip. He looked down the row where some dozen other tramps were slung up on the thick lines strung above the warehouse floor. He wasn’t the only one who had blood dripping from his clothes.
This was a warehouse where a shipping line stored the great mooring hawsers used for securing the big ships. The boys would stretch them across the width of the warehouse and make a kind of gigantic hammock out of two or three courses of the ropes. It wasn’t comfortable, but it beat sleeping in the mud under the blackberries and was certainly better than sleeping on the wooden floor of the warehouse where the rats would chew on your shoe leather.
Slip woke up slowly. For a moment he lay relaxed, warm with the feeling that everything that had happened the night before had been a dream. He could hear the sound of the water slapping against the pilings under the floor. The images from the car swept back and forth in his mind: the sharp voices, the blows, and the knife blade, then the smell of gunpowder in the close quarters of the sedan. Some tramp fell off the ropes and hit the floor with a thud, and a coldness grabbed Slip. He knew it wasn’t a dream. BenAvery was dead. He put one foot on the plank floor and wadded his shirt up against the weeping cut on his side.
He had no idea what time it was. It was morning when he had gotten there but that didn’t mean much. Guys came in and out of the warehouse at all hours looking for a place to hide from the cops. The bulls had swept through Hooverville just a day later than the old man with the coffin had said, so now it was easy to get picked up downtown on a vagrancy charge.
Downtown cops didn’t care much for loafers or tramps hanging around where people were making money. In other parts of town it was a little easier to hide out in the brush or in a vacant lot. But the boys just in off the freights or looking for work on the docks had to lie low if they wanted to stay out of jail.
A couple of tramps came in from the train yards and said the place was crawling with bulls. “Christ almighty!” one of them yelped. “They got city cops, railroad bulls, and Floodwater ops going through every car. They got so much juice down on the flats there can’t be any cops up here!”
One little hobo with a broken hand said he heard someone had killed a Floodwater op. Slip kept his collar up and his head down while he feigned sleep.
“Hell, I wouldn’t kill me no private dick. Shit, they never had it in for nobody but the Reds. I’d kill me a railroad bull.”
“I’d kill me a dock boss,” someone else said.
Then came
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