Уолтер Мосли - Down the River unto the Sea

“That’s what I’ve been hired to do.”

“Hired by who?” Hester asked.

The burned man’s eyes echoed the question.

“Nobody official,” I allowed. “I’m not working for the cops or the state, and the person paying me really wants Mr. Man to be released. But I can’t give you a name. That would violate client confidentiality.”

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Hester asked.

“You don’t,” I admitted. “But I’ve paid the shelter the money for this meeting and you don’t know anything about the case.”

There was an agenda to my answer. If Burns knew that I had money to pay for information he was more likely to want to deal with me.

“This meeting is over,” Hester said. But she was already too late.

“No,” Burns interjected. “No... I believe him. I know why Miranda send him here.”

Hester’s shoulders sagged then. She knew Theodore. She knew that he knew that I had what he needed.

I remembered something that my grandmother would say.

“You cain’t protect a wolf from bein’ a wolf. That’s like tryin’ to say it’s midnight when it’s really high noon.”

“We should probably talk alone,” I said to Burns.

“No,” Hester proclaimed.

“Yeah, we should, Auntie H.,” Burns said, a note of authority in his voice. “You don’t wanna know nuthin’ ’bout what got to do with Manny and them, and them cops.”

“You can’t do this,” Hester said to me.

I stood up from my stool. Burns followed suit.

“I’ll give you the money back,” Hester offered, realizing too late that her greed for the shelter was, in its own way, a betrayal.

“I’ll bring him back tonight,” I said.

“You’ll get him killed.”

“He’s no use to anyone as a witness, Miss Fray, and I won’t tell about our conversation if you don’t.”

“He’s vulnerable,” she said in a whisper.

Vulnerable. With that one word she was able to explain the pain of his prostitution and the need for self-destruction; his addiction coupled with the inability to escape any part of the suffering rained down upon him by a life not of his making.

There were hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of young people like Burns stumbling down the streets of rural, suburban, and big-city America. They each had the same affliction, but they could only be saved one at a time.

“No, I’m not, Auntie Hester,” the scarred man intoned. “Not even a captain in the Green Berets could survive one day in the life I got to live. I’m strong. I could take it.”

Hester Fray was defeated by this claim. I could see in her eyes that she was in love with her job and her people. This passion made me want to know more about her, but there was no time for that kind of recreation.

“I got to score before we do anything else,” Burns told me on the street.

“I got what you need,” I said.

“What?”

“Kierin sold me two hits,” I said. “He said two was your base buy, so I got one to cut the pain but at the same time keep you able to talk. I’ll give you it right now. After we talk I’ll give you the other and two hundred dollars.”

“Kierin from up Harlem?” Burns asked.

He delivered the question as a foregone conclusion, telling me that he was a canny junkie whom I had to be careful with.

“You and I both know he works for the Gypsy in the West Village.”

“Let’s see what he give you.”

“Is there somewhere we could go?”

Burns’s grin was missing a brown tooth or two, but there was still mirth and real satisfaction there.

We went east a couple of blocks, crossed a concrete park, and entered a street I’d never been on; I call it a street, but it was closer to being an alley.

Halfway down that block was a three-and-a-half-foot space between two nondescript buildings blocked by a padlocked Dumpster. Burns and I pushed the can aside and made our way maybe fifteen feet when we came to a door that looked to be locked too but was not.

On the other side of the door was a chamber no more than six foot square. I could see this because there was a small lightbulb dangling from a socket overhead that Burns turned on by twisting it. It wasn’t inside, but then again it was walled off and roofed away from the outside. The floor was asphalt. The only furniture was a three-legged wooden stool.

There was no trash or garbage on the ground. As a matter of fact, there was an old broom leaning in a corner that had seen quite some use.

“What is this?” I asked my informant while taking the wallet from my pocket and the heroin from there.

Burns took the little fold of cellophane and studied it carefully.

“That’s Kierin all right,” he mumbled. “He step on this shit hisself.”

It felt odd that we shared knowledge.

“What is this place?” I asked again.

“You ever hear of Juaquin de Palma?”

“Yeah.” De Palma was a socialite addict who would give wild parties for like-minded people of all classes. He was slippery and dangerous, attracting artists, musicians, and debutantes to his “cause.” He was finally murdered by a man named Tibor whose daughter had OD’d at one of de Palma’s raves.

“I used to hang with him. This was his place he’d go when he just wanted to get high and be alone. And then when he died it was mine’s alone.”

While talking, Burns put together his fix. He sat down on the stool, filled the spoon, cooked the aitch with water from a bottle in his pocket, and used the simple hypodermic attached to a red rubber bulb.

The seclusion, dim light, and ascetic nature of the “room” made his actions seem holy.

I was hoping he didn’t die.

For one very long minute after the injection Burns stared at the ground. Then he looked up at me.

“I could use another one.”

“And so you shall have,” I promised, “but first we have to talk.”

“I like coffee after my fix,” he said, reminding me of a much older man.

It was maybe eight blocks from the unique shooting gallery to Cafecino Caprice on Lafayette. The coffee shop was open twenty-three hours a day, at least that’s what the sign said. It was late enough that the place wasn’t completely crowded. We settled at a round corner table with our two paper cups of black coffee, which cost $2.95 each, plus tax.

Burns was breathing easily, only sipping at the coffee now and then.

“Kierin’s shit sets down hard and keeps it goin’ for a good long time,” Burns said. “If I had two hits I’d be well till lunchtime tomorrow.”

“Ms. Goya says that you can help me exonerate Mr. Man.”

“I thought you wanted to get him off death row?”

“Not execute,” I explained. “Exonerate. Prove he’s innocent.”

“Oh.” Burns snickered. “I know a lotta words, but sometimes they get a little mixed up ’cause I ain’t never been to school. Not really. I was in elementary school for eight years, but then, when I just couldn’t graduate an’ I was fourteen they sent me on my way. My moms was already dead an’ I only went ’cause she wanted me to, but then she died and they let me go... My moms was a nurse one time and she loved roses...”

I wondered if he was playing me.

“I need you to concentrate on what happened to Man,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I could exorate him for ya. I mean... I know what happened and what they planned.”

“Who?”

“Valence and Pratt.”

“You knew them pretty well?”

“Pretty well? I had to suck Pratt’s scrawny dick at least once a week. And he would tell me every time that if I told Valence that he’d kill me. He’d hold the gun to my head while I was suckin’ him. I was always afraid he’d bust a nut and pull the trigger at the same time.”