Bloody River Blues

At the curb he paused to let pass a powder blue car, slowing as it passed the trailer. On the side was a sign. Out of Work 117 days. The number 17 was on a separate piece of cardboard, freshly taped over the previous day's record. "I do odd jobs," the man called but he drove on before Pellam could say a word.

Ralph Bales found his heart was beating like the wings of a panicked sparrow.

He looked at his wrists, focusing on the veins, surprised that they were not vibrating with blood. His hands returned to the steering wheel. Ralph Bales was waiting downtown-in a stolen Chevy-outside the Federal Building on Mission, waiting for John Pellam to arrive. And the reason his heart was beating so fast was that this was a terrible site for a hit.

On the way here, he had passed a car wash whose name was World O' Wash. The phrase kept going through his mind, and all he could think of was World O' Cops. FBI, Treasury agents, federal marshals and city cops and probably Missouri Bureau of Investigation agents all over the place-them, plus court security guards who had never fired a piece except to get their tickets and had been waiting for years to draw first blood in the line of duty.

World O' Cops.

Inside the entryway of the building were two white-shirted guards, big men, with large, square heads crowned with fade cuts. Secretaries and clerks and lawyers in ru

There were several entrances to the Federal Building but Ralph Bales was parked in front of what seemed to be the main one. He supposed there would be a service door or two. He could see a driveway that seemed reserved for garbage pickups.

That would be a good place to sneak a witness in. But he had no partner- Stevie still had not shown-and all he could do was cover the main entrance. '

He had arrived early, thinking the beer man would get here well before nine thirty for security reasons. For an hour Ralph

Bales sat in the car, the engine ru

It was now nine-fifty.

He watched the mist in the air, the sunlight flashing off the tall arch; he smelled the burnt metallic air laced with exhaust. The factories on the east side of the Mississippi were busy this morning. His heart fluttering… Maybe it was the caffeine in the coffee. He glanced down. He had left the cup in the car, the cardboard carton, blue and white, with pictures of Greek gods or Olympic athletes or something. A cup with his fingerprints all over it. Careless.

He reached down and picked it up, crumpling the cardboard and slipping it into his pocket.

It was then that the trash basket-one of those big, filthy orange things-went through his back window.

Jesus Mother Holy…

Not exactly through the window. Even cheap American cars had strong glass. The bottom rim of the basket pushed the window in a couple inches, and the glass turned opaque with frost from the fractures. The basket rolled off the car and onto the street.

"Son of a-"

When he turned back to pull the door handle up, there was a gun muzzle in his face, and the man's other hand was shutting the engine off.

He understood. Ralph Bales knew exactly what had happened.

"Put your gun in the back," the beer man said. "On the floor."

Ralph Bales said, "I don't have a-"

The man's voice terrified him with its serenity. "Put your gun on the back floor of the car."

"Okay, whatever you want."

"Put your-"

"I heard you," Ralph Bales said, "I'm going to do it."

"Now."

"Okay."

This reminded Ralph Bales of when the cop caught him just after the Gaudia hit. Only today there'd be no Stevie Flom acting like a madman and stepping out of an alleyway to save him. With a sudden sickening feeling, he had a good idea about what had happened to Stevie Flom.

He dropped the Colt in the back. The man opened the back door and scooped it up. He sat in the backseat and pressed the muzzle of his gun, an old one, against his ear. "Turn all your pockets inside out."

What if the meter maid shows up now? Christ, this guy could panic and shoot them both.

"I don't have anything, I mean, like a weapon or-"

"All your pockets."

Ralph Bales did, dropping the contents on the seat. The beer man prodded the money and the wallet and the crumpled cup and the Swiss Army knife. "Okay, put it back in your pockets. Except the knife. Leave the knife."

Ralph Bales laughed. "The knife? You're kidding."

He was not kidding. Ralph Bales did what he was told.

The man put his seat belt on. "Drive to Maddox. Now."

"But-"

"Drive."

Bales reached for the shoulder strap.

"No belt." He rested the gun against the back of Ralph Bales s neck. "This is a single-action gun. You know what that means?"

"You have to cock it before you can pull the trigger," Ralph Bales said like a student answering a teachers question.

"I have it cocked. It goes off real easy."

"Okay, listen. If we hit a bump…"

"Then I'd drive real slow if I were you."

The dream was wonderful.

She was beautiful.

Nina Sassower believed that although men came on to her-and did so quite frequently-they did so only because of the size of her breasts and her thin legs. She believed they tolerated her face, which she saw as pointed and narrow and pinched.

But in the dream, something had happened. Perhaps she had had an operation, maybe she had just been mistaken all her life. She did not know what had changed. But the person she was in the dream was tall and willowy and had sharp, intelligent, beautiful eyes.

The image didn't last long. It shifted into something else, a street she couldn't identify. Then other people began milling around and the dream ended.

She woke up.

For perhaps two seconds she felt the afterglow of the dream.

She sat up straight, looked at the clock, and spat out, "Oh, no! Son of a bitch!"

It was nine o'clock.

She pulled off her nightgown and yanked open the drawer to her dresser. Panties, bra-no bra. She couldn't find one. She kept looking. Forget it! She slipped a sweater on, thinking that it was the first time since the age of thirteen that she had left the house without a bra. Slacks, anklet stockings… They don't match, where's the mate, where? Hell with it! Go! Beige pumps.

Go, go, go!…

Nina pulled on her blue jean jacket. She hadn't washed her face and she felt a rim of sweat on her forehead. She paused in the mirror to brush her hair and she did that only because she didn't want to look conspicuous.

For what she was about to do, conspicuous would not be good.

She left the house and hurried to her car. After she started the engine, she looked into her purse to make certain that it contained what she had put there the night before.

A military-issue.45 semiautomatic pistol, the classic 1911 Colt, sat heavily between an Estee Lauder compact and a pink plastic Tampax container.

Nina knew the gun about as well as she knew her Singer sewing machine. Although she could not field-strip it blindfolded she could dismantle it sufficiently to clean and oil the bore and the parts and did so every time she fired it. This gun happened to be identical to the ones Ross's gangsters carried in Missouri River Blues, although Nina's was loaded with ten rounds of live ammunition and was not registered with the federal government or with anybody else.