Finders Keepers

To his right, in the maze of posts and tape leading to the doors of the darkened auditorium, the baby began to cry. Tom looked around and saw the man with the sleeping bag holding the sides of the papoose carrier so the woman (God, Tom thought, she doesn’t look like she’s out of her teens yet) could pull the kid out.

‘What the fuck’s zat?’ Todd asked, sounding slurrier than ever.

‘A kid,’ Tom said. ‘Woman with a kid. Girl with a kid.’

Todd peered. ‘Christ on a pony,’ he said. ‘I call that pretty irra … irry … you know, not responsible.’

‘Are you drunk?’ Linda disliked Todd, she didn’t see his good side, and right now Tom wasn’t sure he saw it, either.

‘L’il bit. I’ll be fine by the time the doors open. Got some breath mints, too.’

Tom thought of asking the Toddster if he’d also brought some Visine – his eyes were looking mighty red – and decided he didn’t want to have that discussion just now. He turned his attention back to where the woman with the crying baby had been. At first he thought they were gone. Then he looked lower and saw her sliding into the burly man’s sleeping bag with the baby on her chest. The burly man was holding the mouth of the bag open for her. The infant was still bawling his or her head off.

‘Can’t you shut that kid up?’ a man called.

‘Someone ought to call Social Services,’ a woman added.

Tom thought of Tina at that age, imagined her out on this cold and foggy predawn morning, and restrained an urge to tell the man and woman to shut up … or better yet, lend a hand somehow. After all, they were in this together, weren’t they? The whole screwed-up, bad-luck bunch of them.

The crying softened, stopped.

‘She’s probably feeding im,’ Todd said. He squeezed his chest to demonstrate.

‘Yeah.’

‘Tommy?’

‘What?’

‘You know Ellen lost her job, right?’

‘Jesus, no. I didn’t know that.’ Pretending he didn’t see the fear in Todd’s face. Or the glimmering of moisture in his eyes. Possibly from the booze or the cold. Possibly not.

‘They said they’d call her back when things get better, but they said the same thing to me, and I’ve been out of work going on half a year now. I cashed my insurance. That’s gone. And you know what we got left in the bank? Five hundred dollars. You know how long five hundred dollars lasts when a loaf of bread at Kroger’s costs a buck?’

‘Not long.’

‘You’re fucking A it doesn’t. I have to get something here. Have to.’

‘You will. We both will.’

Todd lifted his chin at the burly man, who now appeared to be standing guard over the sleeping bag, so no one would accidentally step on the woman and baby inside. ‘Think they’re married?’

Tom hadn’t considered it. Now he did. ‘Probably.’

‘Then they both must be out of work. Otherwise, one of em would have stayed home with the kid.’

‘Maybe,’ Tom said, ‘they think showing up with the baby will improve their chances.’

Todd brightened. ‘The pity card! Not a bad idea!’ He held out the pint. ‘Want a nip?’

He took a small one, thinking, If I don’t drink it, Todd will.

Tom was awakened from a whiskey-assisted doze by an exuberant shout: ‘Life is discovered on other planets!’ This sally was followed by laughter and applause.

He looked around and saw daylight. Thin and fog-draped, but daylight, just the same. Beyond the bank of auditorium doors, a fellow in gray fatigues – a man with a job, lucky fellow – was pushing a mop-bucket across the lobby.

‘Whuddup?’ Todd asked.

‘Nothing,’ Tom said. ‘Just a janitor.’

Todd peered in the direction of Marlborough Street. ‘Jesus, and still they come.’

‘Yeah,’ Tom said. Thinking, And if I’d listened to Linda, we’d be at the end of a line that stretches halfway to Cleveland. That was a good thought, a little vindication was always good, but he wished he’d said no to Todd’s pint. His mouth tasted like kitty litter. Not that he’d ever actually eaten any, but—

Someone a couple of zigzags over – not far from the sleeping bag – asked, ‘Is that a Benz? It looks like a Benz.’

Tom saw a long shape at the head of the entrance drive leading up from Marlborough, its yellow fog-lamps blazing. It wasn’t moving; it just sat there.

‘What’s he think he’s doing?’ Todd asked.

The driver of the car immediately behind must have wondered the same thing, because he laid on his horn – a long, pissed-off blat that made people stir and snort and look around. For a moment the car with the yellow fog-lamps stayed where it was. Then it shot forward. Not to the left, toward the now full-to-overflowing parking lot, but directly at the people pe

‘Hey!’ someone shouted.

The crowd swayed backward in a tidal motion. Tom was shoved against Todd, who went down on his ass. Tom fought for balance, almost found it, and then the man in front of him – yelling, no, screaming – drove his butt into Tom’s crotch and one flailing elbow into his chest. Tom fell on top of his buddy, heard the bottle of Bell’s shatter somewhere between them, and smelled the sharp reek of the remaining whiskey as it ran across the pavement.

Great, now I’ll smell like a barroom on Saturday night.

He struggled to his feet in time to see the car – it was a Mercedes, all right, a big sedan as gray as this foggy morning – plowing into the crowd, spi

Now it was coming right at him.

‘Todd!’ he shouted. ‘Todd, get up!’

He grabbed at Todd’s hands, got one of them, and pulled. Someone slammed into him and he was driven back to his knees. He could hear the rogue car’s motor, revving full-out. Very close now. He tried to crawl, and a foot clobbered him in the temple. He saw stars.

‘Tom?’ Todd was behind him now. How had that happened? ‘Tom, what the fuck?’

A body landed on top of him, and then something else was on top of him, a huge weight that pressed down, threatening to turn him to jelly. His hips snapped. They sounded like dry turkey bones. Then the weight was gone. Pain with its own kind of weight rushed in to replace it.

Tom tried to raise his head and managed to get it off the pavement just long enough to see taillights dwindling into the fog. He saw glittering shards of glass from the busted pint. He saw Todd sprawled on his back with blood coming out of his head and pooling on the pavement. Crimson tire-tracks ran away into the foggy half-light.

He thought, Linda was right. I should have stayed home.

He thought, I’m going to die, and maybe that’s for the best. Because, unlike Todd Paine, I never got around to cashing in my insurance.

He thought, Although I probably would have, in time.

Then, blackness.

When Tom Saubers woke up in the hospital forty-eight hours later, Linda was sitting beside him. She was holding his hand. He asked her if he was going to live. She smiled, squeezed his hand, and said you bet your patootie.

‘Am I paralyzed? Tell me the truth.’

‘No, honey, but you’ve got a lot of broken bones.’

‘What about Todd?’

She looked away, biting her lips. ‘He’s in a coma, but they think he’s going to come out of it eventually. They can tell by his brainwaves, or something.’

‘There was a car. I couldn’t get out of the way.’

‘I know. You weren’t the only one. It was some madman. He got away with it, at least so far.’