Free Solitary Dancer by John Lawrence Reynolds Page A

the sight of Grizzly and the Gypsy, and Django prancing and stepping lightly around the fire that blazed in the steel drum, his head back, his eyes closed.
    â€œHey,” Grizzly said softly.
    The Mercedes’ passenger door opened and a dark-eyed man wearing only a dirty and faded sweatshirt emerged. He was nodding in response to something the driver of the car was saying but he was watching Django intently.
    Django’s back was to the car. “Hear you, Grizz.”
    The man in the sweatshirt waited for the Mercedes to pull away. Then, with his hands thrust deeply in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the wind, he walked unsteadily down the alley. The Mercedes drove off with a sound like a sigh.
    â€œYou got a customer.” Grizzly stood motionless, watching the man approach. The Gypsy scampered toward the unpainted wooden shed set against the rear wall of the building housing Tremont Adult Novelties and began fishing in her pockets for cigarettes.
    Django swivelled his small head to look down the alley. “It’s the Jolt, come back to life,” he called, extending his arms to welcome McGuire. “Hey, how you doin’?”
    McGuire halted a few paces away. He nodded at Grizzly and glanced at the Gypsy. “I got twenty,” he said, giving Django the crisp bill Hoffman had just handed McGuire in the warmth of the Mercedes.
    â€œAn’ I got some D’s for you,” Django moved away from McGuire, his left arm extended. “Django’s got some D’s for his man, ain’t he, Grizz?”
    Grizzly smiled through the flames and smoke belching from the rusting drum. He motioned to the Gypsy who was taking long drags on her Camel Light and watching McGuire from the corner of her eye. She moved crabwise from the safety of the building wall to stand behind Grizzly, who reached into a pocket of the parka and withdrew a brown bottle the size of a coffee mug. In a quick, practised motion he removed the cap, shook ten small pills into his hand, replaced the cap and slid the bottle back into the parka. Then he was around the blazing metal drum, his hand extended to McGuire but his head and eyes in motion, looking everywhere.
    McGuire counted the Demerol and said, “I used to get twice this much.” Not waiting for a reply, he picked two of the tiny pills from his palm, placed them in his mouth and swallowed them dry.
    â€œSupply and demand, Jolt,” Django said. “Supply and demand.”
    McGuire approached the fire and its oily warmth. Soon, he told himself. Soon.
    â€œHey, you hear the word, Jolt? Lady Day, she thinkin’ a you, missin’ you all a time.” Django nodded, smiling. “I tell her I see you, she gonna be glowin’ again. She thinkin’, worryin’, wonderin’ when you comin’ back. Word is, you were kinda
mean
to a sweetie over on Newbury, one of your upward climbin’ angora-style ladies.”
    â€œTell Billie not to worry about me,” McGuire said.
    â€œOh, Billie not worried,” Django laughed. “She not worried, no darlin’.” A long cackle, rising in pitch. “She egg-
sight
-ed, Jolt. She hear you get rough, she near to fallin’ in
love
with you!” and he laughed again.
    McGuire turned from the fire and walked away, down the lane, back to Tremont.
    â€œShouldn’t,” said the Gypsy from the other side of the burning steel drum. “Shouldn’t do business with no cops.”
    â€œEx,” Grizzly corrected her. “He be an ex-cop.”
    â€œCops are cops,” the Gypsy said. “Dogs are dogs, shit is shit, cops are cops.”
    â€œHe something special though, Gyps.” Django twisted his shoulders from side to side and watched McGuire cross Washington on his way to the Flamingo. “Jolt special. And soon Jolt be special and happy. Happier’n he be now, for sure. Soon he be
real
again. The man be
real
,” and Django turned to