Free The Bum's Rush by G. M. Ford Page A

solid red, littered about the
rims with some sort of seepage that looked like coarse yellow sand; his
knees quivered in the breeze. He licked his cracked lips and opened his
mouth.
    I moved closer and said, "Take a hike. This is a private party."
    "Heh, heh, my man--" he started.
    "Beat it," I said.
    Selena stood at my elbow. "I'll talk to ya later,
Rodney. Here. Take the rest of this." She extended the bag containing
the bottle. He groped for it until Selena grabbed his wrist, put it in
his palm, and closed his shiny black fingers around it. Satisfied, he
lisped his thanks and tottered back up the hill. Two steps forward, one
gravity step back, but at least he was making progress.
    Selena pulled the paper from her pocket and
appeared to study it. I watched her eyes. They didn't move from left to
right and back, but instead seemed to attack the words at random.
    "Can you read?" I asked.
    She punched me hard in the chest with the paper.
    "I'm not ignorant," she said, her eyes suddenly hard and focused.
    "I didn't say you were," I said. "I just asked if you could read."
    She turned her back on me, smoothed the paper out on her leg, and mumbled something into the breeze.
    "What?" I asked.
    "I read a little," she said without turning. "Where'd you get that thing, anyway?" she added.
    "I was doing a little work downtown yesterday.
Paying off our bill to Jed. I figured that, you know, as long as I was
there, so I walked down to the County Office Building, punched
five-four-one, eight-two, six-three-six-seven and your name into the
computer, and lo and behold you came up dead as a plug herring."
    "It ain't right."
    "No, it's not," I agreed.
    "I never made no trouble. I dinna want nothin'. I just--"
    She turned to leave. She took three steps and
stopped. Rodney, having now mojo'd his way up to the steep part of the
path, managed two mincing steps forward before falling backward for
three. The old boy was losing ground. I calculated that, at his present
rate, in three months he'd run out of terra firma and shuffle backward
into the Sound.
    Her wide shoulders again shook with laughter.
    "What you call that dance, Rodney?'' she hollered, starting after him. "That the cha-cha you doin'?"
    Rodney turned his feet in a series of small ski
turns. When he was satisfied with his purchase, he took a hefty pull
from the bottle.
    "Na. Ain't no cha-cha, Lena. Heh. Heh. What it is, girl. That there's the pigeon shit shuffle, is what it is."
9
    The Steering Wheel pressed into my chest; I hung
suspended from my seat belt harness as I eased the squealing Fiat down
the face of South Washington. Reaching flat ground, I huffed a sigh of
relief, turned right on Fourth Avenue, and headed uptown. As I wiggled
myself back into the seat, I pulled my notebook from my jacket pocket
and flipped it open. Karen Mendolson lived at 905 Union. First Hill. No
problem.
    I climbed Pike all the way to Minor, hooked a
right, drove one block, and turned right again on Union. Nice apartment
buildings, mostly tilt-ups from the late sixties, on both sides of the
street. Numbers in the eleven hundreds. I moved slowly down the block
checking the numbers. One thousand and six was the last number before
Union dead ended on Terry. Dude.
    Figuring 905 must be on the other side of the
interstate, I backtracked, crossing the freeway at Pine, then cut over
to park by the Eagles Auditorium at the head of Union. I got out and
walked to the comer. Across the street, the first building on the other
side was the Union Square Grill, number 621. Double dude.
    The way I saw it, there were only two
possibilities. Either three blocks of downtown Seattle had been
vaporized by aliens, or 905 Union must be buried somewhere down
under the Washington State Convention Center. I headed back toward Pike
Street, keeping a sharp eye peeled for anyone sporting an antenna.
    About ten years ago, faced with a desperate need
for a showplace convention center, but lacking any downtown property
whatsoever upon