Free Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty Page B

too, for it leaves your body about three hours after it enters virtually unchanged by digestive juices. I wave to Simon, who, of course, is up already, but out here in the early light and through that five-inch glass he fails to recognize me.
    McDonald’s is just opening, and there’s me and a line of homeless guys. I order the pancake breakfast and a nasty cup of coffee and sit at the window.
    My “hotcakes” come and they forget the syrup and there’s a whole ta-do while they find it, and suddenly I’m the pushy white guy making a fuss. I’m not the only one, though. Danny the Drunk is here and he’s already plastered. I don’t know how he does it. The man has dedication. He’s getting a milk shake for breakfast and paying in pennies and nickels. There’s word in the building that there’s more to Danny than meets the eye, but frankly I don’t much care. I don’t believe in the homeless sage who has attained wisdom by years of hard knocks andbrutal experience. Danny has nothing to teach me. He’s a hopeless purple-faced alcoholic, of which I’ve seen plenty in Ireland, and I’m really not bothered if he was the president of some company or one of the Apollo astronauts or a bigwig at MIT. He wasn’t, in any case. He worked for the subways in a ticket booth, but that’s a fact getting in the way of the myth and Ratko, in particular, is always ready to emphasize the mysterious nature of his fall.
    Since we live in the same building, I suppose he feels a kinship. I can smell him getting closer, and then he comes and sits down opposite, the bastard.
    Morning? he says, as if unsure of his bearings.
    Aye, I say, head down, shoveling in pancakes with whipped butter and corn syrup.
    Cold, he says. Whether this is about the air temperature, his milkshake, or my demeanor, I’m not sure, but I say again:
    Aye.
    They have the story about the body on 135th?
    What?
    Your newspaper, do they have that story?
    Uhhh, yes, they do, I mumble reluctantly.
    It was the story I was reading. They found a body on the campus of City College. Black guy, he’d been shot, and maybe that would have gotten it onto page 23 or something because of the college connection but for the fact that his heart had been removed and straw placed in the cavity where the heart had been. It would grip the city for about a day until the next grisly murder came along, which it would—tomorrow. The police spokesman in the
Daily News
said that in the Jamaican gangs this is what they did with a stool pigeon. It shows that the man had no heart, no loyalty, that he wasn’t a real man at all. A dummy.
    Stuffed him with straw, Danny said and took a bit of his shake. I suppose liquids are the only thing he can stomach now. I suddenly felt a bit more charitable to the poor bastard, there but for the grace of God, et cetera.
    I’m surprised they don’t call it the
Wizard of Oz
killing, you know, because the straw man wanted a heart, I said.
    That was the tin man, Danny said.
    Oh, I said.
    More like the Emperor Valerian, Danny said. Heard of him?
    Rings a bell, I said, truthfully.
    They stuffed him.
    Who?
    The Persians.
    Why?
    To mock Rome.
    What?
    He was taken prisoner and they used him as a footstool and stuffed him when he died.
    I was annoyed. You see, this is the sort of thing that gets Danny a reputation for having sense. He really doesn’t, but Ratko or someone else in the building will hear him come off with this sort of shite and think that he’s on to something. It pissed me off. And I knew that I was going to be forced to tell Ratko this little story and it was going to reinforce all his prejudices.
    Have to head, I said and got up.
    You want the rest of your coffee? Danny said.
    No.
    I passed it over; our eyes met for a second.
    Did you go to university? I asked him for some random reason.
    I did. Rutgers.
    Huh, well, look at you now, I wanted to say, but of course didn’t.
    I dumped my plastic utensils and plate in the garbage and went out. I