Free The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue by Louis Shalako

fucking
City.
    “ George. I have to be able
to help you lift it, it’s really heavy—” Ninety kilos of high-grade
bronze is what it was, the city sparing no expense when it came to
sewers in borderline-suburbia.
    This was no inner-city outreach
program for the disabled, the mentally-ill, the homeless and the
permanently unemployable.
     
    ***
     
    “ Holy, Jesus! Where in the
fuck did you come from, man?”
    At his feet, the manhole cover settled
quietly back into place.
    The noise, perhaps music was too kind
a word, was horrendously loud. He cringed and grimaced.
    There was no way to run.
    Scott straightened fully. He waved his
arms a bit and shuffled his feet as much as he dared.
    He made his head go back and forth
like a chicken. The shoes were squishing with water, which could be
a dead give-away if anyone really looked. He had to blend in.
Composing his features as best he could, he pondered the
question.
    “ Yeah.
Where did you come from?” The voices were
everywhere.
    He seemed to have popped up right in a
clump of dancers, mostly female.
    This one was a guy. The young man’s
breath stung his nose.
    The rushing as of winds was all around
him, and the smells, of cannabis, alcohol, perfume and sweat and
piss and shit and candy-floss, if one might believe it, were all
mixed up into one unforgettable fugue.
    “ I’m not Jesus, although
the mistake is a natural one.”
    Those nearest or paying any attention
at all laughed. Scott, or rather George, practically had to bellow
to be heard.
    "Yeah, really, it happens all the
time." More laughs.
    In his ear, Betty’s clear voice was
calm but insistent.
    “ Don’t get distracted.
Just say excuse me and try and go north…to your immediate
left.”
    “ Excuse me.” He raised his
voice. “Excuse me…coming through”
    Trying desperately not to fall on
someone, making inevitable body contact here and there, with
flailing arms and limbs moving the air in tight little zephyrs up
around his face, and even with the odds and ends of someone’s hair
in his mouth as he opened it to speak again, he tried to force his
way through on lumpy, uneven ground.
    “ Hey, man!”
    “ I am so
sorry.”
    “ Watch where you’re
going!”
    “ I am really sorry. You
have my deepest apologies.”
    The tone of that voice was really
angry.
    “ You fuckin’
doof!”
    “ It’s just that I’m blind,
you see, and I dropped my cane, and I just want to find the
gate.”
    “ You’re what? What, are
you fucking blind…?”
    The tone was incredulous, and Scott
wondered just how fucked-up this person was.
    The time for bellowing was
now.
    “ Yes. Yes, sir. I’m
fucking blind—now do you get it, Buddy?” Scott almost said
‘asshole’ there but stopped himself in the nick of time.
    There was no such thing as silence to
be had in such a venue, but Scott had the impression the guy hadn’t
gone away.
    “ My name is George. Can
you please help me get to the gate?”
    A hard hand clamped on his upper
bicep.
    “ All right, Bud. Sure, no
problem.”
    In his ear Betty was encouraging him,
and the music was much too loud, and for a moment Scott felt real
fear. More real fear. As if he hadn’t had enough.
    “ My name is
George.”
    “ Yeah, I’m Sluggo. I’m
real glad to meet you, George.”
    They must have gone fifty or sixty
metres, with Sluggo, what kind of a name was that? Sluggo was
leading him along, friendly enough now that he understood the
situation. His new acquaintance was drunk as a skunk, high on
everything, smelling of sweat and a few other things, but helpful
nonetheless. The guy’s breathing was loud enough. He must have been
dancing up a storm.
    “ I really am sorry about
that.”
    “ Yeah, well. I guess. You
don’t look the type.”
    Scott couldn’t help but smile. Sluggo
was referring to the fact that Scott had inadvertently patted him
on the bum while trying to negotiate a way through the frenzy of
drug-fueled whirling dervishes, several hundred or even a