“Jeez, Froggie, don’t you watch the news, read the papers? Rays. Radio waves, television waves, shortwaves, microwaves, X-rays, cosmic rays. Guy on the tube says we’re all swimming in an ocean of electronic waves.” He inhaled deeply, reducing a quarter of the cigarette to ash. “Not me. Uh-uh. I stay in as much as I can. The tinfoil keeps the rays out. You ever seen what a microwave does to a piece of meat? Well, we’re meat.”
“Yeah, sure. Look, I need a place to stay. Just for a few days. I was wondering if maybe—”
“Cops?” said Gomez, visibly alarmed.
“No, nothing like that. Couple of guys are looking for me. No big deal. How about it?”
Gomez squinted through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Where are your crutches, by the way?”
“Ah, that’s history. Deal fell through.”
Gomez smoked furiously for a minute as he considered his friend’s answer.
“Deal fell through, or something went wrong?”
Kermit shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then, because he was not a practiced liar and because he needed to talk to someone about his problem, he told Gomez what had transpired.
“So that’s it, and now I need a place to hole up until things cool off a little. What do you say?”
Gomez shook his head vigorously. “I don’t think so, Froggie. I mean, I don’t feel comfortable with guests, you know? This is a small space. Someone else is here, it feels like they’re using up the air. I have trouble breathing. Uh-uh. No can do.”
Kermit noted the overflowing ashtrays and was about to suggest that there would be more air to breathe if Gomez simply stopped smoking. But he didn’t want to offend his friend, and besides he sensed it would be futile: the sudden fear in the room was as palpable as the cigarette smoke.
After a few more minutes of small talk, Kermit returned to the street, hair and clothes reeking of tobacco. It was dark now and snowing harder. Light from the stores spilled out onto the snowy sidewalks and for a moment the scene reminded him of the town he’d grown up in. Not for the first time he wondered what his life would have been like had he stayed there, gone to work for his father, maybe met a girl.
A bus ground by, filling his nose with diesel fumes. Kermit snapped to and turned his mind to the problem at hand. He felt exposed on the street and there was no way he could return to the shelter. He decided to seek help from the smartest person he knew, the Professor.
The Professor’s tent consisted of several blue tarps stretched over an old tent frame and held down at the edges by cinder blocks. It was located roughly in the middle of eighty acres of woods behind the municipal airport, land that had so far escaped development and sometimes served as shelter for the homeless.
Kermit came prepared with an offering, a bottle of Night Train, which had used up the last of his money. He explained his predicament and fell silent. There was only one seat, a weathered barber chair that served the Professor as both chair and bed. Kermit had to remain standing, the alternative being to sit on the damp ground.
Light from a pair of flickering candles chased shadows across the Professor’s face. He was a huge man, bigger even than Kermit, his size accentuated by a full gray beard and bulky overcoat. It was rumored that he had once been a lawyer. For a few bucks or a bottle he would render advice on state and local ordinances governing vagrancy, trespassing, petty larceny, and other statutes of concern to his constituents, or on anything else that anyone cared to ask.
To Kermit he said, “It’s a clear case of a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi, Froggie.”
“I don’t understand Spanish, Professor.”
“Latin, m’boy. It’s Latin meaning there’s a precipice before you and wolves behind. A tough spot.” He took a judicious sip of Night Train and grimaced.
“First, the wolf, a k a Victor Quantz. He is a disreputable man, a blot upon the legal profession. You, Froggie, faked a fall on a broken sidewalk. You can be certain that Quantz, or one of his people, had already filed a report on that sidewalk some time ago with the DPW. As of that moment, the city was officially on notice and had a specified amount of time in which to repair the structure. After the allotted time passed and no repairs were made, the city became legally liable for any injuries at that location. The DPW is busy. It can’t get to every pothole and heave.” Another sip. Another grimace.
“So, Victor Quantz sends out one of his cappers, in this case Cadillac Jack, to find a ‘victim,’ ideally someone who will work for peanuts.” He gave Kermit a significant look.
Kermit hung his head. “A hundred bucks,” he admitted.
“A hundred bucks?” roared the Professor. “Why you imbecile! Within a month or two the quack and the backcracker would have submitted bills for at least six or eight thousand dollars to whatever company insures the city against liability. They’d probably have settled the case for thirty, forty, maybe fifty thousand bucks.” He sighed. “Oh well, your immediate problem is Quantz. Let me tell you a little story about the learned counselor.
“Jimmy Dukes owed him a couple of grand. He kept coming up with excuses, but no money. One night a couple of Quantz’s boys grab Jimmy off the street and drive him out to the docks. They take away his clothes, give him a quarter, jam him into a phone booth, and tell him to call his employer, Ross the Boss Capello, another citizen of questionable repute and a competitor, you might say, of Quantz’s.
“Anyway, they tell Jimmy to tell Capello he should pay the debt off for him. To make sure Capello gets the message, they pour gasoline into the booth, shut the door, and light a match. The poor bastard’s on the phone screaming and begging Capello to for crissake give Quantz the money.” He raised the bottle again. A healthy swallow this time.
“What happened?”
The Professor frowned. “Capello hung up. They dropped the match. Jimmy died a horrible death. And nobody has held out on Victor Quantz since. Which was the point of the exercise.”
Snow hissed against the roof of the tent. Kermit shivered. He felt nauseous.
“As to the precipice, by now Quantz has put the word out that he wants to talk to you. And maybe that’s all he wants to do. Talk.” He raised the bottle, examined the dwindling contents, lowered it again. “Or maybe not.”
“What am I going to do?”
The Professor shrugged. “Hide, leave town, or get your affairs in order. I really don’t care.” He levered the chair back to a reclining position.
“But whatever you do, don’t come back here.”
Kermit had barely regained the street when a voice behind him said, “Hey, Frogman. Just the guy I’m looking for.”
Kermit turned, ready to flee.
“It’s cool,” said Cadillac Jack, hands held at shoulder height. “I’m here to help.”
“Jesus, Jack, I’m sorry! Some little punk, a guy with a camera, I don’t know—” Kermit was practically blubbering. Jack threw a friendly arm around the big man’s shoulders.
“No sweat, Froggie.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut, Jack. Honest.”
“Like I say, no sweat. These things happen. Goddam insurance investigators, they got a bag of tricks.”
“But Quantz—”
“Don’t worry. It’s all square. You see, if you aren’t here, you can’t be squeezed. So, how do you feel about relocating? To Florida, say?”
“Seriously?”
Jack placed hand over heart. “Absolutely. Think about it — sunny and warm all year, beautiful babes, sandy beaches, no more goddam snow. Hell, I’d go with you if I could. What do you say?”
“Sure, Jack, sure.”
“Quantz is an okay guy, Frogman.” He glanced over his shoulder, lowered his voice. “Just between you and me, I think he shorted you on the deal, what with a hundred bucks. But he’s willing to front you, say four or five hundred, to get you started off on the right foot in Florida, to sort of make up for it. But,” he raised a cautionary finger, “you can’t come back here no more. What the hell, after a few days down there you won’t want to anyway. Now, here’s how it works.” He slipped two twenties into Kermit’s pocket. “You go on down to Mahoney’s, have a few pops. I got some details to work out. I’ll be by at closing time to pick you up, take you to the station. Look for the blue Caddy. That’ll be me.”