“A few teensy bugs won’t bother me.”
“Teensy?” Elmer repeated, and laughed softly. “I’ll show you how teensy they are.” So saying, he extended his left arm into the hole, all the way to the shoulder, his forehead creasing as he felt here and there. “Usually there’s a couple near the opening. These buggers climb all over you when you’re in the crawl space, so don’t pay them no mind. They don’t bite.” He muttered an unintelligible word and straightened, smiling. “Take a look.”
His left hand came out of the hole.
Hickok felt goose bumps erupt all over his skin, and his eyes widened at the sight of the four-inch insect, with its flat, brown, oval body, its long, swept-back antennae, overlapping wings, and six writhing legs.
“This is a medium-sized roach,” Elmer said. “Some of these suckers grow over six inches long.”
“And there are a passel of them down there?”
“A what?”
“A lot of those bugs?”
“Yep. But don’t let them rattle you. They don’t bite,” Elmer told the gunman, then pressed the cockroach onto the floor and crushed the insect with the palm of his hand. “Want me to tell you a secret?”
Hickok stared at the mushy pieces of cockroach oozing between the bum’s fingers. “What?”
Elmer looked up and grinned. “The roaches make great eating.”
“You eat them?”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. When you’re down on your luck and can’t find a square anywhere, you take what you can get. A few of these will fill you right up,” Elmer divulged. “You should eat one sometime and see for yourself.”
Hickok’s stomach flip-flopped. “Not on your life.”
“Suit yourself, sonny,” Elmer said, and shrugged. He wiped his hand off on the floor, then bent toward the crawl space. “Let’s go.”
“Hold it.”
Elmer paused and gazed at the gunfighter. “Something wrong?”
“What was that business about your help costing me?”
“I want you to do me a favor. If you bump into General Stoljarov, I want you to kill him.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Do I need one? He didn’t get the nickname the Butcher because he’s a nice guy,” Elmer said, and frowned. “A lot of decent folks have died at his hands, and several of them were friends of mine. The Butcher is the most hated Commie in Cincinnati, probably in all of Ohio.”
“How would I know him if I saw him?”
“That’s easy. Just look for the crap seeping out his ears.”
Hickok grinned and nodded. “If I run into the vermin, I’ll plug him for you.”
“Thanks,” Elmer said. He lowered his torso into the crawl space, dropping headfirst into the Stygian hole, disappearing slowly. “Keep your head low,” he advised, his voice muted.
Frowning, Hickok advanced to the crawl space and knelt for a better view, disconcerted by the fact that the darkness obscured everything, bothered by a nagging, lingering mistrust of the bug-eater. What if Elmer was setting him up? He’d be a sitting duck down there.
“Are you coming or what?” Elmer called back.
“I’m comin’,” Hickok said.
“Sometime this year would be nice,” Elmer declared. “If you want to save your buddies, that is.”
The reference to Blade and Geronimo galvanized Hickok into action, and he gingerly stretched his arms downward until his hands made contact with bare earth.
“Are you part turtle?” Elmer queried, and snickered.
Hickok ignored the crack and eased lower until he was flat on his stomach. The air was musty, the dirt dank. “Why is it moist down here?” he whispered.
“Probably all that cockroach piss,” Elmer replied, and sounded like he was gagging on his own laughter.
“A regular comedian,” Hickok muttered, scanning in all directions, waiting for his eyes to adjust. A trickle of light seeping through cracks on the south side scarcely relieved the oppressive gloom, although he was able to discern that the crawl space extended under the entire building.
“Which way?”
“Follow me,” Elmer replied softly. “Just be careful you don’t accidentally get your nose in any rat shit.” He wheezed and snorted.
Hickok could perceive a vague shadow where Elmer must be, and he crawled toward the bum. The shadow moved, bearing to the east, and he stayed within half a yard of Elmer’s shoes. A pungent odor crinkled his nostrils. “Don’t you ever wash your feet?”
Elmer sniggered. “Excuse me for living. If I’d known someone was going to get intimate with my tootsies, I would have taken my annual bath early.”
Something skittered across the gunman’s left hand.
“What the dickens was that?” Hickok blurted.
“What happened?”
“Something ran over my hand.”
“A cockroach, most likely.”
“I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Wimp.”
They continued to crawl across the clammy, acrid earth, attended by squeaks, vague rustlings, and scratching noises from every direction.
Hickok resisted an impulse to sneeze. He inadvertently stiffened when a thing that squealed ran over his legs. The crawl space gave him the willies!
He preferred a straightforward, stand-up fight to all this skulking and slinking about in the dark. Having hordes of icky bugs clambering over his body was as appealing as dining on a cockroach.
A thin… something… with lots of legs unexpectedly climbed up his collar and onto his right cheek.
Reacting instinctively, Hickok slapped at the insect and crushed it. He used his fingers to flick the pulp away.
“What are you doing?” Elmer asked.
“There was a blasted bug on my face.”
“Must of been in love.”
“Keep going,” Hickok directed.
“Some people have no sense of humor,” Elmer whispered.
For the gunman, the time seemed to drag on interminably. Scores of insects scaled his moving form, scrambling and scrabbling, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was a human. Over a dozen climbed in his hair and were promptly dislodged.
Elmer began giggling.
“What’s so funny?” Hickok demanded.
“I’ve got a cockroach down my shirt, and the bugger tickles.”
“Too bad it isn’t a black widow.”
“Boy, a little dirt and a few bugs and you go all to pieces.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight.”
“Are you part Blackfoot by any chance?”
“What’s a Blackfoot?”
“Never mind.”
A minute later Elmer stopped. “Hot damn!”
“What?”
“We’re here.”
“You’d better not be joshin’ me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it, sonny.”
Hickok perceived the outline of a wall in front of them, and he heard a slight grating noise. A square of welcome light materialized, and a draft of fresh air tingled his skin.
“Stay low,” Elmer cautioned, and squeezed through the opening.
Hickok wasted no time in following, and found himself in a confined space between two buildings, with not more than four feet from wall to wall. He twisted and faced Delhi Road, glimpsing a truck bearing to the west.
Elmer was crouching against the opposite wall. “Can you lift that?” he inquired, and pointed at a manhole cover a yard to their rear.
“Where does it lead?” Hickok asked.
“Down into the sewers.”
“We’re not going down there?”
“We are if you want to find your friends,” Elmer said.
Hickok sighed and edged to the cover. The rim was imbedded flush with the surface, but there was a single hole near the edge. He inserted his right index finger, rose to his knees, and heaved. The heavy metal lid rose a quarter of an inch.
“What’s the matter, sonny? Are you a pansy?”