Thomas shoved him aside and dashed up the aisle. The cashier, a blond girl in a frilly apron, stepped into his path but then stepped back when he roared fiercely and waved his arms at her.
His escape looked good until two burly, unshaven men in stained T-shirts and aprons appeared from the kitchen and stood in front of the door. "Grab the bastard!" yelled the furious waiter, who now advanced on Thomas from behind.
"Oh, Lord," moaned Thomas in fright.
Filling a booth at a nearby window was a well-to-do family: an older gentleman, his stocky wife, three children and, under the table, a poodle in a powder blue dog sweater. They all watched Thomas with polite interest, as if he'd just announced that he was going to execute a few juggling tricks for their amusement.
"I'm sorry, I really am," Thomas yelled as he picked up the dog with both hands, raised it over his head and pitched it through the window. Taking a flying leap and setting his sandalled foot firmly in a plate of sausages, he dove head first through the jagged-edged casement. When he rolled to his feet on the glass-strewn sidewalk, he saw the dog huddled against the wall, terrified but apparently saved from injury by the idiotic sweater.
"Your dog's okay!" Thomas yelled back through the window. He felt bad about having done that. The two big men in aprons rounded the corner of the building, one armed with a long fork and the other with a spatula. Thomas turned and ran down the block, jogging sharply right on a street called Sierra Vista and then left into a nameless alley. It led him eventually to another big street, which he followed south, walking briskly now that the vengeful cooks had been left far behind.
Anton Delmotte sipped at his tomato juice and shuddered.
His boss, sitting across the table from him, looked up. "What's wrong with you?" he asked unsympathetically. "Did my breakfast disagree with you?"
"Oh, no, Bob." Delmotte twisted his wrinkled face into an ingratiating smile. "The breakfast was tip-top. As always."
"Yeah," Bob grunted absently, returning his attention to the papers on the table before him. "Better than you deserve."
Delmotte didn't answer. Taking another deep sip of the red juice, he managed to swallow without a grimace. Earlier, in Bob's absence, Delmotte had tiptoed furtively to the liquor cabinet with the glass of tomato juice, hoping to find some vodka or gin to fortify it with; but Bob's returning footsteps had sounded on the stair before he'd found any, and he'd had to make do with peppermint schnapps.
A short, rat-faced man leaned through the rear doorway, his ragged beard and greasy sweatshirt presenting an incongruous contrast with the simple colonial elegance of the dining room. "That kid from Bellflower died during the night," he said. "I said he was sick. We'll be lucky if the rest of 'em don't come down with it."
Bob let a long sigh hiss out between his teeth. "Okay," he said, "Tie him up under the wagon and we'll cut him loose once we're moving. He's not still in with the others, is he?"
"No, boss. I've put him under a couple of boxes out back."
"Good. Get the rest of them in the wagon. We'll be moving out at 11:00." The man nodded and withdrew. Bob turned to Delmotte, who had drained the tomato juice. "You swore that kid was okay," he said. "Not that I should ever take your word for anything."
"Oh, hell, Bob," Delmotte protested nervously. "He looked all right. Good muscles, clear eyes. You'd have sworn yourself that it was just a cold."
Bob glared at him. "Maybe. But you're the one that did swear it. And Alvarez ordered 50, not 49." He stood up and walked to the window, squinting out at the street. "We leave in about two hours. If you haven't found a replacement for the Bellflower kid by then, we're leaving you behind."
"Wha… ?" Delmotte paled. "Leave me behind? I couldn't get out of the city alone, Bob. I'd starve for sure… but you're just pulling my leg, aren't you? Hell, yes. You'd never maroon me, not after all these years. You know as well as—"
"I'm not joking." Bob still stood at the window, looking out. "I wouldn't miss you. All you do these days is drink and throw up." He turned to the old man. "Two hours, Pops. You'd better get busy." He crossed to the table, picked up his papers and left by the rear door.
Trembling wildly, Delmotte tottered to the liquor cabinet and, with a wince, took two deep swigs of the schnapps; then he went into the kitchen and returned with a pot of hot coffee, which he set on the table. A small, cork-stoppered bottle of clear fluid stood on the bookshelf and, fumbling to open it, he emptied the contents into the coffee.
"Recompense," he kept muttering. "A cold, cold recompense."
He scuttled to the window and peered out, and a crazy spark of hope awoke in his rheumy eyes. Returning to the bookcase, he grabbed five volumes at random, and then wrenched open the street door and darted outside.
As he moved deeper into the city, Thomas was increasingly puzzled by the air of unspecified tension hanging over the sunlit streets; most shops were closed; a surprising amount of broken furniture and old crockery littered the gutters; and the few people he saw traveled in groups of at least two, walking quickly and glancing uneasily up and down the boulevard.
It's Friday now, Thomas knew. What happened here Thursday morning?
Another fugitive appeared now—an old man carrying a stack of books dashed out of a doorway up ahead. Poor man, Thomas thought. All alone, fleeing from whatever it is everybody's scared of, trying to hang onto a few treasured books. Even as he watched, the old man stumbled, scattering the books across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
"Let me help you with those," Thomas called, running over to him. He picked up the volumes, brushed them off and handed them back to the old man.
"Thank you, lad, thank you," he wheezed. "A kind soul in this cold metropolis! Come inside and let me give you some coffee."
"No thanks," Thomas said, wondering why the old man smelled so overpoweringly of peppermint. "I have to be in San Pedro by sundown, and it's a long way, I hear."
"True, lad, true! So long that ten minutes of good conversation over a cup of coffee won't matter a bit." He put his arm around Thomas's shoulders and steered him back toward the open door.
"Really," Thomas protested, "it's kind of you to offer, and I'm grateful, but I—"
"All right." Tears stood in the old man's eyes. "Go, then. Leave me to the dusty loneliness from which suicide is the only exit. I… I want you to keep these books. They're all I own in the world, but—"
"Wait a minute," interrupted Thomas, bewildered. "Don't do that. I'll have a cup of coffee with you, how's that? I'll have two."
"Bless your heart, lad."
Delmotte led the ragged young man inside, reflecting, even in this tense moment, how much the lad resembled his long-dead son, Jacob. Jacob would never have let Bob treat me this way.
"Sit down, son," he said as jovially as he could, pulling out a chair that faced the door across the table. "Ah, there's the coffee! Drink up."
Thomas sat down reluctantly. "There's no cups," he pointed out.
Delmotte sagged. "What? Oh, yes. You couldn't drink it right out of the… ? I suppose not. Wait there, I'll fetch a cup." He entered the kitchen, stopping first at the liquor cabinet to lower the level of the schnapps by another inch. "Medicine," he explained.
As soon as the old man was out of the room, Thomas lifted the lid of the pot and sniffed the dark liquid within. It had a sharp, sweet smell.
Delmotte reappeared, proudly waving a cup. "Here you are, Jacob," he said.
"Thomas. Thomas is my name."
Delmotte wasn't listening. He poured coffee into the cup and hummed softly to himself. "There you are," he said, pushing the cup toward Thomas.
"I don't want any." Thomas tensed his weary legs for a dash out the door.