“Put these things down,” he shouted, but before he could reach them they had tasted the herbs, then spat them out.
“Burn my mouth!” the bigger boy screamed and sprayed the contents of the packet on the floor. The other boy bounced up and down with excitement and began to do the same thing with the rest of the herbs. They twisted away from Andy and before he could stop them the packets were empty.
As soon as Andy turned away, the younger boy, still excited, climbed on the table — his mud-stained foot wrappings leaving filthy smears — and turned up the TV. Blaring music crashed over the screams of the children and the ineffectual calls of their mother. Tab pulled Belicher away as he opened the wardrobe to see what was inside.
“Get these kids out of here,” Andy said, white faced with rage.
“I got a squat-order, I got rights,” Belicher shouted, backing away and waving an imprinted square of plastic.
“I don’t care what rights you have,” Andy told him, opening the hall door. “We’ll talk about that when these brats are outside.”
Tab settled it by grabbing the nearest child by the scruff of the neck and pushing it out through the door. “Mr. Rusch is right,” he said. “The kids can wait outside while we settle this.”
Mrs. Belicher sat down heavily on the bed and closed her eyes, as though all this had nothing to do with her. Mr. Belicher retreated against the wall saying something that no one heard or bothered to listen to. There were some shrill cries and angry sobbing from the hall as the last child was expelled.
Andy looked around and realized that Shirl had gone into their room; he heard the key turn in the lock. “I suppose this is it?” he said, looking steadily at Tab.
The bodyguard shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Andy, honest to God I am. What else can I do? It’s the law, and if they want to stay here you can’t get them out.”
“It’s the law, it’s the law,” Belicher echoed tonelessly.
There was nothing Andy could do with his clenched fists and he had to force himself to open them. “Help me carry these things into the other room, will you, Tab?”
“Sure,” Tab said, and took the other end of the table. “Try and explain to Shirl about my part in this, will you? I don’t think she understands that it’s just a job I have to do.”
Their footsteps crackled on the dried herbs that littered the floor and Andy did not answer him.
10
“Andy, you must do something, those people are driving me right out of my mind.”
“Easy, Shirl, it’s not that bad,” Andy said. He was standing on a chair, filling the wall tank from a jerry can, and when he turned to answer her some of the water splashed over and dripped down to the floor. “Let me finish this first before we argue, will you.”
“I’m not arguing — I’m just telling you how I feel. Listen to that.”
Sound came clearly through the thin partition. The baby was crying, it seemed to do this continuously day and night; and they had to use earplugs to get any sleep. Some of the children were fighting, completely ignoring their father’s reedy whine of complaint. To add to the turmoil one of them was beating steadily on the floor with something heavy. The people in the apartment below would be up again soon to complain; it never did any good. Shirl sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her hands.
“Do you hear that?” she said. “It never stops, I don’t know how they can live like that. You’re away so you don’t hear the worst of it. Can’t we get them out of there? There must be something we can do about it.”
Andy emptied the jerry can and climbed down, threading his way through the crowded room. They had sold Sol’s bed and his wardrobe, but everything else was jammed in here, and there was scarcely a foot of clear floor space. He dropped heavily into a chair.
“I’ve been trying, you know I have. Two of the patrolmen, they live in the barracks now, are ready to move in here if we can get the Belichers out. That’s the hard part. They have the law on their side.”
“Is there a law that says we have to put up with people like that?” She was wringing her hands helplessly, staring at the partition.
“Look, Shirl, can’t we talk about this some other time? I have to go out soon—”
“I want to talk about it now. You’ve been putting it off ever since they came, and that’s over two weeks now, and I can’t take much more of it.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad. It’s just noise.”
The room was very cold. Shirl pulled her legs up and wrapped the old blanket tighter around her; the springs in the bed twanged under her weight. There was a momentary lull from the other room that ended with shrill laughter.
“Do you hear that?” Shirl asked. “What kind of minds do they have? Every time they hear the bed move in here they burst out laughing. We’ve no privacy, none at all, that partition is as thin as cardboard and they listen for everything we do and hear every word we say. If they won’t go — can’t we move?”
“Where to? Show some sense, will you, we’re lucky to have this much room to ourselves. Do you know how many people still sleep in the streets — and how many bodies get brought in every morning?”
“I couldn’t care less. It’s my own life I’m worrying about.”
“Please, not now.” He looked up as the light bulb flickered and dimmed, then sprang back to life again. There was a sudden rattle of hail against the window. “We can talk about it when I get back, I shouldn’t be long.”
“No, I want to settle it now, you’ve been putting this off over and over again. You don’t have to go out now.”
He took his coat down, restraining his temper. “It can wait until I get back. I told you that we finally had word on Billy Chung — an informer saw him leaving Shiptown — the chances are that he had been visiting his family. It’s old news too, it happened fifteen days ago, but the stoolie didn’t think it important enough to tell us about right away. I guess he was hoping to see the boy come back, but he never has. I’ll have to talk to his family and see what they know.”
“You don’t have to go now — you said this happened some time ago…”
“What does that have to do with it? The lieutenant will want a report in the morning. So what should I tell him — that you didn’t want me to go out tonight?”
“I don’t care what you tell him…”
“I know you don’t, but I do. It’s my job and I have to do it.”
They glared at each other in silence, breathing rapidly. From the other side of the partition there sounded a shrill cry and childish sobbing.
“Shirl, I don’t want to fight with you,” Andy said. “I have to go out, that’s all there is to it. We can talk about it later, when I come back.”
“If I’m here when you come back.” She had her hands clenched tightly together and her face was pale.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know what I mean. I just know something has to change. Please, let’s settle this now…”
“Can’t you understand that’s impossible? We’ll talk about it when I get back.” He unlocked the door and stood with the knob in his hand, getting a grip on his temper. “Let’s not fight about it now. I’ll be back in a few hours, we can worry about it then, all right?” She didn’t answer, and after waiting a moment he went out and closed the door heavily behind him. The foul, thick odor of the room beyond hit him in the face.
“Belicher,” he said, “you’re going to have to clean this place up. It stinks.”
“I can’t do nothing about the smoke until I get some kind of chimbley.” Belicher sniffled, squatting and holding his hands over a smoldering lump of seacoal. This rested in a hubcap filled with sand from which eye-burning, oily smoke rose to fill the room. The opening in the outer wall that Sol had made for the chimney of his stove had been carelessly covered with a sheet of thin polythene that billowed and crackled as the wind blew against it.