HOWERS OF SPARKS WAFTING out and the turbulent rumbling of snapping cables and electrical pops erupting from the opening only served to confirm the dire situation. Only seconds earlier the man–the crackpot or maniac–had reported fire in the elevator shaft. Now every eye in the room had converged on him.
Mitch fastened his greasy hands on the elevator doors and wrestled them closed. Calling out to the crowd, he’d issued a direct, authoritative command–a phrase he probably heard on TV. “Please don’t panic, and exit the building in a calm manner.” The directive proved only to fan the flames of fear. Mass hysteria carried the day as anxious people rushed from the diningroom. Stepping to the outdated glass-tube fire alarm, Mitch took the pistol from his pocket and smashed the glass with the butt of the gun, then rammed the handle down.
At once hundreds of ear-splitting fire alarms chimed throughout the casino and hotel, adding to the chaos. Men and women darted here and there, following the exit signs. From every bedroom, slot machine, blackjack table and roulette wheel they came. Mitch appeared to walk in slow motion as he sauntered casually through the kitchen door and made for the employee exit. Smiling and carefree, he pirated a carrot stick from the salad bar and popped it in his grease-stained mouth. Mr. Domenico won’t be smiling anymore.
Indeed, far up in his posh 13th-floor office, Vinnie’s fist slammed down hard onto the desktop. The mobster pirouetted on his overstuffed executive chair and snatched his pistol from his jacket, firing three rounds into the elevator doors. The bullets formed a dense, triangular pattern, each hole about a half-inch apart, and had perforated the metalclad doors at about the same height of a man’s head. Three words slipped from Vinnie’s livid, bloodless lips. “You’re dead, kid.” He then picked up the phone. “He’s drivin’ a white Escort. Find him!”
The A-team was scattered up the alley and down the street, each posted at an assigned spot, keeping an eye out for the young man. Nurse and Greg crouched behind the carpet covering of the shelter. Fire trucks and sirens could be heard in the distance. Closer by, the tumult of fear reigned, with Three Queens patrons spilling out into the night for several blocks.
“Looks to me like the rubber’s ‘bout to hit the road, Sunny,” Nurse whispered. “‘Member yet where you know the boy?”
“Sorry–still don’t know.” Greg’s heart pounded in his ears. He gazed out at the bedlam. “Doesn’t this scare you?”
“Nah, can’t say it does. Jumpin’ from a movin’ train–now that’s plum scary. And when ya’ can’t see where you’re landin’, well I reckon ‘at’s enough to scare livin’ day lights outta this pert-near seventy-year-old woman.” She parted the carpet door with her gnarled hand.
Greg pondered the silhouette the old woman cast against the open crack. “You jump from trains?”
She turned an ear to the opening, her other hand raised to her delicate lips. “Shhh, someone’s comin’. . . . Runnin’ hard,” she whispered. Greg cocked his head. He couldn’t hear a thing.
Mitch paused briefly at the edge of the parking structure and scanned the street behind him. Placing a hand on the railing, he leapt effortlessly over, into the alley below. He tucked the bottom of his shirt back in his pants and started walking at a casual gait. Loose gravel crunched under his feet as he passed the power box in front of the shack.
“Hold it right there!” a man’s voice boomed from the parking lot. Mitch’s heart skipped a beat. His pace slowed. When the voice called out again, it had turned savage, predatory. “I swear, kid, I’ll spread your measly brains all over the ground if you so much as move.”
Greg fidgeted nervously. It felt like he was about to wet his own pants. Nurse placed a calloused hand gently on his arm, warning him to hold still.
“On the ground–face down!” growled the fierce voice from above. Nurse had a full view of Mitch now. Slowly he knelt and lay spreadeagle on the asphalt next to the power box. Casting her cloudy eyes upward, she could make out a pot-bellied security guard clamber over the railing that bordered the parking lot and start down the ramp. She reached under her mattress and pulled out a three-foot length of heavywalled pipe, kicked her shoes from her feet, and patted Greg on the arm as if to tell him to stay put.
The guard hunkered over Mitch, gloating over his catch. “I gotcha, punk. You got twenty grand that’s mine now.”
Mitch craned his neck upward to face his captor. From the shadows, Nurse crept nearer, crouched and wound up for the swing. The guard lifted the mouthpiece to his radio and pressed the transmit button. “I got him! We’re in the alley.”
Like a much more seasoned David standing against a modern-day Goliath, Greg looked on as Nurse expertly dropped the man to the ground. “‘At boy’s gonna hurt by mornin’,” she whistled through her lips. She turned to the disheveled young man, who was clambering from the ground. “You Mitchell Wilson?”
Mitch, still edgy, squinted up and down the alley, then said, “Yeah, and who are you?”
“Name’s Nurse. Best hurry, ‘fore ‘em others come. My friends an’ I will help ya’. Now go!” The old woman pointed at the shack. Mitch, beyond asking questions, ran. Obeying the old woman’s commands, he crawled through the opening. Inside, Nurse scooted herself back to the shack and started to disrobe. Greg huddled nearby; Mitch remained speechless. Who were these people, anyway? What kind of a person could live like this? It was as if he’d entered a whole new world.
Just down the alleyway, Ritter was lying sprawled at the base of the garage door to Carson Auto Body, an empty whisky bottle teetering at his side.
Nurse’s eyes twitched nervously as she peered from their hiding place. “Strategy ain’t workin’ like we planned. Gotta improvise. Sunny, pull ‘em clothes off. Mitchell, cover yourself up an’ lay ‘long a wall– an’ don’t move a muscle.”
Greg’s voice was that of a little boy. “Clothes?”
“No time fer explanations!” groused Nurse. “Get butt naked.” She’d already stripped down to a dirty bra and a pair of saggy boxer shorts. Greg turned his face. He was glad he couldn’t see that well in the dark. “When this here curtain opens,” Nurse went on, whispering, “you start puttin’ ‘em back on like you been caught wit’ your hand in a cookie jar.” She pulled a clip from her matted hair, which fell in a clump at her shoulders. “An’ make like you mean it!”
The sound of footsteps came from outside. “Over here!” someone yelled. “It’s Carl. Knocked cold.”
Another voice crackled, “Check behind the power box. See if the old woman saw him.” A sliver of a flashlight beam shot through the crack in the curtain. Nurse got up and crouched at the entrance, clutching her shirt to her chest. When the carpet parted, a beam of light flashed across her naked, sagging skin. As instructed, Greg flew into action, scrambling and kicking to pull his pants up to his waist. The guard’s flashlight dropped onto the gravel, the curtain fell back into place, and a succession of foul expletives and gut-wrenching giggles split the night air. The guard turned tail and slouched up against the power box, writhing in agony and amusement. Clearly he’d been eyewitness to a peep-show that he wished he’d never–ever–laid eyes on. A peek was bad enough; the eyeful he’d been subjected to was too much for any man.
Between giggles, sobs and snorts, he finally came out with it. “The old woman’s got a man! . . . That’s about the grossest thing I ever seen!” Nurse parted the curtain and sashayed out in her boxer shorts. Five flashlight beams converged on her white flesh as she struggled to snap the dingy bra behind her back. Despite the many wrinkles, the almost transparent nature of her skin showed all too well the purplish veins running up and down her wiry legs and arms. The lights glanced off her chalky shoulders and stomach and reflected back into the guards’ eyes.
One of the men stepped closer to investigate. “Who’s in there with you?” he demanded.
Greg crawled from the shack, bare chested, his skin even whiter than Nurse’s. “Lemme help you,” he drawled as he reached over and fastened the clasp of the old woman’s bra.
Nurse whisked the hair from her shoulder and turned to face Greg with a wide, toothless, girlish grin. “Thanks,” she cooed amid the disgusted groans from the onlooking guards.
“He’s gettin’ away!” a slurred voice called from down the alley. Every light beam altered course, panning down the lane on Ritter, who staggered up to them. “The bloke knocked me on me can!” he mumbled. The bright lights directed at Ritter’s face brought his arm in the air to shield his eyes. One foot teetered sideways in the air as he tried to catch his balance, then he tumbled backwards and toppled on the ground, sending shards of broken bottle scurrying across the asphalt, dancing to the music of approaching sirens.
Two guards lit out down the alley past the prone figure. The other three shook their heads in defeat and crouched over their fallen comrade. The first big fire engine, followed by an ambulance, turned and eased down the narrow lane, its lights washing over Carl, still lying in the road.
Flashing red and blue lights cast psychedelic shadows on the back wall of Nurse’s hut as she crawled back inside and wriggled her calf-length cotton dress over her hips and up her waist. Greg stood guard by the power box as the paramedics ministered to both Carl and Ritter, who, respectively, were struggling to stand and holding up an arm that had been bloodied by the broken bottle.
Nurse squinted back out the opening, then leaned over to Mitch and whispered through her hand, “I ain’t tooken my clothes off for no man in fifty years, Mitchell Wilson, so’s you better have a wallopin’good reason for havin’ a corpse in your trunk.”
Mitch lifted his head and blinked out from the edge of the blanket. “How do you know who I am?”
“Never you mind, young fella, just start explainin’’. And not a word a’ lies, or I’ll have ever’ cop in Vegas pointin’ his gun in yer face.” Nurse drew her thread-bare shirt around her bony shoulders and pressed the velcro together up the front.
Mitch nestled his tired head back down onto the warm concrete and let out a weary sigh. This brazen little woman had just taken out a 300-pound guard with a single blow, then bared her bony back side to save his sorry hide. After a moment’s hesitation, he croaked, “I’m in serious trouble.” His quavering, gravely voice was tinged with an air of confession. “Maybe it’s best if you do call the cops. I’d at least have a chance of staying alive to see my babies born.”
Nurse fumbled about in the shadows to find her shoes. “Keepin’ alive’s what we on the street do best.” The old woman’s crusty, semihostile nature had softened. “My friends call me Nurse.” She scooted a metal milk crate over from the foot of her bed and sat down to listen.
Well after midnight, the last of the emergency vehicles pulled away from the alley. Smitty had popped the lock at the back of Eddie’s Gym, and now the members of the Alley Team were reassembled in the cramped confines of Eddie’s bedroom. “Boy’s sleepin’ like a baby,” Nurse said as she sat bathed in the pale yellow glow of the old man’s lamp.
Cap’n slouched on the limp mattress of Eddie’s bed, head wagging in dissent. “We’s gonna bite a lot a’ cotton if we take on Mr. Vinnie, face forward.” A puff of air blew from his lips. “He’s got more money an’trash working for him than we can fight. Probably even has a platoon a’ red communist working for him, too.”
Nurse tapped on the rickety bookcase that skirted the table around which they met. “What you thinkin’, Sound?”
He smacked his lips, pondering both their plight and his own personal crisis. “Doctors told me I had three good months, if I was lucky. That’s been almost a year and I’ve never felt better. Since I met you guys, I feel more alive than ever before. What’ve we got to lose?” He shrugged his shoulders and nodded at Smitty, who sat silently at his side.
Everyone turned to the dull-witted yet gifted lock-pick, who stroked his stringy beard a few seconds before nodding his approval. Then the group’s gaze fell on Cap’n. The furrowed brow and worried glare communicated all too well his objection.
Nurse stroked the table’s smooth surface with her rough fingers. “We’ll come back to ya’ in a shake. How ‘bout you, Ritter?”
“You can count on me. I ain’t no coward.” He shot a glance at Cap’n. “An’ I’m always up for a bloody-good fight.”
Cap’n sprang to his feet. “Who you callin’ a coward, you runty Englishman? You lookin’ for a butt-kickin’? We already kicked your kin outta here once, and I’ll help do it again!”
Ritter skidded his chair back from the table. “Bring it on, slog!” he spat, slapping his chest and dancing on his toes like a prizefighter. Fed up with the British twit’s bluster, Cap’n lunged forward, just as Greg, who sat between the men, scooted back to block his path.
“You two remind me of a couple of mating blowfish,” he muttered, his white teeth flashing. Everyone froze, staring at Greg, whose grin quickly faded. Apparently his manly first attempt to fit in with the crowd wasn’t going over too well.
Cap’n instantly turned his wrath on Greg. “Who you callin’ a blowfish, rooky?”
Greg, surprisingly, didn’t back down. “Hey, I’m no rooky–not anymore. Didn’t you hear? Tonight I got promoted to Major for sleeping with the Nurse.”
Sound placed his hand over his mouth. A hushed gasp rose from the group. Nurse reached over and rapped Greg on the chest. “‘At’s ‘nough, Sunny. Don’t need to go into any details.”
Ritter, taken aback by the bombshell, plopped back down on his chair. “Yeah, I thought I seen you half-naked, flashlights shinin’on you and all, but I didn’t have me bloody glasses on!”
Nurse’s weathered face took on a slight blush. “We ain’t goin’ there,” she grunted, trying to prod the discussion back to how to handle Vinnie. “Did what had to be done in a pinch, ‘at’s all. Now . . .”
“I don’t know . . .” interjected Greg, his words doused in uncertainty. “How many want to finish talking about this subject?” He raised his hand and the others followed suit. “Nurse saw my keister the first day I met her; cut my pants right off it. Embarrassed poor little Belle half to death.”
“She sure weren’t shy to lance a big boil on me back-side, neither,” Ritter added, stifling a chuckle. “Come t’ think of it, that also was the first time I ever met her.” Nurse hid her eyes with her hand from embarrassment.
Not to be outdone, Cap’n chimed in. “Pulled a patch a’ ingrown hairs from mine. Probably the biggest black caboose she’s ever seen.”
The room filled with laughter as Sound added his poke. “Gave me a flu shot last winter. Made me take it–that’s right, folks–right in the rear! Insisted it was necessary to keep me well.”
Nurse dropped her hand. “‘Taint true,” she spat, struggling to keep a straight face. “I didn’t go out lookin’ fer you–you come to me!”
“But you enjoyed it, didn’t you now?”
Smitty, not one to be left out of the fun, stood, turned his back to the room, and pulled his pants part way down on one side, exposing his upper cheek.
“My land o’ seven dwarfs!” Nurse cackled, her eyes wide and youthful. “‘At boy’s th’ fairest of y’all. An’ not a single hair!” To roars of laughter, Smitty hauled his pants back up and flopped back down in his chair, a satisfied grin on his lips.
“You need a bath, Snow White,” Greg snorted between tears. Smitty shook his head violently as the room once more broke into a barrage of chortles and sighs.
Nurse’s hand cupped her slanted mouth. “He ain’t had a bath as long as we known ‘im. . . . Like pullin’ teeth to get ‘im to the shelter once a week for a hot shower.”
Smitty, in turn, grabbed hold of the base of his chair with both hands as if to say, “I ain’t budging from this chair!”
It took five minutes for the Alley Team to regain control and wipe the tears from their eyes. Nurse gave one last chuckle. “I ain’t laughed like ‘at for years,” she said as she patted Greg on the leg. The rest of the clan offered silent nods. “We’s glad to have ya’in th’family.” Greg reached out and stroked the old women’s hand. She’d saved him from certain ruin. He was most grateful.
Nurse finally broke the silence. “Time we vote. Gotta decide if ‘at boy can join us or not.”
“Before we do,” Sound interrupted, “did he tell you how he got hooked up with Mr. Vinnie in the first place?”
“Did. . . . Said the whole thing started one night when he was tryin’ to keep some drunk from blowin’his brains out. Took place just down under th’ viaduct, off th’ boulevard.”
Greg’s head sank to the table. “Oh, man . . .”
“What is it? asked Sound.
“That’s where I know him from. . . . I’m the one he saved.” All present could’ve heard an eyelash drop. “I didn’t think life was worth living without my money and family. I remember . . . he asked me what my son would think. That set me to thinking. . . . I owe him–and all you–my life. . .” His voice trailed off.
All eyes fell to the floor. There was no longer need for a final vote.