Downpour

by Larry Tyler

Once, a long time ago, he was known as Barrett, but nobody called him that anymore. If anyone happened to pay attention to him at all, they referred to him as the bum, or the guy in the doorway wrapped in a blanket, or simply as “that” as in, “Look at that over there,” pointing to the recessed doorway of the locksmith shop downtown.

Barrett was proud of his doorway. From eight at night until eight in the morning, it was all his, a prime spot five blocks from the shopping district and hidden away from the ACT Team that swept through the area in the evening, trying to get people into the shelters. Most of the doorways—like the pawnshops for instance—were gated off at night. But Barrett picked a shop that didn't have any glass windows, so he could curl up against the front door and have a good seven feet of covered space between himself and the sidewalk. Another guy might come along and challenge him for the spot, but Barrett had enough craziness in him to scare them off, even if they were stronger than he was. It was his doorway and he knew how to protect it.

That's where he was at one-thirty in the morning when the rain started. It was late April and the rain was a cold drizzle at first, but by three o'clock it became a full torrent. The water poured down from the awning in front of the locksmith shop and splashed into a puddle on the sidewalk, forming a row of clear chess bishops that sunk into the water and rose again relentlessly. Barrett made an opening in the blanket just large enough for him to peer through with one eye, and watched the puddle grow in front of the shop. It wouldn't be long before the water would start to leak in toward the doorway and flood the whole area. He sat bundled up, talking quietly to the puddle, trying to make it go away.

At a few minutes after three, the gunshots—four of them—interrupted his conversation.

Barrett was only faintly aware of the two men who were across the street arguing before the shots were fired. More often than not, people will ignore you if you ignore them. But the four loud bangs, more like snaps than bangs really, and the four flashes bursting from the gun drew Barrett's attention. Five seconds after the shots, a car pulled up, and the driver said, “Get in! Get in!” The gunman got in and the car sped down the road.

Barrett got to his feet and peered cautiously down the street. He saw the car turn right at the first corner and heard it roar on a little further before the sound of the rain and distant city traffic drowned out the noise of the car's engine entirely.

Barrett looked across the street. The guy on the ground didn't move and didn't make a sound. Barrett figured he was dead. He pulled his blanket tight around his waist and crossed the street.

There was a lot of blood pouring out of the guy, but the rain was already on the job, washing it away. The guy's jaw twitched slightly, rhythmically, but that was the last of life in him. Barrett reached into the guy's back pocket and pulled out a wallet. There were three twenties in it. As he took the bills out of the wallet, a wind whipped up and it began raining harder. To Barrett's ears it sounded like applause. “Thank you,” he said to the rain. He put the wallet back in the man's pocket. “Thank you,” he said to the man; the same thank you he said to the rain, the same thank you he said to anyone who dropped a coin in his cup.

With three twenties in his shirt pocket, Barrett's life had taken a sudden new turn. He looked out across the night skyline and tried to think. Before long a car was bound to come by, likely as not a police car at this hour, and it wouldn't do for him to be sitting across the street with the dead man's money in his pocket. He'd had a fairly good day up to this point, drinking enough to keep the DTs away for another day or two, and eating almost enough to keep the claw of hunger from digging at his belly. Almost. So, maybe a meal was in order. Fortune is fleeting after all, so you'd best spend it while you've got it. He walked briskly up the block and turned right at the first intersection, following the path the car had taken.

Barrett's destination was an all-night diner two blocks away. The diner catered to cops and cabbies and any other nightshift workers who were forced to spend their waking hours in the dark dead concrete canyons that were the gut of the city. The diner wasn't very big, long but narrow, with a counter by the door and four tables lined up in a row beyond the counter. The lights were harsh and bright, and every clink of a spoon against a cup was an ugly blast of commotion. The customers could have eggs and toast or hamburgers and fries, depending on whether they were trying to kid themselves into believing they were eating an early breakfast or had resigned themselves to the fact that nothing's going to please their stomach at three in the morning.

Barrett stood at the window of the diner and looked in. He saw a waitress at the counter and two customers at a table in the back of the room. It wasn't as pleasant in there as his doorway, but there was food being served so he decided to go inside.

The waitress sat on a stool by the cash register, staring lifelessly at a coffee stain on the counter that had been there for an hour. Her eyes went quickly up and down Barrett as he appeared in his pungent blanket, spilling buckets of water onto the floor at his feet. She wasn't impressed.

Barrett unwrapped himself and looked around awkwardly for a place to put the blanket.

“Dump it in the corner,” the waitress offered. Barrett plopped it down in the corner behind one of the counter stools and sat at the counter. “What would you like?” the waitress asked.

Barrett looked around uncertainly. The waitress grabbed a menu and held it out to him. He took it but didn't look at it. “Do you have coffee?” Barrett asked.

“Yesss,” the waitress said tentatively. Barrett took the hint and reached into his shirt pocket. “I've got this,” he said, putting the bills on the counter.

She got a cup, poured coffee into it and set it down in front of him. “Anything else?”

“Do you have an egg salad sandwich?” Barrett asked.

“White or wheat?”

“White. Thank you.”

The waitress nodded and called the order to the cook in the kitchen. Barrett heard a newspaper rustle out back and a refrigerator door open and shut. He drank his coffee while he waited for the sandwich, asked for a second cup, and had it half-drank when the sandwich arrived. He ate the sandwich in under a minute and ordered a second. At the back table, the other customers carried on an animated discussion in whispers.

As the waitress slid the second sandwich in front of Barrett, two cops walked into the diner, both nightshift detectives.

Bill Stanley was older than Chad Petrone by fifteen years and was about to graduate to days. In another two weeks, after he trained him, the nightshift job would be all Petrone's, poor bastard.

Barrett appeared to be staring into his coffee cup, but was actually studying the cops closely.

“We had a shooting up the block a half-hour ago,” Stanley said to the waitress. He was speaking to the waitress but watching Barrett drip puddles of water onto the floor, the counter, and the egg salad sandwich. Petrone was looking at Barrett too. He saw the twenties on the counter and gave Stanley an elbow to draw his attention to them. Stanley nodded somberly. Barrett reached over slowly and wadded the bills into his fist.

“Yeh, I heard the gunshots,” the waitress said.

“I'm sure you did. I'm sure you all did,” Stanley said loudly. He looked over to the back table. The two men sat stiffly, darting glances at each other. “Isn't that right?” he said to them. “You must have all heard the shots.” Neither one answered right away, but eventually one gave a hesitant yes.

“Ah,” Stanley said. He walked over to the table and studied the plates. “Looks like you fellows have been here about a half-hour he said.” He looked at the waitress for confirmation but she was staying out of it. “So you two were in here when the shots were fired?”

One of the men, the taller skinny one, shook his head no after a moment's consideration. “We were on our way here,” he said. The other one nodded in agreement.

“On your way from where?” Stanley asked.

“Work,” the skinny one said. “We're on our lunch break.”

“And where's work?”

“The furniture warehouse on Commercial Street . Crestfield Cabinets.”

Stanley focused his gaze on the shorter one. “That's a block beyond where this guy was shot. So, you must have seen something.”

There was a long silence. The short guy felt pressured to speak. “We saw a car drive down Temple Street . It was about a block away from us, moving pretty fast.” The short guy looked at the skinny one for confirmation. The skinny one nodded his head slightly.

“What kind of car?” Stanley asked.

“I don't know, I think it was a Ford maybe. Green.”

“That your car out front?” Stanley asked. “The white Toyota ?”

“It's mine,” the skinny one said.

Petrone took a step toward Barrett and leaned around to get his attention. “Where'd you get that money from, partner?” he asked Barrett.

Barrett opened his fist and held the bills out for Petrone to take. “I got them from the man that got shot.”

“What do you mean you got them? You mean you stole this money from him?”

Barrett shook his head yes.

“After you shot him?” Petrone asked.

Barrett shook his head no. Stanley walked over. “You were right there. You saw what happened to the guy, didn't you?”

Barrett squinted his eyes and shook his head yes. “The night swallowed him up,” he said.

“The night didn't swallow him up,” Stanley said. “He was shot.”

“I saw it,” Barrett told him.

“Then tell us about it,” Petrone pressed.

“He argued with someone and got shot. Then a car came by and drove the guy off.”

“What were they arguing about?” Petrone asked.

“Couldn't hear,” Barrett said.

“What did the guy look like?” Petrone asked, “The guy who shot the fellow.”

Barrett picked up his sandwich and ate a bite out of it. “Couldn't see. Too dark to tell,” he said.

Petrone pulled the twenties out of Barrett's hand and studied them. He handed them over to Stanley .

“Looks like we got this one wrapped up,” Petrone said. Stanley didn't agree, but he stepped back to watch how Petrone was going to handle this. “Where's the gun? You've got it on you, or is it in that blanket?” Petrone asked Barrett.

“No gun,” Barrett said. He looked over at Stanley .

“On your feet, pal. Let me check it out,” Petrone said. He gave Barrett a tug to get him off the stool and patted him down.

“I'll take him to the car,” Stanley said. He nodded toward the two men in the back of the room. “Get their names and we're out of here.”

Petrone went to the back of the diner, and Stanley took Barrett to the car at the curb. He opened the back door and guided Barrett into the car. “They're lying to you,” Barrett said.

“Who's lying?” Stanley asked.

“Two guys in there.”

“So, you saw them shoot the guy on Temple Street , is that it?”

Barrett shook his head no. Stanley started to close the door. “Nothing's green at night,” Barrett said.

“What do you mean, nothing's green?”

Barrett nodded toward the skyline. “Look,” he said. “See? Night has black and gray, just black and gray. Night doesn't have green. It doesn't have red or blue or yellow. Just black and green.” He squinted off toward Temple Street . "Except under those awful orange streetlights." He shook his head sadly. "It has orange under those lights."

Stanley closed the car door and went back into the diner.

“All set,” Petrone said to him.

Inside the police car, Barrett ran his hands along his sleeves and watched the water spill to the floor. It was warm in the car. He stared through the car window at the people in the diner.

Petrone was walking toward the door, but just before he swung it open, Stanley turned around and spoke to the men in the back of the room. “By the way, that car you saw,” he said. “Guess it didn't belong to this guy. Must have belonged to someone else.”

The two men nodded.

“But it was green you say. So, that would be dark green or light green?”

The short fellow paused half a second before answering. “Dark green,” he decided.

Stanley nodded. “Thought so,” he said. He turned toward the door, then turned back a second time. “What were the plates on the car?” he asked.

“The what?” the short man asked.

“The license plate. What was it?”

The short man shrugged and shook his head no.

“Well, I mean, you got terrific night vision, so I figured you could read the plate. It takes terrific night vision to make out a dark green car a block away at night. It wasn't black or gray or blue. You picked it out as green.”

The tall guy jumped in to bail the short guy out. “It drove under a streetlight.”

Barrett was in the back seat of the police car. He couldn't hear much of what was being said, but he could see the tension in the bodies of the two guys in the back of the room. Even through a rain-streaked window he could see their eyes growing wide. He slunk down in the seat.

Stanley took a step toward the two guys. “Here's the problem," he said. "I know those streetlights on Temple Street . Seen them a thousand times.” He turned toward Petrone. “You know them?”

Petrone scowled and tried to remember.

“They're amber,” Stanley reminded him. “Can you identify a dark green car in an amber light?"

Petrone scowled. "Maybe we should have another word or two with these fellows.”

The short guy was going to have none of that. He reached into his coat and drew his gun out, firing one quick shot into Stanley , and a second one square into Petrone's chest. The waitress headed toward the door and the short man cut her down with a shot into the back of her head.

Racing out a back door, the cook was two buildings down the block by this time. The tall guy was moving quickly too. He jumped over Stanley and Petrone and yelled at the short guy, “You goddamned idiot!” But he decided to leave it at that when he considered how casually his buddy had already gunned three people down. He ran out the front door and climbed into his car.

The short guy followed behind. He got to the curb and saw Barrett sitting in the back of the police car, a witness to both shootings. The short guy lifted his gun and aimed it at Barrett's face. “Shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.

Barrett sat trapped in the back seat, his eyes wide with terror. He was sane enough to understand what the short guy planned to do.

A gun went off, but it wasn't the short guy's gun. Stanley was on his feet, his shoulder wet with blood. He aimed his gun and fired into the short guy's back, hitting him just left of center at the base of the shoulder blade. The short guy arched back with a spasm and gurgled a curse.

The tall guy swung around in the driver's seat to see what was going on. As soon as his buddy hit the ground, his foot hit the accelerator.

The car veered down the street, searching for a place to go. The tall guy knew he couldn't go back to work, couldn't go back to his apartment. Couldn't go anywhere. Sirens began to echo through the downtown streets, two, then three of them. They seemed to be coming at him from every side street.

Stanley was at the curb when the first patrol car showed up. A second one was half a block behind and an ambulance was on its tail. “You okay?” the cop asked, jumping out of his car.

Stanley shook his head yes. “But I don't think Petrone is.”

“What was this all about?” the cop asked.

“Not exactly sure,” Stanley said. “The dead guy on Temple Street was a drug dealer with a long record, so I guess this is all about drugs and money. This guy here shot him, then tried to shoot his way out of getting caught. This is as far as he got.”

“Who stopped him?” the cop asked.

Stanley put his gun in his holster. “I did.”

The cop rolled the short guy over and checked him while two other cops raced into the diner. The short guy was dead. “What about this other one?” the cop asked, looking at Barrett in the back seat of Stanley 's car.

“He can go,” Stanley said. “We don't need him.” He opened the back door for Barrett.

Barrett sat in the seat. “I can't pay for my meal,” he said.

Stanley gave him a dry laugh. “I got it covered.”

Barrett got out of the car. “Two egg salad sandwiches and three coffees.”

Stanley turned and looked inside the diner at the body of the waitress. “I'll leave a good tip. And here. Might as well take this back.” He handed Barrett the two twenties.

“Thank you,” Barrett said. He gathered the blanket over his shoulders, ducked his head down, and walked off.

The cop watched Barrett shuffle down the road toward his doorway on Temple Street . “Now there's a waste of a life,” he said to Stanley .

Barrett ambled off into the darkness and eventually got swallowed up by the night, disappearing in the rain. Stanley shrugged. “I don't know,” he said. “What do you think? You figure he's got any purpose at all in the grand scheme of things?”

“None,” the cop said.

“Maybe not,” Stanley mumbled. He ached too much to think about it.

The street filled up quickly with cops and paramedics. They were drenched to the bone, but they'd all gone beyond the point of caring. Stanley 's shoulder got wrapped in a bandage—a wet bandage—to tide him over until he got to the hospital, and while the paramedic tended to him, Stanley watched Petrone's body being carried out. He felt sad for a moment, but got caught up in another issue. He looked out at the stark black buildings looming all around him and let out a slow weary sigh. That was his shift relief on the stretcher. He began to doubt that he was ever going to make it off the night shift now.

Barrett, on the other hand, was busy with other thoughts. He had two twenties to spend and wondered whether the café on the other side of Temple Street was still open.