This story is the first in a series of stories featuring The Sweeper.

SWEEPER

by Lew Stowe

I almost stumbled over the body as I came around the dumpster. I took one look and froze. Rosa Ruiz, not quite ten years of age. My friend.

The little black-haired girl lay on her back in the alley, arms flung out from her sides, skirt pushed up to her waist, her crotch a bloody mess where she had been forcibly penetrated. The way her head flopped to one side indicated a broken neck. A mangy yellow dog sat on one side of her, while on the other was an old calico cat. Street animals, but I knew them both. They stared impassively at the girl as though trying to somehow grasp that the most precious thing to ever touch their miserable lives had been snatched away forever.

I knew how they felt. What is more priceless than unconditional love? The dog, Snarl, and the cat, Scratch, were feral animals that would have reacted viciously if anyone else tried to touch them. But Rosa 's affection had awakened some urgent need within them, something they craved as much as food, and they were constantly with her.

I let out a long, shuddering breath. I'd been terrified something like this would happen.

Rosa was a sparkling jewel as much out of place in this decaying inner city area as the English crown. She walked some two miles to and from school every day--right through the roughest part of the territory. The effect she had on people was astonishing. All activity paused when she went by. Drug purchases came to a halt. Conversations faded. Fights stopped. People came to windows to watch. This extraordinarily beautiful little girl was always smiling, always had a kind word for everyone. Hard to believe that some of the looks she got had lust behind them, but the territory has more than its share of twisted sexuality. I tried to make sure none of it ever got close to her.

Rosa would occasionally stop me as I shuffled along with my broom and bag, take my hand, and look into my face--which by itself was unusual, because most people can't bear to look directly at my deformed, nightmare-ugly face. Then she'd say: “You're doing a fine job, Mr. Sweeper.”

It always stunned me. I would have done anything for that little girl. One thing I tried to do was watch out for her on her daily trips to and from school. One day I didn't. One day I was somewhere else when she needed me. Now here she lay.

The grief and rage--and guilt--washing over me was almost overwhelming.

But I closed my eyes and pulled myself together very tightly. I couldn't mourn her. If I mourned the deaths of everyone in the territory I felt an attachment to, I wouldn't be able to function. I took the cell phone out of my canvas shoulder bag and called the police. Remaining anonymous (my phone has a bootleg device that scrambles caller ID), I used my normal voice, not the slow, mentally challenged speech patterns I hide behind most of the time. And I gave a fictitious name.

I was watching from the roof of the adjacent building when they carried Rosa away in a body bag. The dog and cat had already melted into the shadows. I had work to do. Someone had to be punished for this horror.

I'm the Sweeper. This is my territory. Nobody gets away with stuff like this in my territory.

* * *

So did I have any idea who killed Rosa ?

Sure, I did. Staying informed is vital to what I do. It's why I walk up and down the sidewalks with my little broom, sweeping rubbish into a long-handled metal container, emptying it in my canvas bag and finally shaking it into a dumpster. I'm ugly: thick scar tissue on my burn-ravaged face pulling my mouth to one side; exposed left eyeball that looks ready to squirt out of my head; hair like clumps of weeds in a rock pile. Since nobody likes to look at me, and I'm small--about five six or seven--I'm able to stay inconspicuous. I see things and listen to people and pick up information about what's going on. I'm a very good listener, with a lot of people to listen to. Everyone thinks I work for the city, but I don't. They also assume that because I'm so ugly, I must be retarded and completely harmless. But I'm neither. Those who know me at all call me Sweeper, the only name I have.

I was 99% certain I knew who was responsible. Or, at least, the group responsible--and, adding to my sense of guilt, it was I who created the conditions that allowed them into the territory. The group was the Ghosts, a derisive name pinned on them by the black gangs because these were four swaggering young whites who figured they wouldn't have any trouble taking over the drug traffic here. Which was ludicrous. If I hadn't had to remove the Savage Nomads, causing a power vacuum and a lot of uncertainty, the Ghosts would have quickly become history. And Rosa , God help me, would still be alive.

But who can predict unintended consequences like that? I never even try.

The Nomads had dominated the scene for over a year and figured they were untouchable. They started going into the schoolyard at Batts Junior High and recruiting customers among the kids. The principal came out and asked them to leave. Big Bo, the Nomad leader, who worked hard for his fearsome reputation, knocked the man down and said they'd kill him if he interfered again.

I pointed this out to Officer Hanley, the street cop for the territory. Around policemen I always talk slowly and act retarded.

“I heard that, too,” he said. “But nobody made a complaint. No complaint, no arrests. That's the way things work.”

“They too scared, officer,” I said. “The Nomads some real mean guys. Nobody ever gonna make a complaint about them.”

“Look, Sweep,” Hanley said. “I'm not a hero. What do you expect from me?”

“You could talk to Bo.”

“Yeah, right. He'd laugh in my face. And then . . . no telling. Bo does pretty much what Bo feels like doing. I'd be taking my life in my hands.”

I just looked at him, a stocky white cop at the tail end of his career, with the worst assignment on the force. Not a bad man, just a little weak, and with less than two years until retirement not about to stick his neck out and do anything to provoke the Nomads. Or anything to provoke anybody in the territory. His main concern was self-preservation.

I couldn't blame him. This is a nasty, nasty place. The territory is an irregular area of some twenty city blocks of crumbling brick and frame buildings in the northwest part of the city. The residents are primarily Black and Hispanic. Loads of grubby tenements with sagging balconies. Pawnshops, loan places, gun stores, rundown bars. Little ethnic grocery stores with metal grates in front of the windows. A couple of soup kitchens and a few poisonous restaurants that are closed more than they're open. Graffiti-covered, burned out buildings that nobody bothered to either tear down or renovate. People living on the filthy streets. And drugs of every kind, from meth and pot to crack cocaine and heroin and others. Name it, it's here and available.

This is where people crawl to when they run out of other places. Hardly anyone is here by choice--these twenty blocks have the highest rate of violent crime in the entire state. And police officers don't have much life expectancy.

“It's a lousy situation, Sweep,” Hanley said. “I know it better than anyone. What's needed is a bomb. If someone'd throw a bomb into that building of theirs and wipe out all the Nomads, a lot of problems would be solved.”

I kept looking at him. A bomb? Now there was an idea.

Late that night I slipped into the sewer system on Duffy street and hurried westward along a rusty catwalk for a couple of miles. Dark, slimy, smelly, but great for shortcuts to places I needed to be. Soon I took an old side connector and came up inside the fenced grounds of the Gladston Armory. The place was more or less a museum now and lightly guarded. Although the main floor had an alarm system, my destination was the basement. To my right was a below-grade window that had been painted over years before and was now completely overgrown by bushes. I knew the latch was gone, because I had removed it myself a long time before.

The dim, cavernous basement was crammed with military paraphernalia of every conceivable kind. I made my way through the clutter to a corner, where the World War II stuff was. I burrowed into a huge pile of crates, pulling out long-forgotten boxes of old M-1 rifles, even some Vietnam-era M-16's. Finally, I shone my flashlight on a small brown box and lifted the cover.

Live fragmentation hand grenades.

I took two of the old olive drab, baseball-sized pineapples. One for the job, one for backup. I handled them carefully. These things were now some sixty years old, and I didn't know what age might have done to them. I closed the box, replaced everything and left.

Next morning, I paid a visit to the Nomads at their building on Gorman Street . I was ready. The grubby tan sleeveless vest I always wear is constructed mainly of Kevlar and will stop a bullet from anything smaller than a .45. My canvas shoulder bag has special interior compartments for a .22-caliber automatic with a silencer, a two-foot piece of iron pipe, and, of course, the cell phone. The two grenades were stashed in separate pockets. When I got to the second floor, I thought I was going to have to kill the big black man standing guard in order to get through. But he finally called Bo and sullenly waved me past. I tucked my right hand into my bag before I went in.

Eight of the top Nomads were in the room. Not bad. Another four would be out on the street peddling their poison, but they weren't important. Bo seemed to be amused when I asked him to stay away from the school.

“You got kids there, Sweep?” Bo said, grinning. “You a member of the PTA?”

Everyone laughed at that except me.

“Ain't fair to push drugs on kids. Please leave the kids alone.”

Bo chuckled. “We just bringing a little joy into their lives. Why else anybody do drugs? For joy. Makes ‘em feel good. Ain't nothing wrong with that.”

“You ruining their lives,” I said.

Bo turned suddenly vicious. “Look, retard,” he said, “ain't no business of yours what the Nomads do. We sell to whoever wants to buy. Now get the hell outta here. I'm tired of listening to you. I don't want to see you around here anymore.” He made a quick motion. “Get your ugly ass gone before I think of something creative to do to you.”

I turned. Well, I had tried. I always like to try, even when I know beforehand what the outcome is going to be.

“Hey, Sweep,” one of the others said. “What you got in that bag? You got a gun in there? A tape recorder? Let me see that bag.”

My hand was on the .22. No way were they going to get into my bag. But he wasn't serious. Five steps from the door, my back to the group, I withdrew one of the grenades and pulled the pin. These had a delay of four to five seconds, but I gave it two and a half. As I opened the door, I backhanded the grenade into the room, then stepped out and shut the door behind me. I moved to one side as I heard yells and frantic shuffling around inside. The guard yanked the door open just in time to catch the explosion full in the face. He was propelled backward across the hallway into the wall and was dead before he crumpled to the floor. I put a bullet in his head to make sure.

I reentered the room. Not much left of the Nomads, but I used my .22 on them all anyway.

I have business-type cards that I make up myself and like to leave behind at scenes like this. They have a picture of an angel holding the scales of justice. The caption on the card reads: “JUSTICE FOR ALL.” I dropped one on the chest of each person before I left.

* * *

Sadly, my actions against the Nomads led directly to Rosa 's death.

With the Nomads out of the way, the other gangs started jockeying for position. The Ghosts arrived a week later. Couple weeks after that, Rosa was killed.

According to Officer Hanley, Rosa 's autopsy found semen, but only from a single person. That was interesting. I had assumed she had been gang-raped.

“Got to be one of the Ghosts,” I told Hanley.

“That's what I figure, too,” he said.

“Get DNA samples from the Ghosts and check ‘em against the semen.”

“What do you know about DNA, Sweep? You been watching TV again?”

“DNA would nail the right person, Officer Hanley.”

“Sure, it would. But there's sort of a problem. The Ghosts are playing it cool. They claim they don't know anything about Rosa . They got a lawyer and so far he's blocking their giving up any DNA.” Hanley got that vague look on his face which meant he figured this was a crime that probably was never going to be officially solved. “So . . . what we have is a murder, but no witnesses and no evidence.”

“You saying this one's gonna slide?”

Hanley looked off into the distance. “I hate to think that, but it could happen. The DA's office isn't acting too interested. It's all politics. Sad, but cases like this just don't get much attention, no matter how tragic. Not around here, anyway.”

No witnesses and no evidence.

I thought about that until four o' clock, when it was time to feed the animals. Two or three times a week, I pick up a couple of big sacks of food scraps at the Pritch Circle Soup Kitchen (where I take most of my meals) and wheel them down to Alley 4 to feed the street beasts. Right before I turn into the alley, I call them by cutting loose with a quavering shriek that people say can be heard for miles. Which is the purpose. The animals come running. I spread the food out on wooden benches and the dogs and cats--even a few squirrels, occasionally a raccoon--clean it up fast. Sometimes there are up to forty cats and thirty or so dogs. It's an equal opportunity eating place. Absolutely no rough stuff permitted. These half-wild animals can tear each other to shreds anywhere else, but I insist on peace in the alley at mealtime. Interesting how quickly they all learn that, even the new ones.

Always an interesting assortment of creatures. No pets of mine there, just mostly damaged, repulsive rejects like me, and I guess I feel a sort of bond with them. Scratch and Snarl were present today as usual, though not together. They made me think of Rosa , which depressed me all over again.

I went home as soon as the food was gone. Home for me is a 20 by 20 brick addition attached to a combination warehouse/tenement, with a burned-out, boarded-up building on the other side.

The lean-to was originally some kind of furnace room. A couple years ago, I got inside the warehouse and cleared out the lean-to. Then I carefully bricked up the door opening until you could never tell there had ever been a door in the first place. A floor down, in the basement, I cut a hole and tunneled upward into the lean-to. I tapped into the warehouse's water and sewer lines, so I have running water and a working toilet. Also electricity. I have a bed. And a small refrigerator. A few books. And a computer.

Cozy, well-hidden, all I need.

But I never sleep well, and that night was especially bad. I dreamed I was being contemptuously interrogated by a dark, hooded figure who was either my conscience or my soul and who knew me better than I knew myself. I kept waking up sweating, but when I closed my eyes again, the dream resumed immediately.

"Why are you so ugly, you disgusting little troll?" the figure asked.

"I don't know. A fire, I guess. I can't remember."

Saying it, I winced. Even dreaming, the subject is painful. Where I came from and who I am are hidden in my murky past, although my burned face is unmistakable evidence of a fire. Once in a while I get a mental flash of crawling away from a huge conflagration, clothes ablaze, but I'm never sure if it really happened. I live with a massive sense of injustice, as though I'm paying for someone else's crimes, but there's no way to tell if it's genuine. I have no idea how I ended up in the territory. Maybe it doesn't matter. I only know I've been here a few years, and it's home, and I'm trying to make the best of it.

"You can't remember? Was your brain burned as well? Are you retarded?"

"No. I sometimes pretend to be, but that's just strategy."

"Strategy? What need do you have for strategy?"

"I work at providing justice where justice is denied. For people in the territory, who rarely get it."

"And protection?"

"When I can."

"Like Rosa ? What kind of protection did you provide for her?"

"None," I said in a tight voice. "In Rosa 's case I failed--"

" Rosa is dead!" the figure roared. "You failed totally! Your stupid vigilante games are worthless, aren't they?"

"No!" I protested. "I am only one person. I do my best, but--"

"You are a joke, hideous one. Hiding behind your ignorant little charade, sweeping up and down the streets, bumbling around and doing more harm than good. Admit it--you are never going to make a shred of difference to anybody. You are never going to identify Rosa 's killer."

"Yes, I will!" I said through clenched teeth. "I will find her killer!"

"Are there witnesses or evidence?"

"No, but--"

"No witnesses and no evidence? You have nothing! Nothing! "

"I will find a witness! I'll get some evidence!"

A terrible night. I was grateful when morning finally arrived. By then I knew what I had to do: confront the Ghosts and get my witness. No way could I allow Rosa 's murder to go unpunished. I hadn't been able to protect her, but I damn sure was going to get her justice.

Time to talk to Mama Mendoza.

* * *

Mama Mendoza was the human equivalent of a bullhorn on the rooftops. The mother of Carlos Mendoza, owner of one of the Hispanic groceries. She sat outside his store all day. Mama was probably in her eighties, with fading eyesight, but, man, could she process information and pass it on to others.

There were strict rules for dealing with Mama Mendoza. First, you took the chair on her right side, as she leaned on her cane and stared into space, mumbling to herself. Then you touched her arm to let her know you were there. She would nod. Then you gave her some bit of information: something about another person, or about yourself. When you stopped, she started, and she told you all she had learned the previous day from everyone else, speaking in what she knew to be your language preference--English or Spanish. This woman was unequalled as both a source of information and a means of distributing it. People sometimes lined up ten deep to talk or listen to her.

I took the chair and touched her arm.

"Mama,” I said, “it's me, Sweeper.”

She nodded.

“I saw what happened the other day. You know, to little Rosa .”

Mama leaned toward me. On her cane, her hand was trembling.

“I saw what they did to her,” I said. “I was in the alley, hiding. But I saw, and I'm going to tell the police. I know who's the one.”

We were both silent, but I could see her trying to examine me out the corner of her eye. She couldn't see two inches past her face, but she tried anyway.

I didn't have time for anything else, so I said: “I have to go, Mama. Just wanted to let you know.”

I knew this would be all over the territory in less than two hours, and things would start to happen.

* * *

Later, when I passed the Mendoza store again, Carlos was standing in front. He motioned me aside. Someone was talking to his mother.

“Hey, Sweep,” he said. “Is it true? You saw it?”

“I saw something,” I said cautiously.

“What happened to Rosa ?”

“Yeah.”

Carlos puckered his mouth. His thin black moustache twisted out of shape. He glanced at me quickly and away again. Carlos liked to flirt with female customers, pretending to be a lady's man, but he really preferred little girls. I knew all about him. He had spent time in prison some ten years earlier for child molestation. More than once I caught him watching Rosa with something other than affection on his face.

“So you really going to the police?” he asked.

“Yeah. Going downtown. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Downtown? I don't think that's a good idea, Sweep. They ain't going to be interested in what goes on here. You just be stirring up a lot of trouble for everybody.”

Especially for you, I thought. If the police ran across his record, they might pull him in for questioning, and everyone in the territory would want to know why.

“Gotta do it,” I told Carlos. “Just gotta.”

A customer came into the store, and Carlos had to leave. I wandered on down the street. Almost everyone I passed had questions about what I had seen. I just shrugged and kept moving. My prey was already in sight. One of the Ghosts was on the opposite side of the street, one a block in front of me, two a block behind. They thought I wouldn't notice, but they were as obvious as the sunrise.

At 4:00, I went over to the soup kitchen, placed the sacks of food scraps on a metal dolly, and headed for Alley 4. The Ghosts followed. They knew where I was going and figured it was as good a place as any to corner me.

Right before the entrance to the alley, I gave the call, which startled the Ghosts. They paused and looked at each other.

Some of the animals were already waiting. They kept filing in silently, dogs slinking around into position, cats leaping from higher perches or darting from cover. Looked like we were going to have a full house today. The Ghosts arrived and immediately surrounded me.

“Hey, Sweep,” Ax said. He was Axel, the leader, narrow-faced and wiry, with small, mean eyes. “What's this I hear about you going to the police?”

“Who told you that?”

“Just answer the questions. Did you see Rosa get killed? You see who did it?”

“I maybe saw something. Ain't telling what.”

Norm, the blond nervous one, broke in. His voice had a lot of urgency. “Look, Ax, no point talking to this freak. Get it over with. Do what we came to do and get the hell away from here.” He took a step toward me, and the last two did the same, tightening the circle.

My hand was on the .22 inside my bag. I figured I might have to kill all four of them. Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but justice sometimes requires a certain amount of flexibility.

Ax nodded. He said: “Sweep, we gonna play a little game. Come over here and kneel down. Come on, I'll show you how to play. It's fun.”

“I ain't kneeling,” I said. “I think maybe you want to hurt me.”

“Hurt you? Nah, Sweep. We like you. Now kneel down and close your eyes. I'm just going to put my hands on your head and . . . you'll see.”

They were edging closer, and I was slowly withdrawing the .22. But something stopped me.

A rumbling, screeching roar started slowly, building quickly into a crescendo. It was the animals. The dogs were snarling, the cats screaming and wailing, and the combination was the damndest sound I've ever heard. I'm no animal psychologist, and I don't know what specifically was going on inside all those little pea brains. But these were creatures with finely-honed survival instincts, and they had no trouble sensing hostility and menace, especially when directed toward the person who had been their meal ticket for a long time. My guess is they just didn't like it and were vocalizing their displeasure. Whatever, it sure unnerved the Ghosts.

“What's going on?” Norm yelled. “These fucking animals look like they gonna attack!”

Not a bad guess. Some of the larger dogs were really scary, and the cats were putting on a good show as well. There must have been around eighty of them, all acting as though demonic possession was well underway. Norm's nerve was visibly faltering.

The noise continued. No group attack was likely, but the Ghosts didn't know that. They must have had at least a couple of guns among them, but figured those wouldn't be effective against this intimidating horde. Ax broke away first, but Mack, one of the others, got in the way and the two collided. Ax fell, which slowed Norm, who wanted badly to get out of there.

Then another surprise. I saw that two of the animals were going to attack. Snarl and Scratch were angling toward Norm from two directions as he scrambled to get around Ax. I realized there had been witnesses to Rosa 's murder--two of them. And now they were in the process of identifying the killer.

Three of the Ghosts had turned tail and were nearly out of the alley. As Norm tried to run, I pulled out my piece of pipe and stuck it between his ankles. He went down hard on his belly. When he tried to get up, I smashed one of his kneecaps. That left him helpless for Snarl and Scratch, and they were on top of him in a flash. What they did wasn't pretty, though not comparable to what the creep had done to Rosa . Scratch went for the eyes, while Snarl preferred the throat. I learned what Snarl's pit bull head and jaws were good for. Norm was screaming at first, which quickly turned into a gurgle as Snarl worked on him. A lot of blood everywhere.

Enough. I made Scratch and Snarl get off. Then I spread the food out for the animals. Then I slipped an Angel of Justice card in Norm's pocket, resisting the urge to also put a bullet in his skull. Finally, I called the police. By the time they arrived, the animals had finished and were gone.

So was I.

* * *

Am I pleased at how things turned out? I give it maybe a seven on a scale of one to ten.

Poor Norm was so traumatized by events that he confessed to everything, even to crimes by the Ghosts that nobody knew they had committed. He confessed to Rosa 's murder, except he said it was accidental. He didn't really mean to break her neck, just got mad and twisted her head too far. The other three were laughing at him and egging him on.

Norm coughed up enough information to put all four Ghosts away for a long time. The story finally got a good play in the newspapers, expanding the DA's interest considerably. Norm is blind in one eye and will always speak in a whisper and walk with a limp. Did the punishment fit the crime? No. Rosa is dead and Norm is alive. But I guess it's close enough.

Officer Hanley was suspicious about what happened. Talking very slowly, I told him I didn't remember hitting Norm with anything--maybe my broom got in the way. Hanley didn't act fully satisfied, but he definitely wasn't inclined to pursue it further.

We got hit with yet another surprise. Norm said he didn't rape Rosa .

And he didn't. The police finally got the DNA samples they needed from all four Ghosts and compared them to the semen sample they already had.

None of the Ghosts raped Rosa .

Which really jarred me. At first I didn't want to even think about anything that sick. Someone else violated Rosa 's body either after she was dead or in the process of dying. Since there was some blood flow, the timing had to be very close. Who? How? And what am I going to do about it if I ever find out?

Right now I have absolutely no idea.

As King Solomon might have said, justice is never simple. My guidelines are I can't mourn anyone, and I can't play pointless what-if games, and I can't feel sorry for myself. The important thing is maintaining focus. And doing what needs to be done.

Still, it's hard not to look for Rosa as I shuffle up and down the streets. I heard that at her funeral her mother was inconsolable, though she did give thanks loudly to the Angel of Justice for punishing Rosa 's killer. As for Rosa 's two companions, I haven't seen Scratch lately, so I suspect she's gone. Cats don't last long on the streets. Snarl, however, has taken to following me around, as if, at least for him, I'm the next best thing to the little girl who had captivated him. Maybe so.

But all I really am is just an ugly little guy sweeping through the territory and trying to clean up the rubbish. Never any end to the work. And so far I'm the only volunteer.