Clandestine

I left him and continued walking. After three blocks, I realized I had no real destination, and moreover that the denizens of the row had taken me for a cop: my size and crisp summer suit got me looks of fear and hatred, and if I played it right I could use this to my advantage without hurting anyone.

I recalled what Kraus and Lutz had told me: George "The Professor" Melveny, George "The Gluebird" Melveny, former Marquette chemistry teacher, last seen sucking on a rag in front of the Jesus Saves Mission. It was almost noon, and the temperature was soaring. I felt like shedding my suit coat, but that wouldn't work: the skid row inhabitants would then know I wasn't packing a gun and was therefore not the heat. I stopped in my tracks and surveyed the row in all directions: no sign of the Jesus Saves Mission. On impulse I ducked into a liquor store and purchased twenty shortdogs of Golden Lake muscatel. My liver shuddered as I paid, and the proprietor gave me the strangest look I have ever encountered as he loaded the poison into a large paper hag. I asked him for directions to the Jesus Saves Mission, and he snickered and pointed east, where the skid row dead-ended at the Milwaukee River.

There was a line of hungry-looking indigents extending halfway around the block as I approached the mission, obviously waiting for their noon meal. Some of them noticed my arrival and jabbed at one another, signaling the onslaught of bad news. They were wrong; it was Christmas in July.

"Santa Claus is here!" I shouted. "He's made a list and he's checked it twice, and he's decided that all of you folks deserve a drink!"

When all I got was puzzled looks, I dug into my paper bag and pulled out a short-dog. "Free wine for all!" I yelled. "Free cash to anyone who can tell me where to find George 'The Gluebird' Melveny!"

There was a virtual stampede to my side. The Jesus Saves Mission and its lackluster luncheon were forgotten. I was the man with the real goodies, and scores of winos and winettes started reaching fawningly toward me, poking tremulous hands in the direction of the brown paper bag I rested out of their reach on my shoulder. Information was screeched at me, tidbits and non sequiturs and epithets:

"Fuck, man."

"Glueman, Gluebird!"

"Sister Ramona!"

"Wetbrain!"

"Gimme, gimme, gimme!"

"See the sister!"

"Handbill!"

"Glueman!"

"Oh, God. Oh, God."

"Warruuggh!"

The crowd was threatening to drive me into the gutter, so I placed my brown bag on the sidewalk and backed off as they descended on it like starving vultures. Pushing and shoving ensued, and two men wrestled into the street and began feebly clawing and gouging at each other's faces.

Within minutes all twenty bottles were broken or snatched up, and the sad boozehounds had dispersed to consume their medicine, except for one particularly frail, sad-looking old man in ragged pants and a Milwaukee Braves T-shirt and Chicago Cubs baseball cap. He just stared at me and waited at the head of the bean line, along with the few other indigents who hadn't seemed interested in my offering.

I walked over to him. He was blond, and his skin had been burned to a bright cancerous red after years of outdoor living. "Aren't you a drinking man?" I asked.

"I can take it or leave it," he said, "unlike some others."

I laughed. "Well put."

"What do you want the Gluebird for? He don't hurt nobody."

"I just want to talk to him."

"He just wants to suck his rag in peace. He don't need no cops bothering him."

"I'm not a cop." I opened up my suit coat to show I was bereft of hardware.

"That don't prove nothin'," he said.

I sighed and lied: "I work for an insurance company. Marquette owes Melveny some money on an old employee claim. That's why I'm looking for him."

I could tell the wary man believed me. I took a five-spot out of my billfold and waved it in front of him. He snatched it up.

"You go down to Sister Ramona's; that's four blocks west of here. It's got a sign out front that says 'Handbill Passers Wanted.' The Gluebird's been working for the sister lately."

I believed him. His pride and dignity carried authority. I took off in the direction he was pointing.

Sister Ramona was a psychic who preyed on Milwaukee's superstitious lower middle classes. This was explained to me by one "Waldo," an ancient bum lounging in front of the storefront where she recruited the winos and blood bank rejects who carried her message via handbill into Milwaukee's poorer enclaves. She paid off in half gallons of wine that she bought dirt cheap by the truckload from an immigrant Italian wine maker from Chicago. He jacked up the alcohol content with pure grain spirits, which weighed in his vino at a hefty one hundred proof.