Do No Harm

"So the crack in my windshield's okay?" Russay rested his hands on his hips. Warring emotions flickered through his face; he seemed unsure whether to be grateful or angry. Bronner gestured him to head back to the van, and he went, shaking his head in exasperation, the curls of his hair barely swaying under the weight of the gel.

Jenkins followed him, catching up as he slammed the door. "Mr. Russay?" he said, through the open window. The spotlight still shone on Russay's face, reflected off the side mirror. Russay raised his eyebrows. "We have your name and address."

"What does that mean?" Russay called after him. His voice rose a half octave into a nervous whine. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Jenkins walked back to his vehicle, boots crunching snails underfoot.

Chapter 17

CLYDE walked with his head set low on his neck, as though he could retract it within his body. Corduroy hat blocking his eyes, hands shoved into his pockets, loose shoelaces trailing from his dirty white Adidas sneakers, he wandered the streets of Venice aimlessly. A clown with a large red banana of a smile walked past, trailing a beer cooler with MR. FUNFACE lettered on the side in bottlecaps. He looked pissed off.

Two young girls walked by, shuffling and dancing to Walkmans, metal protruding from their pierced brown bellies like the tips of fish hooks. They were quickly gone, the tinny blare of their muffled music floating away with them. The wheels of the clown's cooler hiccuped across sidewalk cracks, a dissonant night song.

Fluttering window curtains, sleeping drunks, cars with steaming windows-the streets were empty but alive, their inhabitants withdrawn like creatures of the woods. Clyde walked alone, casting a broad shadow, the asphalt slick with ocean film underfoot. A smell came off his warm flesh-not a typical body odor, but something unpleasant and stagnant, something backed up in his pores.

A car drove by and Clyde caught his reflection in the flash of reflected light from an apartment window-a wide man with red cheeks and a bowling ball of a head. He stiffened. The night drew itself around his shoulders like an icy shawl. He walked for a few blocks, the muscles of his face relaxing by degrees, and then he sat on an empty porch and wept. His weeping was vehement and prolonged. He pushed his balled hands hard into his eyes until his knuckles ground the bone of the sockets.

The breeze cooled his cheeks quickly. Removing his hat, he worked the bill until it was curved in a loose U. It fit more snugly, protecting the sides of his eyes.

A pair of red pumps appeared on the sidewalk in front of him. The toenails, painted pink, struck an unpleasing contrast. "Hey, honey-honey. You look lonely."

"Not lonely." His voice was still thick with mucus from crying.

"What, baby? Don't you be all mumbling at me."

"I'm not lonely."

"Why don't you look on up here at me? See what I can lay on that big strong body of yours. I said look on up here. Ain't nothin' down there on the sidewalk."

She crouched, legs bending wide, the two wings of a butterfly. She was not wearing panties. Natural, sagging breasts hoisted up in a pink tube top. "See anything you like?"

"Not lonely."

"Let's go for a walk. Last chance for the Tuesday night special."

He ducked his head down into his arms, hiding.

The legs straightened. "Shit, fool." She knocked his hat off and he raised his arm quickly, like a celebrity ducking photographers. His thick fingers scrabbled over the pavement for his hat. She threw her head back when she laughed, one leg locked, one swaying at the knee, her fists resting on cocked hips.

Clyde grabbed the hat and pulled it on roughly, not bothering to straighten it. Her laughter followed him up the street like a cluster of winged insects. He walked with his shoulders hunched, his head lowered. His mouth was twisted up as if his self-loathing had a taste. The fingers and thumb of his left hand slid against each other, rubbing and flicking, as though something were coating them that he needed to rub off. As he put a few blocks between himself and the woman, his posture grew more erect, his stride more emboldened. His feet carried him toward home.

A building had been torn down on his block, the scorched skeleton of a Chevy sitting up on blocks in the weed and rubble. Clyde removed a hidden pack of Marlboros from beneath the hood and lit two cigarettes, which he smoked at the same time. Someone had placed a stack of weekly newspapers over the springs where the driver's seat used to be, and he sat on them, placing his hands on the broken wheel. Smoke wreathed his head, catching on the pockmarks of his cheeks. His pupils jerked a few times, horizontally.