Chapters (60)
- DAW Books Presents
- HAPPY HOURINHELL
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- interlude
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- interlude
- thirteen
- fourteen
- interlude
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- interlude
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- epilogue
“Hey,” I said when I was about ten feet away. “I’m looking for the Boy.”
The kid gave me a quick you-ain’t-much look, then went back to flicking pennies against the cement. “So?”
“I’ve got five bucks if you can take me to him. I’m an old friend of his.”
“He don’t have no friends that old.” Clink.
“Look, you can go ask first if you want. Tell him it’s Bobby Dollar. He knows me.”
The kid gave me a longer look, then scooped up his pennies and stood, hands thrust deep in the pockets of his hoodie, his shoulders up against the wind. March in San Francisco is kind of like December anywhere else. He just stood there, waiting, until I figured out what was going on. I pulled the five out of my pocket and held it out. When he still didn’t come nearer, I set it down on an old plastic paint bucket, put a rock on it to keep it from blowing away, and stepped back. He took it cautiously, watching me the whole time like a cat accepting food from strangers, then turned and disappeared up an incline beside the freeway, leaving me in the cold shadows. I sat on the bucket to wait, but it must have been a slow day at the Broken Boy’s office because the kid was back in less than ten minutes.
“C’mon,” he said, jerking his head to show me which direction we were going. It was a bit of an obstacle course, uphill through dirt and ancient ice plant spiked with plastic bags and food wrappers, then through a culvert. I had to get down on my knees to get through, and couldn’t help but reflect on what a great target for a mugging I was, but there just wasn’t any other way to see the Broken Boy. It’s not like he has a phone and takes reservations.
I followed the kid through this obstacle course long enough that if I’d been trying to figure out where we were, I probably would have given up. We emerged at last in an even darker, bleaker, and more windswept area beneath another part of the freeway, outside what had once been some kind of maintenance door, its little safety cage still intact, although the light bulb it protected had long since disappeared. It looked rusted shut, but swung open surprisingly easily, revealing a set of steps leading down. The kid produced a flashlight from his hoodie and led me into the depths like a midget Virgil.
The maintenance tunnel was cluttered with old rusted breaker boxes jammed with grubby wires, dumped there when their day had ended. A few more turns and then the kid stepped aside and waved for me to walk past him. As soon as I did, he turned his flashlight off and everything went dark.