Read CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) for Free Online Page B

old. None of them had names; about half of them had locks.
    “There are empties,” Dayton had said. “Ask Pete Portelli.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “Building superintendent.”
    I went looking for Pete Portelli.
    I found him in an office off the boiler room. The plastic sign on the half-open door read, “Stationary Engineer.” The office was small, windowless, and smelled of cigarette smoke and beer, both stale. I knew the man behind the battered wooden desk was Pete because it said so in red stitching on his coveralls. The desk was piled with invoices, bills, notes scrawled in thick pencil on torn scraps of paper. Over the file cabinet was a girlie calendar from Aberg Tool Works.
    When I knocked he looked up and grunted.
    “I’m Smith,” I told him. “I’m the new guy on days for Moran.”
    “Swell. What’re you doing here?”
    “Supervisor said to talk to you about a locker.”
    He leaned back in his chair, surveyed me. I stood in the doorway and did the same to him. He was stocky, gray-haired, sloppily shaven. His hands were square, the nails dirty.
    One side of his mouth tugged upward. “Where’d you get the mouse?”
    “Interrupted something that was none of my business.”
    His smile widened; he seemed to think that was funny. “Smith, huh? That for real?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    He shrugged. “If you say so.” He stuck out his hand. “Pete Portelli, that’s me.”
    “Pleasure,” I said.
    “It’s a crappy job.”
    “Mine or yours?”
    “Ahhh, both. But I get to sit down sometimes, and guys work for me.”
    “And I get to stroll around and I have no worries.”
    “Oh, yeah. Except some punks climbing over the wall and beating your brains out.”
    “You mean like happened to Mike Downey?”
    He snorted in agreement. “Bunch of moulies playing Knockout. Fucking animals. They’ll break your head for no reason, no reason at all.”
    “Knockout?”
    “Yeah.” He picked something out of his teeth. “It’s a game the moulies play up here.”
    I must have looked mystified; he grinned in satisfaction. “Knockout, way you play is, kid jumps a guy, tries to knock him out. Some stranger, y’know, a man, not another kid. Longer it takes, worse his score is. You didn’t hear of that?”
    “No,” I said. “I hadn’t.”
    “Well, think about it. Big guy like you’s probably worth double. Except you’re messed up already, so maybe not.”
    “You think that’s what happened to Mike Downey?”
    “Well, no one stole nothing that night, car radio, nothing.” He spread his palms. “Ask me, they were out hunting. Jungle hunting.” He smiled some more; he must have thought this was funny, too.
    “Maybe they got scared off.”
    “By who? Some basket case from upstairs? Not that asshole Howe. He didn’t hear a fucking thing.”
    “I thought he found the body.”
    “Yeah, when he finally caught on Downey wasn’t doing his route and went looking.” He shook a Camel from a crumpled pack, held the pack toward me.
    “I have my own,” I said. “But I thought you couldn’t smoke in the building.”
    “Why, Wyckoff might getcha?” He lit his cigarette, dropped the match in an overflowing ashtray. “Funny, I wouldn’t’ve figured you for a guy afraid of women.”
    “Some women,” I answered.
    “Mistake.” He shook his head. “You gotta show them who’s boss early, then you don’t get no more trouble. Me, I got Wyckoff under control.”
    “Really? How’d you manage that?”
    “Broads scare easy.” He grinned a brown-toothed grin. “Like my wife. You married? Kids?”
    “No.”
    “Lucky you. Single guy, you get variety, huh? Spice of life.” A wink went with that. “ ’Course, being married don’t slow
me
down,you know? Carter!” he suddenly yelled past me. I half turned, moved out of the doorway and into the room. My new cousin stood behind me in the hall. He nodded vaguely to me; I took the cue and did the same. “Carter, where the fuck you been? I been looking for you half an