Read In the City of Shy Hunters for Free Online Page B

You remember Ellen telling us about her cowboy?
    The voice from the second landing was a real deep James Earl Jones.
    Which one? Rose said. There were so many.
    Oh, Rose! Mrs. Lupino laughed. The cowboy —you know the one. The one from potato country.
    The grilled salmon and the Pinot Gris and the limp dick? Rose said.
    Mrs. Lupino inhaled on the cigarette. Wrinkles around her lips, all smiles at me.
    Yes, Mrs. Lupino said, That’s the one!
    The pain starts in my forearms, then goes up my arms, then splashes down through my heart, a cattle prod straight to my cock.
    Nice cats, I said.
    Cats! What cats? Mrs. Lupino said, eyebrows into Kleenex. There’s no cats.
    From the deep voice on the second landing: Mrs. Lupino got rid of all her cats.
    Every one of them, Mrs. Lupino said. All around her lips, wrinkles, wrinkles.
    Every single cat, she said. Not one fucking iota of a single fucking cat left.
    There were three cats in the hall. Mrs. Lupino was holding the yellow fuck-you drop-dead cat, and there were cats at Mrs. Lupino’s feet, cats running behind her inside her apartment.
    No cats, I said.
    No cats already! Mrs. Lupino said, and made a click with her tongue. Just like that, the cats in the hallway all ran back into the apartment. Mrs. Lupino closed her door.
    My eyes counted up thirteen blue linoleum steps to the second floor.
    This is , I said loud, The right apartment? I said pointing to I -A.
    Ellen Zigman’s apartment, I said. Right?
    My mother’s nerves.
    Clavelle, the deep voice said. She got married. Her name is now Ellen Clavelle.
    Right, I said, Clavelle. This is her apartment? Ellen Clavelle’s apartment?
    You’ve got it wrong, the deep voice said. Mrs. Lupino is in Ellen’s old apartment, I -C. It’s hers now. The landlord, Ellen’s uncle, gave her Ellen’s apartment when Mrs. Lupino got rid of her cats. Your apartment is Mrs. Lupino’s old apartment— I -A—and it’s the door to your right.
    We’re neighbors, Mrs. Lupino said through her closed door. Then: ’Night, Rose, she called out, sing-songy.
    Good night, Mrs. Lupino, the deep voice up the stairs said—bracelets, lots of bracelets, clack-clack—and then Rose at the top of the stairs was gone, and the dogs, and I heard the door close, and then each of the three locks were locked, just as Mrs. Lupino locked her three locks, then the chains.
    In all the world, in a narrow blue hallway, there I was standing alone, squinting in the unrelenting fluorescence.
    ONE - A . THE OTHER key unlocked the bottom lock. The last turn of the key on the bottom you had to push the door. The steel door opened into dark.
    Cat shit. Cat piss. Cat spray. Cat hair. Cat food. Cat litter.
    To the wall on the right, I reached my hand into the dark. Turned the light on.
    A bright box. More fluorescent halos. Unrelenting, the light from above.
    Home.
    THAT ’ S WHEN IT happened: the worst possible thing. My wallet was not in my inside jacket pocket. Not in my side pockets, my back pockets, not in the front pockets of my Levi’s. Not in the suitcase with the travel stickers on it, not in my backpack, not in the duffel bag. No wallet.
    Not in the narrow blue hallway on the floor.
    Not on any of the eleven cast-iron steps of the stoop, not on the sidewalk, not in the gutter, not in the street.
    Door of the Dead van pulled up. True Shot shifted into second, put on the brakes. Ruby’s ponytail, his arm out the window.
    Lose something? Ruby hollered.
    My wallet! I hollered back. I’ve lost my wallet!
    The red-yellow hair on Ruby’s arm. Inside the van True Shot’s mirrors, his shiny silver rings. I put my head in close, my body not so close.
    My wallet’s gone, I said.
    That’s because I stole it, Ruby said. Ruby’s smile.
    Ruby handed me my wallet.
    In all the world, in New York City on East Fifth Street, standing in the rectangle of earth where I’d plant the cherry