Song of Susannah (Page 90)

For a moment there weretwo preachers. Henchick behind, roaring"Behold, the door opens!" and another one ahead, bellowing"Say GAWD, brotha, that’s right, say GAWD on Second Avenue!"

More twins,Callahan thought – there was time for that – and then the door behind him blammed shut and the only God-shouter was the one on Second Avenue. Callahan also had time to thinkWelcome home, you sonofabitch, welcome back to America, and then he landed.

Two

It was quite an all-out crash, but he came down hard on his hands and knees. His jeans protected the latter parts to some degree (although they tore), but the sidewalk scraped what felt like an acre of skin from his palms. He heard the rose, singing powerfully and undisturbed.

Callahan rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky, snarling with pain, holding his bleeding, buzzing hands in front of his face. A drop of blood from the left one splashed onto his cheek like a tear.

"Where the f**k didyou come from, my friend?" asked an astounded black man in gray fatigues. He seemed to have been the only one to mark Don Callahan’s dramatic re-entry into America. He was staring down at the man on the sidewalk with wide eyes.

"Oz," Callahan said, and sat up.

His hands stung fiercely and now his ankle was back, complaining in loudyowp-yowp-yowp bursts of pain that were in perfect synch with his elevated heartbeat. "Go on, fella. Get out of here. I’m okay, so twenty-three skidoo."

"Whatever you say, bro. Later."

The man in the gray fatigues – a janitor just off-shift was Callahan’s guess – started walking. He favored Callahan with one final glance – still amazed but already beginning to doubt what he’d seen – and then skirted the little crowd listening to the street preacher. A moment later he was gone.

Callahan got to his feet and stood on one of the steps leading up to Hammarskj?ld Plaza, looking for Jake. He didn’t see him. He looked the other way, for the Unfound Door, but that was gone, too.

"Now listen, my friends! Listen, I say God, I say God’slove,I say gimme hallelujah!"

"Hallelujah," said a member of the street preacher’s crowd, not really sounding all that into it.

"I say amen, thank you, brotha! Now listen because this is America’s time of TESTING and America is FAILING her TEST! This country needs a BOMB, not a new-kew-lar one but a GAWD-BOMB, can you say hallelujah?"

"Jake!" Callahan shouted. "Jake, where are you? Jake!"

"Oy!"That was Jake, his voice raised in a scream."Oy, LOOK OUT!"

There was a yapping, excited bark Callahan would have recognized anywhere. Then the scream of locked tires.

The blare of a horn.

And the thud.

Three

Callahan forgot about his bashed ankle and sizzling palms. He ran around the preacher’s little crowd (it had turned as one to the street and the preacher had quit his rant in mid-flow) and saw Jake standing in Second Avenue, in front of a Yellow Cab that had slewed to a crooked stop no more than an inch from his legs. Blue smoke was still drifting up from its rear tires. The driver’s face was a pallid, craning O of shock. Oy was crouched between Jake’s feet. To Callahan the bumbler looked freaked out but otherwise all right.

The thud came again and yet again. It was Jake, bringing his balled-up fist down on the hood of the taxi."Asshole!" Jake yelled at the pallid O on the other side of the windshield.Thud! "Why don’t you – " Thud! " – watch where – " THUD! " – the f**k you’re GOING!" THUD-THUD!

"You give it to im, Cholly!" yelled someone from across the street, where perhaps three dozen people had stopped to watch the fun.

The taxi’s door opened. The long tall helicopter who stepped out was wearing what Callahan thought was called a dashiki over jeans and huge mutant sneakers with boomerangs on the sides. There was a fez on his head, which probably accounted somewhat for the impression of extreme height, but not entirely. Callahan guessed the guy was at least six and a half feet tall, fiercely bearded, and scowling at Jake. Callahan started toward this developing scene with a sinking heart, barely aware that one of his feet was bare, slapping the pavement with every other step. The street preacher was also moving toward the developing confrontation. Behind the taxi stopped in the intersection, another driver, interested in nothing but his own scheduled evening plans, laid on his horn with both hands – WHEEEOOOONNNNNNK!!! – and leaned out his window, hollering "Move it, Abdul, you’re blockin the box!"

Jake paid no attention. He was in a total fury. This time he brought both fists down on the hood of the taxi, like Ratso Rizzo inMidnight Cowboy – THUD! "You almost ran my friend down, you ass**le, did you even LOOK – " THUD! " – where you were GOING?"

Before Jake could bring his fists down on the hood of the taxi again – which he obviously meant to do until he was satisfied – the driver grabbed his right wrist. "Stop doing that, you little punk!" he cried in an outraged and strangely high voice. "I am telling you – "

Jake stepped back, breaking free of the tall taxi driver’s grip. Then, in a liquid motion too quick for Callahan to follow, the kid yanked the Ruger from the docker’s clutch under his arm and pointed it at the driver’s nose.

"Tell mewhat? " Jake raged at him. "Tell mewhat? That you were driving too fast and almost ran down my friend? That you don’t want to die here in the street with a hole in your head? Tell meWHAT? "

A woman on the far side of Second Avenue either saw the gun or caught a whiff of Jake’s homicidal fury. She screamed and started hurrying away. Several more followed her example. Others gathered at the curb, smelling blood. Incredibly, one of them – a young man wearing his hat turned around backward – shouted: "Go on, kid! Ventilate that camel-jockey!"