The Angels of Catastrophe Read Online Free

took a coffin-sized lift upstairs to his room. In mid-motion, the steel cage came to a grinding halt and got stuck in between the first and second floors. Standing alone in the complete
darkness of the elevator, he felt the walls close in on him. He began to sweat, unable to calm himself. Here was a silence he’d never heard before—and with it came a fear of imprisonment. Fear had seeded him with claustrophobia. His breath came out of his mouth in asthmatic gasps and he banged on the walls and shouted for help. “Hey, goddamn it! Somebody get me out of here!”
    Spending time with Kulak had drained the life out of Durrutti. He didn’t know which was harder on the spirit, committing felonies or getting entangled with the cops. Both were difficult and not very profitable, neither were worthy of poetry or song. Twenty minutes later the maintenance man freed him, saying they’d been having problems with the lift.
    When he got to his room he kicked off his shoes and sprawled out on the lumpy double bed. He rested an arm over his forehead and stared at the ceiling, growing drowsy. His thoughts were a smorgasbord of bad news. A dead cop. A missing gun. Jimmy Ramirez. Kulak’s toupee. The Federal Building. Trouble was pulling him along; he was no better than a rabid, slavering dog on a leash. He fell asleep, dreaming of nothing.

Chapter Three
    S omeone banged on the door, disturbing his nap. He woke up, bathing in a puddle of his own sweat. Durrutti frowned, etching a single line at a ninety degree angle in his brow. He bawled, “Who’s there?”
    A reedy soprano answered him. “It’s me ... Arlo. With Jackie and shit.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    â€œI’m trying to sleep, damn it!”
    â€œIn the middle of the day?”
    Durrutti pouted. “It ain’t against the law, is it?”
    Arlo and Jackie were a dope dealing team of queens that had resided at the El Capitán for years. Arlo was a drop-dead gorgeous twenty-five year old pre-op tranny with silky long black hair from Chicago’s southside. She was always talking about wanting a baby, a child of her own. Jackie was ten years her senior, a six-foot-tall former Marine born in Guam who’d gotten drummed out of the Corps for breaking her commanding officer’s jaw. An unflattering wasteland of knife scars crisscrossed her high-cheeked face and she was as restless and angry as Arlo was bubbly and cheerful.

    â€œC’mon, baby girl,” Arlo crooned, sounding blissed out. She ran her fingernails across the door. “I was hoping you had some cigarettes. We ran out and we ain’t got no money.”
    Dope fiends were more persistent than the police when it came to getting what they wanted. More demanding than the Internal Revenue Service. If you had something, anything, they never left you alone. Not while you were alive. Thinking the twosome might help him find Jimmy Ramirez, Durrutti rolled out of bed and opened the door and herded Arlo and Jackie into the room.
    The couple promenaded into his boudoir nursing a pair of visible hangovers. Jackie was barefoot and nude under her honey-cream silk dressing gown. Arlo had on a red mini-dress, black stockings and orange suede fuck-me pumps with six inch stiletto heels. Durrutti settled them down on the bed—there was nowhere else to sit—and handed out Marlboro cigarettes like a proper host. Then he related the predicament he was in, not mentioning Jimmy Ramirez, the missing gun or Paul Stevens.
    Jackie’s pimply skin was grayed with exhaustion. She flicked a hank of hair off her scaly forehead by jerking her chin. Her button-hard eyes lasered a hole in Durrutti while he told his story. She snickered at him in hostile flirtation when he was finished. “What a pisser. A dead cop and the Feds are asking you about it. Some guys have all the luck. You know who snuffed that pig, don’t