The Cutting Room Read Online Free Page B

target from his bag to his foot, I succeeded in closing my right hand around his thick left ankle, though just barely. My right hand joining forces with my left, I got a firmer hold. I found I could not trip him up but only pull him around, absurdly, like a small child trying to land a giant kite. Gus tried to kick me off, his bloated leg jerking up again and again.
    “Please let go,” he said reasonably.
    Gus managed to kick me off. But his kicking motion had upset his balance. As if he were propelled from a banana peel, both of his feet went flying up before him, and he came crashing down next to me, his bag leaping away and smashing against the front door.
    There was a pause. I thought this might instill a sense of comic camaraderie in Gus, but Abbott and Costello bloopers this was not to be.
    “You little bastard,” he whispered, inches away.
    Then he slapped my face like an angry lover.
    My whole head rang with the blow from Gus’s beefy paw; my face turned, my chin nearly touched my shoulder. When I turned back, a million cries of pain coming from my neck, jaw, and chest, I saw only the wide back of Gus, escaping out the front door. He dragged the bag behind him, like one more piece of dirty laundry.
             
    Gus, of course, could not get a cab.
    It was rush hour, New York City’s great equalizer: even men pursued by others are left standing on sidewalks, waving their hands. Gus had been at it long enough to let me drag my aching body out the door and down the front hall, after him.
    He turned to look behind him—as I’m sure he had done every second—and saw me. Running as fast as his biceps and deltoids would allow, Gus then flew from the sidewalk into the street, across the center island on Broadway, and reached the other side.
    From there, he disappeared down into the subway, the top of his fuzzy head visible for a second before he was gone.
    Dodging cars—including one available cab, poor Gus—I shot after him, into, across, and down, my sore legs screaming with every stamp on the stairs going toward the Number Nine.
    I hadn’t had to hurry. Gus stood, swiping and swiping his MetroCard at the electronic eye at the turnstile, muttering, “Work, damn you, work!”
    Mine went through once, clean. Gus now looked up and saw me at the turnstile to his right, bloodied but unbowed enough to smile cutely at him.
    The screech of a train coming in got our attention. As Gus’s panic caused his MetroCard to finally work, he pulled his bag up from my hand, which was nearly grasping its nylon handle. Then we both pushed through the turnstiles and got onto the train, together.
    My heart pounding, strangely exhilarated, I dared to sit right next to him. As we rode, Gus clutched his bag close to his heaving chest, shaking his head at my proximity and his bad luck.
    Over the hiss and bang of the train, I bellowed in his ear, “Gus! It’s okay that you lied to me! But you’ll never get away with it!”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouted back.
    “If Alan hadn’t been killed, I would understand your stealing it! Maybe I would have done the same thing! But now it’s murder! Someone has to stop you!”
    “I didn’t do that! I didn’t kill Alan!”
    Of course, the train had stopped at this point, and Gus was screaming his innocence into a silent, crowded car. This being New York, no one even noticed.
    Instead, people noticed me. I remembered that the fight had left me smudged with blood, black and blue, with my clothing torn. To all eyes, I seemed the least beloved of all New York residents: the crazy homeless man.
    Gus realized this at the same moment I did. Standing up, indignantly, he hugged his bag tighter and said, like an offended old dowager, “Get away from me! Go bother someone else!”
    People edged away, some frightened, others disgusted. Then the bell sounded for the closing doors. Through the scrambling mob, the station stop was visible. The doors tried to close,