Underbelly by Gary Phillips Page A

vehicles and buses. “How the hell did he get over there so quick?” Magrady mumbled.
    Neither a stoplight nor a crosswalk were immediately available. But he couldn’t let him slip away now so he timed it and darted into the street. Drivers braked and swerved and gave him the finger or cursed him.
    He went around the rear of an accordion bus and made it to the other side, a motorcyclist blaring, “Idiot grandpa. Get back to your rest home.”
    Chambers’ arms were churning and he wheeled swiftly under the overpass. Magrady jogged after him, aware he was breathing harder than he’d like to be. He slowed his pace but kept on as Chambers worked his wheels with a practiced flourish. On the south side of Wilshire east of the overpass was the Federal Building where such offices including passport and the FBI were located. There was a contingent of protestors in front, which was not unusual, except this was a weekday in the mid-afternoon. Who the hell would be out now?
    Magrady had to assume it was anti-war stalwarts. But as he dashed through the smattering of people he noted a sign with a cut out of a lazing polar bear on it with the words “Save Them” printed on it. Another read, “Stop Global Warming. More Ice for the Bears.” Swell sentiment, he reflected as he watched Chambers roll to the other side of the true believers. Did they expect the Bureau to drop their current caseload and build rafts for the polar bears?
    He felt guilty for being a cynical asshole, but there would have to be another time to save the glaciers. Magrady took some deep breaths and got his arms and legs pumping … The one thing Magrady could do to close the space was cut across the huge lawn of the Federal Building. Chambers had to stick to the sidewalk for better traction.
    â€œCome on, Floyd,” he yelled, running across the grass, “hold up. What’s the deal, man?” He prayed that there weren’t twenty-four-hour snipers on duty on the roof just waiting for some nut to sound vaguely threatening so they could relieve their boredom by misting his brains.
    The disabled man glanced at him then kept on trucking toward Ohio Street. Magrady could feel his burst of energy dissipating and laughed inwardly at those who said age was just a number. Shit. Age was your body letting you down and sweat pouring out of you like a bucket with a hole in it. Fuck if he wasn’t going to get away from him, a chump in a wheelchair. Okay, he admitted, that wasn’t being touchy-feely either. But getting pissed gave him focus and renewed energy. Magrady, never one for the treadmill, put all he had left in a last effort to catch his fleeing friend.
    â€œWatch it, lady,” Chambers hollered as he went off the curb and tried to cross in the middle of the street. A young woman illegally talking on her handheld cell phone, Mariah Carey rockin’ on her car’s sound speakers, had turned onto Ohio from the far corner and roared toward Wilshire in her late model Mustang. She was too wrapped up in her conversation to see Chambers until she was on him.
    She slammed to a halt. Floyd’s gloved hands locked on his wheels and he fishtailed his wheelchair into the side of the driver’s door. Chambers fell over. The young woman, a strawberry blonde with heavy mascara scolded, “Dude, look what you did to my door.” She was staring down at Chambers, on his side, in the street next to his downed wheelchair.
    â€œWhat he did to you?” Magrady said, running up, out of breath. “You just ran over a disabled man, miss. We need the police to test you for marijuana or ecstasy or something.” Gasping, he continued, “I saw everything. You never once slowed down, and you were illegally talking on your cell phone. No hands-free set.”
    The pretty woman screwed up her face at him then looked past to the bear lovers who’d also come over. “Wait, what are you