Underground by Kat Richardson Page B

She just wants to be sure. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening to people here. You know—like Tandy.”
     
     
    Tanker breathed heavily through his mouth, staring at me. I stood still and looked back with as much blank calm as I could muster to cover my wariness. As with his dog, I didn’t think it would be wise to rile him. Finally Tanker waved at the dog, making a down-patting motion with his hand. “Peace, Bella.” The dog sat down by the remains of her dinner, but she kept an eye on her master.
     
     
    He turned his focus to Quinton, cutting me out of the conversation. “Tandy’s gone, man.”
     
     
    “I noticed that,” Quinton said. “I want to know who else you haven’t seen around lately. Who’s missing?”
     
     
    Tanker stepped backward until he could lean against the stained wall of the alley. His breath had slowed down and the nightmare color around him had drained away, but he still seemed agitated. “John Bear. Haven’t seen Bear in a while.”
     
     
    “Was he staying in the bricks, too?”
     
     
    “Man, you know Bear wouldn’t sleep inside. He’s the bear, he sleeps with the bears. Crazy mofo.”
     
     
    “But he hasn’t been sleeping in the park lately, has he? In this cold?”
     
     
    “No. I haven’t seen him. I seen his blanket—Jay had it.”
     
     
    “So Bear’s missing and so’s Tandy. Anybody else?”
     
     
    “I don’t know,” Tanker snapped. “I don’t know and you and your questions can go to hell! And I don’t want your help!” he added as an afterthought. Then he grabbed Bella’s leash and gave it a sharp jerk as he began to stalk off down the alley. “You go to hell!” he shouted back.
     
     
    Quinton took my hand and pulled me away, into the street. “We’d better move on.”
     
     
    “What just happened?” I asked, falling into step beside him.
     
     
    Quinton shook his head. “Tanker’s got problems.”
     
     
    “I imagine most of the people down here have problems.”
     
     
    “Yeah. Well. Tanker’s got more. He used to drive a gasoline tanker—hence the nickname—and he was in an accident that killed a couple of other people in a pretty ugly way and gave him those scars. The company blamed him, fired him, and refused to pay his medical bills. Later it came out that the company was using cheap retreads on the tractors and that was the cause of the accident, but by then it was old news and Tanker was on the skid. The icing on the cake is that Tanker got burned trying to save people in the cars, but one of them came apart as he was hauling him out—in the smoke, Tank didn’t realize the guy’d been sheared in half by the steering column. He kind of flipped out after that.”
     
     
    The story shook me and I studied Quinton’s face; he looked grim and didn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t think of what to say, so we just walked on in silence.
     
     
    We headed up the hill toward the Union Gospel Mission in Chinatown, hoping to catch some more of the undergrounders sitting still to have dinner.
     
     
    UGM took in families and women as well as men and were a little more open to letting us come in and talk to people, though I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have let me in without Quinton beside me. The volunteers running the kitchen and dining room told us we could talk to anyone in the common room, but we couldn’t go into the sleeping areas and that was fine by me. I figured most of the people we wanted to see would be awake, but I was surprised by how many people had already gone to bed.
     
     
    “Homeless is hard work,” one of the volunteers said. “These people are on their feet all day, and having no home doesn’t mean a lot of them don’t work or try to get work. If nothing else, they panhandle, sweep sidewalks, wash windows, do manual day labor, and walk their rounds, looking for work, or food, or recyclables— whatever they do to put a little change in their pockets. They hit the hay while the night’s