Mission Flats: A Novel by William Landay

Author:William Landay [Landay, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, Mystery
ISBN: 9780345539458
Google: dLQ2Tt4DfJQC
Amazon: B000QCQ9C0
Barnesnoble: B000QCQ9C0
Goodreads: 13536528
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2003-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Bobo looked different than he had a week before, when Gittens rousted him from the Dumpster-cum-shooting gallery at the garbage collection plant. Gone were the Lakers sweatshirt and the stained work pants. Gone too was the druggy stupor. Now Bobo was flashing a definite sense of style. He wore his Greek fisherman’s cap down over one eye. And he walked with a rhythmic strut, limping slightly on his left leg so that he moved down the street like a bird with a broken wing.

Bobo was still half a block away when he recognized me, or at least recognized trouble. A white guy in this neighborhood—a white guy with a bad haircut standing around drinking coffee, a white guy looking at him in a familiar way—all things considered, to Bobo it meant trouble. Trouble of the law-enforcement variety. He immediately crossed the street, looking both ways, to put a little distance between us as he passed.

Even law-abiding people often become anxious when cops are around. But Bobo did not seem unnerved in the least. Bobo was cool. As he reached the parked cars on the opposite side of the street, he looked across at me and that was all. No sign of recognition, let alone fear. Then Bobo disappeared around the corner.

I hesitated, then, with a last forlorn look at 442 Hewson Street—the building I was supposed to be watching—I decided instead to follow Bobo. It was an impetuous decision. I did not know whether I would try to talk to him or whether I was just curious to see what he was up to. Mostly, I think I was fed up with staring at June Veris’s girlfriend’s apartment building—staring, sipping coffee, pissing at the convenience store on the corner, staring some more. Four straight days of that was enough. So I followed Bobo.

There was not much of a crowd on Hosmer Street, a fairly busy road that runs east–west through Mission Flats, so I kept a good block or two behind him. He strutted his way down Hosmer a few blocks, then hooked a left onto a side street with the winsome name Blue Moon Lane. By the time I reached the corner, Bobo was already slipping through the doorless entry to a brownstone.

The brownstone was one of eight or ten that lined the street. All but one were well-kept, Bobo’s being the exception. I have seen pictures of Berlin after World War II, and the best way I can think to describe this building is to say that it looked like something out of Berlin in 1945. There was no front door and no glass in any of the windows. Every delicate piece of the structure—glass, window frames, gutters—had been blown away. What remained was the beautiful stone facade, a chain-link fence sliced open with wire cutters, and an ominously worded NO TRESPASSING sign.

I guessed (incorrectly, it turned out) that Bobo had gone inside to score drugs. What other reason was there to hang out in such a building? So I decided to wait until he came out again.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.