Bindlestiff (The Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

of string, and he was peering into it as he scraped at his face with a straight razor. He wasn’t using any lather. Just the razor and some water from a tin can he held in his other hand.
    I walked up on one side of him, slowly, so that he could see me coming in the mirror. But he didn’t turn. And he didn’t quit scraping the razor over his cheek. He was a big guy, with not much hair and a roll of fat on his neck that bulged over the collar of a faded blue T-shirt. He looked about forty.
    Five paces from him I stopped and said, “Morning. Mind if I talk to you for a minute?”
    No answer. He dipped the razor blade into the tin can, shook the water and beard stubble off it, and went right on shaving.
    “Excuse me,” I said, a little louder. “I’d like to talk to you.”
    Still no answer. The scrape of the blade was audible in the stillness.
    “Look, mister,” I said, “I know you can see me in that mirror. Are you deaf or what?”
    He took the razor away from his face, dunked it in the can again, shook it—and then, in unhurried movements, he pivoted in my direction. His eyes had a bloody look, and there was something a little wild about them; they stared right through me.
    “Fuck off, ’bo,” he said.
    The words came out quiet, without any heat, but they were thick with menace just the same. The skin along my back tightened. I didn’t like those eyes, and I didn’t like the way he was holding that razor. He was nobody to prod; he was nobody I wanted to deal with at all.
    I said, “Sure, ’bo,” in the same kind of voice he’d used, and took a couple of steps away from him to my right. He didn’t move, watching me. I put my back to him, a little tensely, and went past a couple of the cold campfires to where the path cut between some shrubs. Nothing happened. I made myself walk without looking back until I came up onto another piece of high ground. When I turned my head he was facing the mirror again, working the razor over his chin—just a fellow having himself a quiet morning shave.
    A short distance ahead I came to another clearing. This one was occupied by two men sprawled in the shade of a live oak. One of them was leaning against a propped-up backpack, the kind campers use, and the other was lying with his head pillowed on a bedroll.
    The one leaning against the backpack saw me first; he said something to the other man, and they both got to their feet in wary movements. I hesitated before I approached them, feeling just as wary. But they didn’t look particularly dangerous, and I did not see any potential weapons; I went ahead. They were standing shoulder to shoulder when I reached them, watching me with eyes that were neither friendly nor unfriendly. A couple of more or less harmless tramps, these two. As long as nobody did anything to rile them up.
    “Howdy, gents,” I said. “You been around here long, have you?”
    They were still sizing me up. Even though I was wearing an old pair of slacks and a chambray work shirt—you didn’t go mucking about in a hobo jungle dressed in a suit and tie—they knew I wasn’t one of their fraternity.
    “What’s it to you?” the taller of the two said, finally.
    “I’m trying to find a man who was here two days ago. Hobo named Charles Bradford, on his way to Washington to pick apples.”
    “Yeah?”
    “His daughter’s trying to locate him. For family reasons.” I dug out the photograph I had clipped from the Examiner and passed it over. “Bradford’s the man on the far left.”
    The two tramps studied the photo. “Don’t know him,” the tall one said. “You, Hank?”
    “No,” Hank said.
    “We just rolled in this morning, mister. Headed south. You better talk to one of the residenters.”
    “You mean hoboes who live here permanently?”
    “Yeah. Over that way.” He pointed to the southeast. “There’s a gully. You’ll find it.”
    “Thanks.”
    “I’d walk in careful if I was you. They don’t take much to