The Miracle Man Part 1

The Miracle Man.

by Frank L. Packard.

--I--

THE "ROOST"

He was a misshapen thing, bulking a black blotch in the night at the entrance of the dark alleyway--like some lurking creature in its lair.

He neither stood, nor kneeled, nor sat--no single word would describe his posture--he combined all three in a sort of repulsive, formless heap.

The Flopper moved. He came out from the alleyway onto the pavement, into the lurid lights of the Bowery, flopping along knee to toe on one leg, dragging the other leg behind him--and the leg he dragged was limp and wobbled from the knee. One hand sought the pavement to balance himself and aid in locomotion; the other arm, the right, was twisted out from his body in the shape of an inverted V, the palm of his hand, with half curled, contorted fingers, almost touching his chin, as his head sagged at a stiff, set angle into his right shoulder. Hair straggled from the brim of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes, and curled, dirty and unshorn, around his ears and the nape of his neck. His face was covered with a stubble of four days' growth, his body with rags--a coat; a s.h.i.+rt, the b.u.t.ton long since gone at the neck; and trousers gaping in wide rents at the knees, and torn at the ankles where they flapped around miss-mated socks and shoes.

A hundred, two hundred people pa.s.sed him in a block, the populace of the Bowery awakening into fullest life at midnight, men, women and children--the dregs of the city's sc.u.m--the aristocracy of upper Fifth Avenue, of Riverside Drive, aping Bohemianism, seeking the lure of the Turkey Trot, transported from the Barbary Coast of San Francisco. Rich and poor, squalor and affluence, vice and near-vice surged by him, voicing their different interests with laughter and sobs and soft words and blasphemy, and, in a sort of mocking chorus, the composite effect rose and fell in pitiful, jangling discords.

Few gave him heed--and these few but a cursory, callous glance. The Flopper, on the inside of the sidewalk, in the shadow of the buildings, gave as little as he got, though his eyes were fastened sharply, now ahead, now, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around his body to look behind him, on the faces of the pedestrians as they pa.s.sed; or, rather, he appeared to look through and beyond those in his immediate vicinity to the ones that followed in his rear from further down the street, or approached him from the next corner.

Suddenly the Flopper shrank into a doorway. From amidst the crowd behind, the yellow flare of a gasoline lamp, outhanging from a secondhand shop, glinted on bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. An officer, leisurely accommodating his pace to his own monarchial pleasure, causing his hurrying fellow occupants of the pavement to break and circle around him, sauntered casually by. The Flopper's black eyes contracted with hate and a scowl settled on his face, as he watched the policeman pa.s.s; then, as the other was lost again in the crowd ahead, he once more resumed his progress down the block.

The Flopper crossed the intersecting street, his leg trailing a helpless, sinuous path on its not over-clean surface, and started along the next block. Halfway down was a garishly lighted establishment. When near this the Flopper began to hurry desperately, as from further along the street again his ear caught the peculiar raucous note of an automobile horn accompanied by the rumbling approach of a heavy motor vehicle. He edged his way now, wriggling, squirming and dodging between the pedestrians, to the outer edge of the sidewalk, and stopped in front of the music hall.

A sight-seeing car, crammed to capacity, reaching its momentary Mecca, drew up at the curb; and the guide's voice rose over the screech of the brakes:

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, we will get out here for a little while.

This is Black Ike's famous Auditorium, the scene of last week's sensational triple murder! Please remember that there is no charge for admission to patrons of the company. Just show your coupons, ladies and gentlemen, and walk right ahead."

The pa.s.sengers began to pour from the long seats to the ground. The Flopper's hat was in his hand.

"Fer G.o.d's sake, gents an' ladies, don't pa.s.s me by," he cried piteously. "I could work once, but look at me now--I was run over by a fire truck. G.o.d bring pity to yer hearts--youse have money fer pleasure, spare something fer me."

The first man down from the seat halted and stared at the twisted, unsightly thing before him, and, with a little gasp, reached into his pocket and dropped a bill into the Flopper's hat.

"G.o.d bless you!" stammered the Flopper--and the tears sprang swimming to his eyes.

The first man pa.s.sed on with a gruff, "Oh, all right," but he had left an example behind him that few of his fellow pa.s.sengers ignored.

"T'ank you, mum," mumbled the Flopper, as the money dropped into his hat. "G.o.d reward you, sir.... Ah, miss, may you never know a tear....

'Twas heaven brought you 'ere to-night, lady."

They pa.s.sed, following the guide. The Flopper scooped the money into a pile in his hat, began to tuck it away in some recess of his s.h.i.+rt--when a hand was thrust suddenly under his nose.

"Come on, now, divvy!" snapped a voice in his ear.

It was the driver of the car, who had dropped from his seat to the ground. A gleam of hate replaced the tears in the Flopper's eyes.

"Go to h.e.l.l!" he snarled through thin lips--and his hand closed automatically over the cap.

"Come on, now, I ain't got no time to fool!" prompted the man, with a leer. "I'm dead onto your lay, and there's a bull comin' along now--half or him, which?"

The Flopper's eyes caught the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of the officer returning on his beat, and his face was white with an inhuman pa.s.sion, as, clutching a portion of what was left in the hat, he lifted his hand from the rest.

"Thanks!" grinned the chauffeur, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the remainder. "'Tain't half, but it'll do"--and he hurried across the sidewalk, and disappeared inside a saloon.

Oaths, voicing a pa.s.sion that rocked the Flopper to his soul, purled in a torrid stream from his lips, and for a moment made him forget the proximity of the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. He raised his fist, that still clenched some of the money, and shook it after the other--and his fist, uplifted in midair, was caught in a vicious grip--the harness bull was standing over him.

"Beat it!" rasped the officer roughly, "or I'll--hullo, what you got here? Open your hand!"--he gave a sharp twist as he spoke, the Flopper's fingers uncurled, and the money dropped into the policeman's other hand--held conveniently below the Flopper's.

"It's mine--gimme it back," whined the Flopper.

"Yours! Yours, is it!" growled the officer. "Where'd you get it? Stole it, eh? Go on, now, beat it--or I'll run you in! Beat it!"

With twitching fingers, the Flopper picked up his cap, placed it on his head and sidled away. Ten yards along, in the shadow of the buildings again, he looked back--the officer was still standing there, twirling his stick, one hand just emerging from his pocket. The Flopper's finger nails scratched along the stone pavement and curved into the palm of his hand until the skin under the knuckles was bloodless white, and his lips moved in ugly, whispered words--then, still whispering, he went on again.

Down the Bowery he went like a human toad, keeping in the shadows, keeping his eyes on the ground before him, a glint like a shudder in their depths--on he went with hopping, lurching jerks, with whispering lips. Street after street he pa.s.sed, and then at a corner he turned and went East--not far, only to the side entrance of the saloon on the corner known, to those who _knew_, as the "Roost."

The door before which he stopped, on a level with the street, might readily have pa.s.sed for the entrance to one of the adjoining tenements, for it was innocent to all appearances of any connection with the unlovely resort of which it was a part--and it was closed.

The Flopper rang no bell. After a quick glance around him to a.s.sure himself that he was not observed, he reached up for the doork.n.o.b, turned it, and with surprising agility hopped oven the threshold and closed the door behind him.

A staircase, making one side of a narrow and dimly lighted hall, from down whose length came m.u.f.fled sounds from the barroom, was before him; and this, without hesitation, the Flopper began to mount, his knee thumping from step to step, his dangling leg echoing the sound in a peculiar; quick double thump. He reached the first landing, went along it, and started up the second flight--but now the thumping sound he made seemed accentuated intentionally, and upon his face there spread a grin of malicious humor.

He halted before the door opposite the head of the second flight of stairs, opened it, wriggled inside and shut it behind him.

"Hullo, Helena!" he snickered. "Pipe me comin'?"

The room was a fairly large one, gaudily appointed with cheap furnis.h.i.+ngs, one of the Roost's private parlors--a girl on a couch in the corner had raised herself on her elbow, and her dark eyes were fixed uncompromisingly upon the Flopper, but she made no answer.

The Flopper laughed--then a spasm seemed to run through him, a horrible boneless contortion of limbs and body, a slippery, twitching movement, a repulsive though almost inaudible clicking of rehabilitated joints--and the Flopper stood erect.

The girl was on her feet, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

"Can that stunt!" she cried angrily. "You give me the s.h.i.+vers! Next time you throw your fit, you throw it before you come around me, or I'll make you wish you had--see?"

The Flopper was swinging legs and arms to restore a normal channel of circulation.

"Y'oughter get used to it," said he, with a grin. "Ain't Pale Face Harry come yet, an' where's the Doc?"

"Behind the axe under the table," said the girl tartly--and flung herself back on the couch.

"T'anks," said the Flopper. "Say, Helena, wot's de new lay de Doc has got up his sleeve?"

Helena made no answer.

"Is yer grouch painin' you so's yer tongue's hurt?" inquired the Flopper solicitously.

Still no answer.

"Well, go to the devil!" said the Flopper politely.