Outrun the Moon(72)

We finally arrive at a redbrick building with the words Burkhard’s Butcher Shop painted across the wall in overly sophisticated scrolled writing. How fancy can a side of beef be, anyway? Behind the writing sprawls a clover-studded mountain range, split up the middle by a crack in the facade. Besides the crack and the blown-out windows, the structure appears mostly unharmed, as do the few around it—an electric-lamp store and a place selling feather mattresses for five dollars.

People mill about the dirt streets, kept moving by a handful of soldiers who must think temptations abound here. The butcher shop might attract the hungry, but how far can you get with a feather mattress? Where exactly can you plug in an electric lamp with all the cables busted?

If I were running the show, I’d spend the manpower setting up a medical center and temporary shelters. People are too busy trying to survive to scheme.

In front of the shop, a man sweeps glass into a pile. One long stroke, and then two short ones.

We cross the street, drawing a wide arc around a dead mule. Elodie steps delicately over fallen bricks and glass.

A couple approaches the sweeper. “Can’t even spare some jerky? We’ve got mouths to feed.”

The sweeper rests his arm on top of his broom. “They gave away all the jerky yesterday.” His voice is hard.

“What are they going to do with all that meat? It’s just gonna spoil.”

The man shrugs, then puts his elbows to the task again. “Making more jerky so they can give it away,” he says in a testy voice.

“Let me do the talking,” I tell Elodie. Her head lolls back as if she is bored.

The sweeper sees us and plants his broom in front of the doorway. I peer inside the shop, where a man with a sock cap hacks a cleaver into a slab of meat on a white counter. Above him, carcasses hang on hooks—beef, pork, and lamb, but no fowl. Maybe they gave that away already. Fowl fouls as fast as fish, as the saying goes.

“Good afternoon. We wondered if we might have a word with the proprietor.”

The sweeper lifts his cap a notch, not out of respect but so that he can get a better look at us. “Let me guess. You want a handout, too.”

I glance at Elodie, who’s examining the ends of her hair.

“Well, the fact is, people are starving out here. And there’s no better feeling in the world than helping—”

He holds up his hand, showing us a palm studded with callouses. “Save me the guilting, I’ve heard it all before. The answer is no.”

“But, if we could just talk to the proprietor—”

“I am the proprietor.”

“But . . .” I glance again at Miss No-Help-At-All, now brushing a lock of dirty hair against her cheek, “we heard you tell those other folks—”

“I say what I need to say to send them on their way. I’m a busy man, and I can’t afford to give away my inventory on charity. Nothing’s going to waste here. All I need to do is dry my meats and get the hell out of this dice cup of a city. Now move. I won’t be gulled by a coupla girls.”

He starts to sweep again, forcing us to move to avoid being hit by flying glass.

I should go; he could easily call the soldiers over. But those bossy cheeks of mine begin to flare once again. One day, they may get me killed, and today might very well be that day.

His broom stops again, and he groans louder than is natural when I don’t leave.

I quickly say, “It wouldn’t be a handout, just a loan. We’d repay you. Plus, giving us some meat would be good for business. We would tell everyone where we got it, and how generous the proprietor was in the giving.” I manage to say that part with a straight face. Generous as a bald man with his last hair, more like. “When San Francisco is rebuilt, people would remember the good-hearted butcher Burkhard.”

He continues to frown. “I’m not giving away meat for free, and that’s final.”

“This is tiresome,” comes Elodie’s bored voice. “We’ll buy it from you. How much?” She twists the clasp of her pearly purse.

She’s got money in there?

“Well now,” Burkhard says, his voice becoming sly. He tries to get a look into her purse, but she snatches it away. “That depends on how much you want.”

“Enough to feed fifty people,” I say.

“Fifty? Your best bet is to get a split side. That’ll feed a good crowd.”

“How much is that?” I ask.

“Fifty dollars.” His grin spreads to his earlobes.

“Fifty dollars? We could buy two cows and a pig for that.”

“These are good meats. Nothing off the horn like the other boys sell.”

“They don’t look too good to me. That one’s full of gristle, and how long has the other been sitting out?” It clearly has a green sheen.

Elodie waves a hand at me. “We’ll take it.” She holds up something between her fingers, but it’s not money. It’s her pearl ring. “Here you go.”

“A ring? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You can’t give that away,” I hiss. “It looks like an heirloom. It’s not worth it.” Chinese place great value on heirloom jewelry, which helps us venerate our ancestors.

“It’s my jewelry,” she says grandly. “I can do whatever I want with it.” With a heavy sigh, she holds the ring up so Burkhard can see it clearly. “If it’ll feed all those people, I’ll gladly part with it.”