Wet Streets — Jim Haycraft

Johnson Corners is a mid-sized, mid-west city suffering the usual pangs of growth confronted by other metropolitan cities; crime, street people, high taxes, understaffed law enforcement and if not dirty politicians, certainly dusty ones. Harvey Zachery Hillerman is a streetie … forced to live by his wits by an ex-wife, her lawyer lover and a couple of nights in jail. While panhandling in city central, he inadvertently observes a suspicious transaction between a local drug dealer and a high ranking politician, Philibert Ubel. Unaware of what he has witnessed, he abruptly finds himself the target of an unknown assassin. The attempted murder is interrupted and Harvey awakens in the hospital with a variety of wounds, none serious enough to rate a warm bed and three hot meals for a few days. Later while panhandling he cabbages a five spot from Nancy Sheridan and an unusual romantic trend begins between the two of them. When policeman, Oscar Thompson, discovers the plot to kill Havey, he takes the streetie under his wing until his deception is discovered and he is shot with the blame placed on Harvey. Harvey, on the streets, is surrounded by a group of friends forced by circumstance or preference to exist in the back streets; Main Street Maggie, Two Dollar, Leroy “The Weasel,” High Stockings, One-Eye, Chicago Jack, The Dyke and Tony Rosiato (the owner of Tony's Place). He is pursued by a group of “upstanding” citizens headed up by Councilman Philibert Ubel, Warren Warbaker, Police Captain Harrison Bates his henchman, Sergeant Rufes McKay. The chase soon involves a goodly portion of the entire population of Johnsons Corners; the streeties on one side and the crooked politicians on the other with the innocent caught in the middle. When Ubel authorizes McKay to establish a special tactics team to rout the steeties, bodies start to pile up.