“Yeah. I’ll be staying here with you. You’d like that, right?”
“Yes, I would.”
“Not too stuck on Otto, are you?”
She walked over and grabbed me by the lapels and pulled my face to hers.
“Otto who?” she asked then got up on her tippy-toes and laid one on me.
It was a good kiss—not something I’d get myself moon-eyed over—but a good kiss. She dragged her lips away from mine and went back down on her heels and smiled at me.
“Otto who,” I said. “Otto Heinrich. The guy you slept with last night. The guy you set up to take the fall for stealing from your father.”
“Oh, him. Can you get past him?”
“I can get past him, I just didn’t like how quickly you were getting past him.”
She flopped down on the bed.
“Go buy our train tickets, Jake. I’ll be waiting. Right here.”
I left the room and went down to the lobby. I entered the phone booth and dropped a dime. The phone rang.
“Mr. Firebridge, it’s Jake Gibb.”
“Carmichael’s man?”
“Mr. Carmichael's man. Yeah. Still want to know where your daughter is?”
“Did you find the notebook?”
“I’ll have the notebook in Mr. Carmichael’s safe in about twenty minutes. Your daughter is at the Hotel Panorama at Ninth and Vine. Room five-o-seven.”
“Alright, I’ll be in to get the notebook tomorrow morning.”
“You getting your daughter?”
“I’ll send a man.”
“I’d be careful with that.”
“Careful with what?”
“Sending a man to your daughter’s hotel room. There’s a bed in there and she’s not against using it with a man to get what she wants.”
“Good day, Mr. Gibb.”
He hung up.
“You’re welcome,” I said and hung up the phone.
I’d taken care of Miss Firebridge. Mr. Firebridge would be happy, which meant Mr. Carmichael would be happy, which meant I should have been happy. Instead, I felt myself lifted up and spun around. I fell back hard into the seat of the phone booth.
“There’s no need to be rough, Pox.”
Pox wouldn’t do too much to me in the hotel lobby. Bill McGinn doesn’t like attention drawn.
“You never know when to quit, do you, Jake?”
He slapped me backhanded on the forehead. It’d leave a mark. When my eyes quit watering, Bill McGinn was standing large over me. He took off my hat and examined it.
“Cheap hat, Jake.”
“It keeps the sun off my head.”
“You like cheap things. Like Polly.”
“You like her too, Bill.”
“Liked, Jake. Liked. Past-tense. We’re all fools for women, aren’t we? Anyway, I took care of her.”
“Took care of?”
“Pox tells me you work for Prescott Carmichael.”
“What do you mean ‘took care of’?”
“Normally, a man disrespects me in the way that you disrespected me with Polly, that man dies, but you may be more useful to me alive. Prescott Carmichael knows people. He’s respected by people. His opinion carries weight. His lieutenant being indebted to me could be beneficial, so congratulations, Jake, you get to live.”
“What do you mean ‘took care of’?”
“I meant I put her on a bus for St. Louis. I got people there.”
“You can’t kill her, Bill.”
“Kill her? Nah, I don’t bear her any ill will. To be honest, I’d been neglecting her. To be more honest, she bored me Jake. If she moved for you like she moved for me, she bored you too. Nothing worse than being bored, right Jake?
He ruffled my hair like a man does to a boy and put my hat back on for me.
I wanted to tell him that Mr. Carmichael would fire me on the spot if the likes of Bill McGinn ever approached him because of me. I wanted to tell him that, but I wanted to live more. Or at least not have my arm broken. So I stayed shut up.
Bill McGinn gave me a chilling smile then turned and walked down the lobby stairs and into the street. Pox followed close behind. I went into the lobby washroom and straightened myself. I looked like hell. I looked scared.
Back at the office, I locked away Mr. Firebridge’s notebook. I filled in Mr. Carmichael. He didn’t need me for anything. Mrs. Johnson wasn’t holding any messages. The phone didn’t ring. The door didn’t open.
Bored again.
I grabbed my hat and left the office. I knew an Irishman who ran an honest dice game down on the river.
Acknowledgement
I owe many thanks to copywriter Erin Hooper. She's the grandest dame that I'm not married to.
Any errors in this text are mine, not hers. She did the best she could with me.
Howard McEwen Contact and Social Media
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Jake's 8 Page 21
