by Julia Proud
* * *
Ed wasn't sure why he had called that Mr. Barnes fellow, and why he hadn't just thrown away the old man's card and the kid's note. But as it was, he hadn't, and was now face to face and sharing a pack of smokes with a strange old man, sitting at his kitchen table.
Moreover, he understood from the calling card that Mr. Barnes was a retired police officer who worked as a private dick. How well did it sit with him that Ed had won his son's flivver and money gambling, which was not only illegal but also in bad taste - to take advantage of a kid like that?
"You can have the car back," Ed offered with a shrug but received no response.
Mr. Barnes was reading the note - in fact, he had gone beyond reading it, and was now just staring at it, transfixed, and if it weren't for his eyes occasionally moving, Ed could have sworn that the old man had just turned to stone - a very pale, sickly looking stone. Right then, it occurred to Ed that Mr. Barnes was very thin and unusually white.
"I don't want the car," the old man eventually replied.
"It's true it's not working, but you can have it fixed, pops."
"Damn the Tin Lizzie, I need to find my son."
Ed lowered his head and drumming his fingers, he spoke without thinking, "I'll help ya find him."
Mr. Barnes opened his mouth to speak but found himself coughing on and on. For a while, Ed even believed the old man had choked on something, and was tempted to jump from his stool and help the poor fellow out with a sturdy pat on his back.
After he settled down, Mr. Barnes took a sip of water from his glass - apparently the old man really didn't drink alcohol at all, but he sure as hell smoked. The old man puffed hungrily at the cigarette he had lit as soon as his cough had subsided.
"I take it you know your way around clip joints?" Mr. Barnes asked.
"Huh?" the question had taken Ed by surprise.
Yes, he did know his way around those kind of places, what was Mr. Barnes getting at?
"You know, pig blinds . . . The sort of place where a man's business is his own, unless he's dipped the bill one too many times, and the fellow asking ain't looking so much like an old copper but more like . . ." And Mr. Barnes pointed in Ed's general direction adding, "like you."
Ed looked at himself and adjusted his old and worn, but snazzy, black suit jacket. With a shave and brush of gel over his blond, medium-cut hair, Ed Valenti could even pass for a good-looking, spiffy gentleman, provided he remained in a dim lit room where the undid seams in his outfit weren't as visible.
"Yeah, yeah. I know plenty of juice joints and people seen me around. I oughta be able to get them to sing about your kid, but it's a long shot. If the kid doesn't wanna be found, he ain't gonna be found," Ed explained gesturing with his lit cigarette before taking one last draw from it and putting the ciggy out in the water mug he was using as an ashtray - it gave off a foul stench that Ed had become accustomed to.
"That doesn't mean I stop looking," the old sleuth stated plainly, and Ed found he couldn't disagree with him.
"Alright then. Aspetta."
Ed stood up and entered his bedroom - if he was going to help the old fellow, he had to, at least, make himself look a little more presentable.
