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| Saint Sebastian River Bridge [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
Tuesday,
April 23, 1918,
7:30 AM
Joe Ashley sat on the same canape as he had sat on that first time, eight years before, at Geneva’s North End mansion; when they had birthed the Dapper Bandit. The furniture was still overly ornate and insubstantial; a man feared to put his weight on a chair in case it broke.
Geneva Pitt, the little snake, had gained a few pounds, but she still looked good. At fifty-one, Joe had a bit of a pot belly himself.
She’d come down in her silk nightgown, showing enough cleavage for a strip show, and mortally pissed that he’d ordered her maid to wake her up. He’d also told the maid to bring coffee and rolls, which he thought might delay the explosion he was sure was coming. It didn’t. She flopped down on the tiny couch across from his chair with a cigarette in her hand and a glare in her eye. “What the fuck are you doing here? You know I don’t do mornings! I didn’t get to bed until three, I don’t even believe in God at seven o’clock in the morning!”
Joe scowled. “You don’t believe in God at all, Geneva. Save it, will ya? I had a bad night too.” He made a production of adding a bit of sugar to his coffee, but the stupid cup was so small he put in too much. Jesus, there wasn’t but three or four sips of coffee in the dainty little teacup anyway. He poured some out onto the saucer and added more coffee. Not enough, though. Wasn’t room in the damn thing. He slurped half of it down, burning his mouth, blew, slurped the rest. He poured the saucer back in the cup, filled it from the pot.
Geneva fumed |
Joe had dressed as the Dapper bandit, had had Ed in his guise as chauffer drive him there in his new, obscenely expensive Isotta-Fraschini, the American version with left-hand drive, right around the circular drive and right up to the front doors.
Ed got out and opened the door for him. The maid met him at the door with protests which he waved away and sent her running to get the mistress and bring coffee and rolls. To a man dressed like that, in a car like that, with a driver, no black maid would dare say anything but “Yessuh.” And then run.
Joe told Ed to go into the kitchen and get coffee from the maid like a real chauffer would. “And don’t go pinchin’ her ass, I’ll have Geneva bitin’ my damn head off.”
He’d heard Geneva shouting at the maid before she came down, and took a grim pleasure having dragged her out of bed. He’d known perfectly well it would piss her off; that’s why he’d done it.
“What the fuck is so important you gotta come bustin’ in here before decent folks are even up and around?” She jammed half the cigarette into a quartz ashtray on a gold-plated stand next to the couch, took out another, lit it.
“Geneva,” Joe said, “you ain’t decent folk and you never were. Cut the bullshit. We need a job. A big one. And we need it yesterday. It took a bundle to spring John, and my new car is killing me. You know the God damn things don’t even come with a body? All you get is the chassis, you gotta have the body custom-made.”
She rubbed her face, rolled her eyes, made to jam the new cigarette in the tray, caught herself. “Oh boo-hoo, Mister Big Stuff Dapper Bandit. You got a better car than I do.”
He ran his hands through his thinning black hair. “Yeah, an’ like I said, it’s killin’ me. I done made you a lot of money, but I made a shit-load myself too, with no help from you.” He turned his sharp gaze on her and said, “I heard you might need some fast cash too.”
The son of a bitch had been a Palm Beach County deputy at one point, and he must still have his contacts, she thought. With all that money he sure as hell should have. “The fuck did you hear?” but she knew.
He poured more coffee, bit into a roll. Leaned back, crossed his feet.
Geneva glared some more |
“Vienna. Heard she’s in trouble again. As in real trouble; she cut some rich broad up in Sewell’s Point. Fucking the husband, is what I heard. Apparently, the wife didn’t care for that, they had words, she got cut. Banker’s wife, filthy rich. Big stink, divorce, huge settlement, arrest warrants, oh yeah, all over the news. The buzzards were circlin’. Must a’ cost a pretty penny.”
Geneva huffed and snorted, her nose flaring in fury. “Worse’n’at, she’s also in trouble, ya know what I mean?”
Joe’s eyebrows went heavenward. “With the banker?”
She waved her cigarette dismissively. “Who the fuck knows? She sure doesn’t. I mean my God, the woman fucked an Indian…”
John looked away, gritting his teeth. “Don’t fuckin’ remind me. It’s haunted my son, hell my whole family, for eight God damn years.”
She did jam the cigarette this time. “Bullshit. You done plenty in them eight years to get haunted, and like you said, a lot of it without me. Vienna’s out in L.A. at Kaspare Cohn Hospital, getting things ‘taken care of,’ they call it ‘dilation and curettage’ these days, and that ain’t cheap either. So fuck your new car, and fuck you.”
Joe looked at her for a second, set down the cup, got up, and put his hat on.
Geneva looked up at him, making eyes again.
She was still a fine piece of woman |
“Sit down, Joe.”
He kept walking. He could hear the maid running stocking-footed down the hall from where she’d been eavesdropping at the door.
“Come on, Joe. God damn it, just sit down.”
He stopped.
| Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens |
Now, that’s a cliff-hanger installment ending!
ReplyDelete“Come on, Joe. God damn it, just sit down.”
He stopped.