2. Yadda, My Sweet He was big enough to carry a Mafia V Cop henchman in his pocket and not be too conscious of its weight. He was large. Not large like a large drink at the drive thru, but large like parking a Caterpillar 12G motorgrader in a two car garage large. He had an ‘09 fedora, one that would go for over a mil at YoBay, but he didn’t look like he would know that. It was stretched over his head like something he had known for a very long time. His ears were buttons. Not “cute as buttons”, but the round knobs like folks get from being pounded on in a boxing for a few years. He didn’t look the sort that it bothered him. He wore a new suit, a jarring assortment of mismatched, bright colored, expensive YoCash items that had that new item look… chosen for bright colors rather than style. He was pale and needed a shave. His crooked nose seemed to prop up his thick brows like those boards women used to use to prop up long clothes lines. He stared at the faltering neon sign of QUINN’S INUIT BAR. A smile slowly appeared on his lips and gradually illuminated his eyes. He looked like a man with a problem. A man with a problem and with dough. Seeing as I was also a man with a problem, being fresh out of clients and short on YoCash, I took a professional interest in his interest in an establishment that was probably seedy when indoor plumbing was the latest mark in civilization’s progress. He stepped across the sidewalk and managed to open the door without stressing the hinges too much. The door admitted him, barely. It shambled in, and it closed behind him. For a moment. The door sprang open and something flew out. A tangle of awkward angles flapping in the air like clipped chicken. It landed in a heap in the street, untangled its legs, and resolved itself into what passes for humanity in that neighborhood. It was one of those grifters you see in front of Alton Towers… dressed in cheap clothes, moaning they are poor and new, and haven’t anything to their name, yet sporting a diamond badge. In professional curiosity I opened the door to a stairway that climbed toward’s Quinn’s establilshment. Or, I assumed it did, but the view was blocked. Large, sad eyes peered out at me. He gripped my shoulder solemnly. “I throwed him out. You seen that? He was gonna pick my pocket, so I throwed him out. That was all I did.” “Sure, Pal. I saw that. He had it coming. I would have thrown him out for just the way he looked at me. You did good. Real good.” He released my shoulder. I tried not to look like I was checking it for damage as I straightend my collar. “This is that kind of place,” I said. “You sometimes run into that kind of guy in places like this.” “Don’t say that, Pal,” the big man purred, like four tigers after dinner. “Sylvia used to work here. Little Sylvia.” He reached for my shoulder again. I tried to dodge, but he was quicker than he looked. His fingers massaged my shoulder again like a four car incident at the Indy 500. “Yeah… little Sylvia. I ain’t seen her in eight years.” He lifted me up three steps and set me down so he could peer into my face. I was wishing I had brought my gun with me, but he probably would have just taken it from me and eaten it. “You say this place ain’t no good? It used to be good. It used to be nice.” “Go on up, see for yourself.” He let go of my shoulder and I pondered whether I should see my doctor or go straight to the emergency room. He looked at me with large, sad, brown eyes. The same sort of eyes a certain large primate used on the girl of his dreams just before he tumbled from the Empire State Building. “Let’s me and you go on up and see if we can get less thirsty.” It didn’t seem like just a suggestion.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 20:24:13 +0000
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