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Big Al 10
Contributed by
ramfire
on
Sunday, 10th June 2007 @ 09:47:45 AM in AEST
Topic:
Lifepoems
|
Friday morning the Huanghuali Wood Rose Chair arrived at my office. I gave Forsyth a call to come pick it up. He arrived in thirty minuted. After inspecting the chair, he made a check out to me for three hundred and fifty dollars. I helped him carry the chair to the elevator going down with him to the lobby where he walked it outside to a waiting taxi. I went over to the cigarette counter. Forsyth hadn’t gotten very far when I saw him on the sidewalk talking to the guy in the porkpie hat looking like they knew each other.
Lupota called when I got back to my office.
“Same time same place, Berger.”
“ Any problems?”
“ Not that I know of.” He hung up.
He was there waiting on the steps. “Casino wants to talk to you. He’s outside in the car.”
It was the same big Packard that had picked me up the other night in front of the Regent. I opened rear door and started to get in. Casino and Madaly were there. They wanted me to sit between them. The Sicilian was up front. Lupota went behind the wheel. Casino spoke. “ We’re going to take a little ride. I got a few things on my mind.”
We pulled away from the curb. Casino gave Lupota a command.“ Drive along the lake.’
Lupota pulled in behind the traffic. Casino spoke to me. “ You were at a party last Sunday night?”
“ Izzy took me for a ride in his new speedboat and we ended up at his home across
Lake Saint Clair. That’s where the party was. Mind if I light a cigarette?”
“ Go ahead.”
I fished one out of a crumpled pack from my side coat pocket. My hands were trembling. I was scared. Mandaly lit it for me with his lighter. I took a deep lung full of smoke and tried to settle back against the back seat cushion. I couldn’t do it. They were too tight against me.
“ Did you happen to talk to guy named Wayne?”
“ He was fixing hamburgers on the grill and we shot a few words back and forth.”
“ What did you talk about?”
“ He liked the girl I had brought to the party. I knew who he was but didn’t talk business.”
“ You know he runs the eastside gang in this city.”
“ Yes.”
“ Have you done business with him?”
“ Yes.”
“ How much?”
“ Same as with you, twenty thousand a load.”
“ Cut him off.”
“ That’s not too hard. He’s not doing much business in Chicago after you’ve taken over. I think he’s staying in Detroit away from you. Seems to be a close friend of Izzy’s,”
“ You think good. I looked at your stuff and it seems okay.”
He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his brown leather wallet. He took out ten Cleavelands and passe them over to me. “ Keep you nose clean and we can continue to do business. No more boat rides and parties.”
I was sweating. He spoke to Lupota. “ Pull over. Berger’s getting out here.”
I was never so glad to be walking. The wind blew cold off Lake Michigan feeling good against my face. I caught a cab getting back to my office in twenty minutes.
Taking the five G’s out of safe, I put it with the money Casino had just given me into a briefcase. I drove to a bus station, found an empty locker and put it in. Closing the door I fed the locker a coin dropping its key into an empty matchbox from my pocket. I wrapped the box in brown paper tying it tightly with string giving it a P.O. Box Number in another part of the city. I dropped the key into a post office box outside at the curb where the Buick was parked.
I pulled the Buick over to the side and stopped at a pay phone dialing the number of the person whose PO Box I had mailed the key to.
“ Eddie’s Place. Eddie speaking.”
“ This is Berger. Check your PO Box tomorrow. There’s a key in it that’ll open a locker at the Sizemore Street bus station. Take what’s there and spread it around town at whatever odds you can get on the Blackhawks winning against the Maple Leafs next week.”
“ Gotha. All on the Blackhawks against the Maple Leafs next week at whatever odds.”
“ Right.” I hung up.
I drove over to Ming Lou’s place in Chinatown, wrote him a check of two hundred and fifty dollars for the Huanghuali chair than gave him a Jackson for his trouble and the calls he’d made. I went back to the office. Jean gave me a big smile when I walked in.
“ There’s Gloria DuPrey to see you. She’s very attractive and is well dressed. I let her wait in your inner office. Did I do right?”
“ Don’t know. I’ll tell you when I see her.”
I went in. Gloria DuPrey was sitting in front of my desk with her legs crossed smoking a
cigarette. She turned to meet me with a smile on her coral color lips quickly crushing the cigarette out in the ashtray on my desk. Rising she extend a hand. I shook it. She was dressed in a green floral dress that went well with her auburn hair. She wore a wide brim straw hat with silver earring. The purse she carried was straw too. Her shoes were high heel pumps of bayish color. She looked to be in her middle twenties.
“Please be seated, Miss DuPrey. How can I help you?”
I went around to sit behind the desk.
“ You were recommended to me by Roger Forsyth. We’re friends at the Colony Club and he said you do a good job in finding antique furniture. He said you found his wife the most beautiful Chinese chair.”
“ Not me, really. It was the owner of a shop in Chinatown by the name of Ming Lou who found the chair. I only bought it from him.”
She shrugged that off, not seeming to care about Ming Lou. “ I need your expertise in decorating my home in antiques. I like Victorian furniture and I’m sure you could help me.”
“ Maybe I could give you some ideas. Could be you wouldn’t like them.”
“ Why don’t we find out?”
“ Where do you live?”
“ I have a house at 344 Lakefront Drive, but I don’t live there. The house is empty of furniture and part of an inheritance my father left me. I have an apartment at the Sheldon Arms. I can be at Lakefront Drive at ten o’clock tomorrow morning if your schedule permits.”
“Time’s fine.”
“ I’ll give you a retainer. What do you charge for giving an estimate?”
“ Fifty dollars.”
“ Price sounds all right.” She reached into her purse, took out some bills and handed me a fifty dollar bill from them.. She put the rest of the bills back.
I wrote a receipt.
“ Ring the bell a couple of time. I may be in the back yard.”
She got up from the chair giving me another smile. “ I feel confident you’re the dealer I need. Tomorrow morning then.”
I stood quickly coming around the desk to open the door for her. “ Yes, I’ll be there,” I said smiling back.
When she had left the outer office, I could hear her high heels echoing down the hall to the elevator. Jean sat her desk looking at me.
Copyright ©
ramfire
... [
2007-06-10 09:47:45]
(Date/Time posted on
site)
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