Page 43 of Shadow Ticket
“You say 50?” Wait. “Boynt, now that’s 50 one-way, but…how about—”
“Let’s take it one direction at a time, ain’t it,” handing over an envelope with a train ticket inside. “Union Station, tomorrow noon sharp, don’t be late. Pack light.”
“We’ll be years squarin this one, Boynt.”
A look Boynt has only thrown him a couple of times, and those, while memorable, not in any way you’d call sentimental. “Focus your attentionand consider how maybe we’re doing you an act of uncompensated kindness here, what our friends of the Jewish faith call a mitzvah. Don’t bother to thank me or anything.
“It’s the elf bomb, sure it is. Home Office are assuming you were meant to be a sort of human version of Stuffy’s truck. What the bomb rollers wanted from Stuffy they also wanted from you, maybe nothing more complicated than silence, and if you hadn’t been in to talk to the Fee Bees you’d’ve probably got off just as easy as Stuffy.”
“Somebody knows this for a fact?”
“Let’s say somebody saw you at the federal courthouse the other day. Going in around the back way, with all the construction and Keep Out signs. Wondering who you were there to see. Maybe, all I’m saying, what you really needed was to keep away from the Feds.”
“Sure. How about somebody gettin them to keep away from me…”
“Exactly what’s got everybody at Home Office nervous. The best solution they can see is for you to pull a fade like Stuffy did.”
“Fade, fade is good, I know how to do that, but why does it have to be New York?”
“You’ll see. Have fun, take in a show. Back before you know it.”
—
Skeet on theother hand has had too many goodbyes in his life to allow himself much reaction to this one.
“Stay in touch with the shop, OK, they can reach me if they have to,” hoping this isn’t just wishful thinking.
“Here, Hicksie, this is for you.”
A U.S. half-dollar, with the heads side showing a willowy package in a flimsy getup, representing Liberty, out for a stroll at what seems to be around dawn, because the sun is located very low in the design, in fact below the hemline of Liberty’s gown, inspiring some out there who can afford to to carefully engrave on the solar disk a face gazing with a lewd grin up underneath the skirts of our national allegory. Skeet has been carrying this piece of folk art around since Hicks has known him.
“Thanks, Skeeter, but I can’t accept this, licenses have been pulled for less, and besides, it’s your good luck piece.”
“Well, I can’t be lugging it around town all the time either, can I.”
Having run errands for any number of bush-league plutes, Hicks and Skeet both know the weight of a 50¢ tip.
“Only a quick out and in, honest.”
“If I tell you somethin will you promise not to take it personally?”
“Since you put it that way, no.”
“Thought I’d have a look at Stuffy’s case myself.”
“There’s apt to be some dangerous customers mixed up in this, kid—”
“It’s OK, I’m a creature of the streets, all gatted up, don’t trust nobody—”
“Both sides of the law comin at you all directions, including coppers local and on up who ain’t above faking a birth certificate, trying you as an adult and railroadin you into Waupun onto some indeterminate taxi ride—”
“You always did know how to give a pep talk, Hicksie. Bon voyage.”
And just to slap the Good Housekeeping Seal onto everything, here’s Lino Trapanese again. Hicks is just about to step into the Meal A Minute for a three-decker when a Packard Custom Eight limousine pulls up over the curb and onto the sidewalk inches in front of him. No chrome, no wax job, no shine, flat black all over. A window rolls down an inch and here’s Lino glittering through the slot. A door swings silently open and Hicks gets in.
“Somebody would like me to mention how very grateful they are to you, Hicks, this step you’ve agreed to take. How very, very grateful.”
Hicks looks around for the satchel full of cash that would normally come along with talk like this. “Something here, or not here, you’re supposed to explain to me, Lino?”
