that didn’t bother me. Broken arms or legs now, that would have been a pure disaster.
Spending months in a hospital bed just wasn’t part of my plans, and yet, that’s exactly what I had done.
Over two months of my life were a blank. February, and March, were gone, and I’d have to wait another year to see them again. And the cop. Heck, he just wanted me to tell him who hit me. Big joke, but at least he didn’t take me up in front of the mayor again.
It might have been the second day of my stay in the hospital that I had a visitor. Businessman type. Suit, glasses and a hat, and he looked expensive. Maybe his rags were tailor made but no roustabout knows anything about tailor-made clothes.
All I could do was guess, but like I mentioned before. I was a stranger in this town, and because of my reception by both the barroom fighters, and the jailhouse stranglers, I think maybe I had become somewhat hyper about meeting strangers.
“My name is Phil Richards,” he started out, and he didn’t bother to stick out his hand. “I’ve come here to offer you a job, and to help you get revenge.”
I said nothing, just sort of raised my eyebrows, but I sure as heck was listening.
“I own a saloon, actually a nite club, It’s called the Grotto, and I got a problem I think you can take care of for me. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a day.”
Well, that messed up my thinking. A hundred bucks. What the hell was he talking about? Was he for real? He was staring right at me. He definitely wasn’t one of those guys that flash their eyes all around the room when they talk, and he didn’t focus his gaze on my nose. He looked me right smack dead in the eye.
“You know who you’re talking to,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re Jake Bonner and you’ve done more ass kicking in one day, than anybody has ever done in this town, and you got some people so scared of you, they’re doing back flips”
“Maybe you got some inside information?”
“Pete Carpenter. Damn good cop. Been around for years. He says you’re for real.”
My head was blank for just a second, and then it came to me. That cop who pulled me out of the cell by the scruff of my neck and set me down at the table with the other prisoners. Old Charlie called him Pete.
“So?”
“So Pete doesn’t make mistakes. He says you’re a badass. Then you’re a badass. But... he says you’re a guy that doesn’t look for trouble. Seems like he looked you up, and some folks have contributed some good information to your records. You come up smelling decent.”
“So again, uh why you think you want to pay me a C note every day.”
“‘Cause I didn’t call Pete. He called me, and that’s because he knows my situation.”
“Which is?”
“Trouble. It gets kind of involved, but what it boils down to is some people that work for Wiemar Marcello, the owner of the casino, are systematically wrecking my club. Every week Abe Roster and his buddies come in and start a fight. Customers panic, and go somewhere else to buy their girls beer, and it will put me out of business.
What I want you to do is lead some guys that I will hire, to kick their freaken asses the next time they come to break up my club.”
“You sound darn good, mister. Nobody has ever offered me a hundred bucks for fighting. It’s an interesting proposition.”
“All you got to do is say yes. Hell, I’ll even pay your hospital bill. I know for damn sure that Abe Roster won’t do it.”
“Is Abe the one that got me?”
“I’m just making an educated guess. People down at the Goodwill store said there was three of them.”
“Mr. Richards,” I said. “You got me interested. I want to think about it. You can see that right now I’m in no shape to work. But if I accept the job, I’ll let you know as soon as I get out of here.”
“Good enough. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. But I feel the need to mention one last thing. Marcello and everybody else thought you’d probably die. No one really thought you’d wake up. Now, the guys that were feeling safe, are not feeling like that anymore.”
I watched him go out the door. Straight shooter. No doubt about it. He was embarrassed, offering me that hundred bucks. To him, it was like doing something illegal. He was just a businessman, up against something he couldn’t handle. He just wanted to build a shock troop to save his business, I would think about it. I had the time.
It took them a few days to get around to it, but I knew it had to happen. Two months of lying on your butt does something to your legs. They just stopped working. The physical therapy wasn’t all that bad. I didn’t have any leg injuries. They were just lazy, so I had to teach them how to walk again. We did it all on a long plywood platform. The thing was about four foot wide and had a wooden rail on both sides.
The training system consisted of making the legs move in the proper manner, learning how to balance my body. It took me three weeks, and then one day Sharon, my nurse, told me that a man had come by to ask about me.
That night I went out the window. My bed was on the first floor of what they called the old St. Francis Hospital. I didn’t sneak out the front door for a good reason. Someone might be waiting. Someone that wanted to finish the job. I wasn’t for even a minute forgetting that I had a broken nose.
Whoever had hit me had taken me out completely. That meant a ball bat or even one of those flat-faced blackjacks, and he must have been interrupted by the people in the store, or even a customer. Otherwise, he would have just crippled or killed me.
Time for a little of logical thinking. I was a stranger in Cambridge. Nobody knew me except the cops, and my buddies in jail. The only people I had pissed off was Abe Roster, the guy who wanted to rent me the barstool. I had broken his nose. I had a broken nose. Made Sense.
Once on the grass outside the window, I headed straight for the railroad tracks. That meant I had to climb, or rather sorta slide, over the steep hill on the side of the tracks that separated the town. The wind had gone away, but the chill was still in the air, and even though I hadn’t forgotten my “P” jacket, I could still feel it.
At the bottom of the hill, I walked over to the tracks and started heading east. Wheeling was only fifty miles. It was a big enough town to have a flop house. I could get some rest. Then? Well, who the hell knew.
When I’d gotten off the train in Cambridge, I was ready to start south. I’d go slow, and by the end of January, I’d get to Florida, and I’d be ready to join up with my old boss.
Still, I would be bothered for a long time by the things that had happened. People had abused me. They’d injured my body and took a lot of days out of my life. There should be a reckoning. Somehow, just sort of even things up.
Chapter 9
The tracks stretched ahead of me. Seemingly to infinity. I would walk, and maybe, just maybe, I might have a slow freight go past that I could hop onto. The chances though were remote. There was no reason for a train to slow down between
