Ace Roman in a Different Breed of Trouble

It was just my luck; the Watertown gang was pushing out their territory again. I usually keep my nose out of politics, after all, I don’t much care who owns what as long as I can sit down and get a drink. But those Watertown boys look down on everyone who doesn’t live in a big house on the hill; especially if they go visiting canaries. I must say I’ve seen a number of sisters in my time and it weren’t a nunnery.

So, I was laying low behind the 7-11 nursing a few fresh cuts. There was a tingle in my skin that made my hair stand on end. I wondered if the Watertown boys intended to bump me off here and now. To my surprise, it wasn’t trouble, at least not the type I had been expecting. Two great big baby blues stared at me, unblinking, from behind the dumpster across the alley. Pulling myself up from my stoop with a slow stretch, I readied myself to beat feet in case I needed to scram, fast. The eyes from the trash heap didn’t move. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the stitch was; it was a kitten.

The kid was lost from its mother. I wondered if it had been abandoned there. After all, it had no fear. It seemed to lack even basic survival skills. It was filthy but it sat there chewing on its paw as if that would cure the rumble in its belly. The sounds it made couldn’t even be called a mew. I couldn’t be weighed down by a squirt, especially a know-nothing.

“Sorry, kid.” While I couldn’t take responsibility for the kitten I’d be damned if I’d let the Watertown boys find it in my company. “Best try your luck at the park; everything ends up there.” I departed the alley with all the haste of a lazy man given the opportunity to shirk work.

The sky had turned a perilous gray. Drizzle was already catching on my coat and splashing in the dirty puddles from yesterday’s storm. Between the droplets, I could hear the distinctive sound of shoe leather. I needed to get a slant on the owner of those dogs before they realized I was wise to ‘em. Quickening my step I rounded the corner and shimmed halfway up on a partly lowered fire escape ladder.

I was set to get the drop on whomever it was on my tail this time. I waited, heart caught in my throat, the flicker of the street lamps turned the hazy gray of the mist into a dull orange glow. It worked to my advantage as the long unmistakable shadow of my pursuer stretched out across the loose cobblestones.

“Jeepers, kid. I was about ten seconds from planting a shiv in your belly.” I dropped from my perch trying to figure how the brat had managed to turn up like a bad penny everywhere I went today. “I thought you were one of those Watertown goons.” All it could do was give me a few nonsensical squeaks and brush up against me with all the vigor of a train jumping tracks.

“Well, since it seems I won’t be rid of you until I make you someone else’s problem we’ll need to get in touch with Felice ‘Two-Toes.’ For the right scratch he’ll spill just about anything.” I don’t know why I bothered telling the kid a damn thing, it seemed touched. To get to Two-Toes we first had to go visit a choice bit of calico that he was seeing on the side. If anyone knew where Felice spent his days it would be Adeline. She was one of the backup girls for the gin joint off the tree streets, LaBaron’s.

The going was slow, we had to stick to back alleys and the kid was anything but graceful. Twice I had to find an alternate route which put us dangerously close to being on main street because the kid couldn’t even scale a small fence. It was getting late and the kid was flagging. “Probably for the best.” I thought to myself, “They wouldn’t let a kid like this walk in anyways.” I needed a place to stash him while I did some digging.

It needed to be somewhere close at hand. All the box seats around this place were spoken for and none of them owed me any favors. This was no time to be picky. It was only for a night and then I would be free of this dead weight. I lead the kid to a building not far from the bar, after circling a few times I was able to find a window with boards wide enough apart that we could slide inside. The musty air wrinkled my nose but there was an old mattress leaning against the wall. Putting my weight on the top it easily fell to the floor upsetting a cloud of dust that could rival a cigar lounge while the ponies ran. I left the kid as his eyes started to spring a leak. I dragged a blanket from the next room. It was stiff, thick cotton covered in old paint splatter but it was cleaner than the mattress and would be enough to bundle up with to fight the chill in the night air. He hadn’t eaten in hours. I never raised one of my own but even I knew kittens had small stomachs and needed to eat pretty regular. He probably wouldn’t sleep without eating either and I couldn’t risk him following me this time.

“Sit tight, kid. I’ll be back in a flash.” I squeezed back through the window and fell to the asphalt below. All this running errands was making a nursemaid out of me. But what needed to be done needed doing. There would be no payday if the kid starved. At the end of the block was a real mom-and-pop convenience store I used to frequent. The door rolled open and the cashier gave me a nod. I gave him a wink as I started down the snack aisle.

“How’s things hanging, Ace?” a scraggly auburn-haired man lowered his newspaper to watch me. I called him Tom, though to be honest, I don’t know if that’s what his mother called him. He was just another Tom, Dick, or Harry to me and he answered to it well enough.

“Right side of the grass, at least, Tom.”

“Is that so? I’ve been pretty good myself. I’ve started taking guitar lessons. I’m not very good yet but I hear girls like musicians.”

“What would I know, Tom? It’s not like I’m going steady myself at the moment.” I wrestled free a couple of cheese sticks and a bag of chips that were wedged into the bottom shelf. “Hey, Tom. Add these to my tab, will ya?” I didn’t have time to sit around and talk tonight so I made my way to the door which slid wide for me and a few dozen moths.

“Going so soon, Ace? Say hello to the missus for me.” As he grabbed some change from a jar on the counter and added it to the till before going back to his paper.

I didn’t want to be out too long. I didn’t think the Watertown gang knew about my haunts this side of the tracks but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. I got back to the kid as quick as I could. He was pawing at the window, trying to get back out. Come tomorrow I’d have to find him another way out but it made me feel better that once he was asleep I could take off without him walking up out of the blue again. I tossed the food on the painter’s tarp. As soon as I was settled on the bed the kid joined me.

“Did you miss me that much?” I chuckled as I bit open the first cheese stick. I took a small taste off the top, just to make sure it was still good before handing it off to the little one. He ate with gusto. I hardly had time to open the second and he was already breaking into the potato chips. Perhaps he did have some survival instincts? Maybe he had just never been taught how to use them? Not that I was volunteering.

Soon there were nothing but wrappers and the kid laid down, head against my chest. I laid with him until his breathing was slow and rhythmic. Very carefully I twisted myself until I had rolled free of his little black fuzz. He didn’t move. I waited but there was no cry or whimper. Rolling a bit further I was able to get my feet under myself and off the edge of the makeshift bed.

LaBaron’s was hopping tonight. I strode to the bar as the piano man was going wild despite how out of key he was. I laid down my two bits for a nip. After the day I had I needed it. Goldie was in the limelight singing some torch song but I didn’t see Adeline or the other backup girls. I scanned the room looking for a set of gams from here to Paris. She was hard to miss in her white fur, changing out cash for chips and selling kisses for luck.

“I was thinking of pushing my luck, Adeline. How about you and me against the world?”

“You’re always pushing your luck, Ace. Why don’t you shut your trap before it writes a check you can’t cash?”

“You’re right. I should stick to my own luck, the best I could hope from yours is second place.” I knew I shouldn’t cheese her off but watching her waste herself as some sleazy cat’s side piece never sat right with me.

“Better to be second than a zero. Now scram, Ace. I’m working.” she was all in a huff as she was pushing her way between players. Staying on her tail I slipped between the seats right along with her.

“Maybe I’m no bean counter but at least I make honest money.”

“When you make money, you mean. Why are you here, Ace? Either you scrounged together the scratch to buy me a rock the size of your fat head or you need something. So which is it?” Even with her face set in those hard lines, she was gorgeous.

“I need to know where Felice is doing his business these days. I have something that might be worth something to somebody and I need him to track that somebody.” If this kid was missing there might be a reward worth a nice chunk of ice.

“You’re as shameless as they come, Ace Roman.” Her hips swished away from me as the song ended. She was moving towards the stage with a purposeful step. “I’ll set it up. Meet Felice at the scrapyard tomorrow morning.”

“You’re a doll!”

“Now, vamoose before I have you tossed from the joint.” She disappeared behind the curtain to ditch her goods.

Business complete I had no reason to stay, but that didn’t mean I didn’t listen for those melodious pipes as I found my way to the door. Looking back over my shoulder I saw her swaying her hips as if it were just for me. I dreamed of a day she gazed on me and all our beautiful babies. But the fantasy ended as quick as it came with the roar of a passing siren and the distant howl of every mutt that heard it. I had my own kid to get back to and it had already been long enough since I left for him to get into some kind of trouble.

The boy was still glued to my side by the next morning. He was up with the sun which served my purposes well enough. With the dusty old wreck lit we were able to find a door out that the kid could use. Teaching him how to use a doorknob was the harder task. But I wouldn’t be around forever and I needed to know he could at least get himself in and out of good sleeping spots. The scrapyard wasn’t far from LaBaron’s. I had no doubt the kid could make it after a stop at a backyard hose for a quick drink. The little old lady who lived here often left the water half on, running into a bucket for hobos coming up from the tracks. The kid and I drank like fish and then spent some time splashing around. I needed to wash him pretty badly, the water helped a lot. Not that the kid wanted to be near it if he wasn’t throwing it at someone else, chiefly me.

Clean and bellies full of water, for now, we made our way to the meet. There was a hole in the north side fence that we managed to slip through.

“I’m going to find a place for you to sit. Don’t come out unless I call you. Got it, kid?” Two-Toes might just be an information broker but he ran with a tough crew and had a lot of powerful friends. There were a number of junked-up cars I could have stashed him in, but they had rust everywhere. What if he got hurt climbing out? Instead, I found a newer forklift. It was muddy inside and out but safer looking than anything else we passed. “Just sit right here and don’t come out. I’ll be right back so keep your head down until then.”

I had to slip back around to the hole in the fence. I didn’t want someone as sly as Felice knowing I knew about another way out, even if he already knew it was there. I had to believe that someone who deals in the buying and selling of information already knew of such an obvious gap in security at his place of business. I returned to the front gate giving it a kick as I passed through to announce my entrance.

In the clearing just before the scrapyard building were three fellows. One, a grease monkey so dirty he had turned black all over. The other muscle was missing an arm but his remaining one made up for two extra and he was probably a Celt for all the red in his fuzz. Between them, a chubby man who needed no introduction. In his quintessential pinstriped vest and green eyes that knew the secrets of the world.

“Ace, I’ve been expecting you. Adeline said you had gone to visit her. You know, I can’t say I’m too pleased with you visiting my girl. But if whatever it is you found is really worth something then perhaps we can let it slide this one time.” Every step Felice took made his belly shake. He sat there, emerald eyes locked on me. He bit his nails as he seemed to be thinking about what exactly I might have found that brought me all the way down here. It was a repulsive habit but it didn’t make me shutter until he got to the second thumb on his left front. He had paws the size of a catcher’s mitt thanks in part to his two extra thumbs but they had to be one of the weirdest things I had seen even when just hanging there. So to watch him pull at his nail and to see it twist, I almost lost last night’s dinner.

“He doesn’t have it on him. Gus, go look around. See if he stashed whatever it was.” The Irish fellow with one arm gave a nod and started off to search. I moved to give chase, even if he was headed the wrong way I didn’t want them finding my kid. “Sorry, Ace. Business is business. And you’ve stuck your nose into mine one too many times.”

The gate behind me could be heard shaking. Bodies brushed up against it as they rushed in to fill the space behind me. The Watertown boys! They had knives out and were ready to rumble. I was drastically outnumbered; it was 10 to 1 if you counted the kid on my side too. All this fuss for seeing a looker on the hill while being guilty of the crime of not having a big house of my own? Well, if they were going to take me out then I was going out fighting.

Insults were the first punches thrown though most were so generic you would have thought they built them by assembly line. I prepared myself for the first scrapper as an echoing bang tore the air. There was no time to waste! Shots were fired, and the gang boys scattered but no one ran faster than that rat fink Felice. I spun in the direction the lead had been thrown from. It was my kid! It wasn’t a shot at all, the forklift was blowing black smoke and the kid sat inside waving. Oh, kid! He came through this time. I raced to the forklift before the others got the wiser about what actually happened.

“Come on, kid! Beat it. There’s no time!”

He jumped down after me, brushing a lever as he leapt. He landed beside me as the forklift started rolling towards Felice’s business shack. We didn’t stick around. It was just as we got back through the fence we heard the bending of metal and the breaking of wood. We didn’t stop running until we collapsed by the park gates.

That’s when I saw her and the kid did too. Her tears turned to smiles. His smile turned to tears. She scooped him up in a hug that could have healed the world.

“Good for you, kid.” My tail twitched in the shared joy of the moment.

He pointed a finger back to me. “Mommy, kitty!”