Blue Skies by Tamara Allen

Author:Tamara Allen [Allen, Tamara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Victor had lived up to his promise to protect the house. It was locked tight. Frustrated after the long, tiring walk, Joe briefly debated smashing a window to get in. He didn’t want to sleep in the place. It gave him the creeps. Still, it was better than sleeping on the sidewalk.

Problem was, he’d most likely end up sleeping in jail. After walking away from Victor’s, he’d felt momentary relief that he wasn’t already stuck behind bars. Then it occurred to him Victor hadn’t had him arrested probably because explaining the situation to the police would have been too humiliating. But Victor had been looking for any reason to disbelieve, and Joe had stupidly handed one right over.

Along the Bowery in his own time were seedy shelters that had, he knew, existed as far back as the nineteenth century. But just where they were, he hadn’t the first idea. Saloons and restaurants poured enough light into the street to nearly simulate daylight, and the girders of the elevated track boxed the whole thing in like some sort of open-air mall in industrial grunge chic. A crowd as rough around the edges choked the entire breadth of the sidewalk, but even from the road, the tantalizing odor of roasting meat reached him. He had to get some dinner, but he didn’t suppose he’d find a pawnshop still open. Barter might get him a cheap meal, but first he had to make sure he had anything worth trading.

The one thing he had that would get him a little cash was the sterling silver card case his dad had given him after graduation. He’d seldom carried cards in it. Even now, he recalled, it was filled with gum. Other than the card case and a wallet full of useless bills and credit cards, he had a gold-plated tie clip and Susan’s old key. He also had her handbag, which was most likely a trove of worthless, sentimental junk. If he sorted through it for things to pawn, she wouldn’t be too thrilled. But he couldn’t help her out of her mess if he stayed trapped in one, himself.

Finding an empty table in one of the less crowded saloons, he went through his own pockets first, then began a methodical search through the handbag. Beneath a wallet stuffed with more photographs than credit cards, a dead cell phone, a dozen pens and a four-year-old day planner, peanut butter crackers, and—predictably—a grubby old doorknob, he uncovered an amethyst bracelet and a handful of coins so ancient, his heart rose. Susan’s penchant for the past was going to provide him bed and board. For tonight, anyway.

After making short work of beer, potatoes, and sausage, he splurged on a twenty-five-cent room above the saloon and, locking himself in, tried to sleep. It became an exercise in futility as he continually woke, to lie mesmerized by the laughter and chatter from downstairs, upstairs, the street... From every damned direction. In the early hours, exhaustion won out and he didn’t wake again till nearly noon.

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