Here: a Robert Falconer Mystery by Sean Moynihan

Author:Sean Moynihan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-03-25T15:58:00+00:00

47

Penwill sat quietly in a corner of the squalid saloon on 30th Street and looked over at the harried barmaid running from table to table. She was gaunt and hollow-eyed, and she had the look of a desperate opium-eater being enveloped by the dirty streets around her.

Probably under the heel of the bastard that runs the place—selling herself for the quick fix when not running around handing out pints to everyone.

He watched her saunter up to the end of the bar holding a round tray and set it down, uttering something to the sullen bartender, who then reached under the bar for a couple of wet glasses and poured out the ales. The girl took the drinks and flitted away over to a table encircled by a group of unsavory-looking card players.

Penwill glanced around the room from his position over in the corner. The place was a cheap, sodden beer joint, like so many others in the Tenderloin, and the girl was running back and forth between the tables and the bar, obviously dealing with innumerable vile comments and entreaties. Over at the front entrance stood the doorman, who, too, looked like a simpleton with a couple of strong, meaty hands that would be useful for knocking heads about. Then, behind the bar, the bartender morosely divvied out the alcohol and the dinner fare that wasn’t even passable in these parts.

But Penwill could tell that they weren’t the only strong-arm types employed by the still-unseen man who ran the place: several other large louts were also loitering about the place, quietly scanning the tables for any miscreants who were acting out, or were sitting together over in another corner, probably conniving to increase the owner’s personal wealth—and thus, their own—through various scams and shake-downs.

Penwill looked again at the young barmaid: she had just dropped off the glasses of ale at the table of rude card players and she turned, as if to take a survey of the other tables in the room, looking for any empty glasses that needed filling or plates that needed removing. None of the people in the beat-up old saloon took notice of her as she stood in the middle of the room doing this, none save the inspector, who quietly sipped his beer, away from the multitude of loudmouths and braggarts slowly squandering what little money they possessed.

He leaned back in his chair with his bowler tipped slightly down over his brow, hiding his eyes somewhat. For the past twenty minutes, he had been silently observing the girl very closely—studying her, in fact—and also taking care to notice which other men she would consort with in her nightly duties in the noisy, smoke-filled room. As she went about the area, bringing glasses of ale to the customers or wiping clean a table that had been recently abandoned, Penwill kept filing away little mental notes in his mind, notes to relate to his friends at a scheduled meeting over the coming weekend.

Yes, that is definitely her, he first noted, gazing surreptitiously upon the girl as she headed to the bar.

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