Whistle Pass by KevaD

Author:KevaD
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: gay, glbt, romance, m/m romance, dreamspinner press, Historical - American
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2012-02-13T16:55:06+00:00

HE’D kept the fleecing to a minimum. Four bucks—two for the beers he bought, and two for supper later on. Tom and the boys invited him back any Sunday morning he was in town for a shot at winning their money back.

Edgar sipped his whiskey and offered no acknowledgement when Charlie left Captain Tom’s. Unsure which way Edgar would lean when the chips were down, the old man remained an unknown in Charlie’s mind.

He rounded the corner from Chicago Avenue onto Fourth Street.

On the next block, across the street, stood two old three-story brick buildings. One housed a café—closed. The other, a secondhand shop—also closed. On the corner ahead of him, a yellowish concrete building with a flat roof sat like a building block out of place. The side facing him was a blank wall. The few houses in the area were all two- and three-story with peaked roofs and lattice. A cement box just didn’t fit in—more “get it up and screw the aesthetics” than anything else.

A solitary porcelain-on-metal Old Milwaukee sign dangled from a black iron support. Charlie guessed he’d found the Nugget.

He crossed the street to the next block littered with a dozen or so parked cars. Two windows too small to crawl through were nestled into the cement fronting about eight feet up from the sidewalk. A windowless gray steel door simply had “Nugget Club Members Only Knock for Entry” painted in gold lettering. He continued on to the next doorway in the structure. Same kind of gray steel door: “Archer’s Place Come On In.”

Charlie tried the door—locked. He shrugged. So much for the “Come on in” part.

He walked back to the Nugget and focused on the E in “Nugget.” A peephole.

A diesel locomotive revved its whirring engines. Charlie leaned back and looked down the street. An orange and black Milwaukee Railroad engine eased out of the roundhouse where the street met the multitude of tracks. Black smoke heavy with unburned diesel billowed, sank, and sloshed around the slow-turning wheels. The stench flowed through the neighborhood.

Charlie swiped at his nose and gazed up at the sign above his head—Old Milwaukee. He smirked at the irony. Somebody had a sense of humor. He banged on the door with a fist.

Locks turned and the door opened.

“Well, well,” Charlie said to Phil Austin. “I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

“Mayor’s expecting you.” Austin, clad in black slacks, white dress shirt, and black pencil tie glowered and nodded toward a closed metal door at the back of the room off the end of the immense bar.

Charlie scuffed the soles of his boots across the coarse concrete. The floor had been poured without much concern for professionalism. The bar, as long as the wall, minus the door at the end, was constructed of painted plywood and pine. Mirrors reflecting the varied colors of the contents of liquor bottles hung behind the shelves, but the mirrors were all beer and whiskey advertisements, not built-ins. Three sets of long-stemmed tap handles poked up from the counter.

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