Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 308 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER IX

TOMMY put his brush down and got ready to go out and eat lunch. He asked the other men if they felt ready to tie on the feed bag. The others were not yet hungry.

He left Charlus' and meandered aimlessly down the street. Aware that he was minus the following feet of Big Lip but of nothing else, he walked till he was brought back to reality by his stomach. He looked up and down the street and spied the Oyster Bar where Veronica and Cranston had eaten the day before.

He made his way to it.

Lamont Cranston too, was hungry. He wondered if eating oysters two days in

a row would be overdoing it. He pondered a moment and knowing that he was soon

to leave New Orleans he too made his way to the bar.

Tommy had a huge pile of oyster shells in front of him when he saw the welcome figure of Cranston enter, spot him and make his way to the empty seat next to Tommy.

They exchanged generalities for a bit, while Cranston made an impressive twin pile of shells.

Cranston was perceptive enough to realize that the boy was trying to make some kind of decision. It was a hard one to make, for Tommy was balancing his trust in Cranston against the menace to his mother. At last he said all in a burst, practically in one breath, "I have to trust in your discretion. There's something going on that I am helpless to combat. Will you help me?"

Looking around the place first, Cranston saw that there was no one within ear shot. The bartender was away at the other end of the bar, passing the time of day with some customers.

"Go ahead."

Eyes unfocussed, Tommy stared at some lettering on the window. It read, not very understandably, "raB retsyO". He paid no attention to it, as a matter of fact, he didn't really see it at all. He got his thoughts in order and then told Cranston everything he could remember, starting on the wharf where he had seen the advertisement and carrying right up to that strange and somehow terrible figure with the too-white face.

It all added up with Cranston's prior knowledge. The business about Big Lip and Esperanza came into clearer focus. Then, and it quite killed all his remaining appetite, he thought of the person whom Tommy had dubbed Slim. A figure of nightmare horror to the boy, it was worse for Cranston. For he thought he knew who that ominous 'other' was. He was almost sorry that he did.

Paying the bill, Cranston watched Tommy. The lad was now looking at the reversed lettering on the window. It set up some kind of thought pattern. He shook his head in annoyance. It was nagging. He could not pull the thought out of the maze of his mind.

He knew that somewhere, sometime, there was a clue... and he was missing it. What could be the connection between 'raB retsyO', Oyster Bar and whatever it was that was tickling at his memory?

He shrugged, giving it up for a while, and followed Cranston out.

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