Missy by Chris Hannan

Author:Chris Hannan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2008-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

THE SMELL OF GUNFIRE blew in through the smashed windows and about twelve policemen piled into the saloon, yelling at everyone to put their hands up. The kids were as surprised as anyone. They had ducked to shelter themselves from the bullets and the glass; next thing they knew, the cops were sticking pistols in their faces and putting bracelets on them. Only the diseased kid got away; he ran downstairs and out the back. This all happened in a matter of seconds; then Duffield walked in, coat loose around his shoulders, as though we’d gone and spoiled his night at the opera.

He was a little mellow. He whirled off his coat, flung it over the back of a chair, and sat down. “Gen’lemen; these officers are middle-aged, underpaid, and married. Don’t try their patience.”

The boys stared at him, shocked and cut. One man was dripping blood from his face onto the floor, but they all waited patiently while the cops corralled the kids into the hurry-up wagon. Then Duffield told them to clear the bar and the glass-spittled boys went outside, wiping themselves with handkerchiefs.

Pontius was still tied to the chair with Alec Jewell’s underpants over his face. Duffield took no notice of him. He told his cops to search the rooms downstairs; he had information the bundle was under one of the girls’ beds, he said. They found it in a minute. One carried the crate and six of them surrounded it, guns drawn, like it was a stagecoach treasure box; they huddled it onto the police wagon, came back for Pontius. Throughout the proceedings Duffield didn’t look at me once; he wore his police-chief face right along.

Downstairs in our room Ness and I didn’t say much. My bed had been pulled about when the cops frisked the place. There were bandboxes and shoes lying about just any old how, as though anything that was worth anything had been taken away, and I got a silly tear in my eye. I missed the opium something awful; I had to remind myself it was in a safer place. I didn’t say anything to Ness about my hopes; I wanted to wait till it was a sure thing. Instead I asked how her meet with Dig Squiers went. Good, she said. She wouldn’t be drawn, but the mention of his name was enough to put some deep color into her skin, like they’d given each other some pretty solemn assurances.

Seeing the Empress was closed, it was arranged we could drop into the Delta next door to pull some jobs, and jesus, it was something. The walls were sweating, the band was reckless, the boys were at the jumping-off place, and Sally Clocker was out of her mind and pretty near out of her bodice. I said she was a sweet girl and we all loved her heaps; I said the gents must be fascinated by her endearing young charms without she exhibited them in full. All the time I was jollying her, I could see Ness working a handsome silver-haired gent.

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