Jimmy the Stick by Michael Mayo Read Free Book Online Page B

stamp on the side. I held the gun closer to the light and realized that Spence had bought the piece at Abercrombie & Fitch. Well, hell, I guess he could afford the best, and even if the Mauser wasn’t my first choice, it would do until I found something I was more familiar with. I slipped it into my coat pocket.
    Then I picked up my everyday stick, checked the room one more time, and went out to find something to eat.
    The stairs leading to the first floor were wide and easy. The servants’ stairs at the far end of the hall were narrow, dim, and steep. I held on to the railing with my right hand, and took them carefully one at a time, leading with my right leg, the cane held in my left hand: “Good foot goes to heaven, bad foot goes to hell.” That was the way Dr. Ricardo put it. “Stairs are easy if you do ’em right,” he’d said, “but your right knee will never work the way it used to. The muscles will become stronger and support you most of the time. If you twist or put too much weight on that bad knee, it’ll fold underneath you. So keep the cane on the same step with your right foot. When you have to support your weight on a bent knee, make sure it’s your left. And when you’re going upstairs, lead with your left, your good foot. Good foot goes to heaven, get it? Going downstairs is actually harder so you gotta be real careful. Bad foot goes to hell.”
    The doctor may have been a hophead but he was also right. And so Fast Jimmy Quinn, who’d been the quickest kid in the city, was reduced to going down stairs one step at a time. Thinking of Ricardo brought back the bad times and made me angry for feeling sorry for myself. That was pointless, and I thought I was done with it.
    The stairs ended at a hall with the walls painted white. I could see and smell a kitchen at one end, and it made my mouth water, I was so hungry. It was a wide, warm room with a big rectangular table and half a dozen chairs in the middle.
    A wiry, gray-haired woman banged pots at a stove and muttered to herself. Next to her stood an open pantry, a tall refrigerator, and a set of shelves stacked high with boxes and jars of baby food. It looked like there were a dozen different kinds.
    Oh Boy sat at the table, hands warming around a mug of creamy coffee. The duffer who’d been guarding the library had a bottle of dago red and a half full glass in front of him. What was his name? Mears. And the wiry woman had to be the cook.
    She turned around and nailed me with a gimlet glare.
    Oh Boy stood, scraping his chair back. “Mrs. Conway, this is the guy I was telling you about, my pal Jimmy.”
    She sniffed. “The gunman.” I guessed she was suspicious of anyone who came to Valley Green from the wicked city.
    But I make it a rule to always stay on good terms with the cook.
    I walked around the table and extended my hand. “I suppose you’re right. I am a gunman, Mrs. Conway. That’s what Spence thinks he needs right now. But I’m not a gangster. I’m just here to help an old friend. Do you think I could get something to eat, a sandwich maybe, and a thimble of Mr. Mears’s wine?”
    She sniffed again but I sensed a thaw. “Of course. Any guest in this house will have the full hospitality of the kitchen. Mears!” The old gent’s head snapped up. “Another glass, if you please. We’ve some mutton left over that will do nicely.”
    The wine wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
    She sliced and buttered two pieces of bread and warmed them on the oven while she carved slices from a roast on the counter. As she worked, a dark-haired girl came in through a second doorway, pushing a cart full of dirty dishes and leftovers of what looked to be the same mutton.
    â€œConstance,” Oh Boy said, “this is my friend Jimmy Quinn.”
    She had glossy black hair, skin that was about the color of Oh Boy’s light coffee, and a