The Walkaway by Scott Phillips Read Free Book Online Page A

twelve thousand dollars, but when he’d tried to pay it back Gunther actually denied having given it to him in the first place. He thought about that for a minute, then picked up the phone and dialed Mitch’s number.
    “Cherkas residence, Mrs. Mitchell Cherkas speaking.”
    “Francie, I need to talk to Mitch.”
    “Hi, Sidney. Just a sec.”
    While he waited Sidney scribbled on a sheet of scratch paper. He had doodled an entire dog by the time Mitch got to the phone. “Hello? Sidney?”
    “Mitch. I need six grand right now.”
    “Six grand ? From me ?”
    “I’m gonna put up a reward for Gunther, goose people a little. Six each.”
    “In cash ?”
    “We owe him and you know it. I want twelve grand in the bank tomorrow.”
    “Can I send you a check?”
    “Bring it in person.”
    Sidney hung up on him and started going through the Rolodex again. He was up to Trusty Bail Bonds and the Rolodex was twenty cards lighter when the phone rang.
    “McCallum Theatrical Enterprises. Sidney speaking.”
    “Daddy? I called Moomaw and she said Gunther ran away?”
    “Hey. Amy. I’m glad you called. What’s Ginger’s last name?”
    “It’s Fox.”
    He thumbed his way backward. “Fox. Got it. Thanks, honey. I gotta call her now, she doesn’t know about this yet.”
    “Call me when you know something, okay?” she asked, disappointed, and he felt guilty for rushing her off the phone. His eagerness to get hold of Gunther’s daughters was only part of it; Amy was in college in Wyoming majoring in Women’s Studies, and their conversations tended lately to center on the exploitative economics of his business. The last time it had come up he’d testily reminded her that nude dancing, whether she approved of it or not, was paying for her courses in GynEconomics and Herstory, and of course he felt like an asshole the moment he said it. The worst part was that she’d halfway convinced him she was right.
    “Don’t worry, he’s gonna be fine.” He hung up and dialed Ginger Fox’s number. What a great name for a stripper, he thought, and the mental image of sturdy, short, serious Ginger onstage and stripping brought forth a laugh and a small shudder. On the fourth ring a machine picked up.
    “This is Sidney McCallum calling. We have kind of an emergency here. Call any time, as soon as you get this.” He left his number and decided it was best not to get more specific. He hoped he could get Ginger to call her more volatile sister Trudy with the news. Both sisters loved the old man to excess, just like the grandchildren did, both Gunther’s own and Dot’s, and like Dot for that matter. How, he wondered as he locked the office up for the night, did a man as tight-lipped and glum as Gunther inspire so much devotion from women and children?
    The main room at Ruby’s was an atrium overlooked on all four sides by offices on the third and fourth floors of the former Hammerschmidt hotel downtown. The building dated back to the 1870s, and it was believed that its original owner lay beneath the cement floor of the basement, murdered by his very young second wife and her lover in 1887, shortly before the start of the renovations that occasioned the laying of the new floor. Even on slow nights the room’s acoustics made everything loud, and Eric Gandy had to raise his voice to be heard over the easy listening pseudojazz as well as over all the other voices trying to be heard. It was a few minutes before ten o’clock and Eric was flirting with a woman fifteen years his junior, a reporter from one of the local TV stations. She hadn’t invited him to sit down yet, but she had allowed him to buy her a vodka tonic, and a Stoly at that.
    “You know, Lucy, we ought to pull on out of here and head over to the Brass Candle and get some prime rib.”
    “You’re married, aren’t you, Eric?” she asked, though she didn’t sound as if the answer meant much to her one way or the other.
    “It’s just dinner.”
    “I have a basket of