Your Poetry Dot Com

Yes, we were being followed. I had noticed him earlier at the cigarette booth buying a package of cigarettes in the Jergins building . He wore a porkpie hat with a brown colored band. His suit was brown wool, much too hot for August. Now he had come into Sue Ling’s place and had taken a corner booth across the room.
I took my eyes off him and played them on the different Chinese prints on the walls. They were of Chinese ladies in flowing Chinese garments, each with Chinese writing on them. Some prints were of song birds, one of a peacock with full expanded shimmering iridescent tail feathers. The rug was a piece of worn faded multi-colored day lilies. Jean spoke with a cute smile.
“I’m hungry. Let’s get something else to eat besides the chop suey. She read the menu. “ I’d like almond duck, sweet and sour pork, egg rolls and hot tea.”
“I think they’ve got that here.”
In a puzzled voice she continued, “Why do you keep looking at that guy in the corner booth. Do you know him?”
“No, but he’s been following us since we left the Jerkin’s Building.”
“ From the mob?”
“ I don’t think so, not dressed well enough. If he keeps it up, I’ll brace him.”
She unwrapped the dragon box, opening and closing the lid, looking at its construction.
“ You buy me the craziest things, Big Al. What am I suppose to do with this.”
“Put your bobypins in it, put your used gum wrappers in it. I don’t know. I thought it was nice and you’d like it. If you don’t I’ll take it back.”
“ Don’t get all in a huff. I’ll keep it. It’ll look nice on my vanity table. I’ll put the hundred dollar bills in it you always give me.”
That remark drew a laugh out of me. “ Baby, if I ever give you a hundred dollar bill it won’t be because you dust the Mission furniture.”
Our eyes held. She looked away. “ It’s never happened and I don’t think it will. You’re too careful.”
“Maybe, but as they say, never say never.”
She went back to opening and closing the lid.
After a time, the Chinese waitress came and took our order. When it came, I tried to use the chop sticks. Never could master the use of chop sticks and there was no sense in even trying. I used a fork. I poured her a cup of tea. She ate with a fork too. In a half an hour we left. The guy with the porkpie hat didn’t look up but just continued chewing on an egg roll.
The next day I got a call from Ming Lou.
“I’ve found the chair you wanted.”
“Where?”
At Ding How’s Emporium on Mott Street in New York City’s China town. It’s expensive, two hundred and fifty dollars plus shipping costs.”
“ I’ll send a check today. Have them deliver it to my office in the Jergin’s Building.”
“ Okay. Maybe you’ll get it next week. Maybe latter. I don’t know.”
“ That’s soon enough. There’s no big rush. Thanks for your trouble. I’ll take care of you after I get the chair.”
“ I made a lot of calls.”
“Whatever. Thanks again.” I hung up.
Thirty minutes later I got another call.
“ I got a shoebox for you, Berger.”
It was Lupota.
“Where and when?”
“ Be at the Union station at three o’clock today. I’ll be standing on the steps of the train concourse.”
“ I’ll be there.”
The phone went dead.
I called Forsyth and told him he could have his chair in a week. The cost didn’t rock him. At two thirty I got in the Buick and drove over to the Union Station at West Adams and South Canal Streets on the Westside of the Chicago River. The Union Station served the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Burlington Rout, the Alton Railroad and the Milwaukee road carrying passengers from cost to coast and to other cities throughout the Midwest. It was beaux-arts architecture,
I parked the Buick and walked over to the station entering the main concourse under a ninety-foot-high, skylighted ceiling. It was pushing three o’clock when I saw Lupota standing on a step of the train concourse with the shoebox under an arm. Madaly was nearby smoking a cigarette. I walked up to Lupota. He spoke a fast couple of words.
“ It is your lucky day, Berger.” He handed me the box and gave Madaly a head nod. Both mobsters walked away fast. With ten thousand dollars in my hands, I got out of there fast too.
Not until I was in my office did I pull the thick rubber band off the box and look inside. Stacks of thousand dollar bills with pictures of Cleveland stared up at me. I opened the iron safe standing solid against a near wall and put the shoebox in. I shut the heavy door and spun the dial to lock the combination. I needed to talk with the Bernstein brothers and get that booze in motion.

This poem is Copyright ยฉ ramfire