Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (top 50 books to read .TXT) 📕

but a short walk down Olympic to the Santa Monica pier. He wasn’t expected at work until four o’clock to get ready for the evening show, but he wasn’t worrying about being late. Not on this day. Not ever again.

He’d already been to the Providence, discreetly gone out twice to check on Eddie’s routine, to reconnoiter. Eddie was always out there Sundays—why wouldn’t he be since he never set foot in church? He went to pick up the proceeds from Friday and Saturday and stayed until late afternoon, usually having a few drinks with customers. Eddie knew time was running out on the Providence. Legally, the ship was beyond the three-mile state jurisdiction and untouchable, but with the war the nation was discovering virtue again. Even someone as crooked as District Attorney Barton Pitts couldn’t hold out forever against public disgust.

Arriving at the pier, Henry kept on walking, past the fishmongers and restaurants, past the Sunday fishermen with their lines in the water. Santa Monica Pier was like Redondo, a quiet sea promenade of line-fishers and strollers, not at all like the noisy carnival piers of Venice and Ocean Park. Henry enjoyed the clear day and fine-looking people, some looking like they’d come straight from church. A few of them nodded politely, which pleased him. He’d long observed that Sundays did that to people. He watched a fisherman haul in what looked like a bass. Henry’s mind was on the fine day and his good mood. He was not thinking at all about the task at hand. At the sign marked “PROVIDENCE,” he slipped quietly into the line for tickets.

Dressed in his trail clothes he stood out but didn’t mind the stares. On the trail no one dares stare, and city stares didn’t mean a thing to him. The people in the line were different from those walking the pier—noisier, edgier, no prams, no children, more men than women, though mostly older men like him. It took a few minutes to get down to the ticket office. The girl stared a moment but said nothing. She’d learned that cheap clothes didn’t always mean empty pockets. He slid her a quarter, the cost of the launch. A gangway rocking gently with the waves led to the launch at the bottom.

Leaving a nice wake behind, the boat did three miles in under ten minutes, and people poured quickly out of it, up the gangway and onto the ship like rushing for seats at a football game. Boarding, you heard the clanging of slots and calls from the tables. It was early afternoon, and those looking for fortification pushed their way toward the bar and dining room on the first deck. Better to dine and drink while you still had money to do it. In the old days, he would have gone to the bar himself, but Henry was sober.

Glancing around the crowded main salon, checking the closed door to Eddie’s office beyond the gaming area, he planted himself in a chair on the opposite side of the room, near a cashier’s booth, where he had a view across the room to Eddie’s office. There weren’t many chairs because you didn’t come to the gambling salons to sit unless there was a game in front of you. Beside him was a table with a box on it. He read the inscription on the brass plaque: “JUST A FEW DOLLARS OF YOUR WINNINGS WILL FEED AND HOUSE A POOR FAMILY FOR A WEEK.”

He knew that box. It was the evil box, the snake box, the cursed box that had sent Willie to his knees in the chapel crying “penance, penance,” the box that held the filthy lucre that ate at Willie’s conscience, that bribed him to silence, that drove him away and got him killed.

Henry sat by the box and watched the people, his eyes never straying far from the door across the room. At some point, Eddie would come out with his bodyguard, cross the room toward the cashier’s office with the intent of carrying the alms box into the room behind the cashier, collecting the money, filling his bags, and making his way down to the launch and back to Santa Monica to get ready for Monday deposits at his bank.

It was the routine Henry had observed on his previous visits to the Providence, though never from this chair where Eddie would have spotted him. He didn’t mind being spotted today. Every step was clear in his mind. Eddie would cross the room greeting people, would not see Henry until he was upon him, and Henry would kill him. He would not kill the bodyguard. The bodyguard would kill him. It was clear in his mind, the way it had to be. He watched people come and go to the cashier, a few of them dropping something in the alms box. Some glanced or nodded, but most didn’t even notice him, just part of the décor. The ones coming to the cashier were mostly in a good mood. The ones in a bad mood didn’t need a cashier.

The day grew later, and still Eddie did not appear. Henry patted his coat pocket and ran his hand over the smooth Remington Derringer, the twin barrels loaded, the safety catch on. It was a deadly pistol, but only at close range. Shoot someone in the heart from five feet and they were dead before they hit the ground. Shoot them in the hand, and they would never use that hand again. Two bullets would do the job. He’d brought no extras.

Time passed slowly. He checked his watch, which said three o’clock. He’d been on the ship nearly two hours. If Eddie was on the ship, there would be some sign of him by now. Henry hadn’t been thinking about the temple. Why would he in the circumstances? But if Eddie wasn’t coming it was a different story. It took time to get to Echo Park from Santa Monica, even on the Short