Lights and people moving about is what I first saw and with an immense sense of relief, I ran in the door. Heat. Glorious heat, and right off it hit me in my face, and then I felt it all over the front of my body, and right then I made a silent resolution. No way in hell would I ever be cold again.
I remember seeing an oversized checkout counter right in the center of the store by the entrance door, and the rest of the store was clothes. Racks of them, and then alongside the sides of the building, they had a bunch of shelves, with every home convenience item you could think of stacked on them,
I headed for the coat racks and the first one that coat my eye sort of startled me. A “P” jacket. Holy smoke. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but it was true. I had found an old Navy P jacket, one of the best darn coats ever made.
My luck was turning, Bad days gone. Things were getting good. I took the jacket off the rack and went to the counter. The price tag on the coat said seven dollars, so I handed the money to the girl at the counter, put on the jacket, and once again stepped bravely into the wind. That’s all I can remember with any clarity.
The first pain I felt was just a blur of motion right in my face, and that’s it. The next thing I remember is a woman’s voice. She was talking to another woman and telling her they’d wait to clean me until after the doctor saw me, and maybe I got the idea that they were talking about me, or, maybe I just imagined it, and then I must have drifted back to wherever I had been.
Later, I think I may have heard more voices, but that’s still kind of hazy. It was the next day when I knew for certain I was in a hospital, and shortly thereafter, when I found out I’d had my ass kicked. Naw, that ain’t right. It wasn’t a fight because I’d surely remember it. It was an assault. I’d been assaulted by persons unknown, and it was just about that time that I noticed the cop sitting in a chair over in the corner. Was he here to arrest me again?
There was something else too, but I didn’t notice it right away. The window was open. Huh. End of January in Ohio and these hicks want fresh air.
Chapter 8
Later the next day, I think. I found out about the window. The air coming through it was warm. And the nurse, Sharon, pretty girl.
She said it was April!
There was no doubt about it. Someone had messed me up. But over the next couple days after talking to the doctor and the nurses, I learned that they broke no bones except my nose and the doc said it might end up a little out of line, but that didn’t bother me. Broken arms or legs now, that would have been a pure disaster.
Spending months in a hospital bed just wasn’t part of my plans, and yet, that’s exactly what I had done.
Over two months of my life were a blank. February, and March, were gone, and I’d have to wait another year to see them again. And the cop. Heck, he just wanted me to tell him who hit me. Big joke, but at least he didn’t take me up in front of the mayor again.
It might have been the second day of my stay in the hospital that I had a visitor. Businessman type. Suit, glasses and a hat, and he looked expensive. Maybe his rags were tailor made but no roustabout knows anything about tailor-made clothes.
All I could do was guess, but like I mentioned before. I was a stranger in this town, and because of my reception by both the barroom fighters, and the jailhouse stranglers, I think maybe I had become somewhat hyper about meeting strangers.
“My name is Phil Richards,” he started out, and he didn’t bother to stick out his hand. “I’ve come here to offer you a job, and to help you get revenge.”
I said nothing, just sort of raised my eyebrows, but I sure as heck was listening.
“I own a saloon, actually a nite club, It’s called the Grotto, and I got a problem I think you can take care of for me. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a day.”
Well, that messed up my thinking. A hundred bucks. What the hell was he talking about? Was he for real? He was staring right at me. He definitely wasn’t one of those guys that flash their eyes all around the room when they talk, and he didn’t focus his gaze on my nose. He looked me right smack dead in the eye.
“You know who you’re talking to,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re Jake Bonner and you’ve done more ass kicking in one day, than anybody has ever done in this town, and you got some people so scared of you, they’re doing back flips”
“Maybe you got some inside information?”
“Pete Carpenter. Damn good cop. Been around for years. He says you’re for real.”
My head was blank for just a second, and then it came to me. That cop who pulled me out of the cell by the scruff of my neck and set me down at the table with the other prisoners. Old Charlie called him Pete.
“So?”
“So Pete doesn’t make mistakes. He says you’re a badass. Then you’re a badass. But... he says you’re a guy that doesn’t look for trouble. Seems like he looked you up, and some folks have contributed some good information to your records. You come up smelling decent.”
“So again, uh why you think you want to pay me a C note every day.”
“‘Cause I didn’t call Pete. He called me, and that’s because he knows my situation.”
“Which is?”
“Trouble. It gets kind of involved, but what it boils down to is some people that work for Wiemar Marcello, the owner of the casino, are systematically wrecking my club. Every week Abe Roster and his buddies come in and start a fight. Customers panic, and go somewhere else to buy their girls beer, and it will put me out of business.
What I want you to do is lead some guys that I will hire, to kick their freaken asses the next time they come to break up my club.”
“You sound darn good, mister. Nobody has ever offered me a hundred bucks for fighting. It’s an interesting proposition.”
“All you got to do is say yes. Hell, I’ll even pay your hospital bill. I know for damn sure that Abe Roster won’t do it.”
“Is Abe the one that got me?”
“I’m just making an educated guess. People down at the Goodwill store said there was three of them.”
“Mr. Richards,” I said. “You got me interested. I want to think about it. You can see that right now I’m in no shape to work. But if I accept the job, I’ll let you know as soon as I get out of here.”
“Good enough. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. But I feel the need to mention one last thing. Marcello and everybody else thought you’d probably die. No one really thought you’d wake up. Now, the guys that were feeling safe, are not feeling like that anymore.”
I watched him go out the door. Straight shooter. No doubt about it. He was embarrassed, offering me that hundred bucks. To him, it was like doing something illegal. He was just a businessman, up against something he couldn’t handle. He just wanted to build a shock troop to save his business, I would think about it. I had the time.
It took them a few days to get around to it, but I knew it had to happen. Two months of lying on your butt does something to your legs. They just stopped working. The physical therapy wasn’t all that bad. I didn’t have any leg injuries. They were just lazy, so I had to teach them how to walk again. We did it all on a long plywood platform. The thing was about four foot wide and had a wooden rail on both sides.
The training system consisted of making the legs move in the proper manner, learning how to balance my body. It took me three weeks, and then one day Sharon, my nurse, told me that a man had come by to