Read Online One On The House by Mary Lasswell - Free Book Online Page B

Diego waitin’ for Mr. Feeley, Danny?” She dragged the red herring forcefully under his nose.
    “Are you or are you not going to answer my question?”
    “I was sittin’ there, real dressed-up, havin’ me a beer an’ a feller comes cruisin’ up, strictly on the make, I could see, an’ when he gets up close to me an’ sees I’m kinda old, he says real snide: ‘Excuse me, lady! I thought you was my mother.’ I give him the ol’ one-two with my eye an’ says: ‘Oh no, mister! I’m married!’”
    Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham roared.
    “You never told us that one,” Katy said.
    “Many a dance in the ol’ dame yet! Ain’t that what the cat said. Miss Tinkham?” Mrs. Feeley handed her the torch.
    “Dear Mehitabel…‘It’s cheerio, my dearie-o, that sees a lady through!’”
    “Just get your pocketbook, Mrs. Rasmussen,” Mrs. Feeley said. “We’ll just nip round the corner an’ be right back.” She hustled her two friends out of the room.
    “We can’t afford even a nickel,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered. “An’ we got all the beer we want here…free! What’s the use o’ goin’ out?”
    “He’s wise!” Mrs. Feeley whispered, wagging a finger towards the living room. “We gotta go out an’ phone the station an’ find out what train goes to San Diego! Don’t make no difference where we gotta get off: that’s the train we gotta get ON!”
    “That’s right,” Mrs. Rasmussen admitted. “Right in front of ’em!”
    “Stupid of me,” Miss Tinkham murmured. “Those half-hour trains must be locals.”
    “Reckon we better take Ol’-Timer? Just in case he might sing while we’re out?”
    Mrs. Feeley shook her head.
    “It’d look suspicious. Besides, he don’t never say nothin’ nohow!”
    “We’ll be right back, soon as we say good-bye to these folks.” Mrs. Feeley bustled towards the front door, herding the other two. Out in the street they looked around for a pay phone.
    “We don’t dast go in no bar to phone,” Mrs. Rasmussen warned.
    Mrs. Feeley looked around and spied a Bell sign.
    “There’s a Liggett’s! That’ll be fine: they ain’t got nothin’ we’d want!”
    Miss Tinkham came out of the booth, nodding with satisfaction. “It does leave at three; gets to Chicago around noon the next day and joins The Chief that leaves at midnight.”
    “We ain’t goin’ to Chicago!”
    “We’ll simply have to find some way of getting off at Newark!” Miss Tinkham said. “I shall think of a way when the time comes.”
    “Guess we better walk round the block a coupla times before we go back,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’d look like we got it over in a awful hurry.”
    “I’ve been thinking,” Miss Tinkham said. “There seems to be no way to prevent them from seeing us off at the train. We must, in that case, delay going to the train till the last possible minute!”
    “Won’t get no seats,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.
    “It’s not quite a fifteen-minute ride,” Miss Tinkham said. “Standing up would almost be a pleasure. The reason for the delay is that during the last-minute rush we might not be required to show our tickets to get through the gates. Katy and Danny could easily see what short tickets we had if we had to show them to the conductor at the gate.”
    “You sure got that down to a pat!” Mrs. Feeley said admiringly.
    “Education is a burden that’s lightly carried.”
    “We gotta stall an’ stall,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “They sell beer at the station?”
    “We’ll find out tomorrow.”

Chapter 9
     
    W EDNESDAY AFTERNOON D ANNY CAME HOME at one o’clock to have plenty of time to see the ladies off. Mrs. Feeley’s heart sank when she saw him.
    “This is gonna take some doin’!” she whispered.
    Miss Tinkham nodded and set Aphrodite up on the sofa. She ripped off the wrapping she had just put on and started to repack the statue. She was exasperatingly painstaking about it.
    “Miss Tinkham, you’ll have to hurry!” Danny said.