Hank Jeffers had an appointment to keep at the
Round-up; he made it there well before the rain began to soak St. Anthony. He arrived
early thinking he might do a little business and take a few bets for his partner
before meeting the tall-blonde, green-eyed lady who had become the biggest-brightest
star of his life.
The dame’s name was Angela Guthrie and she was
the loveliest person to enter Hank’s dreary little world for the better part of
a decade...maybe ever.
It wasn’t in Hank’s character to complain
about the hand he had been dealt; Who’d listen? He would say if someone
asked him, and the answer was always the same…no one, nobody cared.
Hank was a few inches shy of four feet tall.
He was quick-witted and insightful.
His parents had made sure that he had a good
education; they ensured it by sending him away to boarding school, which had
the advantage of keeping him away from them and their other—normal children, They
exiled the dwarf from their society, and they were glad to do it, on account of
the fact that they were embarrassed by their first son, who had been born
malformed.
Hank
was fourteen years old the last time he saw them, when he waved goodbye to
their backs after they put him on the train to Fairbault, when they sent him to
the Preparatory School at Shattuck-Saint Mary’s.
They never invited him back home for the
holidays. They never wrote or returned his letters. They had left a couple of
hundred dollars on account for him when he graduated, along with a message
asking him to find his own way in the world, wishing him well and absolving
themselves of responsibility for him, at the same time that they instructed him
to never come home.
It broke the dwarf’s heart, but he had seen it
coming; he was bow on his own, formally disinherited and alone. He had brothers
and sisters he would never get to know. They would have children who would
never know him…they would not know that he even existed. They wouldn’t even
wonder about him or know to say a prayer for him. It would be up to him to pray
for them, which he did from time to time.
Hank
wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, not then, not ever, so he turned away from
his past and moved on.
Things could have been worse, he would tell himself. They might have sold
him to the circus…he knew that happened.
The priests at Shattuck encouraged him to
enter a monastery, to join up with the Church, but he didn’t see much happiness
in that way of life, and he had a hunger for adventure.
Hank wanted to see the world, and as it turned
out, he made his way just fine.
While he waited for Angela to join him, he
talked to a few fellas’ and took a couple of bets, then he sat at a table by
himself in the corner where he watched the room fill up with boys from the Saint
Thomas ROTC.
The squad had come all the way down Lake
Street to lift a few pints and ogle the working girls, they were neatly dressed
in their uniforms, and they didn’t give a second thought to the rain.
When Hank saw Karl Thorrson, come into the
Round-Up he was surprised and he quickly became nervous.
The giant had taken over all the rackets on
Lake Street, including the numbers racket that Hank was operating without
permission, which could mean trouble for him if he wasn’t careful.
The gal he was waiting for worked for his
business partner, the singer Ingrid Magnusson, she worked at their reading room
and collectibles shop just a few blocks west on Lake Street; it had Thorrson’s name painted on the glass.
Hank and Angela had been looking for a way to
get an angle on the gargantuan-gangster, and seeing him come into the bar while
he was waiting for her, caused Hank to imagine something bad had happened to
her, and something worse was about to happen to him. But it wasn’t long before
Angela came through the door, every head turning in her direction as she did; she
was a stunning beauty who looked completely out of place in the tavern…out of
place but not ill at ease. She handed Thorrson a journal of some kind and a
small, metal-money box.
Thorrson’s slipped them into his pockets as if
they were no bigger than a child’s playthings. Then he dismissed her with a
glance.
Angela spotted Hank sitting by himself in the
corner. She quietly walked across the room and sat down with him at his table.
Thorrson didn’t even pay any attention to her
after that. She was nothing to him, just a servant and seeing that settled Hank’s
nerves…few people gave him a second look either, and he understood what that
meant.
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