Read Up in Honey's Room for Free Online Page B

Carl acting head of the office. He raised hell saying he’d never had a desk job and never would.The marshals office in Washington said okay, they’d look around and find someone to take his place. He told me, if we don’t have Jurgen by the time his replacement arrives, he’s definitely coming.” Kevin looked at Honey. He loved looking at her profile. She had a cute nose like the girls in the Jantzen swimming suit ads. She didn’t act like she knew she was a knockout, but he would bet she did and knew how to use her looks without letting on too much.
    â€œYou want to meet him if he comes?”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind,” Honey said. “But why would he bother seeing me?”
    â€œWalter,” Kevin said. “He wants you along when he talks to him.”

Four
    E very time Carl approached the Mayo he thought of the guy who tried to shoot him in the back as he entered the hotel. The Black Hand extortion guy ten years ago. With an Italian name Carl couldn’t think of. The doorman that day had been holding one of the doors open for Carl. He started in and the glass in the door next to him and in the door swinging closed behind him both shattered, blown apart with the sound of high-caliber gunfire and now tires screaming, the Ford coupe gone by the time Carl came around with his Colt revolver.
    Today the same doorman was holding the door open, Marvin, a black guy, Marvin asking Carl as he approached the entrance how he was this spring morning. Now looking past Carl and saying, “Uh-oh,” under his breath. “Man has a gun.”
    Carl stopped. He heard his name called and turned to see a young guy in black holding a big heavy show-off nickel-plate automatic against his leg, the shoulders of his suit wide, zooty, the pants pegged at his light-tan shoes. There he was, a full head of black hair shining in the hotel lights, a young gangster, Italianor Jewish, here to shoot Carl Webster. If the kid was Jewish he’d be a kin of the Tedesco brothers, Tutti and Frankie Bones from the Purple Gang. That time in Okmulgee they came around on him pulling their guns, Carl fired twice and the Tedescos went down.
    This one, standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, said, “You Carl Webster?”
    â€œYes, I am. Tell me who you’re related to.”
    â€œYou killed my brother.”
    The third one to come along with a dead brother. Carl said, “You mean the one use to beat the shit out of you when he felt like it? Which one was he?”
    â€œLuigi Tessa.”
    Jesus Christ, Lou Tessa the backshooter. Carl shook his head. “You know he ambushed me? Right here as I’m going in the hotel? You could’ve busted me from behind yourself, but you want to do it face-to-face, uh? There’s hope for you, boy. What’s your name?”
    â€œWhy you want to know?”
    â€œSo when I tell what happened here I can give your Christian name. Who you were.” Carl freed the button holding his suitcoat closed and said, “Wait a minute. I never killed your brother, he went to prison.”
    â€œWhere he got the chair,” the kid gangster said. “It’s the same as you killin’ him.”
    â€œListen,” Carl said, “you don’t want to shoot me.” He held his suitcoat open wide with both hands. “You see a gun on my person?” Carl dropped his arms, his right hand sweeping the coat aside to bring out the .38 revolver from his waist, hard against his spine, and put it on Lou Tessa’s brother, telling him, “Now you see it. Lay your left hand on that cannon you’re holding and ejectthe loads till the piece is empty. You pause,” Carl said, “I’ll take it to mean you want to kill me and I’ll shoot you through the heart.”
    Â 
    Virgil, Carl’s dad, said, “I thought you liked a shoulder holster.”
    â€œI’m not gonna wear it driving. I get in the car,” Carl