All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred nine)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred nine)

“You take some of Ermentrude’s and clear em out. Bring back what you get. Ermentrude! All them dry?” He mimed a flapping paper.

“Halt die Klappe, ja.”

“Give Everard one.”

Ermentrude tapped with the darning egg, indicating where Richard could come get his own. As a decorator in Ludwigsburg, Ermentrude had painted thimbles, spa bathers’ souvenirs, the very rose windows belonging to the individual cathedral, the costumed players of a famed Passionsspiele, the timbered houses of old Württemberg…

Why America, or how? But she traveled with a bedroll and basket, and when the light faded, put her eyeglasses in a tin case, becoming as enchanted things in fairy tales—part of the landscape, alive and biding.

Ermentrude counterfeited, postage stamps and small banknotes. Her thoughts were German thoughts, and her speech could not illuminate them for Allen.

“Give him a ten, it’s late,” Mrs. Allen said.

“I don’t know. Big note’s a job, calls attention. You heard Doc Jones, minute ago.”

“Sure and I’ve the worst news to be telling you!” Richard shouted the line, brogueing to all excess.

(A voice from the room next door: “Worse news. See there, what they been sayin. Garfield done.”)

“Well, what you want, Allen? Dollar jug? Say I don’t quite have change, but here’s a respectable note on the bank of Illinois. And if they don’t like that, I’ve got these stamps, uncut, two-penny.”

“Or go along with him.” Mrs. Allen shrugged. “Show them two faces to remember.”

Allen looked up from his game of patience, laid between splayed legs clad in drawers alone. He had a shrewd, young/old face, the thinness of bone that doesn’t run to jowls. He was short of forty, and he bothered Richard.

His unlikeable self, but also his looks.

“You get in one of them watering holes…” Allen jabbed with an ace. “You’ll see a couple quiet ones in the corners. Have a look at em. Two or three at the billiards…if they got billiards. Keep shy. Never be sharping a sharp. You know any card tricks, Everard?”

“Sure. Allen, I been in a few watering holes. You want me to look out I don’t get nabbed, and shine up to the rubes.”

“I want you sober. Someone might follow you along and knock you over.” Allen nodded permission, and his wife, from inside her sleeve, peeled Richard the ten.

“Hell away from that flame,” Allen muttered, moving a king from the bottom of the draw pile.

Well…before he passed it, Richard wanted a look at it, front and back. Ermentrude’s gift seemed immaculate. Illinois spelled correctly. Bank spelled with a c.

But could be.

117

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred ten)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)