Coming Up Roses (21 page)

H.L. went on, “We’re here to report a
kidnapping and to get help in finding the kidnapped party.”

“
A kidnapping? Where’d you get a kid to
nap?” The policeman barked out a laugh as if he appreciated his own
wit.

“
Not mine.” H.L. tilted his head in
Little Elk’s direction. “His.”

Morty, who hadn’t paid any attention to Rose
or Little Elk once he spotted H.L., glanced at the two of them now.
His gaze came to rest on the Sioux. His eyes nearly popped from
their sockets. “Jaysus, May, that there looks like a real wild
Indian.”

Rose bridled instantly, but H.L. put a
restraining hand on her arm. When she tried to shake him off, he
dug his fingers into her flesh and it was all she could not to cry
out in pain. She was so incensed, she wanted to stamp on H.L.’s
foot, but finally understood that he was giving her a signal to let
him handle the policeman.

She sniffed and almost told him what she
thought of him, but another look at the policeman made her hold her
tongue. He didn’t appear, at first glance, as if he were a
particularly cooperative individual. Maybe H.L., who evidently knew
him, ought at least to handle the first part of this interview.

“
This is Little Elk. He’s a member of
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, Morty. It’s one of his kinfolk who was
kidnapped, a ten-year-old boy named Bear in Winter.”

“
Why the devil do them Injuns give
their kids such stupid names, is what I want to know.” Morty cast a
superior sneer at Little Elk. Rose clamped her teeth together and
told herself not to shriek at the obnoxious man.

“
It’s nothing to you why they do
anything, Morty. What matters today is that this little boy has
been kidnapped.”

Rose was astonished by how well H.L. May was
keeping his temper even under what seemed to her like extreme
provocation. If it had been she dealing with Morty, she’d have
thrown something at him by this time.

“
And how do you know that, Mr.
Newshound? Did you see the snatch happen?”

“
No, but there were two
witnesses.”

“
Ah, and did you bring ‘em with you? Is
that what these two are?” He jerked a rude nod in the direction of
Rose and Little Elk. Rose decided this horrid man wasn’t worth her
anger. He wasn’t worth anything at all.

“
No. This is Miss Rose Gilhooley, who
performs with the Wild West as Wind Dancer.”

Rose gave the policeman a cold nod. He
returned her nod with a knowing grin. He also adjusted the bow tie
at his throat, as if he were trying to tidy up especially for
her.
Good God
, thought
Rose.
He’s acting just like a thug from
Deadwood
. She’d believed big-city policemen to be
above such things. Which just went to show one more time how little
she knew about life. What a depressing thought.

“
We can, however, give you a
description of the kidnapper,” H.L. said loudly, presumably in an
attempt to deflect Morty’s attention away from Rose and back to the
problem.

His fun over, Morty heaved an aggrieved sigh
and drew a piece of paper toward himself. He dipped a pen in a pot
of ink and held the pen over the paper. “All right, then, give me
the story.”

H.L. glanced over at Little Elk. The Sioux
stepped forward and gave a brief description of the man who had
been seen carrying Bear in Winter away.

“
And you say the lad was struggling?”
Morty asked, sounding as if he didn’t care.

“
Yes.”

Rose could tell by the expression on her
friend’s face that Little Elk had come to the conclusion they’d be
getting little or no help from this quarter. She’d heard of
anarchists who threw bombs into public buildings, but she’d never
felt in any way akin to them until this minute. If all the
policemen in Chicago were like Morty, she’d like to throw a bomb at
the lot of them.

“
So,” H.L. said after Morty had been
scratching away with his pen for a minute or two, “do you aim to
help us find the boy or not?”

Morty didn’t answer for another minute or
two. Rose wanted to pick up the log book at his elbow and thump him
on the head with it. When he looked up from his report at last,
Morty couldn’t have looked less interested in their problem if he’d
tried. “I’ll file this report,” he told them in a neutral tone.

“
I see.” H.L. gave Morty a long, hard
look. “That means you’re not going try to find the boy, doesn’t it,
Morty?”

“
Now see here, newshound. There are
rules and regulations that govern these things. Time limits and so
forth. We can’t go rushing around looking for every little kid who
runs away from home. It ain’t worth the effort.”

“
I see.” H.L.’s face hardened further.
Rose was glad he’d never looked at her like that. “In other words,
you neither care about this lost child, nor are you going to do
shit to try to find him. Right, Morty?”

“
Now, now, May. That’s no way to talk
in front of a lady.” He gave Rose a leer. “If she is a lady, that
is.”

“
Why, you—”

H.L. grabbed Rose before she could climb up
the barrier and hit Morty with her handbag. “Don’t waste your
energy, Miss Gilhooley. This specimen isn’t worth it. It’s our
misfortune that the man at the desk had to be this slug. The
unfortunate truth is that Chicago’s police force has far too many
worthless bums just like him.”

“
Says you,” Morty sneered.

“
Say I, indeed,” H.L. countered. He
turned and spoke to Rose and Little Elk. “All right, we’ve done our
duty as citizens. Since the police force won’t help us, I guess
we’re going to have to find the boy ourselves.”

“
Do you mean to tell me we’ve wasted
over an hour on a useless mission?” Rose’s indignation couldn’t
have climbed much higher or she’d have had an attack of
something.

“
It’s not entirely wasted,” H.L. told
her in a comforting tone. “For one thing, you never know. We might
have found one of the few decent men on the police force on duty
today. And this way, when we do find Bear all by ourselves, I’ll
have an even better story to report to the good people of Chicago.
They deserve to know exactly how their tax dollars are being used.”
He grinned. “I think I feel a call for reform in the
air.”

He took Rose’s arm in one hand and Little
Elk’s in the other, and started herding them toward the door.
Behind them, Rose heard a chair being shoved back and the squeak of
springs as Morty rose to his feet.

“
Say now!” the policeman shouted after
them. “Here! Come back here, May! You can’t go printing things like
that in the
Globe
!”

H.L. turned his head to cast one last glance
at the irate policeman.

When Rose did likewise, she saw fury and fear
battling on his ugly red face.

“
Watch me.” H.L. opened the door and
almost threw Rose outside.

“
Mr. May! she shouted at him. “I wanted
to give that horrid man a piece of my mind!”

“
I know you did, Miss Gilhooley,” he
said calmly. “That’s why I shoved you outdoors. Besides, my exit
line was better. We’d just be wasting our time if we stayed there
while you ripped up at him.”

Rose was so mad, she could only splutter
incoherently. H.L. May laughed as he propelled her along the busy
Chicago street.

Chapter Eleven

The funniest thing about the series of
articles H.L. was writing for the
Globe
, he mused as he escorted the spluttering
Rose Gilhooley and the stoical Little Elk down Fiftieth Street, was
that he couldn’t remember ever having so much fun in his life.
Yeah, yeah, he knew a kid’s life was in danger—real danger. And he
knew that he’d just irritated a member of Chicago’s police force,
which might result on consequences of one sort or another. And he
knew the Columbian Exposition would end one of these days, and then
where would he be?

But all that stuff didn’t matter. H.L. May
was having the time of his life, and it was all because of the
company he’d started keeping: Rose Ellen Gilhooley from Deadwood,
Kansas, and Little Elk, the Sioux Indian from God Knew Where.

“
You’re a scoundrel, H.L. May!” Rose
shouted at him, oblivious to the stares of passersby on the street.
She’d realize folks were staring one of these minutes, and then
she’d be embarrassed. H.L. was beginning to know her like a
book.

“
Probably,” he said, in hopes that the
word would rile her further and keep her spitting at him for
another little while.

Little Elk, as ever, walked along in silence
not even paying attention to Rose’s diatribe. At one point, H.L.
thought he caught a wink from his dark-skinned companion, but he
wasn’t sure, and he thought it unlikely. Did Indians wink at
people? H.L. had never heard of such a thing.

“
What do you mean, ‘probably?’” Rose
tried to stop walking, plant her fists on her hips, and shout at
him from a stable position, but H.L. kept her moving.

“
I guess I’m probably a scoundrel, is
all,” he said complacently. “You obviously think I am, and I’d
never doubt your opinion on such a matter, Miss
Gilhooley.”

“
You’re impossible!”

“
That, too.”

“
That man back there ought to be fired!
He ought to be called before his superiors and given a dressing
down! He ought to be horsewhipped!”

Again, H.L. said, “Probably.”

“
But, what do you do instead of making
him do his duty? You tell him you’re going to write about this
incident in your newspaper, and then leave!” She became incoherent
for a second or two, only making sputtering noises and snorts,
before she said, “I can’t stand it.”

“
Take it easy, Miss Gilhooley. If
you’re through scolding me, we have to discuss how we’re going to
go about finding the boy.”

She stopped walking that time, in spite of
H.L.’s efforts to keep her moving. “What? What did you say? You
mean you’re going to help us find him?”

“
Well, of course, I am! What did you
think I was going to do? Let whoever took him keep him?”

Her pretty mouth opened and closed a couple
of times. H.L. watched it with longing. He really, really wanted to
kiss this woman. To taste her. He wagered with himself that she’d
taste sweet, rather than spicy, because she was more sweet than
not, although he didn’t bet too much. He gave himself slightly
better than fifty-fifty odds, hedging a bit.

When Rose found her wits again, not very many
words arrived with them.

H.L. grinned to himself, although he deemed
it prudent not to grin at Rose just yet. Because Little Elk was
looking at him impassively, and because the Indian might have
winked at him, H.L. gave him a wink to even things up. Little Elk
nodded once, which H.L. took as a signal that things were going
about as he’d expected them to. H.L. was surprised when the Sioux
opened his mouth to drop a tidbit into the conversation.

“
I’m hungry.”

Sensible man, this Sioux. H.L. said, “Me,
too. Let’s grab something to eat while we plot strategies.”

“
Plot strategies?” Rose blinked at both
of them.

“
Sure,” H.L. said. “Here’s a place. I
eat here a lot, and if we take a booth in the back, we won’t be
overheard.”

“
But—but—”

Evidently, Rose hadn’t recovered yet, because
she didn’t continue with that thought, if it was one. H.L. steered
her through the doors of the restaurant and greeted the waiter by
name. “Give us the best table in the house, Waldo, as long as it’s
a booth in the back.”

“
Sure, sure, H.L. I’ve got one just
right for you.”

“
You’re a good fellow, Waldo, even if
you are a wop.”

“
Better’n a mick,” countered Waldo with
a laugh. He led them to their booth and H.L. politely gestured for
Rose to enter first.

“
Why don’t I order for us and save
time?” H.L. asked his companions.

Little Elk grunted his agreement. Rose looked
startled, opened her mouth, closed it, and said nothing. H.L. took
this as compliance, and told Waldo, “Bring us three plates of Joe’s
special spaghetti and meatballs. And lemonade for the lady. I’ll
have a beer.” He glanced at Little Elk, recalling the stories he’d
read about how alcohol was devastating Indian tribes, and wishing
he’d remembered them sooner.

“
Little Elk?”

“
Lemonade,” Little Elk said in a clear
voice.

H.L. breathed easier. He had no idea whether
or not the stories were true, but he didn’t especially want to find
out when they had real work to do in order to save a child from
whatever kind of hell his captors intended for him.

“
Be back in a minute,” Waldo said as he
sauntered off.

Rose sniffed the air tentatively. If she was
like H.L. and most of the rest of humanity, the aroma in Joe’s
Italian Restaurante would appeal to her. Joe fixed good food, and
lots of it. A Sicilian by birth, Joe had come to Chicago from New
York City with his family a couple of years after they’d arrived
and been processed through the immigration station at the Battery.
As far as H.L. was concerned, if he ever had enough money to hire a
chef, the man was going to be an Italian. He loved Italian food. He
sighed deeply and smiled at Rose. “Smells good in here, doesn’t
it?”