Maude Brown's Baby (3 page)

“Foley sent him to Galveston to get pictures of that new section of the seawall.”

Jake bounced the Model T down Dennis Street toward Main. Luckily the narrow dirt lane wasn’t crowded, or he would have had a pedestrian on the radiator. As it was, only chickens and stray dogs were at risk. Donald gripped the base of the windshield, waiting for Jake to continue.

“Elton took the Interurban down Thursday morning.” Jake glanced
over to check Donald’s reaction. “When he didn’t come back Friday, I figured he stayed over with someone he met down there. I wasn’t worried, but Foley was, so he called Galveston. Nobody’s seen Elton.”

Donald didn’t respond.

Jake raised a hand and dropped it hard on the steering wheel.

“He’s out having fun, but damn it, he should let me know! I wasted half the night looking for him.”

Donald tugged the bill of his cap to shade his glasses from sunlight flashing through the trees. Jake’s eyes remained on the road, somehow unaffected by the same flickering light.

“He
was a year behind me in school,” Jake said, relaxing by degrees and easing slightly on the throttle. “Teachers called us Mutt and Jeff.”

Donald remembered.

“I haven’t talked to Foley yet,” Jake offered, measuring his words. “I went over to Goose Creek Friday, shooting the Simms gusher and Humble’s new wells in Tabbs Bay.”

“H
eard they lost another man.”

“Dangerous work,” Jake agreed. They rode another three blocks, each in his own thoughts, before Jake spoke again.

“I was supposed to have the weekend off, but after I turned in my film and got Foley’s message yesterday, I drove straight to Galveston. I’ve got friends down there and figured they might know where Elton was.”

Odd, Donald thought. He felt his jaws tighten. Jake’s voice changed as he went on.

“Foley left me a message Saturday morning,” Jake repeated, as if Donald might forget. “Someone found Elton’s camera bag behind one of the cheap hotels along the beach.”

Donald turned away, furious now
that Jake was holding back. For the first time, he was afraid. Elton wouldn’t give up his camera without a struggle. Donald took a long deep breath, then kept his voice flat and clear.

“Just the bag?”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “His camera was wrecked.” He glanced sideways at Donald and kept looking as he spoke. “Something happened at the hotel and the night manager called the police. They’re investigating now.”

Jake turned his attention
back to the road but seemed to sag behind the wheel.

“
You said you haven’t talked to Foley?” Donald asked.

“No
t yet. I had to get to Galveston.”

“But why go yourself if the police are investigating?”

Jake looked sharply at Donald.

“The folks I know don’t talk to the police.”

Donald started to respond, but Jake’s tone warned against it. From the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of a bicycle crossing the road. He shouted and braced for the impact. Jake, with an athlete’s reflex, jerked the wheel just in time to miss the bike’s rear tire. Through the dust behind them, the rider yelled something Donald couldn’t hear. Just as well.

“Close!” Donald said, but Jake had already forgotten it. He continued in clips about his trip to Galveston.

“Made it in less than three hours, even with a flat … Busted my lip when the damn jack slipped … Just got back this morning.” He turned again to Donald. “Hey, you got any money on you? I’m hungry.”

Not waiting for an answer, Jake aimed left toward the Hendrix Café. Donald gritted his teeth and fished his pockets for change. Damn you, Jake Miller.

To save gasoline, Jake liked to coast whenever he could. He depressed the clutch pedal, switched off the engine’s magneto and the little flivver shook itself silent, coasting on the wrong side of the road the final half block into the restaurant’s oyster shell parking lot. As the narrow tires crunched to a stop, a latent backfire—loud as a gunshot—rolled down the alleys and set hounds barking a block away on both sides.

A half-
dozen customers watched Donald and Jake climb from the car. Thelma Hendrix herself brought coffee to the booth while her father hunched over an omelet at the grill.

“Hi Foots!” she said, placing one cup in front of Jake and sliding another toward Donald. He was impressed at the view of Thelma’s backside.

“I
was worried when you didn’t show at Blake’s last night.”

“Something happened.”

“Well, I hope the something wasn’t too pretty.”              

“Not
pretty as you.” Jake looked up, forcing a smile. Thelma noticed the fresh purple bruise on his lip.

“Did she give you that?” Thelma said, reaching for his chin.

Jake twisted his face toward the window. “Not now, Thelma, just bring me something to eat.”

Offended, Thelma went heavy on her heels back to the counter.
Jake continued looking outside, not staring so much as keeping watch. The morning light raked across his face, outlining the dimple in his chin and giving his eyes a greenish tint. He often looked like a hawk watching a prey, Donald knew, but when Jake wanted to, he could make you feel like you were the only other person in the world.

Suddenly Jake turned, searching Donald’s face. He lifted his cup but didn’t drink.
“Elton could at least let me know where he is. I should never have taken him …” He turned back to the window without finishing his thought. His own reflection made it look like he was staring at himself.

An elderly gentleman
in his Sunday suit came by, paused at the discrete “WHITES ONLY” sign on the restaurant’s door, then passed from view.

Thelma returned with fried eggs and toast and set the plate clunking on the table. Jake didn’t notice. He
r father watched from the kitchen as she turned to Donald.

“You sure you don’t want something, too?” It was the first time she’d asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Still early for the church folks to be in,” Jake said after a loud slurp of coffee. Donald only n
odded. Shoulders to the wall, he draped an arm over the back of the booth and scanned the room, composing mental photographs and analyzing everything Jake said.

A
t the counter, a policeman had snagged Thelma in conversation. She leaned on her elbows toward the officer, the toe of one shoe hooked behind her other heel. The pose showed off her figure and made her skirt rise an extra two inches until the hem reached mid-calf. It would have been a shocking display two years before, but no more. Short dresses were patriotic now, more fabric for the war.

Thelma laughed each time the policeman did, but glanced more than once toward Jake. Mr. Hendrix, scrubbing the waffle iron harder than he needed to, glared at them both through his eyebrows.

Jake dumped more ketchup on his eggs and stabbed a forkful. Now fully focused on food, he used his left hand to dip toast in his coffee, then added the dripping morsel to the eggs already in his mouth. Donald sipped his coffee and looked away. Jake’s sketchy account was beginning to take shape.

“You said the camera bag was behind the hotel?” Donald asked, but Jake, finally distracted by Thelma’s progress with the policeman, missed the question.

“Was the bag just lying in the middle of an alley?” Donald repeated, somewhat louder.

Jake looked up from his plate and hesitated a instant too long before answering. He slurped the last of his coffee, then let the empty cup clatter in the saucer. “The bag? No. It was behind some garbage cans at the back of the hotel.”

“Why do you think Elton didn’t come back Thursday night?”

Their eyes locke
d for a moment.

“Beats me,” Jake
said finally, reaching for his hat. “Let’s go.”

“Maybe th
ere’s a message at the office,” Donald said.

“Yeah.
And remind me, I’ve got Elton’s camera. Fix it if you can, but I think all it’s good for now is spare parts.”

Jake turned and walked away. Donald paid for Jake’s meal and coffee, left a nickel for Thelma, then hurried for the door. Jake was already in the car. “Give ‘er a crank,” he ordered from behind the wheel.

“Key off?”

“Yep.”

Donald bent forward at the waist to reach the crank at the base of the car’s radiator. He gripped the wooden handle with his left hand, fingers underneath in case the engine kicked back. He turned the handle two half-cranks to the right to prime the carburetor, each time bringing the handle back to its original position.

“Key,” he called to Jake, who turned the key on the wooden dashboard to “magneto” and adjusted the spark advance and throttle levers on the steering column.

“Ready.”

Donald grabbed the right fender for leverage and pulled his body hard to the right, tugging the crank with his left hand. The engine, still warm, fired on the first try.

They reached the
Houston Chronicle
building at the corner of Travis and Texas a few minutes later. Jake parked at an angle to the curb, grabbed Elton’s dusty camera bag from the trunk, handed it to Donald, then quick-stepped down the sidewalk to the building’s main door. Donald trotted to keep up.

Some in the newsroom shouted greetings over the din of a dozen Underwood and Royal typewriters. Donald waved back, taking it all in,
mentally composing the scene. Trails of cigarette smoke rose from nearly every desk into a haze that hung just over the heads of the reporters. Morning light from the east windows turned the smoky haze gold and put distant things in soft focus. Donald tried to imagine himself working there.

A copy boy burst from the Linotype room, his ink-smudged hands full of proof sheets. “Excuse me!” he said, then raced on.

“Hey, Jake,” a reporter called from two desks away, “Foley says still nothing on Elton.”

“Damn,” Jake said softly, flipping his new straw boater onto the hat stand and hanging his jacket on a nearby hook. “When I find El
ton, I’m going to strangle him—if Foley doesn’t do it first.” He took a moment to brush dust off one sleeve, then dropped full weight into his wooden chair, letting his momentum roll it back. He surveyed the piles of paper and photos on his desk as if he’d never seen them before.

A gust
from the open windows lifted a proof sheet from Jake’s desk to the floor at Donald’s feet. There, wedged between an ad for men’s shoes and another for Liberty Bonds, a one-column filler noted the anniversary of Galveston’s Great Storm.

“Ten thousand people lost in one night.” Donald murmured. “H
ardly worth mentioning now.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing, Jake. Nothing at all.”

The drone of typewriters, Linotyp
e machines and conversations settled into the background. It always reminded Donald of iron wheels clicking under a freight train half a block away.

Jake read a note someone left on his desk, stared briefly, then tossed it in the trash. He wiped his face slowly with both hands.

“Damn! What a night!”

Jake sat up when
he noticed another short note, this one in red.

“What is it?” Donald asked. He pulled up a side chair and straddled it backwards, knees wide and arms crossed over the chair’s wooden back.

“Foley wants me back in Galveston. He still needs the seawall photos Elton went to get.”

“Do you think Elton’s in real danger?”

Jake looked up from the editor’s note. He lowered his voice and rolled his chair over to Donald, even though the closest man in the noisy room was two desks away.

“Look, Don, Elton likes to drink. Don’t tell Foley, but I’ve seen him go on three-day binges before. I figure he’s done it again. If he’s got a woman down there, then
…”

A boy ran up, thumped stiff-armed against the desk, struggling to catch his breath.

“Jake … Mr. Foley wants you over at Union Station by 10:00 … Troop train’s coming in. Lots of soldiers sick. Some died on the way. Looks like flu, only worse. Show the nurses … helping them. Enoch’s writing the story now. Mr. Foley wants pictures for the morning edition.”

“Damn, that’s half an hour,” Jake said. He thrust his arm out and crooked his elbow to expose his
new watch. It was the kind you wore right on your wrist, and Jake liked showing it off.

“Sorry, Don, no time to run you home.”

“Sure,” Donald said. “Get your shot. I wanted to see your rent house anyway.” Jake didn’t hear, he was already checking his camera bag to be sure he had enough film.

Donald flipped on his cap, stood and swung his leg over the chair. “Later,” he said to the top of Jake’s head.

“Wait!” Jake looked up, one hand reaching toward Donald. “Don, I could use some help on this thing with Elton.”

“Sure, Jake, come by this afternoon.”
             

When Donald found
the address of the rent house, a two-story Jake said he “acquired for a song” from a gambler down on his luck. The front door was locked, but Donald didn’t care. His thoughts were still with Elton, and the nagging feeling that Jake wasn’t telling the whole truth.