THE FRAUDS
Edwin P. Cutler
In process


    

Charlie Bull leaned on the barrel. He had found a whiskey bottle and with a smile of pleasant anticipation lifted it to his lips. But the smile froze on his bewhiskered face and he pulled the bottle down and glared at it.      "Empty," he sighed.      He looked around when he heard the tap of high heels. A lady, clinging to the arm of her man as if she needed support was stepping toward him. He watched her clutch at the raincoat she was wearing and wondered when it had rained.      Back to the business of the moment, he looked down into the barrel and reached when he saw another bottle. He held it up to the street light but it too was empty.      He started suddenly, nearly knocking the barrel over, when a firm hand grasped his elbow and a tough masculine voice demanded, "Uncle Frank, what are you doing down here this time of night? -- and drunk?"      He reeled in a circle on the sidewalk and would have fallen except the man helped him keep his feet. When he got control he found himself staring into a young and pretty face.      "Are you my Uncle Frank?" The girl sounded uncertain and touched her pouty lips pensively with the side of a forefinger as if caressing them. She had large liquid eyes and he fell in love with her then and there.      "Who is Uncle Frank?" he asked and wondered who this angel was.      "Come on, Uncle Frank," her man demanded and tightening the grip on his arm urged him along the sidewalk. "Let's go home now."      "I'm not anybody's Uncle. And you can't shanghai me." Charlie Bull wrenched free and careened into an alley where he tripped on a cat and fell cursing into a pile of cardboard boxes.      But he came up on his feet, miraculously unhurt and strangely sobered, flashing a knife that reflected the dim lights of the waterside streetlamps.      "I choose the ship I sail on." He squared off at the man who had grabbed his arm.      "Christ, Elli, I don't think it's Frank." The man backed away.      "Uncle Frank, don't you know me? I'm your niece, Elli Roddener." the girl on the high heels teetered at the entrance to the alley silhouetted in the lights from the street.      Charlie Bull looked at them. He watched the man step back to the sidewalk and take the girl's hand. He felt less threatened and started thinking, "A couple of suckers." He folded the knife and it disappeared.      "Have a drink with me and let's talk about it," he offered and came forward with one hand extended in his most friendly manner, ready to shake.      "Elli, he's not your Uncle Frank." Her man slipped an arm around her waist protectively and started her walking away.      "But Rock, he looks exactly like him." return to Novels go to the home page