Dead Beckoning

By Mike Cobb

On a rain-soaked Friday in 1895, a single gunshot pierced the early morning air.

A prominent Atlanta businessman lay writhing on a downtown sidewalk.

He was a proud husband and father. An ambitious man, he worked hard to support his family against what seemed insurmountable odds.

He would die

• Language: English
• Publisher: M G Cobb Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780578339894

Mike Cobb

MIKE COBB'S body of literary work includes both fiction and nonfiction, short-form and long-form, as well as articles and blogs. While he is comfortable playing across a broad range of topics, much of his focus is on true crime, crime fiction, historical fiction and psychological thrillers. Rigorous research is foundational to his writing. He gets that honestly, having spent much of his professional career as a scientist. Mike splits his time between Atlanta and Blue Ridge, Georgia.

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DEAD

BECKONING

Mike Cobb

Dead Beckoning by Mike Cobb

This book is a work of historical fiction. Primary events, people and places portrayed in this account are constructed loosely from historical sources. References to real people, events, establishments, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. While conjecture and presumptions of form, character and detail have been added to enhance the story, and liberties have been taken as to the salient, underlying facts of means, motive, opportunity and deed, in most instances the principals’ names have been retained from the annals of history. Characters’ actions and motives, incident details, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Copyright © 2021 by Mike Cobb.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Mike Cobb, 30 Fifth Street NE, #402, Atlanta, Georgia 30308.

ISBN 978-0-578-33989-4 (ebook)

MG Cobb Books LLC

www.mgcobb.com

First Edition, March 2022

Second Printing, November 2022

To the memory of

Dorothy Barker.

Major Characters

Baker Augustus Bass

A prominent Atlanta merchant who moved from Thomasville, Georgia with his wife, Ella, to start a new business.

Ella McKinnon Bass

Baker Bass’s wife, a socialite from Thomasville.

John Bass

Baker and Ella Bass’s eldest child.

Commissioner J.C.A. Branan

An Atlanta police commissioner.

Det. Ed Cason

An Atlanta detective.

Will Coleman

A young Negro porter at Aragon Hotel.

Det. Thomas Greenberry Green Conn

An Atlanta detective.

SARAH CONN

Green Conn’s sister.

Chief Arthur Connolly

Atlanta police chief.

Delores Dampman

A friend of Herbert Jenkins and frequenter of a local brothel.

Dr. William Gilbert

The Fulton County (Atlanta) medical examiner.

Herbert Thomas Jenkins

A traveling tobacco salesman.

Christopher Johnson

A local Negro. In and out of work farm.

Frank Keeler

A newspaper reporter.

Captain W.P. Manly

Captain of the Atlanta police force.

Det. William Mehaffey

An Atlanta detective.

Thaddeus Moncrief

An Atlanta policeman.

Lemuel P. Lem Mureau

A traveling tobacco salesman from out of town.

Coroner Jackson Paden

The Fulton County (Atlanta) coroner.

Cecil Thompson

An Atlanta policeman.

A Word of Caution

In a worK of historical fiction, there is often tension between fidelity to the time period and the risk of offending the reader. Certain offensive words and cultural norms, which are unacceptable today, are used throughout this work. While the decision to use them was not taken lightly, their presence is important to the historical accuracy and integrity of the story. It is hoped that their incorporation will, at the very least, shed light on a period in our history when attitudes and mores that are taboo today were commonplace. Their use is not intended in any way to disrespect the reader or any group of people.

Introduction

In most stories of import, outcomes turn on a seminal event, without which there would be no story at all. As for the narrative that will unfold on these pages, that event occurred on a rain-soaked Friday. The year was 1895. The place was downtown Atlanta. The cast of characters were perhaps not atypical of those you would have encountered in any small but up-and-coming American city at the turn of the century. On that day, as dawn was breaking, a single gunshot pierced the early morning air. A prominent downtown businessman lay writhing on the wet pavement. He was an ambitious man, a proud husband and father. He worked hard to support his family against what sometimes seemed insurmountable odds. He would die within a few hours. His passing would remain one of a handful of high profile, unresolved deaths in the history of the city. Did he die from his own hand? Or was he murdered? And if so, by whom?

But stories of any meaning or merit turn on much more than just one event. The event is merely the inflection point. The real narrative, the one truly worth telling, runs much deeper and broader. This story is based on a good but dispirited man, his short life and untimely death, and the story of the days and months that preceded, and followed, that ill-fated August morning, when others before us walked the city’s streets.

This is a work of historical fiction based on actual events. While conjecture and presumptions of form, character and detail have been added to enhance the story, and liberties have been taken as to the salient, underlying facts of means, motive, opportunity and deed, the principals’ names have been retained from the annals of history. Primary events, people and places portrayed in this account are taken from historical sources.

Part One

THE SHOPKEEPER

ONE

BAKER BASS

Spring-Coiled

On that Friday morning he woke early, well before sunup, as was his custom. To start the day later was unthinkable. He, like most of his friends and fellow merchants, had been raised on a working farm. The life of cultivators and scythes and flails and furrows, of broody hens and cotton mules, didn’t have much regard for anything other than backbreaking labor, determination, and perseverance. He may have left that world behind, but not the deep-seated work ethic that made him who he was.

He sat on the edge of the bed vacillating between recalling times past and pondering how this day would unfold. He ran his hand across the bedspread’s popcorn stitching, feeling the little knobs run across his calloused skin like tiny perturbances across an otherwise quiescent sea of white.

He reached out to the bedside table for his watch and chain, inserting the fob through the buttonhole in his vest. He twisted the watch stem, turn by turn, careful not to overwind as he felt the crown tighten against his thumb and forefinger. He stood up from the bed, placed the watch in his vest pocket and made his way down the darkened hallway. He savored the earthy aroma emanating from the far rear of the house. Ella, his wife of twenty years, would have risen before him to make the coffee. He could make out the faint glow from the coal embers under the tin pot and could hear the clink of ceramic cups and saucers as she prepared the kitchen table.

Twenty-three years away from Palmyra, from the workaday grind of a North Carolina cotton farm, had changed him in so many ways. What would life have been like if he had stayed behind and eked out a hardscrabble existence with Robert and Jesse and the lot of them? The war that had riven the country, pitting North against South, had destroyed much of what they had worked hard for and had left burned-out homesteads and wiped-out crops. But in some ways life had been more unburdened back then. At times his thoughts would take him back to those days. Fishing for carp on Quankey Creek with crickets, grubs, and week-old dough bait. Sitting in the only room in the house big enough to accommodate the entire family, worn out and dog-tired after a full day in the field, and sharing stories ranging from drudgery to derring-do as the flames lap the sides of the hearth. It seemed an eternity ago. But those were the days of his youth. And perhaps they could never be recaptured. Perhaps if he had stayed behind things would be little different from his life now in the city.

With whom are we sharing the honors this morning, Ella? he asked, with a smile, as he passed through the doorway and into the kitchen, Mr. Arbuckle or Mr. Maxwell?

She wiped the sweat from her brow with the cotton dish towel that she always kept tucked in her apron pocket. She ran the palms of her hands along the sides of her chignoned hair, greying at the temples, and then breezily down the front of her apron bib, as if to ensure her presentability.

Mr. Maxwell today, she replied. Mr. Arbuckle decided to take off for a spell.

Off to New York, no doubt, he quipped, letting out a half-suppressed laugh.

It was a standing joke. Both he and Ella preferred Arbuckle’s Ariosa for its rich flavor and egg-and-sugar glaze, a patented enhancement intended to prolong the freshness of the beans. But since it originated in Brooklyn, it was harder to find than the pre-roasted blend named for the Maxwell House hotel in Nashville. Pre-roasted coffee was a convenience they had grown accustomed to, but they missed the days when the beans would be roasted in a skillet over an open fire, filling the house with the fragrance of toasted nuts.

Ella, I heard yesterday that Oliver Wendell Holmes died. It happened late last year. I don’t know how I missed it. Surely it would have been in the papers.

How did he die? she asked, looking up from the coffee pot she held in her hand.

I don’t know. They say he just fell asleep and passed quietly. When my time comes that’s the way I want to go.

Well, let’s hope you don’t have to worry about that anytime soon, she replied.

I should hope not.

What made you think of him?

"Well, hearing of his passing reminded me of that splendid little book, Over the Teacups. Do you remember it?"

Ella nodded. She set the coffee pot in the center of the table.

A quote from the book lingers, ‘The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.’ My morning cup, that’s what gets me going, he paused, and, of course, the few minutes I have to spend with you before confronting the day.

Sit down, Baker, she said. You seem spring-coiled. Ella seated herself at one end of the kitchen table. I always enjoy your early morning banter. It’s one of the things that first attracted me to you. But it does little to conceal an ever-present restlessness.

You don’t need to be distracted by my concerns, he protested. He sat down across from her. I’ll be OK.

But I do worry about you. Always.

Ella, we came here to start a new life. I am an ambitious man. You know that. But I learned a long time ago that things are never as easy as we would like. There are inescapable setbacks along the way. Always. But each of us has to figure out how to deal with them, on his own terms, and press on. You have enough to occupy your day without having to worry about me.

He looked away. Their eighteen-year-old son John sauntered into the room, grabbed a chair and parked himself between them on the long side of the table without saying a word. He reached across the table and poured himself a cup.

Good morning, John. You could at least grace us with a howdy-do, she said. She swept her hand across the table toward her husband. Your father’s in the room too, you know.

I’m sorry, Mother, good morning. And to you as well, Father, John said, as Baker looked up. I don’t intend to be disrespectful. It’s just that I don’t share your fondness for rising hours before daybreak. I guess engaging in conversation at four in the morning is something I just haven’t mastered yet.

Good morning, John. You’re forgiven, but you will learn with age that manners and the art of conversation know no time of day. Are you going to the exposition grounds again this morning? Baker asked.

I am. I’m still working in the Transportation Hall. The way things are going I doubt we’ll be finished until midnight, or later, only hours before the fair opens. It’s only two weeks out, you know. John paused. His mouth curved into a smile. "They say they’ll bring the General down from Tennessee in a few days. That will be a high point of the whole caboodle as far as I’m concerned."

For three decades, Baker had heard stories of Andrews’ Raid. He had been a mere eight years old when James Andrews, a civilian spy and contraband merchant, led a Union party behind Confederate lines to Big Shanty, north of Atlanta, and commandeered the train engine. The men headed toward Chattanooga, destroying tracks and telegraph lines along the way. But they ran out of steam north of Ringgold. Confederate soldiers, fast on their trail, caught up with and captured them. Eight men were tried as spies and hanged. Andrews was one of them. The General had been retired from service four years ago and stored in a siding in Vinings, just across the Chattahoochee River from Atlanta, before being restored and taken on tour, first to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. And now it would be on display again, at the Cotton States exposition, scheduled to open in Atlanta in two and a half weeks.

And why are you so mighty eager to see a locomotive? You can see them all day just a mile or so across town, he needled John.

Because, Father. John shook his head in apparent disbelief. "The General is not just any locomotive. It’s the most famous iron horse of the war. You know that better than I. I only wish I could have been there to see the stringing up of that good-for-nothing Andrews and the whole damned lot of them. They got what they deserved."

Will you be home for supper, Baker? Ella changed the subject, looking past John.

I expect so, he said. I’m meeting with Jenkins later today. I don’t believe you’ve ever met him. He’s the man who comes to town and sells me tobacco. But I should be home by seven.

Baker rose from the table and retrieved his coat and hat. Ella followed him into the living room. She reached out and touched his hand. He was not one to show affection, but that morning they embraced as they stood together in the partially lit room.

He pulled the collar of his coat jacket tight around his neck to fend off the wind and rain as he stood just outside the threshold of the front door. The morning was cooler than usual. He could see the water droplets bouncing off the ladder bars on the lamp post halfway up the block as if they were performing a choreographed dance, casting tiny reflections in the dark. A tortoiseshell tomcat scurried across the street. He could make out the faint clip-clop of a dray horse in the distance. Yet another rainy day, he muttered behind his mustache as he descended the three steps leading from his front porch to the sidewalk’s edge. He never carried an umbrella, would never have considered it. In fact, he disdained them. He considered them inherently unmanly, preferring instead to rely on the brim of his Homburg.

Baker wondered whether perhaps there was some credence after all to the prevailing superstition of the day that, due to recently discovered sunspots measuring nine times the Earth’s diameter, and invoking an image of truly biblical proportions, a rain on the first dog day meant rain every day for forty days and forty nights thereafter.

That morning, as every morning, he planned to walk the one and a half miles to his store on the edge of town, anticipating the day’s events each step of the way. Most days when he arrived, being the creature of habit he was, he would open the store and before the day unfolded have breakfast sent to him from Carrie Mangham’s eating house five doors down. He had heard her say more than once that, while she learned the basics clinging to her mother’s apron as a child, she honed her cooking skills under the recent tutelage of a freed, illiterate slave named Abby Fisher and her book, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Southern Cooking, the dictation of which had been entrusted to friends. Baker thought, Miss Mangham learned well from her mother and the mulatto from South Carolina. Even Ella can’t come close to matching her talents in the kitchen. He felt a slight tug on the buttons of his vest. Perhaps the skinny boy from Palmyra isn’t so lean anymore. Surely Miss Mangham is to blame, in part, for that.

When he first bought the store he had tried different routes to break the routine with an occasional diversion. The most direct one, the one he reckoned he would take this morning, would take him down Ivy Street, through downtown and past the Union Depot. He would choose to endure the congestion and grime and soot from the constant comings and goings of the steam trains rather than take a less direct route. And as he passed most mornings, he would peer up at the station’s broad center arch, mansard roof, pilaster-flanked windows and brick cupola, straining to see them through the dark. He would admire the building’s majesty with a reverence reserved for such things as he had not been exposed to before moving to the city. Even General Sherman, whose troops had burned its predecessor to the ground as they marched to the sea, would have marveled at its splendor. The route would take him along Lloyd Street across the railroad tracks. At Peters Street he would turn right and walk about eight more blocks to his store near the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia freight depot.

Although it had been worse in prior years, the crime rate was still high. Anyone walking the streets before sunup bore a palpable risk of assault. He knew that all too well. But while protecting himself from an unknown assailant was on his mind, there were other preoccupations that took him off his guard that morning.

Am I paranoid, or is the world falling apart?

We’re close to sending our boys off to fight again, this time on another man’s soil. I don’t care what President Cleveland says. How long can we stay out of that damned mess in Cuba? We’ll send them down there and they’ll come back in palls. The last thing we need is another war. It took years to get over the last one.

And the economy. God knows, we’ve been through a lot. I bring my family to the city to start anew. To make my fortune. And no sooner do we arrive than the whole country falls into a depression. The Panic of ’93. I don’t know who named it that, but I can’t think of a better word to describe it. I’m no financial expert––never claimed to be. But when the gold reserve plummets almost overnight. When the stock market crashes a month later. When banks are calling in loans and refusing to issue new ones. When money is so scarce you wonder how you can possibly settle the debts that fill page after page of your account book. When businesses are shutting down all around you, you don’t need to be a financial expert to know you could be next. I’ve gotten by, but I have another two years, at least, before I fully recover.

And as if that weren’t enough, something unexpected comes along out of nowhere, something much more personal. Like a stranger coming up behind you, tapping you on the shoulder and then leveling you to the ground before you have a chance to react. And then, just as you’re finding your feet, he knocks you down again. That’s what it feels like.

There had been accusations. Double-dealing. Even arrests. Charges had been made against him that were unsettling, and he worried about the outcome. What would it all mean for him and, more importantly, for his family?

His thoughts turned to Ella. In his mind he saw her peering through the window that morning as he looked back one last time before making his way down the street. He saw her furrowed brow, the drawn skin around her tired eyes and the lines on her face that bespoke the hard life she had endured since the move. Lines that had been absent not that many years ago. A stark contrast to the delicate, cheery-eyed, carefree young lady he remembered when he first laid eyes on her outside the old store back in Thomasville.

TWO

BAKER BASS

Thomasville

Twenty-three years away from Palmyra. Has it really been that long? Baker thought back to the day he decided to leave.

He was eighteen. His older brother Robert, twenty-six and married at the time, had taken over tending to the farm, with the help of Jesse and the rest of the Bass clan. The clan––hell, it wasn’t a clan––it was more like a horde––a throng––a herd. Mama, Papa, and a run of fourteen children. For Christ’s sake, they could barely put food on the table. He knew he had to move on.

He remembered it was a Thursday evening in the middle of June as he sat alone on the back stoop of the farmhouse. Or was it a Wednesday? Or a Friday? It didn’t really matter. By damn it’s hot, he groused under his breath. The temperature had gotten up to ninety-five in the middle of the day but, mercifully, things were cooling off as the sun began its descent. Every fiber of his tattered, denim dungarees was soaked from a full day in the cotton fields. His joints ached like an old man’s. He wiped his forehead with the back of his sun-cracked, boll-scratched hand, sending the beads of sweat flying into the evening air like tiny flickering shards of glass. In his other palm he held a handful of wild blackberries gathered from the bramble bushes on the dirt path back to the house. He could hear the rolling, guttural give-and-take of yellow-billed cuckoos––first close by––ka ka ka ka kow kow kow––then farther away––ka ka ka ka kow kow kow––then close by again. Back and forth. He tossed the berries into his mouth, savoring the juice as he bit through the skin, the perfect balance of sweet and tart playing on his tongue. He bent forward and spit a mouthful of bitter seeds onto the ground. A tiger swallowtail fluttered across the yard and landed for a moment on a tulip tree leaf. Just then another swallowtail appeared. He watched as they flew away in a courtship dance, disappearing into the distance. It’s time, he blurted out, startling himself in mid-sentence and looking right, left and behind to make sure no one was within earshot. I think I’d best be moving on.

He gazed into the distance, past the tulip tree, past the brambles, past the cotton barn. The hills beyond were washed with a palette of luminescent pastels as the sun set behind him. But where? Up to that point his universe had not extended past the confines of Palmyra. What little he knew of the rest of the world, he knew from the books Miss Pennypacker would loan him. Knuckle Whacker Pennypacker. That’s what the kids called her back in grammar school. His fingers hurt at the mere thought of her approaching from behind and popping them with a ruler. But had he called her that? Where she could hear him? The singular person in his life who had instilled in him a love of reading? Thanks to Miss Pennypacker, he would soak up whatever he could put his hands on––books, flyers and merchandise catalogs retrieved from Phelps’ general store, the occasional out-of-town letter.

Wait. The letter from Wiley. Where did I put it? He jumped up, pivoted to face the house, and ran inside, the screen door slamming behind him. He went straight to the bedroom he shared with three others and lit the oil lamp sitting on the nightstand. He found the letter, folded carefully in its original envelope, in the bottom drawer, his drawer. The top drawer was Jesse’s. He retrieved the envelope and held it under the lamp. The return address read Mr. Wiley Bass, Bass Farm, Ochlocknee, Thomasville, Georgia. Baker’s second cousin, on his father’s side and two years his senior, had written him a year earlier urging him to visit. He removed the letter, unfolded it and read it aloud. The closing passage jumped out:

Yankees are moving here in droves and they’re bringing their money with them. The weather is warm, it never snows, and hunting and fishing are abundant. Oh, and did I tell you about the young ladies in these parts?

Baker rummaged through the cigar box he kept stored in the drawer. He had a little money saved up, not much but enough to get him to Thomasville and tide him over until he found work. Breaking the news to Mama and Papa was not easy. Papa understood but Mama took it hard, so hard that she let out a thunderous yowl and proceeded to cry for days. He tried to console her, knowing how hard it must have been to see one of her own move so far away. Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll come home to visit. And I’ll write often. At least once a week. You can be sure of that. He held her hand and rested his head on her shoulder.

Hell, they probably would have done the same thing at your age if they had been in your shoes and had had the opportunity, Jesse had said. Papa gave him a few dollars to help him get by. He packed a single weather-worn valise, purchased second hand from Phelps’ store. Jesse drove him twenty-five miles by wagon to the Eagle Tavern in Halifax. There he boarded the first available westbound coach and traveled one hundred fifty more miles to the newly formed town of Greensboro. It took him three days, with horses swapped out along the way. He figured it would have taken two if the second driver hadn’t fostered a bit too strong a romance with a bottle of Old Forester whisky at the layover at Casso’s Inn in Raleigh. When they reached Greensboro the coach driver let him off right in front of the single-track stop on Elm Street.

You stand right over yonder, the driver had told him. They’ll be a train come along directly. Just make sure you get on the one to Atlanta, otherwise you may end up in Charleston.

He got on the right train with the help of an officious conductor––OK, perhaps that wasn’t the right word––but the man was a bit too authoritarian for his taste. Almost nine hours later, the train pulled into the Union Depot in Atlanta. He descended the steps from the train car, valise in hand, and located the Western Union window. He retrieved his cousin’s letter from the side pocket of the valise, where he had placed it for easy access, and read the return address. He composed a telegram to Wiley––COMING TO VISIT ARRIVE LATE TOMORROW BAKER BASS STOP––and paid the attendant forty-five cents. He would have sent it earlier, but Western Union offices were hard to come by. Hopefully his cousin would get it in time and would come to greet him. He then purchased a ticket on the next Macon-bound local. The man at the ticket window had warned him that his journey would take him through a circuitous assemblage of towns––to Macon, then on to Savannah and west to Thomasville.

Ain’t always been that way, the ticket man had told him, but them boys, Sherman’s boys, they took them tracks, pulled ’em up, heated ’em til they was red hot, twisted ’em and made hair-pins out of ’em. It’ll take years to get ’em back the way they used to be.

After two more train changes, Baker arrived in Thomasville. He leaned out the window as the train pulled into the depot. He saw his cousin standing on the platform awaiting him, a broad grin on his face.

Soon after arriving, he took a single room at the Davis-Hall boarding house. Mrs. Hall––it would be months before he learned her first name––ushered him up the stairway to the second floor. As they climbed the stairs she recited the house rules, one-by-one.

We’re early risers here. Breakfast is at six o’clock sharp. If you’re more than twenty minutes late you don’t eat.

Baker grinned. Six o’clock wasn’t early. Not where he came from.

Lunch. You’re on your own. Supper is served at seven. Family style. That’s when you’ll get to know your housemates. We’re all good people. Down-home people. God-fearing Christians. Have you found a church home yet?

He shook his head. No ma’am, I just got here.

"Well, you will. We have plenty to choose from.

"Yours is at the end of the hall. Your room, that is. The last one on the right. No smoking in there. If you want to smoke you can do it in the parlor downstairs. Outside is better.

And no loud noises after nine. Some of our people go to bed early. And I lock the doors at eleven. If you’re not in by then, don’t knock on the door askin’ me to let you in, cause I won’t. You can sleep on the porch.

At the landing halfway up the stairs, she stopped and swung around to face him. No liquor in the house. Period. And no lady friends upstairs. Ever. That’ll get you kicked out faster than anything.

He nodded. When she opened the door to his room, the first thing that jumped out at him was the wallpaper, faded and peeling along the picture rail. Pineapples!! Hideous pineapples of green, brown and yellow. He envisioned waking up to tremors each morning. He scanned the room. The hodgepodge of disparate pieces of furniture, all of which had seen better days, looked as if they had been thrown together by a blind man. A standard size single bed with iron frames that rattled and squeaked when he sat on the bed’s edge. A writing table with cabriole legs, one of which had been repaired with an artful contrivance of baling wire. A straight-backed chair with a fiddle splat. A table lamp with a tarnished, filigreed casting at the base. And a small storage chest that could have come from the Newport barracks. It would do. He swung the bed around and pushed it as close to the front wall as he could, with the baseboard facing the window so that when he awoke each morning he would open his eyes to the dawning of a new day…and not the pineapples.

Staying with his cousin was out of the question. It was too far out. He needed to be able to walk to work, wherever work ended up being, but surely it would be in town. He set out to find a job, as his dwindling cash reserves would only cover a month’s worth of room and board. He trudged up and down the crisscross of streets in the business section of town…Broad…Jackson…Monroe…stopping at each commercial house and storefront. Most people he talked to had nothing to offer, but on Crawford Street he landed a chance to prove his mettle as a clerk in a general store owned by Edward Pennington, one of those Yankees his cousin had written about. The store was housed in a two-story frame building. Pennington and his wife lived upstairs.

Let me make something clear, Bass, Pennington rasped, a half-smoked cigar resting between his right thumb and forefinger, I don’t know you and I don’t know where you come from. But I’m willing to give you a try.

Pennington stepped from behind the front counter, stacked shoulder-high with boxes of newly arrived merchandise. The glow from the overhead lamp reflected off his fly-rink head.

There are rules around here that you need to know. Your job is to dust and stock, he said, pointing to the boxes and pronouncing the words so they came out sounding more like dusht and shtock. "No interacting with my patrons until you’ve shown yourself to be a worthy underling. And get here on time. I don’t take kindly to tardiness. You’ll have two fifteen-minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Do you understand?