The Cassidy Posse Read Free Page A

change.
    “Mike, would you be a sweetheart and hand me that dress on the bed. The green silk one.”
    Mike picked up the dress off the large brass bed, pausing a moment to remember some of the splendid moments he had spent on its overstuffed mattress. Nell was four years younger than him. He had seen her grow up - the fantasy of every Irish lad in Bridgeport. She talked and teased but always seemed to remain aloof as if saving herself for something better. With her beauty and intelligence, she had managed to fare a little better with the ruling elite of the city than many other Irish lasses. Her fall from grace had been the usual story though. She had become the lover of a rich man and disgraced her family. He had made promises that were broken. Then there was the descent into the levee district’s sporting houses with the rest of the soiled doves. If it had ever gotten to her, she never showed it. She still had that regal bearing she adopted at sixteen that drove the boys wild as she walked down Archer Avenue. Somewhere deep within her was a stubborn belief that she was made for something better than this.
    “Mike, what ever happened to that dress?” she asked impatiently. “I have business to attend to.”
    With that the spell was broken. In the vision he was playing in his head, he and Nell were on the bed. Now he realized another man would be tapping him on the shoulder to take his place. It would be a man of wealth and substance who could afford fifty dollars for an evening’s entertainment.
    “Oh, you have a client coming over?” Mike asked sarcastically. He sat on the big brass bed and batted the tassels that hung from the silk canopy.
    “You know that’s amazing how you can lose that brogue from the patch when you want to,” she said, changing the subject. “I had to spend good money on an elocution coach so I didn’t sound like shanty Irish. I think you would go a lot farther in the police department if you didn’t sound like you had just gotten off the boat.”
    “That’s just it, darling Nell. I just did get off duh boot.”
    “No you didn’t. You got off the boat when you were six,” she said. “I hardly think that would give you a permanent affliction of your speech.”
    There was a heavy knock at the door.
    “Did yuh want me to get that?” asked Mike.
    “No!” she replied sharply. “I’ll get it. I’m almost dressed.”
    Mike wondered who was on the other side of the door. He walked over to the long windows and pulled back the velvet drapes. There were no fancy carriages in the street below. Just a tired-looking workhorse hitched to a delivery wagon. Not the type of customer that would be knocking on Nell Quinn’s door. He had heard that Nell was seeing someone of importance, but his usual sources of information had failed to turn up a name. Whoever the gentleman was, he was very shy about publicity. Mike decided he was going to have to spend more time on South Clark Street.
    The knock at the door came again. Nell came out from behind the dressing screen in such a hurry she almost knocked it over. “I’m coming,” she yelled before she was halfway across the room. She opened the door and Mike could hear a deep male voice but he could not hear what was being said. By the way Nell tilted her head, Mike surmised that the man was very tall. Nell walked back to her oak dresser and took a piece of folded blue paper from the top drawer. She returned to the door where she gave the paper to the man in the hall.
    When she turned around, she gave Mike a quick, nervous smile and sat beside him on the bed.
    “I’m serious, Mike,” she said, picking up their previous conversation without missing a beat. “You really should be thinking about your future. Now take your friend Bockleman. When you first brought him up here, he was such a country boy he may as well have had hay sticking out of his pockets. Now he’s speaking better and trying to dress better too. You have to sound the part if you