THE DEVILS DIME Read Free Page A

over a scrawny neck and bobbing Adam’s apple. The encircling starched collar was impeccably white but badly frayed.
    “You truthin’ me?” He asked the question as he shook the tablet in Jess’s face. It seemed his social skills were as frayed as his collar.
    “Why would I not?” Jess was still uncertain what it was about his request that had set the old fellow off. “Are you Ollie Twickenham?” Jess held his smile but dropped his hand.
    Twickenham ignored him still. He wiggled his nose and cheek to dislodge his eyeglasses, and the pince-nez promptly tumbled from his face to dangle on a thin black ribbon attached to his vest pocket. He stepped down out of his nook and Jess realized for the first time just how short the man was.
    Jess stood his ground as the man studied him, looked down at the page, then fixed his eyes on Jess again. He was coatless, with muslin protectors covering the cuffs and forearms of his green-gartered white shirt. Streaks of old ink and other unrecognizable stains proved the muslin’s necessity.
    Twickenham drew himself up to his full height, which brought his beady eyes just above Jess’s elbow.
    “Hmmph. You’re far too young to be Pepper,” he spat, “but then, you’re so wet behind the ears you wouldn’t know that!”
    Jess absorbed the accusation that had been delivered with an unnatural, gravelly bark that sounded like planks dragged across river rock. The damaged effect was most likely the result of years of forcing a high-pitched voice to a more authoritative register.
    “Ah, but I am. Pepper, that is. But please, call me Jess.”
    A suspicious eyebrow launched itself halfway up to Twickenham’s receding hairline. “Of the Denver Post ?”
    “One and the same, sir. Now of the New York Times for...” Jess checked his pocket watch and continued, “three days, four hours and twenty-two minutes, to be exact.”
    Twickenham’s jaw dropped and his eye began a rather alarming twitch.
    Jess drew a gold-embossed card from his pocket and turned it with a sheepish grin toward Twickenham who settled his spectacles back onto his nose and peered over them at it. He sputtered and choked and looked to be deciding if he should just stomp off or make a stand.
    A furious battle raged across his face and left the man heaving for breath before he finally seemed to capitulate. This fellow was not accustomed to being wrong.
    “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I thought you’d be older. Your reputation precedes you, sir.” Twickenham blustered, his voice soaring into its more comfortable range.
    “And yours, as well,” Jess offered magnanimously with a slight bow. If the rumors were true, Twickenham had been one of the best investigative reporters in the city, relegated years earlier to the morgue by a scandal of which he could not prove himself innocent.
    Twickenham tried unsuccessfully to hide his pride at the unexpected compliment. He all but swaggered as he reached up to take Jess by the elbow.
    “I’ve got just what you’re looking for right back here, son.” The little fellow stayed slightly in the lead and moved past a bank of books as if he were presenting a visiting lord to the gallery. Jess allowed himself to preen for just an instant, then followed. Whatever it was that had possessed him to actually follow the instructions this time had landed him squarely in the good graces of an icon of his profession. And it felt pretty fine.
    Twickenham led him deep into the maze, talking and gesticulating the whole way. “The basement’s much larger than you’d think. It’s connected to the basements of buildings on either side of us. Tunnels and dead ends all over the place. Runs clear over to City Hall. You want to know where something is, always ask.”
    He stopped in the middle of an aisle created by stacks of boxes labeled ‘Unsolved’ and turned to Jess. “One other thing you need to know. I keep a gun. You come prowling around here without checking in,