July 11 1947

  Starting on a new job today, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

  I feel in robust health now that my rear end is healed up after taking that slug from the Black Bat, last month. I've felt cooped up and restless, and I'm looking forward to the work.

  Boy, do I need the work, the little woman's been spending my dough left and right. Luckily my wife still doesn't know about my line of work. She still buys the lie that I'm a land surveyor for the firm of Frye and Sons. She keeps nagging me to bring the boss home for dinner.

  "Honey I'd like you to meet my boss the Bloody Butcher, Bloody Butcher this is my wife, Meg."
 

 I found out about and signed up for the new gig, at Red Mike's. I wasn't expecting something that pays this good. Heck I wasn't expecting much of anything, just a beer and a tenderloin. Red Mike's is the best underground hang out in Manhattan, If there is news on a job, it's a safe bet, words floating around Mike's, but I wasn't getting my hopes up.
 

 Funny how I almost missed out on the whole shebang, cause when I was about half a block from Red Mikes store front, I saw Big Pockets Ballas, lurking around. Pockets was preaching as always. He used to be a swell guy, big Pockets. Now all he does is tell his former buddies, the error of their ways.

 Personally, I don't think he's right in the ol bean. Ever since he tangled with old Doc `high and mighty', and his five palookas several years ago, it's like he isn't Big Pockets anymore. He even prefers to be called Reginald. I wonder if it has anything to do with that scar on his scalp that he's always scratching.  

 Well my taste buds took control, and gave me the fortitude, to hitch up my trousers and pass through `Reginalds' gauntlet of hooey. I guess Mike Jr. doesn't have him kicked off the property, because too many of his patrons have accepted Pockets as part of the ambiance. I hummed a Ledbelly tune, real loud to drown out Pockets fire and brimstone, and made as little Eye contact as possible.

  Once inside, I saw the usual crowd, eating, drinking, bragging,arguing. I thought I'd sit at the bar, to eat and gab. I opted for the far left end, because I didn't feel like talking to Cliff Marsland, and wanted to avoid Gooter and Muggy, who were harassing Slots Head Montgomery. Poor Slots, they were trying to get him to take off his oversized fedora. Slots was just staring straight ahead, trying to ignore them, looking miffed. Glancing at him, I noticed that under that huge hat, he had grown girly bangs.

  Slots kinda looked like a swish. I guess he figured it was the lesser of two evils. I hadn't seen Slots in a while, the last time I had a gander at that fore head of his, it displayed two skulls of different designs, one with the number 5, on it. In between the skulls, was an ugly red spider. Those works of art were from years ago, I'd heard rumors of more, but Slots wouldn't let any one see them.

  Someone told me, (Tweeter or the Monkey Man, I cant remember,) that his latest unsolicited, tattoo, was from the Unseen Hand's ring. I would really like to see it, I hear it's a marvel.

  The Unseen Hand, whom I've been fortunate not to have tangled with, has a ring symbol, that looks like the front of a fist, a fist with a ring that has a symbol, that looks like a fist, with a ring and so on and so on.

  Commanche Stone, once told me that he actually used a microscope type device to look at a scar left on one of the Unseen Hands other victims and found that it just kept going. I cant picture it, but he said he saw ring, fist, ring, fist, ring, fist. Stone said it was like holding a mirror in front of another mirror.

  Creepy stuff like that makes my head hurt. I watched Gooter and Muggy, rag on Slots Head, until Slots gave up trying to be one of the fellas, and left. I don't blame him, it's bad enough that these mid-night avenger types seem to make a habit of putting their painful, John Hancocks on his mug, but then he has to put up with his own kind giving him the business. Poor Slots.

  It goes with out saying, I sure didn't want to partake of my repast with Gooter and Muggy.

   The place was packed, so when I finished my steak, I ordered a draft, and started to make the rounds, maybe see if I could get in on some kind of action.

  Everybody I talked to, unfortunately, said they were taking it easy for awhile, laying low, and what not. Matt the Gat, told me to talk to Marko the Mook, who told me to talk to Jesse Two Bits, who told me to talk to Shivering Brad, who told me to talk to Sinful Dennis, who told me to talk to the Terrible Frenchman, who told me to talk to Mad Man Loki, who told me to talk to Slick Gick, who told me talk to the Insidious Dr. Small, who told me to talk to A. Henry Epitaph, who told me to talk to the Big Win.

   What it amounted to was two hours going through all of that guff, just to have the Big Win tell me that he heard Gooter and Muggy were on to something.

   Jeez! I took a big gulp of draft and headed back to the bar. Gooter and Muggy saw me coming, they were grinning those `I just saw a little old lady, slip in the mud, grins they always had. As with Big Pockets, Mike Jr. lets them hang around, because he thinks the customers would feel something was off kilter, if they weren't around. Folks might get suspicious if they didn't walk in and see those huge mouths, beady eyes and pock marked faces. I bought them a whiskey, and asked them "what's the buzz?".

   After sitting, and listening to them boasting about the guff, they gave slots Head, and about how they once got a look up the Domino Lady's gown, as she was tying them up for the cops. Finally, they got around to info I wanted.

   They said they were hired by someone named Dr. Prometheus, (I don't even flinch at the names anymore) and were leaving in the morning. They are going to drive a truck, the contents of which they aren't privy to, and heading for a place in North Louisiana, called Boneport. Once in Boneport, they will rendezvous with other members of Dr. Prometheus' gang, then head down further south to the gulf, then off to sea, towards an Island called Farou, in the Pacific. They said that Prometheus paid big bucks up front, and that luck would have it, my name was on a list of hired thugs, okayed by the second in command.

   "Who is the number two guy, who wants me for this gig?" I asked.

  "Horse Shoe Hanna" they told me.

   "Jeez" I thought. "Well, if the pays good."

   I told them I wanted in on it. They said they would pick me up in the morning. I asked that they not come up to my apartment, that I would be waiting outside.

  I had a cup of Java, a cigarette, then headed home. Meg and the kids were asleep when I got in. I wrote a note, telling them that I had to leave on a survey job, that might take a week or so. I wrote that I loved them, and that PS. I would try to make it back in time to see my youngest kid, portray a cucumber in his school play.

  That's all for now, I think I'm going to sit on the fire escape and wait for the sun to come up. I've got to make sure that Gooter and Muggy don't come pounding on my door and wake up Meg.