When I left Sam, he was still poring over a stack of birth records and old papers. He told me it would take a while to sort out, and that was fine with me. I had an appointment to keep, one that might just get me some answers. Or might get me killed. You never know.<\/p>\n
Turtle Town isn’t the friendliest place, at least not when you’re an elephant with a nose for danger. As I walked down its narrow twisting streets, I could feel all eyes on me. For the first time since I’d handed over my gun, I missed the feel of it in my pocket. These streets held unwanted memories, and with every step those memories were coming back. I turned up the collar of my trench coat. It was a cold night, and I had a feeling it was about to get colder.<\/p>\n
When I finally got to the old Tortoise Shell, I tried to slip in quietly, but that wasn’t going to happen. The moment I stepped through the door, all conversation stopped dead. The bartender took one look at me and silently gestured to a booth in the back. The feeling in the room when I made my way through the bar was definitely not hugs and kisses. But I figured I was safe. If Tommy had wanted me dead, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.<\/p>\n
“Smellephant!” Tommy’s rich accented voice rang out, and as I slipped into the booth, I could hear conversation gradually resume. If Tommy wanted me there, nobody was going to argue. Nobody ever argued with Tommy.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a while,” I said quietly.<\/p>\n
His face broke out into a broad grin. “Too long my friend. I am old Russian tortoise, ok so I know, I am keeping all day in the shell and I hide.”<\/p>\n
He gestured to the samovar on the table between us. I’m not much of a tea drinker, but this wasn’t the time to argue. “I’m listening.”<\/p>\n
“So what tortoise thinking all day in that shell? I’m thinking, I tell you, I’m liking this Smellephant. I got news, I should share with my old friend, yes?”<\/p>\n
I took a sip of tea, wishing it was Jack Daniels. “Yes,” I said. Maybe I was about to get some answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I left Sam, he was still poring over a stack of birth records and old papers. He told me it would take a while to sort out, and that was fine with me. I had an appointment to keep, one that might just get me some answers. Or might get me killed. You never … Continue reading “A Nose for Danger, part 7”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9827"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9827"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10156,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9827\/revisions\/10156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}