Chapter 118: Max to the Rescue

Supper with the shoemaker turned out to be a great idea. He did have a name and it was David Schumacher. I almost burst out laughing and Schumacher just grinned, it was good to be able to see the humor in your own name. Hell I went through life being Mr. Narrater and was miserable until I was given the sage advice just to use it. Sure enough I was the one kid in the entire school that everyone knew, simply because I was the Narrator in every school play.

After introducing him to Jeb we all followed him to the “best” restaurant in town. Of course we went right back to the immigrant sector and were led to an older frame house that had already seen it’s better days. It had a lean to it that made me realize that this old thing had somehow survived the New Madrid Quake of just a decade earlier. The New Madrid earthquake was later estimated to be a minimum of an 8.2, - possibly even a 10.2, and had rung church bells in Boston more than a thousand miles away.

Modern day geologists had slowly downgraded the power of the quakes but many people wrote that off as political pressure from state governments desiring more FEMA money. Regardless, it flattened what was St. Louis at the time and sent the Mississippi River into panic mode, running anywhere it could and changing course in several places.

Anyway, it was already an old house, and it was still standing; it also turned out to contain some amazing Italian cuisine. Not food but true cuisine, the sort you’d find at a very fine restaurant. It also surprised me to see that there was a number of fine gentlemen taking their supper here, no ladies, just the gentlemen. Apparently it wouldn’t be proper to bring your lady to immigrant town, I guess this was what you’d call quiet racism.

The food was out of this world; they even had fresh parmesan cheese which truly got my attention. I turned to the business at hand and started to work my offer with Dirk. A good shoemaker in town would be a priceless commodity, and I truly wanted his enthusiastic buy in. By the second glass of wine he was into the idea and when I brought my need to find a bank he mentioned a man he knew from their religious group. I began to think about funding my own bank.

My belly was full and my mind was racing. I agreed to meet him again in two days’ time to allow him to properly observe his sabbath, as he had bent the rules a little to meet with us tonight. With that we ended the business talk and finished our delightful meals. There was a tavern or two I wanted to check out up in town, and I was in good company to do so.

The first stop turned out to be a bit on the shady side; we could hear the dice rolling as soon as we walked into the room. I had to put my hand on Timmons to keep him away and we walked to the makeshift bar and ordered a round of beer and whiskey. I was looking for a lot of things and a good brewery was definitely one of them and gambling definitely was not.