Prompt Word: Quail
Penny Collins, Business Manager 4
Twilight had cast across the city, as Penny made her way from the factory to a pub named Yakob’s five blocks away. She took a circuitous route, starting her journey in the direction of her own home, and then veering off toward the bar half way.
When she arrived, she paused outside the door, and suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder. “Hwaa!” she cried craning her neck around, to see a young man she didn’t recognize.
The stranger pulled her further from the door, putting himself between her and he door. Letting go, he then looked past her shoulder intently, slipped a card into her hand while saying, quite loudly, “Yer in me way, deary, ’less you wanna be drunk wit me.” She was right terrified in that moment. She walked away a bit dazed, and as the stranger went into Yakob’s, she continued down the street.
Coming out of her daze, Penny looked at the card in her hand, and realized it was for a wooden clog shop two doors down in the direction she’d come from. Looking confused, she turned around, and gave Yakob’s Pub a wider berth.
She came in to the clog shop, an older gentleman behind a workbench, with hands full of chisel and hammer, working away. The clog artisan paused and glanced up, “Are you Ms. Collins? Your fitting is down the hall, through the door with the quail.”
“Thank you?” Penny replied, but was quite unsure of herself at this point. She entered the hall past the clog workstation, and saw several doors, each adorned with a different bird carving, unhelpfully labelled in Latin.
Penny wasn’t so good with knowing her birds or with Latin, and was looking back and forth between a ‘COTURNIX’ label, and a ‘PERDIX’ label in confusion. After another moment, the COTURNIX door cracked open, seemingly on it’s own.
Penny waited two beats, and when nobody came out, she walked over to it, and saw that this wasn’t a fitting room, but a dimly lit staircase. In the gloom about half-way down, Mr. McMahon was waiting, and waved for her to follow.
“Ah, coturnix must mean quail,” she said to herself, and closed the quail-signed door behind her, descending the stairway. Mr. McMahon had turned round and was heading deeper into a basement until the dark room filled with natural light.
In a little yard full of piles of logs, Mr. McMahon sat on a pile of adler and started, “I hope Junior got to you before you went in.” Penny nodded, and he continued, “Good, Yakob’s is known as my office, and it is being watched, so I wanted to try to avoid having them look into your arrival.
Penny, sitting on a pile of willow was confused, “Then why send me there?”
“I’m not stupid enough to keep this place’s cards on me, or say it aloud in the shop,” Mr. McMahon replied.
Mr. McMahon looked at Penny skeptically, “So, did I burn this meeting location, or do you really have serious business?”
Penny looked him in the eyes, “Ms. Ismail is being paid less than half of what Mr. Zhang was getting, and at that little of a raise, it seems you might be interested.”
“Joan was a good pick, but I’m not surprised. Not sure I can do anything though. Anything else I should know?”
“No?” Penny was feeling pensive, but it seemed the meeting was over.
Link to first post: https://wandering.shop/@vollink/115732377526907259