The Avenger 30 - Black Chariots (15 page)

“Hey, good to see you,” the black man said.

Nellie surveyed him. “Yes, you look very fatherly, Josh.”

“Figure I would, I feel very paternal.” He took each of them by the arm. “They’re doing something or other with the babies. So you can’t see Rosabel or them for a few minutes. We can wait in this waiting room down here.”

When there were in the dim-lit room, sharing it with a nervous man with an unlit cigar in his mouth, Cole said, “Nellie and I had to call off our bet.”

“About what?” asked Josh. He picked up copies of the
Herald Tribune,
the
Journal-American,
and the
Post.
“Want to read something while we wait? No? Just as well, they’re a couple days old anyhow. What bet?”

“Pay him no mind,” said Nellie. “It’s only another of his inappropriate jests.”

“She’s trying to maintain it was a joke, but we were both serious,” said Cole. “We had a small bet as to whether you would become the parent of a boy or a girl.”

Josh laughed. “Well, see . . . you both won.”

The man with the cigar put down the six-week-old copy of
Collier’s
he’d been staring at. “Did you say you got a way to tell in advance whether it’ll be a boy or a girl?”

Cole glanced at him. “Still waiting for yours to arrive?”

“Yeah, and it would be nice if it was a girl. Otherwise, we got to name him Junius.”

“I’m sorry to inform you that we don’t have any system,” said Cole. “I had a maiden aunt who claimed eighty percent infallibility in that area of prognostication with the use of tea leaves, but she neglected to pass the method on to me.”

“Oh, we already tried tea leaves,” said the man with the cigar. He returned to his magazine.

“Have you and Rosabel decided on names yet?” asked Nellie.

Josh shook his head. “Nope, though I think we’re maybe getting close on the girl. It’s funny, now I see the pair of them . . . none of the names we had picked out in advance seem to fit, quite.”

“Be thankful you don’t have to name one Junius,” said Cole.

“You’ll like them,” said Josh, smiling. “I know everybody says this, but those two kids are really something. The boy recognizes me already. Yeah, when the nurse holds him up behind the glass, you can see he knows me.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled again at Nellie and Cole. “I hear you had quite a time out there, huh? Smitty and Mac were telling me when they dropped by last night.”

Nellie frowned. “Hasn’t Richard been here yet?”

“Well, no,” said Josh. “I figure, you know, he’s got too much on his mind. I don’t expect him to—”

Tiny bells jingled out in the corridor. Then the Avenger entered, carrying a teddy bear, two rattles, a rubber ball, and a green-paper-wrapped bouquet of yellow roses, “Congratulations, Josh,” he said. “I brought over a few things.”

“Well,” said Josh, “that’s very nice.”