Grimm Tales Read Online Free

Georgie?” Frieda glared up into a slow wink sliding down the way a slow wink intended to be slow-mo (heavy on the mojo) slid. Definitely meaning more than vision hid.
    Brazen bravado led timbre rather than hush to Hooligan’s low-down whisper, leaning closer and more personal towards the crusty broad he wouldn’t mind rolypolying ’round with one day. Women with pork to their bellies were soft in the sack. Emboldening his move, George took advantage of the absence of her slithery sister, still fiddling coins across the room. Came a swagger of sweet, funky oldies:
    I’m waiting for my life to begin
    I’m waiting for that train to come in
    George generated his best Rick’s Cafe accent, all the better to charm Frieda la femme. “Ya see, kid, it’s like dis—me and my accomplice, we rolled the barrel better than,
uh
, better than they do the Pennsylvania Polka in Perryopolis.
Well,
let’s call it a steel drum barrel, so’s youse gets da full big picture in your peepers, dollface—and man oh man, did it make some deep kerplunk!”
    â€œHoly Hannah, George! You mean—”
    As if on cue, Hannah Zambowser, swathed in a trim suit of gabardine blue, not looking at all bad for her age, bustled her trim grim gumption from the backroom, bellying it up to the bar. “You swappin’ trade secrets, Georgie Porgie?” she said sweet as clenched teeth can pry. “Lotta fish swim funny in the river who bubble their blabber outta turn. Just for the
halibut
, I heartily suggest you keep your piehole zipper-zilched. You got that, pally?” She glared him, his ebullience and his cowlick down, leaned a perfunctory nod to the short hunkered mass o’ lass guzzling her gimlet, with a curt “
Frieda
,” then hooted
“Hallllo!”
to the beanstalk bending over the worn Wurlitzer. “You findin’ anything good on that old jalopy of a nicklelodeon, hon?”
    â€œMachine don’t take no cottonpickin’ nickels, Ma. This one’s eatin’ all my quarters, but I took dibs on a tip I reckon was over lingered at table three, so I’m crankin’ ’em out all right. There’s a lotta oldies here. I kinda like that.”
    In a little honkytonk village in Texas
    there’s a guy who plays the best piano bar.
    And when he plays out with the bass and guitar,
    they all yell out, “Oh give me Daddy, 8 to the bar!”
    He plays the boogie, the funky boogie
    and when he plays that rhythm
    he puts them all in a trance
    * * *
    Meanwhile…aboard the good party ship
Whammy Zammy
, the jazzed audience was slurping up a good time in a spellbound lollygag, tongues a’wag at the smooth dazzling antics of the main act, the man with the grin behind the silver sparkle of the Sweet Harmony Harmonica.
No shit
, Jake Piper on the poop deck, wowing them in wave after mesmerizing wave of mouth piping melodies to sweet somnambulance. Winding, weaving, wavering his way this way, that way, all the way around the floating pleasure palace, room after stateroom.
    Piper took in details of decor and more. He’d started slow and easy, his hypnotic heritage mouthharp zinging vibes of “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which hopped up the minion nymphs of the jolly mean giant like grits on a sizzler. Scantily clad, if that, they pranced their fancy two-steps and bootie scooted their boogie to the obvious ogle of their southern captain’s magnanimous delight. “Big Daddy! Big Daddy!” they called out in pretty squeals, arms all akimbo. “Come dance with me. Come dance with me.” And they sang along, all but one, when Jake Piper led them in song:
    I’ve been walkin’ these streets so long
    Singin’ the same old song
    I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
    Where hustle’s the name of the game
    And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
    There’s been a load of compromisin’
    On