The White Lilly

In his apartment back yard there was a wooden Adirondack chair to rest in. It was painted Forest Green. Ellis sat there and watched the moon and stars at night while he smoked his pipe. A few blocks to the north was a railroad with a junk yard to one side full of scrap metal. Ellis could hear the crane lift and lower an electromagnet to drop steel into gondola cars parked on a side track as they were being loaded. From Ellis’s yard he could watch the trains pass. Sometimes he would walk to the train tracks and look at the locomotives and line of cars move on past.

At local drug store he bought comic books. He also liked cowboy novels and read them.

Ellis smoked a pipe. He had two, a billiard and a bulldog. Both were briars. He mixed his own blend of Prince Albert, Half and Half and Carter Hall. In each room of his apartment was a cast iron heater that was fed by a tin coal bucket using a small tin shovel. Soot and dust were everywhere from this fire. Nights he would drive about down town to look at all the colored lights.

For personal protection Ellis carried a snub nosed Colt .38 Special in a leather chest holster. He also toted in his coat pocket a black leather case containing a silver detective badge. The gun had a nickel shiny silver finish with walnut grips. In his Buick, he had police and detective gear. Ellis carried around the following: two way radio, ropes, locks, chains, flares, flashlights, handcuffs, billy clubs, rubber boots, coat, blanket, shovel, axe, hatchet, hammer, tape, a tool bag, spools of wires, binoculars, magnifying glass, fingerprint kits, glass cutter, razor blades, knives, can goods, can opener, two cameras, first aid kit, note pads and pencils, raincoat, umbrella, soap, towels, a shotgun, a rifle, three extra pistols, extra ammunition, and a special siren that he never used. Ellis once bought an odd novelty gun. It was a semiautomatic .45 ACP custom made by a gunsmith that was a three barrel pistol that had two receivers to the side of the central barrel that carried a total of a dozen bullets. He kept this in the trunk in a box. He had some silencers there too, if he needed them.