The Lady Burns Bright

by Warren Court

  Tom frisked Armour and pulled the revolver from its holster. “He’s carrying,” Tom said.

  “He’s a private dick,” the older man said.

  Armour shrugged Tom’s hand off him and glared at the thug.

  “Easy, Tom,” Roscoe said.

  “Yeah, Tom, take it easy,” Armour said. “You got the guns. Both of them.”

  “Watch it, Armour. Would hate to see you get hurt. Or her,” Roscoe said, and he jerked Olive by the arm.

  “Like Foley got hurt?” Armour said. “You guys used me to track him down so you could kill him.”

  “Wasn’t us, son,” the older man said. “Too messy. Imagine shooting up a nice street like that.”

  “Armour, this is Mr. Pappanillo,” Roscoe said.

  “Carlos?” Armour said.

  There were confused looks. “That’s my boy. He’s six.”

  “Right – you’re Giuseppe,” Armour said, correcting himself. The man looked like someone he knew, and that man was Carlos Pappanillo. What the hell was happening to him?

  “We’re not on a first-name basis yet,” the old man said. “Sit down, please.”

  “Can we leave her out of it?” Armour said. The old man nodded and James Roscoe let Olive go. She rushed to the door but paused at it.

  “Go for an early lunch,” Armour said to her.

  “But Mr. Black…”

  “Just go. Get out of here.”

  “Nice girl,” Pappanillo said after she’d gone. “Cute.”

  “What do you want? This is my office. I have work to do.”

  “Really?” Pappanillo said. He pretended to flip through some papers on Armour’s desk. “Jimmy here tells me he is your only case. And that case got pretty fucked up yesterday.”

  “I had nothing to do with that. I found Foley like I was paid to do. You say you didn’t shoot him? Fine. I don’t know who did, and I don’t really care.”

  “I don’t care either, except I can’t find my money. That piece of shit Foley stole from me. That’s why I had Jimmy here hire you. We were told you were good. And that you wouldn’t run to the cops.” He looked at Jimmy and Tom, and they chuckled on cue.

  “Not too chummy with the cops, are you, son?” Pappanillo said.

  “No, I’m not. I found Foley. I expect to get paid.”

  “Just what do you think we owe you?” James Roscoe said. “You used up that deposit, bought a fancy suit, new ties, shirts.” They were following him? “Took a dame out to the CNE.” Yup they were following him.

  “Leave her out of it.”

  “Which dame?” Pappanillo said. “The one we just let go?”

  “The one Tom used to date,” Roscoe said.

  Armour struggled to remain calm upon hearing that. He heard Tom shuffle behind him.

  “Oh, yeah. That one. Nice girl, too. Shame if anything happened to her,” Pappanillo said.

  “Why would anything happen to her? She has nothing to do with this,” Armour said.

  “I’ll speak plain so you can understand,” Pappanillo said. “I want my money. You were supposed to find Foley and we were going to get the money back from him.”

  “Maybe it’s in the house in Kingston?”

  “We checked,” Roscoe said.

  “So that was you in Kingston following me. But you say you didn’t shoot him.”

  “That’s right. We say that. The micks probably did. He had a falling-out with them.”

  “How can I find the money if you can’t?”

  “Get resourceful,” Pappanillo said. “You managed to track that guy down, so track down the money.”

  “How much is it?” Armour asked.

  “Fifty thousand.”

  Armour raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, that much,” Pappanillo said.

  “How did he steal it? I mean did he stick up a casino or a booze run?”

  “Just never you mind,” Pappanillo said. “Suffice it to say he got his mitts on it, and he’s got it stashed somewhere. You can get access to things we can’t, like police reports.”

  “I’m not too chummy with the cops. You said so yourself.”

  “Well, get chummy. Do your job, is what I’m saying.”

  “I decline,” Armour said. “There are plenty of private investigators in this city.”

  “What is it with this kid?” Pappanillo said, and he strained his neck to look back at Roscoe.

  Armour heard Tom crack his knuckles.

  “I’ll make this simple, kid. That dame you’re seeing – either you bring me the money or she gets it. And I don’t mean a break in Hollywood. I mean she gets it right here.” Pappanillo made a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and pointed it at his head.

  Armour wanted to leap across the desk and strangle Pappanillo, but he clenched his fists and held his temper. Yeah, that would be smart, Armour, he told himself. You’d get about halfway to him before Jimmy and Tom shot you down here in your own office. Play it cool, brother.

  Pappanillo stood up.

  “My gun. I’d like it back,” Armour said.

  Pappanillo nodded at Tom. The thug spun the cylinder of the gun out and dumped the bullets on the floor before placing it on Armour’s desk. Armour waited for the trio to get out of his office and then reloaded it.

  Chapter 26

  Armour caught Melanie coming out of her boarding house. She was with the other girls; they were heading to the streetcar that would take them down to the Pegasus.

  “Armour,” Melanie said in surprise, her face glowing. Then it darkened as she took in his seriousness. “What’s the matter?”

  “Tom, the guy who works for Giuseppe Pappanillo.”

  “What about him…?” Melanie said, then realization dawned on her face. “It didn’t last long. I saw him maybe three or four times.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Armour, come on.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Yes, I did. I slept with him and then I dated Holtz. Now you know everything.”

  The girls were lingering close by. Melanie gave them a wave for them to be on their way.

  “You want to tell me about your past? Oh, right. You can’t remember it. How convenient.”

  “He’s a punk, a thug. A gangster, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He’s handsome. He can be charming, and he’s fun to be around when he’s not drunk. It didn’t last. He’s not my type. I was beginning to think you were my type. I may have been wrong about that.”

  “And what about Holtz? Did he know about Tom?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because maybe they fought over you? Holtz is missing, under suspicious circumstances. Put it together.”

  “You put it together. You’re the gumshoe.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means that Holtz was in Pappanillo’s pocket. It’s through Tom that I met Holtz.”

  “How was Holtz in Pappanillo’s pocket?”

  “All that money, those contracts to expand the waterfront. The dredgers. All those men they gotta hire. Tom was the bag man.”

  Armour remembered the vicious fight between the union men and the strike breakers. Tom had been at the forefront of it.

  “You think the harbour commissioner could afford the house they live in, the yacht he had and those cars? He was on the take. Foley, the guy his wife put in there – now he was a shifty guy,” she said.

  “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t know any more. Holtz didn’t like Foley, but his wife insisted he give him a job. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. Look, I gotta go.” She got ten feet away, then stopped and turned back to him. “We all have a history, Armour. I enjoyed our time together.”

  She headed off after her girlfriends. He wanted to run after her, beg her forgiveness. Then he shuddered when he remembered Pappanillo’s threat.

  Nice going, Armour. How can you protect her now? She wants nothing to do with you.

  When Mrs. Holt opened her
front door, Armour had to steel himself. Although he had thought it was fading, in truth the resemblance to his late wife was stronger than ever. So, when she looked at him scornfully now and said with annoyance, “What, you again?” it cut him to the quick.

  “Ma’am, I don’t want to bother you—”

  “Too late,” she said. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to your husband.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said as she started to close the door.

  “And who killed your friend Foley.”

  That stopped her. It saddened Armour to think she cared more about her friend than her husband. Perhaps they were lovers? Her husband had taken a lover, so why not her? Armour shook his head at the thought.

  “Make it quick. I have company coming,” she said.

  “The monsignor?”

  “Yes, if you must know,” she said.

  He put his hat on the coat rack near the front door. “I just saw him here the other day. Does he visit often?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must give a lot to the church to get such special treatment.”

  “It’s not just about giving. He’s been a good friend to me since my husband’s disappearance. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “No, it is not.”

  She led Armour into the front sitting room. There was no sign of the maid, and Mrs. Holt made no move to entertain him. There would be no cold drink or finger sandwiches offered. This was to be a formal meeting: quick and get out.

  “So, how can you help where the authorities have failed?”

  “What was the connection between your husband and Foley? Other than one worked for the other.”

  “Foley was a friend of mine. He needed a job. I helped him out.”

  “By insisting your husband hire him?”

  “Colin was looking for somebody. The man he’d had previously moved to Winnipeg.”

  “How was Foley a friend to you?”

  “The monsignor put him in touch with me. Why? What are you implying?”

  “Nothing at all,” Armour said. “You seem to have a lot of friends in the church.”

  “It’s been hard. My husband was a staunch Protestant,” she said.

  “A member of the Orangemen’s lodge,” Armour said.

  “Yes,” she said with derision. “I was raised a Protestant, but I converted in my twenties. He made me hide it.” She fingered the cross at her throat. There would be no hiding that now. “He resented my involvement with the church, with the monsignor and the other priests. I felt that his soul – our souls were in peril.”

  “Why?”

  She cocked her head and gave him a funny look that said Wouldn’t you like to know.

  “Was your husband under pressure from forces outside of the harbour commissioner’s office?”

  She said nothing.

  “Did they threaten him, force him to give the contracts to the right firms?”

  She nodded quickly.

  “Did you put Foley in there to help keep an eye on him?”

  She looked at the floor and nodded.

  “What did your husband say about that?”

  “He said he didn’t need any mick bodyguard, that he could handle it. He said not to worry, that as long as he did what they wanted we were in no danger.”

  “They threatened his family.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Armour remembered again the threat against Melanie. He hardly knew her; their connection was just in its sophomore stages and now tenuous at best. He wondered if she would still be in danger if he never saw her again. “Do you think the mob killed your husband?”

  “He drowned,” she said, the second half of the word trailing off. She had regurgitated the official line so many times it instinct. But Armour saw her doubt.

  “You don’t believe that.”

  She shook her head. “He was terrified of the water. When he was appointed harbour commissioner, we used to joke about it.” Armour remembered Melanie telling him that was one of their jokes too.

  “Why did he get the boat?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t know he’d even bought it until one of our friends mentioned it.”

  The money, Armour thought. He was keeping it from her. His little getaway spot for Melanie and him. Maybe there were other girls?

  “Who was Foley mixed up with?” Armour asked. It was obvious that Foley had made some enemies, considering how his life had ended.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said. She looked down at the carpet and then back up at Armour.

  “I understand you have a shrine in the basement.”

  “Are you a religious man?”

  “I was raised a Protestant.”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  “If I’m not intruding. The monsignor…”

  “He’s not due until after lunch.”

  “Your maid is away today?”

  “She quit. You can’t find good help, and if you do you can’t keep it.”

  Armour made note of that. So Shirley had flown the coop. What did that mean?

  Mrs. Holt led Armour down a steep set of wooden stairs that creaked under their weight. The basement was cool and damp; the stone walls glistened with wet. There were several crates stacked along one wall, and shelves loaded with canned goods and preserves in jars.

  “It’s through here.” She led him into another room and pulled on a string to a bare bulb hanging from the beams.

  Armour was taken aback. At the far end of the room, on a pedestal, was a life-size statue of Jesus, his arms outstretched. At his feet were several children carved in plaster. The walls were lined with candle racks, just like in a Catholic church, and in front of the statue was an altar covered with a white cloth. On it sat a gold cup and a gold bowl.

  “It’s beautiful,” Armour said. He looked at the statue. Below it the ground was new cement, rough and uneven. A rushed job. Armour looked again from the statue to the ground. He felt that sensation coming on. He was going to pass out. No, you don’t, Armour said to himself. No, you don’t.

  “I should go,” he managed to get out, his voice cracking.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  Armour went back to the stairs. He had to use the railing to pull himself up. Mrs. Holt came up behind him.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a glass of water or something?” she said.

  “No. Really, I should go.” He was flushed, and the room started to spin.

  She opened the door for him, and on his way out she put a hand on his shoulder.

  He made it to his car without passing out. He wiped the sweat from his face and breathed deeply for several minutes. Mrs. Holt had watched him from her porch but then she went back inside and closed her door. Armour put his head on the steering wheel; the cool Bakelite was comforting. Then he sat back and, in a whisper, repeated what Gim, the Magnificent Muthu, had said to him.

  “Under the watchful eye of the son,” he said. The sun… the son. Eye of the son. The son of God. He remembered the floor; the cement was so shoddily done, so rough. He was sure if he’d touched it, it would be like sandpaper against his skin. A rush job.

  Armour started his car and pulled out onto the road. The cool air coming through the windows helped revive him, and the farther away he got from the Holt house the clearer things became.

  Gim’s prediction on Foley’s whereabouts had been bang on. Armour was convinced the young psychic was two for two.

  But what did Armour care about Holt’s disappearance? Because the two were related that’s why. Because if he was under that house, then his wife was involved. He shook his head in dismay; how could she? And to build a shrine over it? And it was Holt’s wife who had pushed Foley into the harbour commissioner’s office. And look how that had turned out.

  The two were related. Armour was sure of it now.

  Chapter 27

  There was a crow
d in front of the harbour commissioner’s building, just like last time, except this time it wasn’t children eager to see a German submarine. It was all men, big burly types and thin wiry types, holding signs – the strikers from the dock. There were more of them now, though, and between them and the building Armour could see the police helmets and blue uniforms of Toronto’s finest. He pushed through the crowd.

  The submarine was gone. Armour remembered that naval officer saying it would be sent to the bottom of Lake Erie by the Americans. What a shame, he thought. He would have liked to have gone on it.

  He kept pushing until he was at the front of the group. Men on either side of him were hurling insults at the stoic line of police. Armour pushed up against the wooden barrier, and a cop placed his billy club firmly in Armour’s stomach and prepared to push him away. Or worse.

  “Get back, you bum,” the cop said, and then he did a double-take. “Armour? What the hell are you doing here?”

  Armour did not recognize the man but answered him anyway. “Hey, pal. I’m working,” he said.

  “Thought you were off the force?”

  “Special investigation. I need to get through. I have a meeting with the acting commissioner.”

  “Hey, this guy is a scab,” a protestor beside him said.

  “No,” Armour said. “I am not.”

  “Hey, we got one right here.” The protestor grabbed Armour’s arm. “We gotta scab here.”

  The cop brought his club down on the man. Then another cop came in and there were whistles and more blows and shouts. Armour’s cop friend pulled him through a gap in the barrier where two sawhorses met.

  Armour made it into the building, leaving the cops and the strikers to battle it out. A group of frightened civil servants and young women watched the melee outside. There was a particularly vicious attack on one strike breaker, and one of the young ladies swooned and fell to the polished floor of the lobby. Armour made to help her; he recognized her from the commissioner’s office. She was the one who’d been typing out the shorthand. Another man got to her side first.

  “Here, Myrtle. Let me help you. Thanks, fella,” he said to Armour. “I got her.”

  Armour moved past the group of onlookers to the elevator. The same boy was inside eating an apple. He tucked the remains inside his jacket as Armour came on board.