A Family Matter

by Chris Laing

  Dammit.

  There were doors at each end of the long wall behind the bed. Carefully replacing the earrings where I’d found them, I opened the nearer door and flicked on a light switch. A bank of ceiling lights illuminated the long, narrow space and I could’ve been in Eaton’s Ladies Department; Isabel’s clothing hung on racks which ran all the way to the door at the other end. It was the biggest closet I’d ever seen. On the end wall was a floor to ceiling mirror that reflected the image of a guy spending more time than necessary snooping around a woman’s boudoir.

  Yet another door led to a bathroom, also of a scale to match the rest of her home. By now I was feeling like a peeping Tom. This was a massive invasion of Isabel’s privacy, but I persuaded myself that I had no choice. Nothing seemed out of place in the bathroom, so I closed the bedroom door, went to the front hall and called to Frank, “All clear up there?”

  He appeared at the top of the stairs. “Three bedrooms and an office full of accounting books, typewriter and a couple other machines on the big desk. But nothing out of the ordinary. Well, I mean, not out of the ordinary for a palace like this. Jeez, she’s got two bathrooms up here. Now I know how the other half lives,” he said. “And I’m jealous as hell.”

  I slumped on the bottom step of the stairs as a wave of nausea threatened to overtake me.

  I ached from head to foot.

  Frank hurried down and sat beside me. “You sure you’re okay, Max? You should be home in bed – I’ll let you know the minute we find Isabel.”

  “Give me another minute. I can’t stop now.”

  Frank’s arm was around my waist as we made our way to the door at the end of a long hallway which led to the basement. He stopped and gawked out a tall, narrow window at the end of the hall toward the sprawling backyard of the large estate beside Iz’s home. He turned to me, wearing his big-brother face. “Isabel’s a mile out of our league, Bud. Hell, a hundred miles. You sure she’s serious about you?”

  His question didn’t surprise me – Frank and I had skirted this subject before. I think he believed that Iz was a temporary fascination on my part and sooner or later I’d come to my senses. “I know why you’re asking, Frank. God knows, I’ve asked myself the same question a thousand times.”

  “And what’s the answer?”

  “No time for that now. C’mon, we’ve got to find her.”

  Going down the basement stairs, my knee screamed with every step and I clutched the handrail as I gritted my teeth. I had to sit down on the bottom step while Frank looked around.

  “Separate rooms for the heating system and water tanks,” he called out as though he were taking inventory down here. “Two big storage rooms full of boxes and garden furniture. Along the end wall here, there’s a workbench and gardening tools all in neat order.”

  Frank returned to the stairway and slumped down beside me. “This house has got everything but Isabel. And not a damn thing to tell us where she might be.”

  He looked as frustrated as I felt. “Any bright ideas, Frank? You’re the police sergeant.”

  “Nope. But you’re the private dick – supposed to be smarter than us dumb cops.”

  When I didn’t respond right away, he said, “What? You think of something?”

  “Well, maybe …”

  “Tell me.”

  “This might sound crazy, but I’m thinking about calling my mother. If anyone can get info out of the Mob, it’ll be her.”

  Frank was quiet for a moment while he chewed on that. “You’d do a deal with the devil?”

  “Damn right. If it meant getting Isabel back.”

  He pushed himself up and pulled me to my feet. “Okay. It’s worth a try.”

  He helped me upstairs where I picked up the phone in the kitchen. “I’m calling my office first, to see if there’s any news.”

  I spoke with Phyllis. No news.

  I dug out the note with the phone number on it and dialed Diane Black for the second time.

  It rang three times while I held my breath and swallowed my pride. When she picked up I said, “It’s Max calling. And I need your help.”

  Silence on the line. I could feel the sweat forming in my armpits. The receiver became slippery in my hand.

  “It must be a matter of life or death,” she said.

  “It is. Isabel’s been kidnapped by Tedesco. He broke into my apartment during the night and told me he’d release her in exchange for a meeting with you – without your friends from Buffalo present. If you refuse to see him, he says he’ll kill her.” I paused. “Please … Diane. I need your help.”

  The line went silent again for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

  “Give me the number you’re calling from.”

  I gave her the number.

  “Stay where you are. I’ll call you back.”

  When I attempted to thank her, she stopped me and said, “Believe me, I know what it cost you to call me.”

  Then she hung up.

  I was staring out the kitchen window, seeing Isabel’s eyes in my mind, wide with terror.

  I felt so goddamn helpless. Useless.

  I replaced the receiver and wiped my hand along my pant leg before turning to Frank.

  “So, what did she say?”

  “She’ll call back.”

  We sat at the kitchen table while we waited. Frank was drumming his fingers, staring out the window.

  “Thanks for your help, Frank. I know it’s your day off and you’re busy at home with Christmas almost here.”

  He turned back to me. “Finding Isabel is more important. There’ll always be another Christmas.”

  Minutes later the phone rang and I snatched up the receiver, almost dropping it. “Hello? … hello?”

  “Here’s the address, Max.”

  She gave me a number on Caroline Street North and I had to grip the pencil hard to keep my hand from shaking. “I’m … I’m grateful for this …”

  “I haven’t earned your gratitude. I know I’m a failure as a mother but I chose the life I’m living … and I can’t turn back now. … Good luck to you and Isabel.”

  My mind was spinning out of control. I felt like one of those fight dogs in training, racing on a merry-go-round, unable to stop. But I was relieved that I knew where Iz was being held, hopeful that she was still alive, and surprised as hell that my mother had helped me when I most needed it.

  “Thank you … Mother,” I said, and hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Frank slowed the car after he turned right on Caroline Street, heading toward the bay. Many of the homes here in the North End had been converted to rooming houses during the Depression when a lot of families took in boarders to make ends meet; then the war came along and things got even worse. As we neared the train yards which skirted the west end of Hamilton Harbour, the houses became more run-down, some of them abandoned and boarded up.

  At the corner of Barton Street, we idled beside a vacant lot, now used as a makeshift dump; it was piled high with rusted-out car bodies, tires, and bed springs – all sorts of detritus. Beside it, the living room of a two-storey frame house had been converted into a small grocery/confectionery store. It looked like it was still open; a car was parked out front and I saw a man leave, pocketing a pack of cigarettes. A hand-lettered sign in the window said, No Credit.

  Across Barton Street on the bay side, only a few houses remained standing. The area was apparently being cleared for some industrial purpose – two bulldozers were parked near the roadway but there was no activity here today. Frank drove on until we stopped in front of the address which my mother had given me. We stood on the gravel driveway and looked around, buffeted by a north wind howling off the bay. Plenty of truck traffic steamed up and down Barton Street. And freight cars were shuntin
g back and forth on the maze of tracks in the marshalling yards beside us.

  The house appeared to be unoccupied, no curtains on the windows, so we mounted the rickety steps. Frank peered through the small window in the front door. “Looks empty,” he said.

  Two mailboxes were screwed to the wall beside the door jamb, no names on them and I found them both empty. Frank carefully tried the door but it was locked.

  “Wait for me here,” he said. “I’ll go around the house, and see if there’s another way in. Some of these old places have a basement door.” Then he unbuttoned his coat and withdrew his revolver which was holstered on his left hip. “I hope you remembered to bring your hardware.”

  I got my gun out. “Make it snappy, Frank. We don’t have time to waste.”

  He was back in less than a minute. “Basement door in the rear – no lock, just a latch but I didn’t go in – if anyone’s down there, I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  He removed his magic tools from his pocket and had the door open in less time than it took him at Isabel’s place.

  We stepped in quickly and he closed the door. Dark and gloomy in the hallway, a musty odour in the air. To our left was a solid door with a sign on the wall beside it, Apt. 1. A long hallway led to a partially opened door toward the rear of the house. A staircase on our right, an arrow pointing upward with Apt. 2 stenciled on it.

  I tried the door to the apartment beside me; it was open. “I’ll take this way,” I said. “You go in the door down the hall and we’ll meet in the middle.”

  The door creaked as I entered. The room was empty, and the smell of dust and decay hung in the air as though the house itself had died. When I closed the door I noticed a 1940 calendar from a Supertest gas station was pinned to it. The top section displayed a picture of the Dionne quintuplets standing in a row behind five birthday cakes. One of the quints was blowing out her sister’s candles.

  I passed through a small dining room, also empty, then into a barren kitchen where Frank was looking out a rear-facing window. “Not a stick of furniture,” I said. “How about you?”

  He turned to face me, pointing to an open door, “I checked the bedroom in there – nothing if you don’t count the three wire hangers in the closet. Bathroom’s got a sink, tub and a toilet – all filthy – the water’s been shut off. Along the hallway there’s a door to the basement but let’s leave that ‘til later and look upstairs now.”

  I followed him up the stairs which creaked and complained like my throbbing knee, courtesy of Tedesco’s goon.

  Upstairs, we found the same layout as the first floor apartment – I turned left toward the living room and Frank went ahead to the kitchen.

  The entrance door felt blocked when I tried to open it. I pushed harder and heard something slide away from the door – and a terrifying image of Isabel’s broken and mutilated body took hold of me until I got it open wide enough to squeeze in. It took a long moment for my heartbeat to slow as I scanned the room.

  No Isabel.

  It was a smelly mattress that blocked the door; in its centre were ancient urine and blood stains. But at waist height along the wall in the living room, I noticed what looked like faint streaks of dried blood so I followed that trail through the empty dining room then into the bedroom. Frank was already there, standing beside a narrow iron cot near the closet.

  I rushed toward him, “Find something, Frank?”

  “She isn’t here.” He pointed to some blood spatter on the wall. “But she might’ve been.”

  I touched the splotch with my fingertip. “It’s not quite dry. I saw some smudges in the other room, too. If it’s her blood, they must’ve taken her somewhere else.”

  The cot was a jumble; no sheets on the dirty mattress but a stinky brown blanket lay balled up on the floor. A bedside table had been overturned, the lamp smashed into pieces beside it. I knelt on my good knee and peeked under the cot – layers of dust and dirt. But my nose wrinkled as I caught the faintest wisp of Isabel’s perfume.

  If I hadn’t checked down here, I wouldn’t have noticed the crude design on the frame of the cot. “Take a look here, Frank.”

  He leaned down and I pointed to where the blood was smeared. “Looks like someone tried to draw an arrow with their fingertip or something blunt. It’s pointing down. So she might be in the basement.”

  He gave me a bleak look, his eyes grave when he gripped my arm to help me up. “Or … was.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Back downstairs I rushed for the door to the basement, but Frank grabbed my coat and hauled me back. “Hang on, Max. If she’s down there, she might have company. If so, they must’ve heard us tromping around up here so they could be waiting for us to leave. So here’s what we’re going do – I want you to go behind the house to that basement door and I’ll use the stairway in here. On a 10-count, no – better make that a 20-count to allow for your limp – we’ll go in together.”

  I went out the front door and followed the narrow walkway around the house, counting – 11, 12, 13 … there was still a light covering of snow back here and I slowed my pace as I rounded the back corner so I wouldn’t fall ass over tea kettle. I was in position on the count of 18, then paused two beats and I was through the basement door and moving along a darkened hallway in a crouch toward the centre staircase.

  I froze in my tracks when I heard the ear-piercing crack-crack of two gunshots and a muffled groan; then the unmistakable thud of a body tumbling down the stairs. I flattened myself against the wall, making an effort to slow my breathing. There was no more shooting so I eased myself forward until I reached the staircase. A body lay crumpled on the bottom steps, his head on the basement floor – unconscious or …

  It was Frank.

  At that moment another gunman stepped from a doorway down the hall and came running toward me, his arm extended, his gun pointing straight at me. I tried to flatten myself against the wall and a bullet whistled past my right ear. I got off two shots and the guy crashed to the floor face-down, his gun skidding along the hallway in my direction. He didn’t move.

  I eased myself to the floor beside the stairs, out of the line of fire from above. Frank’s head was turned toward me, eyes closed, breathing through his mouth in raspy gulps. I saw a bloody goose egg developing on his skull and more blood oozed onto the floor from somewhere near his mid-section.

  I took a quick peek around the corner of the wall, looking for the shooter upstairs. A big guy wearing a Hamilton Tigers team jacket stood partway down the stairway. I couldn’t see the guy’s head and shoulders from this angle so he couldn’t see me. But I sure as hell saw the big Army .45 he was levelling at Frank to shoot him again. I raised my revolver and put two slugs into his chest. His body reared back, his head slamming against the stairs and he slid feet-first, almost on top of Frank.

  How the hell did we miss spotting this guy when we searched upstairs? I remembered checking the first-floor door to the basement and seeing no-one down here. But looking up the stairs now I could see the landing was wide enough to conceal someone in the shadows beside the door.

  I remained where I was, controlling my breathing while I waited, in case another gangster appeared. A minute later, I’d heard nothing further and turned my attention back to Frank. For starters, I yanked the dead guy a few feet away from him. Then I checked on his partner down the hall – his gangster days were over, too.

  Taking care, almost in slow motion, I turned Frank onto his back on the hallway floor. I opened his coat and suit jacket, looking for where he was shot. Blood seeped from a wound high up on his left thigh. I cut away his pants with my pocket knife to reveal a long bloody groove where a bullet had plowed along his upper leg toward his hip. Frank always wore a clean handkerchief in his suit jacket pocket so I used that to wipe around his wound then placed it on top. I couldn’t tell where the bullet might hav
e lodged, but I had to stop the bleeding.

  I’d put on a clean white shirt this morning so I peeled off my coat and suit jacket and removed my shirt as quickly as I could, then I tore it into wide strips and bound up his wound. I moved over to the dead guy and cut off his pant legs with my knife. I ripped them into long pieces and wrapped them tightly over what used to be my shirt to put pressure on the wound and slow the bleeding. Then I put on my jacket and coat.

  Next, I grabbed Frank by the ankles and tugged him slowly back toward the stairs. He slid easily along the floor, lubricated by his own blood. I parked his feet on the step above the level of his heart. I pulled the overcoat off the guy down the hall and covered Frank with it. He seemed to be breathing a bit easier now and I hoped he hadn’t also suffered a concussion or worse when he whacked his head as he bounced down the stairs.

  Now I had to find Isabel.

  I pocketed Frank’s revolver and picked up the hoodlum’s .45 from the floor and stuck it my other pocket. I kicked the second guy’s gun along the floor toward him where it lodged under his body and I left it there.

  I continued along the hallway to the room from which that gangster had appeared and I peeked in. A single light bulb dangled from the ceiling but in its dim glow I noticed a long bundle on the floor beside the wall. It appeared to be wrapped in a blanket like a mummy and my heart skipped.

  I moved slowly toward it, gun extended, and stared down at the terrified face of Isabel O’Brien, her panicking eyes wide and jittery, her mouth plastered with a wide band of surgical tape. Maybe she’d been wrapped for transport elsewhere and we’d arrived just in time.

  I replaced my gun in its holster, knelt on one knee beside her, held her face in my hands and kissed her on the forehead. Then I carefully removed the tape from her mouth. Her breath came panting out in short gasps like a marathon swimmer.