Dames Fight Harder

by M. Ruth Myers

  One thing I’d learned since I hung out my shingle was that money was often the lever that started someone rolling toward trouble. They took some, then did desperate things to cover their tracks. In other instances, they borrowed money from people who put a bullet in them when milder tactics didn’t motivate repayment.

  Pearlie had told me Foster didn’t fall in the owing money to dangerous people category. His unexplained absence in the midst of this gnawed at me. Should I maybe double-check what he’d said?

  Unfortunately, I’d burned my bridges with a man who knew all about loan sharking in the city because he controlled it. Lacking access to a crime boss who might be willing to chat, I called Freeze. He was out. So was Boike.

  While I sat contemplating a trip out to engage with a tuna fish sandwich, Jenkins staggered in lugging a box that edged out his camera for space on his chest.

  “The elevator doesn’t work,” he gasped setting it on the floor in front of my dead philodendron.

  “And may not until after the war if they can’t get the parts they need. I take it that’s the sewing machine?”

  Too winded to speak, he blotted his face with his handkerchief and nodded.

  “Brought a piece of cloth to cover it with so it’s not an eyesore.” He flipped a square of green velveteen over the box and set the plant on top.

  “Ione may not be thrilled at having to lift it onto the table to use it,” he admitted rubbing his back.

  I’d put money on Ione using it as a doorstop, which would solve that problem.

  ***

  Hoping against hope that Heebs’ replacement had vanished, I walked up Jefferson to take a peek. He hadn’t. Since it was only three blocks more to pop in on Freeze, I took a chance on finding him.

  He and Boike were both at their desks. Freeze was folding a piece of waxed paper as I came in. He wiped his lips with the resulting rectangle.

  “Let me guess. You’re here after information.”

  “You win the kewpie doll, lieutenant. Maybe you should give up detecting and become a swami.”

  “You ever do any of your own work?”

  “You mean like finding out Foster had a girlfriend? You mean finding where she lived? You mean recognizing she’d taken off in a hurry — breathing or otherwise?”

  “Yeah, yeah. None of that has paid off.”

  “Keep hurting my feelings and I may start to cry.”

  I planted myself in his visitor’s chair and swung my leg. Was it possible he was starting to like my sass? Unlikely. I’d caught him when he happened to be well fed. Maybe he’d decided I was useful, too.

  “Foster’s financial records, have you gone over them?”

  “Boike spent most of Friday morning looking at them. Didn’t find anything interesting.”

  “No sign that he owed anyone money?”

  “Nope.”

  “Business wasn’t in trouble?”

  “Didn’t look to be.”

  “I don’t suppose his bank account was heading toward the cellar either?”

  “If anything, it was going the opposite way,” Boike volunteered.

  “Any idea why?”

  “Business getting back to normal after the Depression? Watching his pennies more. All I can tell you is there was more in it the last eighteen months or so.”

  “Why the interest?” Freeze narrowed his gaze on me.

  “Just trying to find something I can take hold of. I’m floundering.” I put up my hand. “That’s the God’s honest truth. I’m not trying to put one over on you.”

  So much for my needing-money-is-the-reason-people-get-in-trouble theory.

  “Maybe he was getting bigger projects,” Freeze suggested. Or more of them. Or he’d paid something off or found a way to trim costs in his operation.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” The neatly typed sheets in my office would tell me the size of the dead man’s projects. They wouldn’t tell me how many he’d had, since he might have bid on things Rachel hadn’t.

  “The thing is, paying his girlfriend’s rent took money,” I said.

  Freeze was lighting a cigarette. He let some smoke out.

  “You’re thinking that’s hard to square with more money in his bank account.”

  He and Boike seemed to agree. We kicked it around. None of us had any answers, though, so I left.

  ***

  The lists Cecilia had typed weren’t any friendlier about showing me a pattern than they had been the first time through. I looked at them seated. I looked at them standing. Alternating with those exercises in futility, I cast baleful glances at the clock, where the minutes until I found out whether Lulu had learned anything about Heebs crawled through glue.

  The hour hand had managed to make its way to three and I was standing with fists planted on hips, when a soft knock sounded at my door. At my invitation, which was marginally pleasant enough for prospective clients, Mick Connelly came a few steps inside, and with him the clean, simple smell of soap that never failed to stir my senses.

  “Truce?” he asked. His mouth gave the hint of a rueful smile.

  “I’m the one who ought to be asking for one. I was upset and spoiling to bite someone’s head off when you said what you did.”

  I came around and sat on the edge of my desk. He closed the distance between us. A single curl had escaped his neatly combed red-brown hair. His uniform collar was buttoned. He was ready to check in for his evening shift.

  “Are you feeling contrite enough for dinner and dancing tomorrow? I’ve a day off.”

  “I might be persuaded.”

  “If things are going okay with your friend.”

  “Thanks for understanding, Mick.”

  “Guess I ought to remember that you working’s part of you.” He came to lean on the desk beside me. “It’s just that we never see each other these days.”

  “No, and it seems to me like I don’t see much of anyone else either. I’d even settle for hearing Billy scold.”

  He chuckled. It felt good, his shoulder and mine against each other.

  “Does it make sense, these constantly rotating schedules?”

  “Smarter men than me claim they do. Fortunately, I have lesser decisions to make. Like where to take you for dinner dancing. Hotel Miami sound okay?”

  “Are you on the take, Connelly? That sounds pretty extravagant on a cop’s salary.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m not getting many chances to spend it at Finn’s, and I can’t send it home, what with Nazi U-boats thick as lice between here and Ireland.”

  “Hotel Miami sounds grand.”

  Sliding from the desk, he pressed a kiss into my palm and folded my fingers around it.

  “Quarter til six, then? And if something comes up so you have to cancel, give me a call, will you?”

  “Promise.”

  “Absent a gun to your head.”

  “Absent that.”

  He walked out whistling.

  The good mood he’d engendered lasted through another two hours of looking at the sheets from Cecilia. This time around, I hunted reasons Foster might have been reaping more profits than in previous years. My inexpert eye couldn’t spot anything. To someone familiar with commercial construction, it might leap off the page.

  Someone like Rachel.

  I called brother Joel. His secretary said he’d just come in and would call back. Five minutes later he did.

  “Have you found something?”

  “Not yet, but I may have found a new place to check. I need Rachel to explain some construction things to me, though.”

  “I need something definite. The judge is pushing to set a preliminary hearing.”

  “What about Foster’s girlfriend? Can’t you argue that we need to find her, find out what happened?”

  “He’s running out of patience.”

  “Then it’s even more important that I talk to Rachel. I need to talk to your family, too, about anything unusual any of them may have spotted.” I took a breath. “
And see if any of them might have an enemy.”

  “An en—”

  “Who might be framing Rachel to get even.”

  “I am the only one remotely likely to have that kind of enemy.” A chill had crept into his voice. “I assure you I’ve considered that possibility. The investigator we usually use looked into people released from prison, people in or out who might blame me for something. He’s come up empty.”

  “Which makes input from your family more important than ever. One of them may have noticed something, had something happen that wasn’t quite right.”

  “I’ll ask if they have.”

  “No. I need to do the asking. Look, you know how to question people in court. I know how to tease things out.”

  “They’ll clam up with you. Besides, we start holidays Thursday.”

  I held the receiver away from my ear and stared at it. Surely I’d misheard.

  “You’re going on vacation?”

  “Not vacation. A religious observance.”

  “Does that mean you’re not going to be working?”

  “Of course I’ll be working,” he snapped. “But even if I thought you were right about this, which I don’t, Pesach complicates things.”

  “Rachel’s life is on the line. Uncomplicate them.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  I was five minutes late for my rendezvous with Lulu Sollers. As I was locking up, a woman had appeared at my elbow asking if I could locate her missing Persian, and how much I charged. A tactful turndown takes time.

  “Sorry. Somebody came in at the last minute.” I slid into the booth where Lulu sat.

  Her hand lifted dismissively.

  “It gave me time to get some coffee, which I sorely needed. How have you been?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  We traded some pleasantries. Lulu was tallish, with bobbed gray hair and eyes as shrewd as they were friendly behind her wire-rimmed glasses. I’d seen pictures of her from shortly after she was put in charge of the Bureau of Policewomen back in 1915 or thereabouts. She’d been a looker and she still had a sparkle that made her seem younger. Her small police badge gleamed on her bodice.

  When our plate dinners came, she addressed the question of Heebs along with her food.

  “I don’t believe the boy you asked about was the victim of foul play. The getting beaten up part was, I’m afraid, the result of a new problem that’s cropped up for the city. One that’s growing by leaps and bounds and likely to get worse unless we make provisions.”

  “Does the problem have a name?”

  “Oh, yes.” She gave a somber nod. “The war.”

  She paused to extract a hanky trimmed with lavender cutwork iris in one corner and dab at her nose.

  “Factories are begging for workers, running three shifts to make weapons, munitions, goodness knows what. I’m sure you know that. You’re probably also aware that women are starting to take such jobs.

  “For some it’s a matter of patriotism. Helping the war effort. For others, it’s more a necessity. Their husbands have been called up. Instead of his paycheck from working in one of those factories, or at something else substantial, the wife now is faced with feeding a family and paying the bills on serviceman’s pay, which I’m told at least for enlisted men is not substantial. And I suspect for some women, it’s the lure of a chance to...” She shrugged. “Spread their wings, I suppose.”

  “Forgive me, but I don’t see what this has to do with Heebs’ disappearance.”

  Lulu smiled.

  “Some of those women are working at night. Children, boys mostly, go out even though they’ve been given strict orders not to. Before all this, living on the streets wasn’t especially dangerous for those who had no other choice like your young friend Hobbs.”

  “Heebs.”

  “Of course. Heebs. You told me he’s a newsboy, I believe?”

  “Yes.”

  She sipped some water.

  “What I mean to say is that while their existence was hard, it wasn’t violent. The newsboys got into scrapes sometimes, over territory. They might trade a few punches. One might get a black eye. That was the extent of it. Governor Cox wouldn’t stand for his employees on the street acting like ruffians any more than he would the ones in his newsroom.”

  James Cox wasn’t governor now, but he had been for two terms. He’d also been the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President in 1920 with a young FDR as his running mate. Cox owned the Dayton Daily News and a lot of other papers, in Ohio and other states.

  “Conditions have changed with this new contingent of young people. Ten days ago another boy was beaten. Rather badly, I’m afraid. He was also a newsboy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they can.” She shook her head sadly. “Mostly these truants — I’ll call them that since they’re certainly not where their mothers meant them to be — mostly they stick to petty vandalism. Drawing Kilroy on a shop window with soap. Getting rowdy on trolleys. Tipping over a trashcan or, in one case, setting it on fire.

  “But the streets are new to them. They’re not as brave as they like to pretend. They do their roving in groups of three or four or six. When you have children that age together, unsupervised, they tend to egg each other on.” She sighed. “In a few cases lately, they’ve made a sport of isolating a street boy and roughing him up. Possibly he’s refused to give ground when they tried to bully him. Possibly they have tendencies which, if not nipped early, will one day turn them into real troublemakers.”

  In my mind I could see Heebs refusing to give ground, especially to boys whose better clothes suggested they weren’t as tough as he was. The cocky kid wouldn’t think twice about being outnumbered.

  Suddenly another thought leapt at me. Kids out at night. Willa Lee Cottle had insisted she heard kids at the construction site the night Foster’s body made its debut there. Freeze had dismissed it outright, and I’d been skeptical. Now I set the matter aside for further consideration and focused on the subject at hand.

  “But Heebs’ friend told me two men pulled Heebs into a car—”

  Lulu had taken a bite. She held up a finger. I waited.

  “A white car. Yes. I think he’s in good hands.” She swallowed and blotted her lips. “Perhaps not willingly. Boys like him often resist help even when it’s in their best interest.” Her eyes twinkled.

  From a pocket she produced a slip of paper with four phone numbers on it and slid it toward me.

  “I suspect you may locate him through one of these, though not knowing his real name makes it somewhat difficult.”

  I glanced at the numbers and then at Lulu. She seemed completely unruffled.

  “What are these places?”

  “Church groups. More accurately, a handful of volunteers at several churches. They’ve noticed the problem of juveniles roaming at night and grown concerned. They’ve begun to organize meetings with other churches. I’ve spoken at them a time or two. They’re trying to build support for a curfew. I believe it might be in the city’s best interest.

  “Until they have a better solution, some of the volunteers drive around and pick up children they find out on their own after ten o’clock. One of our patrolwomen says she’s certain one of the volunteers drives a white car.”

  ***

  As soon as Lulu and I said our goodbyes, I stopped at a pay phone and tried the four numbers she’d given me. None of them answered. If anyone other than Lulu had given them to me, I might have wondered if they’d even checked to make sure the numbers belonged to the people she claimed they did.

  According to her, the do-gooders picking up unaccompanied kids would take the ones with homes back where they belonged, then notify their mothers the following day. Ones like Heebs, with nowhere to go, they would keep overnight. The next day they would try to find a spot for those unfortunates in a children’s home or with foster parents. It all sounded well-meant, but a kid like Heebs who had managed on his own for so long would hate being stuck somewhere again
st his will, and I wasn’t far behind.

  It wasn’t late, but no one I knew very well was around when I got to Finn’s. I sat at the bar and had a Guinness and yakked with Rose when she wasn’t serving other customers. Then I went home and waited to use the telephone in the downstairs hall. A girl who had moved in the previous week cooed and whispered to her boyfriend for a good ten minutes, at which point I started whistling. That did the trick.

  Managing not to wilt under the glare she gave me, I tried the four numbers again. There still was no answer at three of them. A female voice at the one remaining told me shyly to call back in the morning, that everyone was gone except her.

  Feeling uncommonly defeated, I dragged upstairs and waited my turn for a bath, which didn’t come until half-past eleven. I shampooed my hair so I’d look my best for dancing with Connelly tomorrow. By the time I’d toweled my hair dry enough to make pin curls, my eyelids were drooping. When sleep claimed me, though, it was interrupted by images of a tow-headed newsboy running from shadowy figures, and wondering why Pearlie had left town and what had been in the envelope I burned for Rachel.

  ***

  While my conscience yelled in my ear that I was irresponsible, and that in an entire week what I’d found to help Rachel could fit in a thimble, the first thing I did the following morning was try to find Heebs.

  “Yes, we do have a boy who was beaten up, and yes, he gives his name as Heebs,” said a cautious voice where I’d spoken to the young woman the previous night.

  “What’s your address? I’ll be right over.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  She’d already told me the address before she asked her question. Pretending not to hear it, I hung up.

  The address went with a modest white frame house of medium size on a quiet street. A neatly painted sign in front said HELPING HANDS. A slip of a girl not old enough to vote yet let me in and showed me into a cramped room that served as an office for a hatchet-faced woman.