The Ghost and the Femme Fatale - Haunted Bookshop 04

by Alice Kimberley

  "What?"

  I opened my eyes. My black-framed glasses were gone again, but I could see just fine. Around me was a mass of metal. In front of me stretched a dashboard with big, clunky gauges that looked like something out of the Smithsonian. Above it, a windshield framed a dim roadway, and on the driver's side of the front seat was Jack Shepard—only not in spirit.

  The PI's sandy brown hair was neatly trimmed, his iron jaw was freshly shaved, and his broad-shouldered form was draped in what looked like a brand-new, deep blue, double-breasted suit. He even had a matching blue fedora, which rested between us on the seat.

  "Where are we again?" I asked Jack's granite profile.

  "We're in the new tunnel," he said. "Well, kinda new. They opened it about ten years back. It's the tube that connects Manhattan with Long Island City."

  "We're driving through the Queens Midtown Tunnel?"

  "Bingo."

  I studied the roadway in front of us. The car's headlights were on—and they needed to be. The weak yellow light bulbs that ran along this concrete tube's ceiling gave less illumination than a mausoleum.

  "Jack, I don't understand. Why did you bring me down here?"

  "Well, gee, for a dime, I could've gotten us both across the river by subway, but where we're going isn't exactly the safest part of town for a dame to hoof it, so I scared up some wheels for us instead."

  Slumping back in the monster car's big front seat, I put a hand to my head. "Why do I feel like a truck hit me?"

  "Because you should have listened to me, doll, and jumped sooner."

  "When?"

  "On that wooded trail, which you shouldn't have been on in the first place." Jack's jaw worked a moment. "Dames like you make me crazy. Always trying to be good girls and get along and accommodate and make everybody happy. Then the one time you decide to grow a backbone and dig your heels in, you nearly get yourself run over."

  "I don't have the foggiest notion what you're talking about."

  Jack's slate gray eyes glanced at me. "I just don't like worrying about you."

  "You worry about me?"

  "In life, I never worried about anybody's hide but my own. I figured that's the way it'd be for me in death, too." "Guess you figured wrong then." "Guess so."

  The tunnel was coming to an end and Jack's gaze returned to the road ahead. He pulled up to a toll booth and paid. Then we were off again, backtracking toward the other side of the East River, only this time above ground. As we drove along, I watched the sun sinking below the Manhattan skyline. Blue twilight was settling over New York's five boroughs.

  "Welcome to Queens, baby. Home of the 1939 World's Fair, the Steinway piano, and Harry Houdini's final resting place."

  I'd been to Queens only a few times when I lived in New York City, mainly to travel back and forth to LaGuardia Airport. I'd never been to this part of the borough, so I wasn't altogether sure what Long Island City looked like in my time. In Jack's time, it was obviously a major manufacturing zone. Hundreds of factories were jammed together along the streets. I read the signs as we passed them: machinery parts, paint, shoes, bread, sugar, even spaghetti.

  As we drove closer to the river, smokestacks rose up like sooty tree trunks. Between their dirty silhouettes, I spotted tugboats, container ships, and barges full of coal moving along the water, beyond a collection of busy docks.

  Traffic on the road was pretty heavy, too. Delivery trucks roared by as Jack did his best to circumvent the gridiron of elevated subway lines, railroad yards, and bridge approaches. He signaled a lane change but someone behind him didn't notice because a horn blasted and a bakery truck suddenly swerved, narrowly cutting us off. Jack cursed as his hands jerked the wheel. I slid across the seat, slamming into him.

  He straightened the car out again. "You okay, doll?"

  "Whoa, don't you have any seatbelts in this tank?"

  "Seat what?"

  "Seatbelt, Jack. It locks around your waist to keep you from sliding all over the place, or worse slamming your head into the—" I frowned at the dashboard. "That thing's solid metal, isn't it?"

  "What thing? The dashboard? This is a 1939 Packard, honey. What else would it be?"

  I shuddered at the idea of cracking my forehead open against that thing. In fact, my head felt like it already had.

  "Good lord, Jack. No seatbelts, no shoulder harnesses, no airbags, and a dashboard of solid metal! How did your generation stay alive on the road?"

  "Well, let's see now, baby...when my generation wasn't struggling to survive a nationwide Depression, we were trying to keep from dying in a world war. Vehicular safety wasn't high on our list of concerns. But if you're that worried about smash-ups, I have an idea how to keep you from bouncing around in my car—"

  He dropped one hand off the steering wheel, snaked a muscular arm around my waist, and pulled me playfully against him. "How's that, doll? Nicer than a crummy old seatbelt, isn't

  it?"

  "That's all right, Jack," I said, fighting a warm flush of embarrassment. "I don't need a seatbelt. I'll just make do."

  As I extricated myself from his grip and slid to the other side of the car, Jack laughed. It was an amused, highly infuriating sound, as if he knew exactly how I'd react to his pass. That's when I noticed his smashed fedora sitting on the seat between us. I picked up the mangled hat and waved it in front of his nose.

  "See what you get for teasing me. Your headgear's as flat as a pancake."

  He snatched it from my fingers and tossed it into the backseat. "It's okay, baby. Feeling your heart skip a beat over me was worth it."

  He laughed again, and I attempted to regain my dignity by roughly straightening my outfit. That's when I realized I was no longer wearing my own clothes. Once again, Jack had chosen an outfit for me, only this time I wasn't decked out in a slit-skirted gown with four-inch heels. My current forties costume consisted of a tweed suit with a cinched waist, a knee-l ength skirt, and brown shoes with a nice low, sane amount of heel.

  I was about to thank Jack for the wardrobe improvements when I caught my reflection in the sideview mirror. My auburn hair was curled into a lovely, sleek pageboy, but my face was displaying quite a lot of makeup. The colors looked strange.

  "What's on my lips?" I murmured.

  "Lipstick," he said. "Hokey-Pokey Pink."

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "What's your beef?" Jack said defensively. "I saw it in a magazine. It's the most expensive brand on the market: one whole dollar, plus tax."

  "Redheads don't wear bright pink lipstick."

  "Why not?"

  "They just don't."

  "Well if you're worried about how you look, baby, it's a waste of brain cells. You're cute as the lace panties you're wearing under that getup. I picked them out of a magazine, too, along with your bra, stockings, and garter belts."

  My cheeks now matched the Hokey-Pokey Pink lipstick. "Can we please get off the subject of my underwear?"

  Jack snorted. "Forget getting off the subject. I'd rather just get off your—"

  "Jack!" I interrupted, "I'm sure you didn't bring me back here just to talk about my panties. So I'd appreciate it if you'd—"

  "Okay, okay," he said. "I'll get down to business."

  And he did, promptly filling me in on what I'd missed since our night at the Porterhouse Restaurant. Irving Vreen, the Gotham Studio head, had expired from his stab wound (no surprise), and Hedda Geist's actor boyfriend, Pierce Armstrong, had been taken into custody.

  "But not Hedda herself?" I asked.

  "The tabloids are hounding her every day, but she's still free as a bird."

  "Can we find out more about the case?" I asked. "Which one?"

  "What do you mean, which one?" I said. "Vreen's death, of course."

  "You forget, baby, Vreen wasn't my case. The reason I took you to the Porterhouse in the first place was because I was tailing Nathan Burwell at the time. That's why I'd witnessed Vreen's stabbing—it was in my memories. I've told you be
fore: I'm a ghost, not a magician. I can't take you anywhere I didn't go in life."

  "Yes, Jack. I understand." I sat up straighter as it all came back to me. "Burwell was your cheating-husband case. But wasn't that case a little dicey, trying to get evidence on someone as powerful as the city's district attorney?"

  Jack checked his rear-view mirror, gave a little smirk. "Why do you think I'm wearing a new suit?"

  "Oh, I get it. Burwell's wife is paying you enough to make it worth your while?"

  "Bingo, doll, only I ran into a little roadblock."

  "What do you mean?" I worriedly glanced around. "You wrecked the Packard?"

  Jack sighed. "I was talkin' figuratively, baby. Try to keep up. See, I was tailing Burwell and his chippy for a few weeks before Vreen got the big knife in the back. I'd been taking notes on the DA's trysts, getting photos of the two together when I could— on the street, in a diner, in front of the Hotel Chester. Then all of a sudden..." Jack snapped his fingers.

  "What?"

  "Over. Burwell's back to his old routine. No more cheating. No more visits with the chippy. After about a week, I figure that's okay. Maybe the stabbing spooked the hubby, and he thought it best to end the affair. So I still think everything's jake because I know where the girl's staying. I go to her hotel—but she's not there."

  "She checked out?"

  "Gone. Lammed it on May sixth, the morning after Vreen's murder. The clerk at the Chester gives me a name and address, but they don't exist. So now I'm holding the bag."

  "Why?"

  "Because I need that girl . . ." Jack checked his rear-view again. "I need her in the flesh."

  "Why? You've got evidence, haven't you?"

  "My notes can be disputed. Even photos can be explained away. But the actual girl can be subpoenaed to testify under oath. Burwell's wife needs that assurance before she tries to put the screws to her husband. Without the chippy's real name and address, I can't even verify that she was underage, which would have been the lynchpin to getting Burwell to settle out of court."

  "You have any leads on her?"

  "Two—maybe."

  "What are they?"

  "First one's you, baby."

  "Me?!"

  "Yeah. When you first saw that girl in the restaurant, you said she looked familiar."

  "I did...but Idon't remember where I've seen her before. I'm sorry, Jack."

  "Well, keep working on it, because I can use all the help I can get right now."

  "What's your second lead?"

  "A 1941 gull gray Lincoln Continental Cabriolet with spode green wheels." "Excuse me?"

  "That's the only lead I've got on the DA's chippy. The bellboy at the Chester remembered taking her suitcase out to that make and model car. I remembered a car like that outside the hotel when Burwell went upstairs to..." Jack paused abruptly and cleared his throat. "When he went upstairs with the girl."

  "I understand."

  "I know you do. Anyway, I got its plate number in my notes so I had a friend at my old precinct run the license. Got an address in Queens along with a name—Lester Sanford."

  Jack was driving as he talked, moving us north along the East River. The sun had completely set by now, and night was creeping across the sky. As stars appeared in the darkening purple, Jack turned abruptly and zigzagged through an area of warehouses and garages. Finally, we ended up on a large, brightly lit avenue, where every few blocks rough-looking men spilled out of dive bars. There were dock workers, stone cutters, sailors, and factory men—some of them were falling-down drunk, others were shouting or starting brawls.

  Jack was right, I realized: This wasn't a safe neighborhood for a dame to hoof it. I was about to mention this when I noticed him checking the rearview again.

  "You're looking in that mirror an awful lot," I noted.

  "That's because a third lead just showed up."

  "What do you mean?"

  "We're being tailed—"

  I began to spin in my seat.

  "Don't look!" Jack warned. "Keep your eyes ahead. I've been onto this car since we left the tunnel."

  We turned down Thirty-fifth Avenue, where a box truck partially blocked the road. Jack slowed to a crawl so we could inch by without stripping the car's paint. As we did, I watched men in overalls unloading what looked like fake palm trees and carrying them into a huge building. I would have guessed the place was a factory, but its exterior was too clean, and there were very large windows on the upper floors. "What is this building?"

  "Astoria Studios," Jack said. "Paramount Pictures runs it now . . . used to be Famous Players Lasky Corporation. They shot silent films there once, then started shooting talkies . . . Marx Brothers comedies, The Emperor Jones. That's also where Gotham Features rents its sound stages when they aren't shooting on the street."

  "Is that where we're going?"

  "No, but Lester Sanford's address is only a few blocks away."

  By the time we reached our destination, night had fully descended. Jack's tall figure cast a long shadow as we exited the Packard and walked between streetlights.

  The area was obviously mixed zoning. One- and two-story brick row houses sat next to warehouses and garages. As we walked, I got the feeling someone was following us. I was itching to turn around and look, but Jack quietly warned me not to swivel my head.

  "Just keep walking, baby. Don't worry. I've got my rod on me."

  "What, are you kidding? Guns are what I'm worried about."

  "I can shoot straight."

  "Yeah, but what about the other guy?"

  "Do me a favor, don't crack wise. Just keep moving those pretty lace panties of yours."

  I gritted my teeth but didn't argue, kept my focus on the task at hand. The address itself wasn't an apartment building or home. It was a very large building that looked like a factory warehouse. A parking lot sat beside it, and Jack immediately spied the gull gray Continental Cabriolet. There were actually two that looked exactly alike, right down to the green wheels. They were parked together. He checked the plates of each one, and pointed.

  "This is the one—the car I spotted idling that night outside the Hotel Chester. It's the same description the bellboy gave me of the car that picked up the DA's girl when she checked out."

  "Why are there two cars here that look exactly alike? Don't you find that strange?"

  "Maybe not, baby. Let's have a little talk with the folks inside."

  Jack didn't bother knocking, just reached for the door handle.

  "Do you know anything about this place?" I asked.

  "It's a storage facility for Gotham Features."

  The door opened and we walked right in. Despite the hour, the place was lit up and buzzing with activity. Men in overalls were milling around, talking. I could hear hammering and sawing going on somewhere in the back. Boxes were stacked sky-high. Shelves were filled with odd items—lamps, books, kitchen appliances. Pieces of furniture for every room in a typical home were jammed into corners with fake plants and giant rocks.

  Jack didn't seem phased by the chaos. He scanned the area and the men working and walked right up to a short, stocky guy wearing glasses, pinstriped pants, and suspenders. The stocky man was holding a clipboard, shooting orders to a younger, fitter man in overalls.

  "We'll need those chairs painted over by morning. And scare me up a Victrola, will ya? We have one in the back, next to the fake radios."

  I tugged Jack's sleeve. "Who's the man giving orders?" "Property master and studio manager." "Is he Lester Sanford?" I asked. "No," Jack said.

  Just then, the property master turned, saw us, and grinned from ear to ear. "Jack! Jack Shepard?! Where've you been, you big lug!" He walked over with his hand out. Jack pumped it.

  "Hi there, Benny."

  "Who's the little lady?" Benny asked. "She's my, uh... " Jack glanced at me. "Partner," I whispered.

  "New secretary," Jack declared. "Just hired her. Ain't she a looker?"

  "I'll say." Benny smiled, looking m
e up and down like a prize racehorse. "I just don't get why you hired her when you could have married her." He laughed and finally addressed me. "Don't you think it's time your boss settled down?"

  Settled down? My eyebrows rose at that one. From all the wild stories the ghost had told me, I just couldn't see the living Jack Shepard smoking a pipe in the suburbs with his feet up. Even in death, the expired gumshoe was climbing the walls of my bookstore, eager to glom onto the merest hint of excitement in our "cornpone" little town.

  "I'm sure Jack's happy as a bachelor," I told Benny. "Besides, any woman he married would have to put up with—"

  Jack loudly cleared his throat, shutting me up with a pointed stare. Obviously, he preferred that I refrain from speaking during this particular meeting.

  "So how've you been, Benny?" he asked the stocky man.

  "Good, good... things around here could be better, though. You know about Irving?"

  Jack glanced at me. "Yeah. I read about what happened in the not-so-funny papers."

  "We can't believe it around here. Pierce Armstrong arrested for murder?" Benny shook his head. "He would never do anything to hurt Irving. Pierce wouldn't hurt a fly! Do you know he could get the gas chamber for this?"

  "Yeah, Benny, I know."

  "Are you here for Pierce then?" Benny asked, almost hopefully. "Did he hire you to help fight the charges?"

  "No." said Jack. I'm looking for a guy named Lester Sanford Know him?"

  "Sure, I know Sandy. He's been with us almost eight months now. He's not here at the moment though."

  "What's his title?"

  "Title?" Benny shrugged. "On the credits it's assistant producer."

  "Which translates to?"

  "Transportation manager, truck driver, and senior grease monkey."

  Jack stepped closer. "Does he own those two gull gray Lincoln Cabriolets in your parking lot?"

  Benny paused then. He seemed to be considering Jack's tone. "What's this about?" he asked, his own voice suddenly less friendly.

  Jack quickly backed off. "Oh, nothing important. It's just that I need a favor, see? I'm on a divorce case, and I'm trying to find a witness. I spotted one of Sandy's cars at the scene, and I thought if maybe I talked to him, he'd help me out with a lead."