The Silver Gun

by L. A. Chandlar

  The white sand spread out before me and the sea wind whipped through my hair and pushed hard against my body as I walked toward the water. I could taste the salty air on my lips, hear the cry of the gulls and the pounding, rolling surf. The waves were beautiful and blue, calling to me with white foam cresting at the tops as they creamed over onto the smooth, wet sand.

  Up ahead there was a couple walking toward me. The wind dashed their clothing around and their faces were obscured from the blowing sand and bright sunshine. As they drew near, I started to feel fear run its finger up my spine.

  The man was tall and was wearing a hat tilted down, hiding his face. The woman was clearer. She had light blond hair and gorgeous curves. They stopped right in front of me. I was frozen to the spot. The woman’s face kept changing from Roxy to her mother. I stared at the man. He slowly looked up. It was Finn. My heart stopped. He looked me right in the eyes and then looked pointedly at Roxy. She had a black hat on top of her little head, and wore a startlingly bright scarf tied at her throat.

  I sat bolt upright in bed and gasped. Oh, my God. I yelled out to no one in particular, “Damn it!” I raced out of bed and ran downstairs to Mr. Kirkland’s basement apartment. I knocked on the door loudly, unafraid of waking Aunt Evelyn; she needed to hear what was up, too. He came to the door disheveled and bedecked in his pajamas, but his eyes sparked with alertness. And he was holding a revolver. Okay, then. I guess he was prepared.

  I told him what I realized from my dream. “It’s not Roxy we have to worry about. We have to execute the plan right now.” Aunt Evelyn must have heard me running down the stairs, because she was waiting for us in the kitchen. I filled her in on the deduction my dream provided, and she agreed. Luckily, it was already six in the morning, so we could get to work immediately.

  I ran back upstairs. I put on my best black suit with pencil skirt and extra wide red belt. I threw on my favorite red heels and quickly brushed out my hair, pulling one side behind my ear. Quick stroke of eyeliner and mascara, and crisp red lipstick for courage.

  My jaw was set with determination as I looked in the mirror. I took from the top of my dresser a few crucial items for the day. I fingered the black and pearl dagger that Mr. Kirkland had given me yesterday, its weight perfectly familiar and easily handled. Like I’d had it forever.

  At the threshold, I turned back and took a careful look around at my comfortable blue and white room: the white chair in the corner by the window where I whiled away many an hour reading novels, my blue and white bedspread, the dark dresser with the glass knobs. With an odd feeling of finality washing over me, I wondered when I would return.

  Or if I would.

  CHAPTER 30

  I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost.

  —ML

  Mr. Kirkland flagged down a taxi, and we headed for the West Side. He had on a black business suit, complete with fedora, and I could see the bulge of his holster and gun. He looked like a different man.

  We hardly spoke. It was now about quarter to seven in the morning. I figured the household would be up; I was hoping he’d understand the early hour. We needed as much time as we could get.

  The butler answered slightly wearily; we were obviously the first visitors of the day. But he ushered us into the parlor and told us to wait; he would retrieve us. We stood around a glamorous parlor full of dark burgundy couches, an ebony grand piano, an enormous fireplace I could have walked into, and hundreds of silver frames all over the place featuring family members and a number of famous people.

  After a quick pause, the butler retrieved us and ushered us through the house to a dark and regal office. I looked back at Mr. Kirkland. He nodded his head slightly.

  I stepped in, walked right over to his humongous desk, and said, “Mr. Venetti, I know who killed your nephew, Danny. We have a plan, and I was wondering if you might consider working with us.”

  * * *

  Later, I headed to work, and Mr. Kirkland went back to the house. The deadline of the big threat was only two days away. We had to find the target. I wanted to shout to the world that I knew who was behind all this, but we still needed evidence. Who would listen to a hunch and a dream? Plus, if we jumped in too soon, they would know we were on their trail, and it would be much harder to find the target. We needed the element of surprise.

  Roxy still didn’t show up at work. Ralph was unusually quiet and kept to himself, which was alarming in and of itself. I didn’t see Lizzie, but heard she had come in early that morning and then left to go to the post office and do some other office errands. We all were trying to do our work, but the tension in the office was palpable. Even to those who didn’t know what was going on, there was something in the air that kept everyone at a quieter volume, waiting, watching.

  Later in the morning I grabbed a quick coffee with Valerie, then walked a package over to the courthouse. As I dropped off the package, then headed down the long set of steps outside, I ran through the details of the evidence and clues one more time, and something dawned on me. I might know where to look for a lead. Maybe back at the Meatpacking District, we could at least take a look around. But I needed to get a message to Finn.

  I found a cop who was willing to take a message to Detective Finn Brodie for me; my job as aide to the mayor had its perks. Hopefully the message would get to him. Just as I was lamenting not having some kind of phone that I could carry with me or even the ability to send smoke signals, for God’s sake, I heard a familiar voice and absolutely rejoiced.

  “Roarke! I could not be happier to see you. I need a partner.” I quickly told him about checking out the factory where we’d overheard his informant talking with Danny.

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea. Can’t hurt,” he said.

  We took the crosstown bus west to the Meatpacking District. We crept up to the same building that Roarke and I had scoped out that memorable day. The streets were still slimy, and I was grateful that I had chosen closed-toed shoes. We went down that tight alley and to that same grimy window. It was open just a crack, and we listened intently. I heard knocking like a shoe being rapped on the ground and the unmistakable “Mm! Mm! Mm!” of someone with a gag, trying to call out. Roarke and I looked at each other, half in victory, half in fear of, What now?

  A disgusted voice suddenly rumbled right above us, “Oh, no, not you again.” Then a blinding pain struck my neck and head. Everything went black.

  * * *

  I woke up with my head resting against a man’s chest. For an instant I was deliriously happy that it was Finn. But then again, it wasn’t quite right. But he did feel good, and I felt a hand rubbing my back gently. I looked up and saw that it was Roarke. Then everything came rushing back to me. I tried to sit up, but my head pounded with a monumental throb, and I almost passed out.

  “Whoa there, Lane,” said Roarke. “Take it easy.” He gently brought me back down to his chest. We were lying up against the wall of a barren room. I quickly looked around and saw that there weren’t any windows except up near the ceiling. It was getting darker outside, maybe five or six o’clock.

  “What happened?” I whispered, trying to keep my fragile head as still as possible. I gently probed around my scalp and didn’t feel any blood, but I had a painful egg sprouting off the back of my head. “Ow!” I exclaimed. Make that very painful.

  “Well, as you can tell, we were discovered,” he said ruefully. “After they incapacitated us both, they dragged us to this room. They hit me over the head as well, but being that I’m a lot bigger than you and therefore harder to carry, I guess they wanted to make their job easier and just make me more compliant. I was able to get back here on my own. They slumped you over one of their shoulders, and . . . we’re here.”

  “Have you scouted out the room yet?” I asked.

  “Well, Lane, I wasn’t sure you were going to wake up,” he said tersely. “So I’ve been right here.”

&nbs
p; “Oh, Roarke. I’m so sorry I got us into this,” I said as I patted him on the chest.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just the stress of it all. But really, they thumped you on the head, and the thud . . .” His voice went lower. “It was awful. You really had me scared.”

  I carefully nodded against his chest. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I was plenty scared, too. His arms felt warm and safe. I wasn’t budging any time soon. In fact, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up to Roarke shifting around and whispering my name.

  “Lane, I think they’re coming. Wake up. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. Actually, I do feel better. I think I’ll try to sit up a little higher.” At first I was very woozy, but then my balance equalized. My head was still hurting, but the raw throbbing was going down. The sky was completely dark now. Time was short. Day after tomorrow was The Day—August tenth.

  Two guys came in looking big, dumb, and mean. They had looks on their faces that meant business, and they were shaped like meat loaves. The extra meaty guy wearing a dark brown suit came at Roarke, and I got the slightly less beefy guy in navy. There was absolutely nothing in their eyes. Emptiness. Like machines doing their duty. All they said was, “You have a trip ahead of you. You can do it the easy way or the hard way, see?”

  Yeah, that was obvious. “We’ll take the easy way,” I said quickly.

  “We have a hood and a gag for each of you, then we’ll lead you to your vehicle.” They went ahead, and we complied. I hated gags. I was a gagger. It took immense concentration to breathe through my nose and not retch. I got the rhythm of it and tried to stay pressed up against Roarke.

  The two meat loaves bound our hands behind our backs and then led us out of that room and through many hallways. I could hear the echo of our footsteps, but nothing else. They put us into some kind of van or truck and the engine started up. I strained my ears as best I could and paid attention to any possible detail that might give a clue to where we were going.

  I could hear traffic and an occasional siren, and we took plenty of turns. Since the Meatpacking District was on the mid to lower West Side and it was clear we hadn’t gone through a tunnel or bridge yet, we were probably making our way across town or maybe uptown. We finally got to a bridge. I could tell because we went up an incline and the tires made a different noise, like we were on a different kind of pavement.

  Then it hit me. I could feel the familiar thum-thum, thum-thum of the seams in the cement. If I had a hundred bucks, I’d bet it all that we were going across the Queensboro Bridge. Please, not to Blackwell’s Island, please, not to Blackwell’s Island. But we kept going for a while after that, so we were definitely not going to Metropolitan Hospital, unless the Meatloaf Twins were bright enough to trick us and backtrack in their driving. I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. So? We were in Queens somewhere.

  CHAPTER 31

  Mr. Kirkland finished up his pot of chili with a few tosses of Tabasco Sauce. It was late, but he’d had a long day, and Evelyn was working hard on finishing up a piece in her studio. It was late for Lane not to be home already, but she sometimes met up with a friend for a drink or something after work.

  He went over in his mind everything he’d taught Lane the day before. She was a quick learner, and he could tell she enjoyed it. The biggest shock was her delight in the dagger he gave her. She took it, enjoying the feel in her hand, and it had suddenly brought back a long-forgotten memory to her.

  “Oh, wow, I remember that. It was my dad’s,” she said, with a pleased smile.

  He nodded, happy that she remembered.

  “Oh, wait!” she’d exclaimed. “I can do this, watch!” And she’d taken the dagger handle in her hand and flung it at the nearby tree. It unsuccessfully hit the trunk with a thump, clanging to the ground.

  “Shoot! Wait, really, I can do it!” He had been shocked into a stunned, horrified silence.

  “Wait, Lane, you shouldn’t . . .” But she’d picked it up again, this time with the blade of the dagger in her fingertips, and flung it with power and precision to the other tree on the other side of the patio. And like a dart, it had shot across the space with a satisfying thunk into the wood and stuck fast.

  She faced him with wide eyes and a satisfied grin.

  His reply was weak and insubstantial. “Uh. Okay.”

  “My dad taught me that. We worked for hours in the woods whenever we went camping. He loved that I had great aim. Not too shabby after all these years.”

  They’d worked for hours on handling the dagger and on some defensive strategies. Chuckling to himself over that time with Lane, he sat down on a stool and uncapped a beer for himself. He picked up the paper and started reading.

  Later on, Evelyn came down looking satisfied and refreshed like she did when her painting had been a success. Her dark hair was cascading over her shoulders, and her eyes were bright. She fairly skipped over to the counter and took the beer he held out to her.

  “Kirk, it smells great! Chili was an excellent idea. Perfect.”

  He smiled at her. Their friendship had always been solid, changing and deepening over the years, but always very secure. Especially meaningful in a world that was continually shifting and unreliable. He scooped them each a bowl and took some fresh, sweet cornbread out of the oven. They sat down and started eating their simple dinner. The sky was dark, the lamps a cozy golden.

  “So, where’s Lane? Has she eaten already?” asked Evelyn.

  Mr. Kirkland stiffened; more time had passed than he’d thought. “What time is it?”

  “Why, it’s already nine thirty. Time really got away from me upstairs, and—” she said, and then stopped herself midsentence when she saw his troubled face.

  “What?” she asked, with mounting fear.

  “She hasn’t been home yet,” he said urgently.

  “Oh, dear.”

  Normally, they wouldn’t be worried, but given the circumstances and the deadline of Daley’s threat . . . They immediately rang up Fio. He had no idea where Lane was; he had been in meetings out of the office all day. She had looked a little tense that morning and deep in thought, almost to distraction. But with everything going on lately, that was hardly unexpected. They all decided to casually check around, and if she ended up coming home, they would call him back.

  What followed was a sleepless, miserable night.

  By the next morning, they were convinced that things were definitely amiss. But they didn’t have anything to go on. And who could they trust? Valerie didn’t have a phone to call, so Fio would find out from her in person this morning what she knew. No one knew exactly how to reach Finn since he’d been working deep undercover trying to flush out Daley and Donagan’s plan, but they would try.

  During the day, Mr. Kirkland took Ripley for long walks to all of Lane’s regular haunts. Aunt Evelyn got in touch with some of Lane’s other girlfriends. No one had seen her.

  Fiorello went to the police department, but Finn was out for the day, working. He’d send him a message later. Val had heard nothing from Lane, and she looked desperately worried. They didn’t speak directly about it, but he knew she understood something was wrong. She had seen Lane at the café for coffee the previous morning, but not since then. Just like Fiorello, Val had been out of the office on errands or in meetings most of the day. She’d figured she and Lane just hadn’t crossed paths.

  Finally, late in the day, Fio left the office and decided to try to find Roarke. He went over to the press station and asked around for him. No one had seen him that entire day, and he was supposed to do a couple of interviews earlier. Roarke never missed an interview. Fio asked a few more pointed questions that he had been considering, but the reporters didn’t have anything interesting to say. However, one man pulled him aside. “Mr. LaGuardia, I’ve been hearing some rumblings of a new gang or something. And there’s one madam out in Queens who seems to keep coming up. Might have something to do with this. Her name’s Lady Red.”


  Fio had his driver immediately run him over to Evelyn’s.

  He burst in the door, as usual, and Evelyn and Kirkland pounced on him, as they had been anxiously awaiting his arrival.

  “We need to talk,” he said. “I’ve found out some things. And Roarke is missing, too.”

  * * *

  The lights of the city were backed by the dark nighttime sky before Valerie finally looked up from her mound of work. She rubbed the back of her neck, the tight muscles aching from the nonstop hours of the past week. Plus, she had to admit, she was keenly worried. Roxy had never shown up the past couple of days. Lizzie was obviously distressed, and then she called in sick, her throat raspy and raw on the phone. And suddenly, the deadline for Daley’s threat was tomorrow. The hours were running out, and they weren’t any closer to finding the target.

  Most importantly, Lane hadn’t shown up for work. Every time a visitor came to the office, she’d look up instantly, anxiously searching for Lane. At every loud thump or noise, she’d jump a mile. Her nerves were shot.

  “Hey there, Val,” said a quiet voice from behind. “You have a headache or something?”

  Valerie turned around and saw Ralph standing there, brows knit with concern. His very lined forehead was even more deeply lined than usual. At his question, she realized she’d been rubbing her temples while she had been deep in thought. “Oh, just thinking,” she said.

  “Yeah, I can’t stop thinking about Roxy and how she’s just disappeared,” he said while he perched on the edge of her desk. His usual wide smile was closed-lipped, and his eyes were shifting back and forth like he was trying to decide between two difficult choices.

  “You okay, Ralph?” asked Val, with a tilt of her head.