by Michael Mayo
The .45 sounded really loud in the echoing ballroom. The bullet caught Cameron high on the right side of her chest. She staggered back a step, and flailed gracelessly falling to the floor.
The recoil knocked the pistol out of Flora’s hands. She looked quite surprised at what she’d done as she watched her friend die. Then she fainted.
Teddy jumped up and bolted from the room. But he was about six days too late. Spence met him at the door, and laid him out with a forearm to the throat.
He knelt down to cradle his wife, and turned to look at me. “What the hell was going on with these three?”
“They showed up with Flora. The big one there”—I pointed at Titus, who hadn’t moved or reacted to the gunshot in any way—“said that they palled around with Chink at the Swanee Club.”
“We saw them there. They know Flora.”
“Chink hired them to hang around with her while you were gone. I guess he was worried that you might fly the coop with his dough and the drugs.”
Just goes to show you how much Chink had misjudged Spence. Spence wouldn’t leave his wife and the life that he’d so carefully built for himself in Valley Green. Those were a hell of a lot more important to him than money.
“So, now what?” I said.
Spence stroked his wife’s face. “Will you help? This isn’t finished yet.”
He didn’t have to ask.
Dr. Cloninger came in and asked Flora how much she’d had to drink. Well, he tried to ask her but she couldn’t really answer. He whipped out his trusty leather case and selected a syringe. Spence helped pull down Flora’s torn blouse over her shoulder. The doc swabbed it and gave her a shot. When Spence tried to get her to stand, her legs went rubbery and he had to carry her upstairs.
After they’d gone, Cloninger turned his pop-eyed stare to me. “Once again you walk away from a confrontation without harm. That is a remarkable facility, Mr. Quinn. I hope we can rely on your continued assistance.”
He pulled another syringe out of the case, and jabbed the unconscious Teddy in the neck without benefit of an alcohol swab. Then he went back to the big room and up to the balcony, where he bandaged the Mick’s head wound. The guy appeared to be delirious—but who knows, that might have been the booze. Cloninger got him to his feet and led him downstairs. By then, Chink had rounded up the other three Micks, who’d run when the first shot was heard. If they were curious about who’d shot their fourth, they didn’t say anything. They just loaded him into the back of the truck and left. Their headlights revealed Spats’s bloody body on the wet snowy grass.
Spence had another conversation with Chink, who drove off in the other Model A.
“We’re almost finished,” Spence said. “We just have to get the goods over to Cloninger’s sanatorium. Oliver is bringing the car around. Once we’ve got that squared away, we’ll call Sheriff Kittner and he’ll take care of everything else.”
Headlights hit us and Oh Boy pulled up. Spence and I carried the crates from the house and loaded them into the backseat of the Duesenberg. Oh Boy stared straight ahead, trying not to see anything that was going on. Spence paused with the car door open. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. You know that, and you know I’ll make it worth your while.”
I watched the taillights recede down the drive and thought about everything that had happened since Spence left a week ago, and everything that had happened since he got back. I tried to make it all fit together, but logic failed me.
I heard the sputtering of a small engine and turned to see Dietz riding up from the garage on his motorcycle with its homemade sidecar. A length of stout wire and two heavy angle-irons rattled around inside it. He stopped beside Spats’s body and fired up his briar.
“Some of your handiwork, I take it, gunman.”
“Actually, Spence did the honors. Not that it matters. The world is a better place without Sammy Spats.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
“I knew him better than you did.”
Dietz laughed. “Help me load him up, then. I’ll see that he gets a decent burial at sea, in a manner of speaking.”
We lifted the body into the sidecar, and Dietz trundled down the slope to the boathouse and the lake.
I shivered. It was cold out there without an overcoat and hat. I went back inside to the library but it was chilly there, too. The fire had gone out some time before. I found a clean glass at the bar, took it into the reading room, and poured another tot of Mr. Pennyweight’s good brandy.
Sitting in the threadbare armchair, I wondered if she would show herself or if, after spending a week in this crazy place, I’d gone a little nuts myself. I drank, closed my eyes, and waited. Maybe I dozed. Maybe I only dreamed what happened next.
When I looked up again, there she was, a shape at the edge of the light, just as she’d looked when I saw her the first time from my window.
Not knowing exactly how to greet her, I said, “Thanks for shooting the Mick on the balcony.”
“You’re welcome.” Mandelina Pennyweight wore dark slacks and a black sweater under a heavy winter coat. As she moved closer to the light, I could make out her pale face and hands. The brindle cat followed, purring loudly and rubbing against her ankles.
“I don’t understand why you want people to think that you died.”
She shrugged and said, sounding unconcerned, “There’s a reason.”
“Does Spence know you’re alive?”
“Of course.”
“Your sister?”
“Oh, no. She loves to come to visit the churchyard. At first, after I got better, we thought I’d go home. But then it just seemed, I don’t know, easier to stay at the clinic with Ernst. After we got married, it just seemed better if she didn’t know.
“People don’t bother me any longer—boys, you know. And my father.” She might have shuddered a bit. “Ernst took care of him, too, once we got him inside the sanatorium. And then there’s the work. Ernst is doing remarkable things. And he’s in love with me. I like that. And there’s no place for me here, not with Flora and the baby.” Her expression softened. “I do love them, you know. So much. It’s easier for Flora if I’m not around. She can be . . . difficult.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Then, for the last week you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing. Watching over Flora and Ethan. Making sure they were safe?”
She nodded, her eyes unnaturally bright. I suspected that she might not have fully recovered from falling off that horse, or maybe Cloninger played Dr. Feelgood for her like he did for everybody else.
“Were you here when Fordham Evans dropped in?”
She smiled. “Oh, yes, it’s only a short walk through the woods, and this place is a maze of passages. Once you’re inside the furnace room, you can get to almost anyplace in the house, if you know how.” She giggled like a little girl. “I’ve been watching you down in the kitchen.”
“Did you shoot Fordham Evans?” I asked.
“Yes.” She was still calmly unconcerned. “It was Ernst’s idea. Fordham knew about the arrangement that Ernst and Walter were working on and they couldn’t trust him to keep his big mouth shut. He said that Fordham was a junkie, and you can never trust a junkie. When I was about ten or twelve he put his hand down my underpants.” She took Spence’s Mauser out of her pocket, and put it on the table.
“How’d you do it?”
“I waited by the road, naked, just like Ernst told me. And then Fordham saw me in his headlights and drove off the road, and took off his clothes, and followed me into the woods, where Ernst was waiting.”
“And he shot him and nailed him to a tree. Why nail him to the tree?”
“Ernst said it would give Sheriff Kittner something to think about. When Ernst’s work with Walter is finished, we’ll go to Germany. Ernst has friends in the new government, and . . .”
She stopped talking and backed away, fading into the darkness behind the brick chimney. The bookshelf door clicked open.
Connie Nix said, “Did I hear you talking to someone?” and reached down to scratch the cat. It didn’t bite her.
“I’ll explain it later. There’s something else we need to talk about first.” We went back to the library.
She looked worried. “Oh, yes, but,” she hesitated, “I still don’t understand. Did I hear another shot?”
“Yes, it was Flora. She killed her friend Cameron because she wasn’t really a friend. Flora just figured that out.”
“She killed Miss Rivers?” Connie’s big eyes went impossibly wide. “This is insane.”
“And now your employers are selling high-quality drugs. The work will be done at Cloninger’s sanatorium, not here. So legally, I guess you wouldn’t be an accessory or anything. But it does change things. So, do you want to work here? Or would you rather be a waitress at a nice quiet little speak?”
“When can I start?”
“Pack your bags, then. We’re leaving tonight, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll buy you a train ticket to California. Hell, I might even join you.”
Spence and Oh Boy got back at about half past four in the morning. Deputy Parker and Sheriff Kittner followed in a police car. I watched from the library while they palavered in the big room, Parker looking serious in his uniform, Kittner bleary-eyed and unshaven in a wrinkled brown suit. Spence seemed to be spinning an involved story in great detail. He gestured toward the balcony, and acted out a scenario that involved several people. Then he led the cops into the ballroom, where they worked out the fate of Teddy and Titus.
I had a fire going by then, and the library was warming nicely. I watched as Parker and Kittner carried out Cameron Rivers’s body, followed by the unconscious Teddy. Finally they brought out Titus, his arms over their shoulders. The big guy shuffled along, feet barely moving, head down. I heard car doors closing and assumed that Flora’s former friends had been loaded into the Pierce-Arrow. Then engines started and they left.
The story of the horrible accident that took the lives of three young people on an icy road appeared in Friday’s edition of the Daily Record. It never made the New York papers.
I poured another short brandy and a second for Spence when he came in.
“Christ, what a night,” he said, dragging his fingers through his hair. “And now it’s done.” He raised his glass in a toast. “Thanks to you, my friend. And you’re going to be paid handsomely for your trouble.” He had never looked or sounded more sincere.
I finished the brandy and got up. “You know where to send it.”
“What do you mean?” He pretended to be surprised. “You’re not leaving. We’ve got a place for you here. You can’t turn me down twice, Jimmy.”
“I sell whiskey, you know that.”
“But we won’t have anything to do with drugs from now on. Shipping is taken care of, and we’re only going to be in this business for another year at the most. Then we’ll be completely legal. We’ll never have to worry about the police.”
“Not the locals, that’s for sure. But you’ve still got Chink and his boys on the other end. I’m not interested.”
“Jimmy, I need you. You can make ten times as much as you’ll ever see out of your little speak.”
“You’re probably right, but it’s not for me.”
Spence kept jawing for a few more minutes and finally said, “All right, what do you want?”
“Since you ask, and since it’s been such a long night for Oh Boy, why don’t you let me have that sweet little Ford in the garage?”
“That’s Flora’s car.”
“Buy her another one.”
Knowing he was getting off cheap, Spence laughed. “You goddamn Black Irish bastard.” And he found a set of keys in the desk drawer.
I went upstairs, told Connie Nix to get ready, and brought my own bag and suits down. I got my overcoat and hat, and walked out to the garage. As I crunched along on the gravel and slush, the slate-gray sky lightened. I could make out woods and water, and Dietz’s motorcycle parked down by the boathouse.
It felt good to walk. I knew I ought to feel guilty or horrified or something at the killings I’d helped with and the dope that was going to be distributed. But I didn’t. I was a little surprised to realize that I hadn’t thought about the Lindbergh baby for hours. As important as the story was, it had faded away when life got busy.
I was just damn glad to be alive, to be going home in the company of a smart, pretty woman. I hoped like hell she didn’t have a husband stashed away somewhere.
Things worked out more or less the way Spence predicted. At least, he never got nailed on any drug charges.
Three years later, in 1935, they found Chink Sherman in a lime pit upstate. The body hadn’t been there long but it was still in pretty bad shape. The cops figured he’d been done in with a hatchet, and they had to identify the corpse by what was left of his fingerprints. As far as I know, Spence had nothing to do with it.
I guess everybody knows how the Lindbergh business ended. He paid the ransom, and two months later the baby’s body was found in a shallow grave in the woods a mile or so from his house. A couple of years after that they nailed the kraut bastard Hauptmann who kidnapped and killed the kid.
Cloninger shut down the sanatorium and gave up his New York practice. He sailed back to Germany with Mandelina, but things didn’t work out for them with the Nazis, and I heard that they wound up in Switzerland.
Before the year was out, Kittner resigned from the Sheriff’s Department and Parker replaced him. He stayed in the job until he went to work for Spence.
You see, my old friend spent his money wisely. He managed to get some lines redrawn and Valley Green became a new congressional district. That made Spence a big cheese in Democratic Party politics. He served in the New Jersey legislature for twelve years. Parker ran his office in Trenton. Then Spence won a seat in Congress and they went to Washington, and stayed there until he retired. By then, he was worth more than any Pennyweight ever dreamed possible. Some said his mother-in-law was the real power behind his throne. Maybe so, but Spence did just fine long after she died.
Flora became a great patron of the arts, and some of it must have rubbed off on little Ethan. You can find his short stories in collections of the Beats, but he was actually better known for the quality of drugs at parties he threw in San Francisco. He grew up to be a hell of a nice guy.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of:
Agnes Birnbaum
Rian James
Berenice Abbott
Reginald Marsh
Lloyd Morris
John Dos Passos
Tony Sarg
Al Hirschfeld
Gordon Kahn
Martin Lewis
Willie Seabrook
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Michael Mayo
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN 978-1-4532-6587-1
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