One O'Clock Jump

by Lise McClendon

  “Ever been here before?” she asked at the door.

  Talbot squinted at the faded storefront, scummy plate glass, tattered mat. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

  Lennox opened the door. The front of the saloon was a jumble of mismatched wooden tables and chairs, empty at this hour. Renovation here consisted of sledgehammer and broom. A wall had been torn down, the one that separated the phony butcher shop front from the speakeasy, and now a wide ragged line ran down both walls and across the ceiling. The same scuffed wood floor continued through the back portion, where exposed brick, pressed tin, and mouse droppings dominated the decorating theme.

  They paused in the blue-green light struggling through the plate glass, reluctant to venture into the back of the joint, where shadowy figures hunched around tables.

  “Now it all makes sense,” Talbot muttered. “Do we dare have a beer?”

  They were served two cold drafts, a significant improvement over the Chatterbox’s refrigeration methods, at a scarred table. Lennox had glimpsed the bartender through the window: red-haired, stout, smiling. Whether he was the one she’d talked to on the phone, she wasn’t sure.

  The cold beer perked Talbot up. “So,” he said, leaning in, “what are we doing here? Checking her background?”

  “Drink your beer, ace.”

  Their eyes adjusted to the dim room. Afternoon revelers sat morosely over glasses of brew. They wore the uniforms of barges, trains, and streetcars, grimy with the grit of the hot, windy day. The air had the ripe quality of sweat, grease, and hops. Lennox took a sip, pushed back her chair, walked to the bar.

  “Say,” she said, smiling to the barkeep, “my friend Iris works here. Is she around today?”

  The bartender’s face flattened. “No, and don’t expect her.”

  “She quit?”

  “Disappeared. Took a powder.”

  “Just like that?”

  He hiked his shoulders. “Left a pile of stuff, too. But managed to pick up her check before she took off.”

  Lennox turned to survey the bar, put her elbows up behind her. “This happen a lot, girls just taking off?”

  “Infernal cheek. She my girl, she’d get a whipping.” He wiped the bar near her elbows. She lifted them and turned back. “I never trusted that one. She was the type to rob the till while your back was turned.”

  “Did she?”

  He shook his head. “I keep my eyeballs peeled. But you could tell something was always whirling inside her head. She’s not stupid.” He slapped the rag into his hand. “I saw her at the end of the bar one night, just standing there like the Queen of Sheba. Like she was going to rule some grand kingdom and it was only a matter of time.”

  “Sounds a little scary.”

  “She didn’t scare me. And you know what? I’m glad she quit.” He screwed up his eyes, then looked at the ceiling. “Don’t ever want to see that witch’s face again.”

  The way his eyes sagged as he said it, the way his voice lost its piqued edge—he was hurt by her disappearance, and at least half in love with cold, pretty Iris.

  “Good old Iris. She must have brightened up the place a little. You got another girl now?”

  The bartender swung his head from side to side. Lennox went on: “I could take that stuff she left off your hands. Haul it over to her place.”

  He shook himself. “Why not.”

  Lennox followed him into the back, to a green bathroom with a rust-ringed toilet and a small closet where the girls changed clothes. In the bottom sat an old muslin feed bag, which the bartender pulled out and handed to her. Extra shoes, he said, and turned off the light as they left.

  Lennox found Talbot chatting up a table of streetcar drivers, their jackets unbuttoned and hats on the table. He had them laughing, beating hands on the table at some joke. She looked at the reporter and nodded toward the door. On the sidewalk, she showed him the bag.

  “Some of her stuff, a pair of shoes and a blouse, it looks like. Not much.”

  Harvey led her to the car. “Those streetcar hacks are regulars; they remember her. A customer grabbed her one night. She said she’d let some chump do that to her once, but never again. Then she cold cocked him.”

  “My kinda gal.” Lennox flexed her right hand. Her knuckles were swollen. It felt good having somebody to talk to about Iris. Maybe too good. Soon she’d be telling him about Atchison, about Beloit, all the sorry details. She told herself to trot as she slipped into the Chrysler. “Did they say anything else?”

  Talbot flopped into the driver’s seat and drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. “She liked tips. She would fawn over a guy she thought had money.” He looked at her. “We going to do this together? ‘Cause if we are, we have to tell each other everything.”

  Lennox looked out the side window. He took hold of her wrist, pulled her toward him. “Hey,” she said, startled.

  “Why can’t we help each other? You don’t have to tell me who you were tailing her for. Tell me what it was like. Were you on the bridge with her?”

  The image of Iris on the bridge, the swaying of the rails below, the smell of the water, the mist rising from it—it was all too clear. Then, suddenly, the dream mixed into it, and Lennox was on the bridge herself, struggling with someone. But who—Iris?

  He touched her cheek.

  She pulled away. “I can’t tell you, Talbot. I have clients.”

  “You want to find out what happened to her, don’t you? Isn’t that why you’re still snooping around?”

  “We know what happened to her.”

  “But why did she do it? She wasn’t just another despondent jumper. She was a girl who slugged fellas when they got fresh, who had plans for the future, who wanted to be rich, comfortable.”

  “How do you know that?” Lennox squinted at him. His dark hair had draped over his forehead again.

  “I know people. That’s my business. Don’t you see? She wanted something; this dive was only a stepping-stone. But something happened.”

  “No kiddin’.”

  “I mean something happened in here.” He tapped his chest. “She lost that drive, that oomph, whatever it was.”

  An old Model A, rattling like crazy, passed on the street. “She left a note.”

  “You read it?”

  She nodded.

  “Well? What did it say?”

  “Didn’t want to live. Estranged from everyone she loved. She wrote somebody a little ditty. Something like, ‘Wherever you are, my lost lamb, there will be stars burning. We’ll be together soon.’ “

  “Poetic. Wonder who he was.”

  It was poetic. Romantic, too. And so out of character it made the mystery of Iris even murkier. “Nobody knows about a boyfriend. At least nobody I’ve talked to.” Unless you counted Georgie, and she wasn’t.

  ” ‘We’ll be together soon.’ That sounds like he’s already dead.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. Together in heaven, or hell.

  Talbot sighed. “Dead boyfriends aren’t much help. Maybe she was in love with a lamb. We could interview him. Baaaaa.”

  “I wish I knew more about her. She’s a blank slate.”

  “Didn’t she go anywhere when you followed her?”

  “Straight home from work. Oh, the first night, Amos went with me. She went to this dance at the Muehlebach. By herself.”

  “But not for long, I bet.”

  “There were a few wolves after her. One looked like you.”

  “I wasn’t there, honest.” He threw up both hands. It was getting to be his personal salute. “I was home taking a bath at the time, your honor.”

  “She was different that night. Wore a green satin dress, very classy. Gold earrings. That hair, it was like a siren. Like Jean Harlow in Bombshell.”

  “Sounds like she was her own bombshell.” He leaned back in the seat and turned his head to her. “Who was that woman in the black car? You can tell me, off the record.”

  “Off the record? That’s a joke.�
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  “Did it have to do with Iris Jackson?”

  “Listen.” Now she took his wrist, just to see what it did to his face. “Could we get something to eat? I’m starved.”

  He looked at her fingers, then took her hand in both of his.

  “You always seem to be hungry, Miss Lennox. All right. On one condition. You have to like barbecue.” He moved her finger to his mouth as if it were a spicy rib. Her body felt like the heat was searing it, a flash of fire. She snatched her hand away.

  “Course I like barbecue.” She took a breath, ran her damp palms down her slacks. “I live in Kansas City, don’t I?”

  TEN

  Amos haddam read the Kansas City Star inside his oxygen tent and felt worse with each story: 650,000 children evacuated from London alone. Dry-eyed soldiers in Warsaw and Paris and Berlin, quietly accepting a fate long foreseen. The previous war’s costs—the First World War they were calling it now— tallied up with disgust: 8.5 million lives lost, $338 billion down the warlord drain. A peace that never lived up to that cost— starvation, inflation, depression, more starvation. Not to mention a simmering legacy of hate and fear.

  The worst thing in the paper, though, was the sinking of the Athenia. He stared at the photo of the listing ship, going down in the Atlantic halfway to Iceland from the Hebrides, full of American refugees fleeing the fighting. He read about the rescues, how methodically it had gone while the ship hung, fatally injured. How the able seamen had calmed the hysterical women, loaded the lifeboats, saved them all. No panicked girls jumping into the icy sea, not this time.

  He read the details, down to the end. white house horrified … steamer carried no munitions. The only casual-ties were “some persons killed by explosion of the torpedo … all others picked up by rescue vessels.” A miracle, all saved. No girls lost, no panic, no drowning.

  He rattled the pages until he could stand it no longer. The newspaper collapsed under his hands, a paper lump now, wrinkled in his sickened grip.

  Throwing the crushed newsprint on the floor, he listened to the sounds of the ward. The squeak of nurse’s shoes was hard to detect, but it seemed there were few patients in the hospital. All who could had gone home. And why, by God, was he still here?

  He took a deep breath and tested his lungs. They had been worse. They had been better, too. A cough was mildly productive. His fever was better; his forehead felt cool enough. He lay still, counting to ten, then swung his legs to the floor, pushed aside the oxygen tent, and sat up. Next to his bed was his supper, congealed goo, gelled rubber mystery meat, withered fruit. Desertion had its blessings. He thought about a bratwurst from a street vendor and his mouth watered.

  He found his clothes hanging on the back of the door and he slipped into the water closet. This private room had its own facilities, which was handy now that he was springing himself. Dressed in the blood-spattered shirt and suit, he struggled to put on his shoes and socks, then wet down his hair. The clerk in Emergency was kind enough to call him a cab.

  Like a schoolboy playing hooky, he escaped. The acrid chemical smell of the office greeted him. He fell into his comfortable old chair, swiveled a little for old times’ sake, then surveyed the views. Out the west window a slice of the river between a warehouse and an office building, a shimmering twinkle in the dingy city. To the south, the streetcars clanged. Two cars were parked across the street, a blue Nash and a farm truck loaded with chickens. He sat still in an effort to calm his breathing after climbing the stairs.

  He stared at the telephone. Only work would take his mind, and his nerves, off the war news. So, to work. He’d never had a telephone number for Palmer Eustace. Vanvleet sent and received all information. He rang Herb’s number and told him he’d been sprung from the croaker bin.

  “You’re okay, then?” Herb asked.

  “Couldn’t be better. I have a favor to ask. Could you call your pal Willie O’Brian in detectives and have him run some sheets for me?”

  “Forget about work. Maureen made a peach pie.”

  “Sounds good. But, Herbert, old boy, call O’Brian for me. Need a poop sheet on two sharpers, names Palmer Eustace and Floyd Wilson.”

  Herb agreed, reluctantly, and Amos said to save him a piece of pie, although he would have to take a cab. They were too far from the streetcar line and he didn’t feel safe driving, in his condition. He might black out and kill somebody. He checked his pocket watch, leaned back in the chair, and propped his feet up on the desk.

  His eyelids felt weak. He’d give O’Brian an hour.

  Almost three hours later—his eyelids were weaker than he thought—Amos Haddam heaved himself up to the second floor of police headquarters, making use of all hand railings, and cursing the Jerries again. He hadn’t been so anti-German for at least a decade, when the crash had left him and everybody else with bigger worries. Not that he hadn’t tried to forget about the trenches and the gas and all of it. But the news of the weekend brought back the old feelings. It sapped his strength, he once thought, to hate so much, but now it felt good, a purging of poisons from a toxic vessel.

  The detectives’ room was at the far end of the hall, behind wood-paneled walls, frosted glass, and a sea of desks. Because of the holiday, a skeleton crew manned the phones. The first detective Amos encountered told him O’Brian was boating today.

  “But Captain Warren gave me the details.” The young detective in rolled-up shirtsleeves and braces picked up a sheet of paper from his report-strewn desk. Like half the cops in the city, this one was new at the job. Amos remembered him on a beat downtown a few months before.

  “Palmer Eustace. That the name? No such person in Kansas City. I checked all the outlying areas, Johnson County, Independence, KCK. Nobody.”

  “You got the spelling right?”

  “Tried it five different ways. Zilch, old man.”

  “All right. Word is, he’s an owner of the Blue Valley Racetrack. That means he’s not a local man like that reporter in the Star said today.”

  The detective pushed his brown felt hat back on his head. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

  “Thanks for the tip, kid. What about Floyd Wilson?”

  “Got six of ‘em for you.” The dick slid over the sheet of paper with addresses hand-lettered. “Tell me which one you want and I can go from there.”

  Amos had met Wilson on two occasions, once at the track and the other time with the auditor at the accounting office. He was sixtyish, a sharp dresser, and didn’t miss a trick. Banking family, he knew, old money. But Amos hadn’t gotten a home address—or a middle initial—damn! Haddam’s brain felt stuffed with cotton. Did he have Wilson’s number? Had Shirley given it to him? He was getting too decrepit for this legwork.

  “Can I keep this?”

  The cop smiled. “Be my guest.”

  Amos turned to go, then had a new thought. “Can you run me the corporation papers for the track?”

  The detective lost his grin. “I ain’t your lackey, chum.”

  A surge of energy snapped him to attention. “You coppers still taking bribes from the so-called locals?”

  The young dick turned scarlet. “You got no call—”

  “I’ll just tell Herbert you were too damn sweet with the Blue Valley boys to question their sincerity.” He sat on the edge of the detective’s desk. “What’s your name? For when I get back to Herbert.”

  The dick threw back his chair and stomped out of the room. Amos let his hero’s posture relax and coughed to clear his throat. The energy was gone now. He felt light-headed and feverish. Wheezing, he mopped his wet brow. In ten minutes, the detective resurfaced.

  “All in order, mac.” The young cop tossed him the corporation documents for Blue Valley Racing, Incorporated. President was Floyd Wilson (no middle initial—a phony name?) vice president, Palmer Eustace. Wilson’s address was the Blue Valley Racetrack itself, a rural box on the Ridgeway. Very helpful. An address for Eustace was given, on Tracy Avenue.

&nbs
p; Amos looked up at the detective, thought about pointing out the address. But it was probably a vacant lot. Anyway, he’d find out, and the cop didn’t need to care one way or the other. Besides, he didn’t have the energy to fight about it.

  He scribbled down the information in his blue notebook, snuggling it next to Eugenia’s slim book in his jacket pocket. On his way down the stairs, black spots began to swim before his eyes. He had to stop twice and put his head down low by his knees.

  When the late-afternoon sun hit him on the front steps of police headquarters, it felt like the devil’s own blast furnace. Good God Almighty. Haddam swayed, grabbed the railing, and made it down a few steps. His guts felt ready to explode, his head a ripe watermelon.

  Through the buzz in his ears and the glare off his eyeballs, he saw the woman waving. She stood by a car—that blue Nash again? A vision in a red dress. She’d cut her beautiful dark hair, but it was her, wasn’t it? She was older, but then, Eugenia would be older, wouldn’t she?

  He toppled down four stairs, bent over the railing. His head swam. Besides the black spots, twinkling lights sparkled in his vision, dancing on the heat waves.

  He called to her. Would she come? Eugenia! Darling!

  The railing slipped from his fingers. He felt a wild euphoria. She had come back to him, his Eugenia. And he could tell her there had never been another. He had been true. All these years, he’d been true.

  He was smiling as his head hit the granite stair with a clunk. The pain was nothing. Nothing mattered but Eugenia.

  She’d come back.

  ELEVEN

  “What is it?”

  Lennox turned in Talbot’s Chrysler to get a better look at the Nash as they passed City Hall. “Her car, I think.”

  Talbot slammed on the brakes. “Where?” The tires slid. The Chrysler came to a stop on the corner north of police headquarters. Lennox pointed out the blue jalopy.

  “They must have towed it over. Or some toughs got caught in it.” She sat back in the seat. “Anyway, I already rifled through it and found nothing.” Except those damn keys. Where could they fit? Lennox followed his gaze to the police HQ stairs, where a small crowd had formed.