The Gold Pawn

by L. A. Chandlar

  That just didn’t seem like Mr. Hambro. Mrs. Hambro had notified the police and they were following up, but there really wasn’t anything substantial to go on. On top of worrying about the man himself, word was leaking out that he had disappeared and there were legitimate concerns that the investors at his bank would start to get nervous and pull their money. Too many people had seen things like this happen before.

  Fio asked me to go along with him to see Mrs. Hambro. I agreed and we made plans to pay her a visit in the late afternoon.

  I got into the office, dropped off my things, and headed to the coffee room as I was mulling over the items we had discussed in the car. I waved to Val as she sat at her desk typing at a furious pace. She raised her honey-brown head and gave a big smile in greeting, not missing a beat on the typewriter.

  In the coffee room, I came across someone else.

  “Morning, Lane,” said Roxy as she put out the stub of her cigarette.

  “Morning, Roxy,” I returned. Roxy and I had a tricky past, but the truce we struck continued in peace. She recently cut her glorious white blond hair into a short, trendy do, with glossy waves hugging her cute little head. And I have to say, I didn’t think it was possible, but the shorter hairdo accentuated her perfectly curvy figure. Today she had on a tight (as always) light blue sweater highlighting her favorite assets.

  I exhaled wistfully, “You look great, Roxy. I love your new haircut.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Lane.”

  We had both learned a lot of surprising things about each other. Things that we had never spoken of, but we held a mutual understanding that there was much beneath the surface to us both and a grudging respect had emerged.

  Just as I was about to ask her if she had any plans this weekend, in swept Ralph, the office chatterbox and flirt. His dark curly hair had also been cut recently, so the lock that used to fall over his eyes was a little too short for his taste and he self-consciously pulled at it all day long, willing it to grow back. His forehead had a network of creases and his looks weren’t traditionally handsome, but he had a wide, contagious grin. Roxy locked eyes with me, a wicked gleam in her eye and a smirk to her lips. I nodded once.

  Ralph started in at top speed, “Hey, gals! How’s it going? Did you hear about the new band playing at the Orchard Club tonight?”

  Roxy quickly started to say, “Yeah, we were think—”

  “You should come!” he interrupted, speaking so fast it was hard to keep up. “It’s gonna be great, they’re playing all the good stuff and they redid the inside of the club, so it should be the cat’s pajamas. How about you, Lane?”

  Ready to cram in as many words as I could, I only got as far as, “Sounds gr—”

  “Fantastic! Bring your friends. I told Val about it, how about Dorothy from accounting? You should bring her, too, she’s really cute. Okay! I gotta run. See you girls later!” He raced out of the coffee room, completing a backhanded throw of his napkin into the garbage can.

  “Damn. Thought I had you,” I said as I handed Roxy her dollar. “You win. You got out four words. I only got out one and a half.”

  “Thanks!” she said with a knowing grin, tucking her winnings of our ongoing bet into her ample cleavage. I’d be lucky to hide a dime.

  “I’ll work on it. I’ll get my dollar back next time.”

  “You got it, Lane.” We clinked our coffee cups sealing the deal and she chuckled as she walked out.

  The rest of the morning carried on as usual, Val and I deciding to have lunch outside in the park even though it was brisk. We bought a couple of sandwiches and Coca-Colas, and walked to a little table. There were several other brave souls outside, too. Even though it was about fifty degrees, there were several of us eating in the park. We could feel the inevitability of winter coming, so we just had to get in another lunch outdoors.

  My fingers made circles on the metal table, feeling the texture of smooth holes in the cold surface. The earthy scent of fallen leaves surrounded us along with the cheerful murmuring from the other lunchers as we soaked up the sunshine on our faces while enduring the stiff fall breeze.

  “Are we still on for tonight, to go to the club Ralph was telling us about?” I asked Val.

  “Sounds great. I think Pete and some of his buddies are going,” she said.

  She and Pete were an on-again, off-again couple. They were both very tall, which was a treat for Val. Val was almost six feet tall, which made it difficult to wear the fun shoes she loved and yet still be able to look up at a date.

  Val had delightful, sparkling green eyes and they held a look of mischief today.

  I narrowed my eyes and said, “What are you up to, Val?”

  “Well . . . I had something funny happen today. I’ve been dying to tell you about it,” she said with a sardonic smile, her freckles making her pretty face seem more mischievous than she actually was. I think her share of mischief fell on me. She continued as I leaned in closer. “You know how you have that fantasy of falling and then suddenly a handsome stranger appears out of nowhere and catches you?”

  “Val!” I whined exasperatedly. “You said you wouldn’t speak of that again!” I said in mock anger.

  She laughed. I rolled my eyes. It’s true, I had fantasized about that. I watched a lot of movies and read a lot of novels. Obviously.

  “Let me tell ya, Lane. It’s not nearly as romantic as you might think.”

  “What?”

  “Shhhh. Stop yelling,” she chided. “I was walking through Penn Station and you know how beautiful that hall is . . .”

  “Mm hmm,” I said, nodding as I took a bite of my chicken salad sandwich. I loved that hall, it’s just about as wonderful as Grand Central.

  “Well, I got right to the dead center of the hall, was looking up at the ceiling . . . and tripped. On the completely smooth floor, mind you. And it was one of those long, laborious trips where your body tries desperately to keep itself upright, but you manage to just keep tripping and running on and on,” she said, about to snort.

  “It felt like I’d been falling for hours and I was making noises like, ‘Whoa! Woo! Whooooaa!’ And then finally, as my body gave up the fight and I was almost horizontal, about to hit the pavement, someone caught me,” she said as she raised her eyebrows in meaningful emphasis.

  “Really?” I squeaked.

  She nodded. “Mm hmm.”

  “Who was it? It wasn’t Pete, was it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Who?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Some tall stranger. Thank God he was tall, otherwise I would have taken him out.”

  “Well . . . What happened? Did he say anything? Did you say anything?”

  She laughed. “Well, I was a little embarrassed and after he set me upright again I was speechless. I could feel myself blushing from my toes to my hair. I think I stuttered something stupid like, ‘Uh, thanks.’ He just looked at me, adjusted his hat that I had knocked askew, and smiled. He had these amazing, dark blue eyes. He just said, ‘Anytime.’ Then walked away.”

  I had stopped eating and was looking at her with a great, skeptical lift to my eyebrow. “Hmph.”

  “Hmph?” she echoed.

  “Yyyyyeah. Right. Not romantic at all.”

  She blushed again and I just shook my head. She had all the luck. We ate amicably for a few minutes. As Val took a long swig of Coke, I felt her eyes on me.

  “Have you heard from Finn?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing since he sent word that he arrived safe ’n’ sound a couple of weeks ago.”

  It seemed inadequate to call Finn my boyfriend. We were more than that. We’d shared intense passionate moments, telling each other things we had never shared with another person. We both had complicated pasts that seemed to draw us closer.

  It’s funny how the little moments became the important memories, the ones that came back to mind frequently and with a special kind of poignancy. I kept thinking about the day right before he left
when we had taken a long walk through Central Park and were making our way back to my house. I had asked him if he’d help me start taking down some of the patio furnishings that weren’t winter-worthy. The afternoon temperature had dropped suddenly, and I started to button up my coat when we were still several blocks away from home. My fingers had gotten so cold and numb, I was fumbling with the buttons.

  Finn noticed and pulled me over to the side. He looked down at my blue fingers and said, “Here . . .” He gently took my stiff fingers into his warm, toasty hands. It felt heavenly. I looked up at his dark brown hair and the jawline that I knew like the back of my hand. His gray-green eyes smiled with kindness and the crinkles at the corners made me automatically smile back. He brought my hands up to his lips and kissed them. “Better?” he asked in his delicious part-British and part-Irish accent.

  “Yes, much.” Then he slowly and carefully buttoned the remaining two buttons on my coat, both of us intensely aware of our closeness.

  Finn was a detective in the NYPD. For the past couple of years, Fiorello had worked with him to infiltrate the remaining Tammany guys to see if there were any leftover troublemakers. Finn had ended up working deep undercover with two dangerous criminals: Donagan Connell and the horrifying Daley Joseph. Daley did not survive the battle, Donagan was in Sing Sing. About two weeks ago Finn was sent on an urgent errand to Europe. Most of it had been coordinated by Fiorello, but Finn had been assigned directly from FDR. As in President Roosevelt. Not exactly an assignment you could say no to.

  Europe was a mess. The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but it was looking more and more every day like that might not be the case. God, I hope not. Adolf Hitler of Germany veritably ran over the Treaty of Versailles last March when he started to bring his thirty thousand troops into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. But Europe was so utterly devastated and war-weary, they kept appeasing him. I’d never forget that day and the ferocity with which Mr. Kirkland reacted. He blew his top and I was shocked to see this normally placid and in-control man viciously throw a kitchen chair across the room when the news came on the radio. He yelled in a Fio-worthy rant that “if France just showed the least bit of resistance, bloody hell, the Germans would have hightailed it!” Of course, that rage was sprinkled with profanity that would make a sailor blush. But I couldn’t blame his seething anger. He had lived through the Great War.

  Just a little over two years ago Germany’s president Hindenburg died. Hitler, then chancellor, fashioned a complete takeover in the German government beginning with proclaiming himself Führer, a combination of president and chancellor. He’d already killed off his opposition with a purge of all anti-Nazi leaders on what was called the Night of the Long Knives, suspended civil rights, instituted the reprehensible Nuremburg Laws, and executed a military draft complete with a new air force called the Luftwaffe. Some people thought he might be able to turn Germany around. Fio hated him. Immediately. He got a lot of flak for speaking out against him. But I was with Fio. Hitler scared me. There was a lot of hatred and fear behind those eyes and screaming speeches. As if he had not a lack of a moral compass, but a twisted one.

  To be fair, I could understand France. They had the heaviest losses in the war. America lost about one hundred thousand men and women in the war, a horrible number. France? They lost around almost a million and a half, England one million. Total losses from the war? Somewhere between twenty to twenty-five million people. It was unimaginable. An entire generation of men completely wiped out. No one was ready to jump into that again. The horrors of the never-ending, muddy, rat-filled, poison-gassed, trench warfare only ended about seventeen years ago. No one had recovered yet.

  And that was the melee that Finn had been sent into. I didn’t exactly know what Finn’s assignment would entail, but I knew that it involved trying to find out if there was a greater threat than what we expected from an old crime syndicate that had recently surfaced called the Red Scroll Network.

  Valerie and I had been eating in companionable silence as I pondered Finn’s whereabouts. Val nodded, having come to a conclusion about our weekend plan. “Well, let’s go out tonight. It’ll do you good. And how about your Michigan trip? Are you ready to go Monday?”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “Mm hm. I’m arriving the night before Aunt Evelyn and Mr. Kirkland get there. They want to be all together when we see the Rochester house, but the timing just didn’t work out and they’ll be a day late. I’m fine with that, I like traveling alone and we’ll still be together to drive out to Rochester.”

  “Plus, you can check out some shopping in Detroit! I hear it’s pretty great. Did Roarke fill you in on some of his favorite places?”

  “Yep, and I’m really excited. A little nervous, too. I’m both looking forward to and dreading seeing the house,” I said with a wary smile.

  Val nodded. “I’m sure you are. It’s a mixed bag of emotions, isn’t it? Wish I could go with you. Maybe next time.”

  A cloud scuttled across the weak ray of sunlight that we had been enjoying. The temperature immediately lowered a few degrees. I took a bite of my sandwich and looked at the brown leaves being tossed about by a flirty breeze, a pensive mood washing over me. I was looking forward to seeing my childhood home. I hadn’t been back since my parents died. Were murdered. That was still hard to admit. Val was right, it certainly was a mixed bag of both sweet memories and tragic ones. I suddenly wished Valerie could come with me. I wasn’t afraid of being alone, but I felt a shiver of apprehension.

  I took a sip of my Coke, mulling over the way it would feel to walk into that house. A strange, cold feeling crept up and over my shoulder. Like a shadow. Or that thing that makes you want to run up the basement stairs after you shut off the light.

  CHAPTER 3

  Valerie and I returned to the office, and then Fio and I left for Mrs. Hambro’s house in posh Gramercy Park. It was a lovely area with townhouses framing a darling little gated park. It was quiet, expensive, and highly desirable to live there. We walked up a set of marble stairs to a large, rounded black front door and rang the bell.

  Fio had been giving me instructions the entire time we drove over, but now he was quiet, bobbing up and down on his toes. When he did that he was either excited (like when he was at a fire helping out his firemen) or he was anxious and lost in thought.

  A butler came to the door and Fio greeted him with a familiar slap to his back, calling him Robbins. Then Robbins, who wasn’t too thrilled about the hearty back slap, ushered us back to the formal living room with a weirdly condescending, rod-stuffed-up-his-ass kind of gait.

  The house was old with marvelous woodwork everywhere. The walls in the wonderful living room were done in several tones of rose with cream accents. It was obviously designed by a woman, but still a place where a man would be comfortable. Rich textures and fabrics made the room warm and inviting.

  The woman standing at the mantel of the large fireplace had, at first glance, an austere demeanor with a rigid posture and tightly clamped lips. But then I caught a gleam in her eye that belied some humor amidst that businesslike manner.

  Fio went directly over to her and took up her hand. “Dear Cynthia, how are you?”

  She took a contemplative breath and exhaled, saying earnestly, “I don’t know, Fio. So many things could have happened and yet there is a conspicuous lack of evidence. It’s frustrating in the extreme, not to mention I’m deeply worried about him. What are we going to do?”

  I liked her directness and her ability to be honest and yet not dramatic. Her golden blond hair was graying in attractive streaks and her eyes were singularly blue. The kind where you can see the cornflower blue even from a distance.

  Mrs. Hambro and Fio chatted quietly, giving me a moment to look around. There were no photos of children or grandchildren, but a few pleasing pictures of her and her husband. Beautiful pieces of artwork livened up the walls, and there was an impressive smattering of books on the tables that looked like they were
there actually for reading, not just looks. They were mostly the classics like Austen, Dickens, Brontë, but I also noticed the extremely large romance novel that came out recently, Gone with the Wind. I smiled wryly. I was currently reading it myself and was eternally exasperated with Scarlett’s staggering blindness to Rhett Butler’s love and her driven, utterly pointless attraction to the hapless Ashley. I tore myself away from Scarlett’s plight and continued my mental inventory of the room.

  “Cynthia, this is my aide and good friend of the family, Lane Sanders. Lane is quite talented at helping me see subtleties and things I might overlook. I asked her to help us, perhaps she’ll spot something you and I might miss since we are both so close to the situation. Plus, I have a feeling you’ll just enjoy each other.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hambro. I’m so sorry it’s under these circumstances,” I said as I shook her offered hand. We looked each other directly in the eyes, both us of sizing up the other. I liked her.

  “So, may I ask you some questions about Mr. Hambro?” I asked her, my eyes not flinching from her poignant, blue stare.

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled just a bit. “Of course. I would appreciate any help you can give me. I . . . I realize that this could look rather . . . as if Mr. Hambro . . .”

  It was painful to watch her hash through what the lurid possibilities of her husband’s disappearance could look like to the outside world.

  “Mrs. Hambro,” I carefully cut in, “I know the police have to follow every possibility. But Fio and I know Mr. Hambro and there isn’t anything in him nor any evidence that makes us suspect he’s involved in something illegal or immoral.”

  Her shoulders unclenched for the first time since we arrived.

  I decided to add with a smirk, “Although, Fio’s and his sense of humor leave a lot to be desired . . .”

  “Hey!” said an indignant Fio.

  All her ladylike reserve flew out the window and she laughed with a loud, “Ha! You could say that again!”