City of Dark Corners

by Jon Talton

  “What about this?”

  Frenchy studied it, and I studied Frenchy.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, cher. But it looks scary as hell.”

  Fifteen

  After a few minutes, I pulled out and started back toward downtown. This time the road was blocked by a passenger train slowly entering the tracks into Union Station. Del Webb was right—we did need an underpass at Central. In my rearview mirror, I saw Frenchy’s dark Chevy come out of the junkyard and turn south. I decided to follow him and pulled a U-turn.

  This would be tricky on a two-lane road, so I gave him plenty of distance. A hay truck helpfully pulled in front of me, offering concealment. The South Mountains loomed blue-brown ahead of us as we left the city, passing farmhouses and pastures, then dipped down into the dry Salt River, a quarry to the left with water in an excavated portion. I wondered how deep that hole went and what might be in it: bodies, cars. Frenchy wasn’t searching for an innocent Negro to frame, at least not now.

  At Broadway, Frenchy turned right. So did the hay truck. My luck held as I spun the steering wheel and followed on the dirt road. I had a gut feeling where he was going.

  Sure enough, Frenchy pulled into Kemper Marley’s property. The hay truck continued on, and I made a snap decision to pull into a stand of cottonwoods about thirty feet away. I got out, quietly closed the door, and went into a grove of grapefruit trees on the west side of the Marley house. It was just in time to hear Kemper yelling.

  “What kind of fool are you, Navarre? You stupid son of a bitch!”

  Frenchy said something I couldn’t make out. Then his blood was up and his voice louder. “I don’t let any man talk to me that way!”

  I moved closer in a crouch and watched. The two were standing beside Navarre’s car. Marley had confronted him before he even got up the path to the house.

  “I’ll talk to you however I want, Frenchy. I own your sorry ass.”

  Frenchy was insistent. “You said you wanted to send a message to that kike! What better message than taking out one of his bagmen?”

  “I didn’t tell you to kill anybody,” Marley said. “This only brings more trouble. I have to work with Chicago, not fight them. I need leverage against them, not a war, you damned idiot.”

  I crouched a little lower. There it was: Frenchy had cut Zoogie Boogie’s throat. My snitch would have been compliant around a member of the Hat Squad. Not only that, but trusting a man he was collecting money for, not knowing what was coming. And, with a razor, Navarre would make it appear as if the killer was colored.

  “Gene Hammons was there,” Frenchy said.

  “What the hell? Why?”

  “Zoogie Boogie was Hammons’s stool pigeon back in the day, before he went to prison. Muldoon called him down. There was nothing I could do to stop it without it looking suspicious.”

  “What did Hammons say?”

  “He’s a smart cop. Dangerous smart. Found the place I slit Zoogie’s throat and the drag marks where I brought the body. And he found a money belt with cash in it. Gave it to Muldoon as evidence.”

  Marley cursed.

  “Hell, I didn’t know he had that on him,” Navarre protested.

  If only Marley knew that Frenchy was playing both sides. Zoogie Boogie told me Navarre was Gus Greenbaum’s bagman. Now here he was, acting as Marley’s lieutenant.

  Marley said, “What about his brother? Was he there, too?”

  “No, Don’s probably hitting the gonger in Chinatown. You don’t have to worry about him. This case was just me and Turk Muldoon and some uniforms. Captain wanted two detectives on the call. It’s the first homicide of the year.”

  “Except for that girl, Carrie.”

  My hands clenched into fists.

  “What’s going on with that?”

  Frenchy said, “Deep six. The department won’t even acknowledge it.”

  “I want to know if that changes, got it? Last thing I need is for Gene Hammons to start nosing around in her killing. And meanwhile, Muldoon has that money you missed on the ex-con. He’ll be suspicious.”

  “I know,” Navarre said. “I went through Zoogie’s pockets. I wanted to make it look like a robbery. But the junkyard owner came around, don’t ask me why at that hour. This was when I was still talking to Zoogie. We hid and kept quiet. Finally, the owner split and I turned Zoogie around and used the razor. How could I know he was wearing a damned money belt?”

  “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Easy. Say it was a robbery. Muldoon won’t talk to him, tell him about the cash. So it looks like a robbery. Then you could tell Greenbaum his men might not be safe in Niggertown without your protection, see? It would send a strong message. But you’d be the man on top, willing to help. Chicago would notice, too. I thought it through. This will still work for you.”

  “Are you insane, Navarre, or only a jughead? You ‘thought it through’ about as much as a gelding ‘thinks through’ his nuts before they’re cut off. Gus Greenbaum would kill your ass without a second thought, cop or not. Same with me. His people carry Tommy guns, not razors. He’d see through any explanation and retaliate if I even mentioned this to him. You’d better pray you can find a jigaboo you can blame it on and make it real public.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll give one a tumble. It won’t be hard.”

  “And never say a word about the truth of this—ever! Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you?” This was a roar.

  “Yes, Kemper. I’ve got it.”

  “You’re no good to me doing foolish things. I have other flatfoots I can use. You’re not my enforcer. I have muscle when and where I need it.” I heard him spit. “You’re nothing special, Navarre. You’ll forfeit a month’s pay from me because of this stunt.”

  “Damn, I need that money,” Frenchy pleaded. “I’ve got gambling debts.”

  “Then you should have thought before you killed Greenbaum’s man. And if your gambling debts are to some bookie in town, you’re lining Greenbaum’s pockets. You’re stupider than I thought.”

  Marley stalked toward his house, and I rose up a few inches for a better look. Frenchy’s face was bright red and scrunched in anger, resembling an overripe tomato. He plainly wanted to say more but kept silent. Then he climbed in his car and drove off trailing dust, fortunately for me, going west away from where I was parked.

  I gave it a good ten minutes, then returned to my car and drove downtown.

  * * *

  I went back trying to figure out Navarre’s scheme. Zoogie Boogie told me he worked for Frenchy, collecting in the colored part of town. Frenchy was Gus Greenbaum’s badged bagman. He was also in Kemper Marley’s pay. To hear Navarre tell it, his thinking, if you wanted to dignify it with that word, was what he said. Kill Zoogie and give Marley a chance to offer protection against shakedowns in Darktown. As if Greenbaum needed protection. Frenchy was a fool, as Kemper had said. Or something else was going on.

  For one thing, I couldn’t get past the money left on Zoogie’s person. Beyond slitting the man’s throat, stealing his cabbage would be the priority of making it appear as a robbery, making it look like Greenbaum’s men were unsafe south of the tracks. But the bills and money belt were left behind.

  Also, when I braced Zoogie a few days ago on Van Buren, I asked him to find out the lowdown on the street about Carrie Dell’s murder. He was a good snitch, diligent, before he went away for the robbery. Now, on probation, he would have every incentive to stay on my good side and dig. Maybe too deep. Maybe Zoogie was sitting on important information for me while I was in Prescott—and Frenchy found out about it, needed to silence him.

  If so, why the trip to Marley and brag about killing Zoogie? My best theory was that Kemper was nagging him for results, same as me, and Frenchy decided to improvise his murder of Zoogie as something do
ne to help Marley get leverage over Greenbaum. Otherwise, why kill one of his own collectors in Darktown?

  And I was being watched. That much was clear from the events in Prescott, as well as the car I saw parked in front of my apartment, the occupant helpfully lighting a cigarette to reveal himself. Maybe that man was Frenchy and he leaned on Zoogie to learn what he knew about Carrie, then slit his throat. If all this was so, Navarre was a great actor, playing my friend with the whole “Geno” routine. I knew it sounded like a reach.

  Once again, I tried to figure out Marley. He was a major landowner and kept buying more as people were forced by the Depression to sell. With his legal liquor distributorship, he would add exponentially to the wealth he had acquired as a bootlegger. A young man, he was probably one of the richest people in the state. How was that not enough? Yet he wanted the Chicago Outfit to cut him in on the betting wire service. I didn’t get it. With a fraction of his holdings, I’d be happy to retire and marry Victoria. Maybe it wasn’t merely money. It was power he was after. He was no Dwight Heard, who used his fortune to help build a city. But Heard was in the ground, and now we were all supposed to bow to Kemper. Even Barry Goldwater and Harry Rosenzweig seemed intimidated by him. I had his money burning a hole in my safe and wondered what he’d want for it.

  The key from Zoogie’s pocket was attached to a worn fob for the Golden West Hotel. It was a two-story building that dated back to territorial days on East Monroe Street downtown, a sleeping porch built over the sidewalk. Now it was dwarfed by the new Professional Building, an art deco tower that housed the still-solvent Valley Bank.

  Inside, the desk clerk was on the phone. I held up my key and mouthed, “Any mail?”

  He reached behind him into the cubbyhole and handed me an envelope. I took it and quickly headed upstairs before he got off his call and had time to realize I was too well dressed to be the typical guest of the Golden West.

  The hallway smelled of desperate men.

  I started to slip the key in but pulled out my pistol just in case. Then I opened the door, surveyed an empty room, quietly shut it, and turned the lock.

  The space was tiny, barely enough for the single bed, small chest of drawers, and a chair. Through the thin walls, I heard snoring. The guests must have shared a bathroom down the hall. I went through his minimal wardrobe hung in an open closet. Two pairs of pants, four shirts, no shoes. His pants pockets were empty. Next I tossed the place more methodically, looking under the mattress, pulling out drawers, and checking beneath and behind them. Nothing.

  Suddenly I heard voices coming up the stairs.

  “I was on the phone, but I’m pretty sure he came up a few minutes ago…”

  No place to hide.

  I went to the window, opened it, and stepped out on the fire escape. It swayed under my weight. I closed the dusty curtains and then gently pulled down the window—but not far enough, for the door opened. I thought about going down, but no. I gingerly took the rusty stairs to the top landing. The roof offered escape, but I bent down and listened.

  “I don’t get it.” This was the voice of the clerk. “I could have sworn he came in, Detective.”

  Detective.

  He might be doing a routine follow-up to the murder. But considering I took the key, how the hell did he know where Zoogie was staying? Unless it wasn’t part of the investigation and it was Navarre, who either already knew where Zoogie roomed or had pried it out of him before running the razor across his carotid.

  Sounds came out the partly closed window as the room was ransacked. What would I do next? I leaned against the old masonry, trying to make myself invisible as the window below came up and a fedora popped out. Frenchy? Muldoon? Don? I couldn’t tell. Damn, I couldn’t remember the hats worn at the junkyard. Its owner looked below, but not above. Somehow the decades-old ironwork of the fire escape didn’t creak or groan with me imposing on it. The window slammed shut.

  I gave it a good fifteen minutes, then took the fire escape all the way down to the alley.

  Out on the street, I leaned against the Professional Building and lit a nail to calm my nerves. I pulled out the envelope, and it had my name on it. Opening it, I found a single business card. Decorated with a saguaro cactus, it read:

  Summer Tours

  Cynthia

  3–7222.

  A big clue from a dead man. Maybe Zoogie had the presence of mind to know his room might be tossed if something went wrong, that he might be searched if he kept it on his person. So he gave it to the night clerk to place in his cubbyhole at the front desk.

  Then I remembered the slip of paper from Zoogie’s pants pocket. I unfolded it and read a typed message:

  Meet me at the Triple-A, midnight.

  Walking across to the Hotel San Carlos, I found a phone booth and shut myself behind the folding door. Then I dialed the number on the card.

  “Answering service.” A woman’s voice.

  “Is this Summer Tours?”

  “We’re their answering service.”

  I leaned in. “This is Detective Hammons of the Phoenix Police Department.” Just to be safe, I gave Don’s badge number. “Are you Summer Tours or are you a commercial answering service?”

  This got the woman’s attention. She said they answered for sixty clients, ranging from doctors to locksmiths. I asked about Summer Tours. I listened as she opened a drawer and thumbed through it.

  Coming back in five minutes, she said Summer Tours had engaged them this past May, paying five dollars a month. But they had stopped paying in January and were in arrears.

  “That happens often these days,” she said.

  “Do you know what Summer Tours was?”

  “Something to do with tourism, the girl who opened the account told me.”

  I asked for a description: Young, blond hair, blue eyes, pretty. Cynthia Thayer. She paid three months ahead in cash. Customers would leave their names and phone numbers, and she would call daily to retrieve them.

  “Would you happen to have a log of those calls and the numbers?”

  “Oh, yes. We keep records for all our customers.”

  I asked if I could take a look, expecting her to demand a warrant.

  “Of course,” she said and gave me her address.

  Sixteen

  Victoria came over that night. She brought news from her visit to Tempe, too, carrying a box. She placed it beside the sofa and I poured us Scotch. Thanks to my name as an introduction, the registrar gave her this container that held Carrie’s belongings, left behind in her dorm last semester. Besides some clothes and shoes, it held a notebook of her writing, a diary, and letters.

  “Jackpot,” I said.

  She clinked my glass and sipped. “I hope so. I have another box of very expensive clothes still in the car. As for this, it will take some time to go through it. You have quite an admirer in that coed named Pamela.”

  “She’s a kid.”

  “I’m not jealous. Much.” She punched my shoulder. “I did some sorting this afternoon. A few letters from her father. Some from a neighbor in Prescott. She sent money to the woman to buy groceries for her dad. I guess it was a way to keep him from using the cash to buy booze or build another still. Then things got interesting. She had a number of love letters.”

  “From her boyfriend, the one who works at the slaughterhouse?”

  “They don’t read that way. Young men are needy. These are written with more assurance. I guess an older man or men.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s the problem. They’re only signed, ‘Your Admirer.’ And the envelopes they came in were discarded, so no return address or even a postmark. But do you have that note from Prescott, saying you were in dangerous territory?”

  I went to the desk and retrieved it. Victoria pulled out one of the notes from Carrie’s things and leaned against me, holding them side
by side.

  “Different handwriting,” she said.

  I read the note:

  Dearest C.

  I know you’ll be pleased with your cut this month, which I enclose. You can share it with your friends as they deserve. This will not go on forever. I promise. Keep trusting me. In the beginning, I remember that you were eager to try. But I sense you are having second thoughts. Hang in their, dearest. It won’t be much longer, and we’ll be set with a nice nest egg and we can run away and start a new life.

  Your Admirer

  I read it again. “What the hell does this mean?” I told her about what I had learned at the Biltmore, including her friend Margaret saying an older man would fetch her at night and that he was a cop. And our Carrie was going by Cynthia. Both starting with the letter C.

  “Could she have been embezzling from the hotel?” I said.

  “Maybe,” Victoria said. “Makes sense. Even in the hot months, I bet the Biltmore makes plenty. It might be involved with the speakeasy out there. But what about ‘share it with your friends’?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe she needed help for the inside job. It still doesn’t explain her nightly jaunts. Unless the man was her lover and somehow involved in skimming the money. Maybe he put her up to it. Married man, promising to leave his wife if they got enough.”

  Victoria shrugged. “Maybe. Still, it doesn’t seem right.”

  “How so?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it, Eugene. Woman’s intuition. We need to read more. I’ll leave these with you.” She set the letters and diary on the coffee table.

  I gave more of a rundown about my day, showing her the numbers and names I had copied from the answering service for Carrie’s mysterious business.

  Finally, I had to tell her about Jack Hunter, Zoogie Boogie, Frenchy Navarre, and Marley. She closed her eyes and gripped my hand. Each piece of information felt as if I was delivering a kidney punch.

  Finishing her drink, she stood. “I’ve got another McCulloch Brothers job early tomorrow. It’s not hanging out from the top of the Chrysler Building, but it pays the bills.”