Don't Dare a Dame

by M. Ruth Myers

  Stainton ran north and south just past where Third forked into Linden Avenue and Springfield Street. Streets were small here, and most of the houses could have used paint. The Depression had hit this area hard, since most of the men had worked in nearby factories, some of which had closed. Things were picking up under the New Deal. I even saw a HELP WANTED sign in a café.

  The stretch where I’d been directed had a mom-and-pop grocery store on the corner. Across the way and a few doors down, a man in an apron was sweeping the sidewalk in front of a bar, probably spiffing up for noontime customers. The building I was hunting housed a second hand store, or it had. A sign on the door said CLOSED, and the place looked as if it had been that way for a while.

  To the side, narrow stairs led up to apartments above it. Starched white curtains hung in the window of the front one. The glass sparkled. I drove past without changing speed. There was no sign of movement. The place looked occupied, though, and well tended. I figured I could chance one more pass around the block, and did.

  Then I parked a few streets over and put on my glasses and dowdy hat. I walked back to the place next door to the closed second-hand store. It sold pipe and plumbing fittings. I had to wait for two customers before a round little man at the counter was free.

  “Um, hi,” I said. “Does that place next door have apartments over it?”

  “Sure does. Why?”

  “I just started a job down the street.” I gestured vaguely toward Linden. “I’d sure save bus fare if I could find something closer than where I am now. Do you happen to know if they’re rented? If maybe somebody might be looking to split the rent?”

  He was shaking his head.

  “Widow woman lives in one, I think. May have seen another woman come and go sometimes, or maybe a couple. You might go up and check.”

  “Okay. Maybe I will. Thanks.”

  He’d given me all the information he thought necessary. If I asked for more, I’d rouse too much attention. I went on my way and spent a few hours visiting spots on my list of places to ask about Neal. Forty-five minutes ahead of the rendezvous time, I returned to park on Stainton and sit watching its rhythms.

  The woman who’d called me had a good feel for the beat of her street. At twenty till four a matron came huffing along with a grocery bag in one hand and a toddler holding the other. An older boy skipped ahead of them. They turned into a narrow house with fading blue paint. Over the next ten minutes, two more women came hurrying home with bags in hand.

  Nobody went up or down the staircase leading to the apartments above the defunct second-hand-store.

  At four-sixteen I took a final look along the street. The only pedestrians were two teenage girls walking slowly along with their heads touching as they shared a book that appeared to be mesmerizing. Something told me it wasn’t a class assignment. As soon as they were past, I crossed the street and climbed the staircase. I knocked on the door of the front apartment.

  Heels clicked toward me. A woman’s heels, staccato and hesitant.

  “Yeah? Who is it?”

  “You called me this morning,” I answered.

  The door opened on a chain. An eye surveyed me. I couldn’t tell much about the woman it belonged to, except that the eye was blue.

  “You alone?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She closed the door and there was the rattle of a chain being undone. The door opened and the woman stepped back. She was thin and brunette. It was all I noticed about her before the edge of my vision caught a blur of motion behind me.

  I dodged, but not fast enough to avoid something hard crashing down on my head. Stars exploded and I felt myself sag toward the floor. Hands jerked me upright and a fist drove into my belly.

  Thirty-two

  The pain of the punch revived my fading consciousness. My lungs worked independently of my brain, gasping air to replace the breath driven out of me. It cleared my head enough to take in disconnected images like those from a movie reel jumping off its sprockets.

  There were several people in the room besides the woman. The one in front of me, a short mug with a bulldog jaw, drew back his arm to hit me again. I grabbed for the front of his shirt and my weight, added to momentum from his swing, pulled him off balance. It spared me the worst of the punch, but that didn’t win me any favors.

  “Hold her arms!” he snarled.

  Someone — two someones — imprisoned my arms.

  “Smart girl, huh?”

  This time he slugged me in the face. I turned fast enough that the blow caught my cheek instead of my nose, and felt my lip split. I’d been worked over before, but never by fists this lethal. My cottony brain told me this one was wearing brass knuckles.

  “Too bad you’re not smart enough to keep your nose out of places it don’t belong.” Bulldog thrust his face forward, taunting. “You’ve been asked nice, but you must not hear good. Don’t dig up the past.”

  I had to fight now, before the metal encasing his fist began to break bones. As his arm drew up and he leaned in for another punch, I toppled back onto the arms of the goons restraining me as if onto a bed. In the same movement, with my top half momentarily supported, I drew my knees up and drove my feet out toward Bulldog’s belly.

  They didn’t connect hard enough to do much except surprise him. The men behind me crashed down on the floor in a tangle, bringing me with them. The pileup freed my arms, though. I rolled over one of the goons so I was no longer between them.

  The guy with the knuckles, the one who was calling the shots, half tripped over one of the men on the floor as he swore and aimed a kick at me. I tried to scoot away but wasn’t fast enough, and it got my ribs. Pain immobilized me. His foot drew back and he planted another one. I heard a whimper which I knew came from me.

  He straddled me, reaching down to yank me upright for another taste of brass knuckles. Bursts of black distorting my vision, and flat on my back, only self-preservation gave me strength to push up with my elbows. I threw my left arm in front of me, maybe to ward him off, maybe in an attempt to distract — my brain didn’t know.

  My right hand went beneath me. Found the reassuring contours of my gun. Brought it around. Without aiming, I fired at the man above me.

  I heard a high-pitched howl.

  I felt a spurt of wetness on my hand.

  I heard a woman’s scream, and high-heels clattering off in retreat.

  I fired again.

  “She’s nuts!” a man’s voice cried. “The dame’s gone crazy!”

  “Shut up. I’m hit,” another voice gasped. “Oh, Christ, I’m hit bad! Get me out of here!”

  I wanted to fire again so nobody took another punch at me. Instead, I sagged back and lost track of everything.

  ***

  I came to long enough to see a woman’s shape hovering in the doorway to the landing. It wasn’t the thin brunette who’d let me in. My unfocused vision managed to make out that the woman looking in at me was dumpy and her hair had the tight little knobs of a perm.

  “What are you doing in Lucille’s apartment?” she demanded shrilly.

  “Some men beat me up,” I managed through swollen lips.

  “You don’t belong here,” she said as though she hadn’t heard me. “Lucille moved out last week, and you don’t belong here. I heard gunshots, too. I’m calling the police.”

  “Yeah, fine,” I mumbled, and closed my eyes.

  When I came to again, no cops were in evidence. I knew time had passed, but I didn’t know how much. I hurt too much to check the pretty lapel watch pinned under my jacket. Blinking my eyes a few times cleared my vision enough to see it was twilight outside. The attack which had seemed to go on for hours had probably lasted only a matter of minutes. At least half an hour had passed since the men responsible fled. It must be around five.

  An interval elapsed while I gathered all my willpower to make myself move. Gritting my teeth, I sat up. My head throbbed. So did the side of my face. My ribs felt several times worse. T
rickling around them, nudging the pain back like a snake oil tonic that worked, was my anger.

  I scooted on my haunches until I reached a chair. Gripping the seat for support, I pushed myself up. Then I sat for a minute. I’d gotten worse knocks on the head than this latest one, and was increasingly able to think. Just as well the woman who’d peered at me hadn’t called the cops like she’d threatened. It saved time and questions. The woman must be the other renter up here, the widow who lived in the back apartment.

  With several pauses to lean on the wall, I made my way to her door. I put all the pep I had into knocking. After a minute the door opened just wide enough for her to peer out. Right away she tried to close it, but I had my foot in. If she nudged my toes just a little, I’d fall flat, only she didn’t know that.

  “I’ll give you four bits if you call a taxi and help me downstairs,” I said as well as I could through lips the size of sausages.

  I thought it would either appeal to her greed or shame her. All it did was make her hesitate in her attempts to force the door closed.

  “If I don’t, some cops are going be visiting to ask why you didn’t call them when you heard shots.”

  She stopped torturing my foot.

  “You better not come back making any more trouble,” she said sticking her hand out. I dropped the change into her waiting palm. “And you can get downstairs yourself.”

  The door slammed.

  I leaned against the wall to recoup my strength. Then I walked to the stairs and sat on the top one. Still on my backside, I made my way down, setting my jaw at every bump.

  When I stepped out into what was left of daylight, I noticed a dark stain on the back of my hand. I remembered the spurt of blood from the man with the brass knuckles. My bullet had hit him somewhere in the groin, I guessed. Maybe the femoral artery. Since I wasn’t inclined to use my skirt, I wiped the worst of the residue off on the wall of the stairwell. Taxi drivers take it badly if you get blood on their seats.

  ***

  At the end of the previous year, when my bank account had been flush from a big case, I’d bought myself some Blue Cross insurance. The patching up I got at the hospital seemed likely to make it money well spent. A sawbones whose gray hair and world-weary face assured me he knew his business put some stitches in my lip and poked and prodded. He said two ribs were either cracked or broken.

  “As long as they didn’t puncture your lung, the treatment’s the same,” he said giving my thigh a cheerful pat. “Nurse Molloy will hold your arms up for me while I tape the ribs nice and tight.”

  Nurse Molloy had been in the same class with me at Julienne. She’d been shy and we hadn’t said ‘boo’ to each other, but at least I hadn’t antagonized her. She hovered, removing my blouse and my slip and standing by the whole time the doctor worked on me. When he finished taping my waist so tightly I could scarcely breathe, she gave me a packet of painkillers and helped me to a chair where she whispered something to the nurse working at a desk beside it.

  “Who shall I call to come get you?” the new nurse asked

  Exhaustion was catching up with me, and maybe the little paper cup of something liquid the doc had told me to swallow as well. I tried to think.

  I wasn’t about to upset Billy or Seamus by letting them see the shape I was in. I didn’t know Rachel’s number at home. None of the girls at Mrs. Z’s had a car. That left one person. Swallowing pride couldn’t feel half as bad as brass knuckles or stitches, so I gave her Finn’s number.

  “Hiya, Rose. Connelly around?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “Maggie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sound strange. Hang on. Let me fetch him.”

  Briefly I heard the comforting sound of glasses and voices.

  “Maggie? What is it?” asked Connelly’s baritone. He knew I wouldn’t be calling without a good reason.

  “I had a flat. Can you borrow a car?”

  “Sure. Where are you?”

  “Miami Valley.”

  I heard his sharp intake of breath as he guessed the truth.

  “Be there directly,” he said.

  ***

  I was half asleep in a chair in the waiting area when he arrived. He was noiseless as fog, but I sensed his presence before my eyes opened. Muted profanities issued under his breath.

  “Who did this to you, Maggie?”

  I started to shake my head, but it hurt too much.

  “Don’t know,” I said thickly. “But you might ask a nurse if anyone’s been in who got shot in his thigh or groin.”

  He strode off buttoning his collar. Much as I tried to deny it, Connelly in uniform was an impressive sight. He wasn’t especially tall or muscular, but there was a hardness about him which other cops lacked. It had been forged by what he’d witnessed, and done, growing up in Ireland. Within minutes he came striding back.

  “Nope,” he said, “and I hope the s.o.b. bleeds to death.” His voice turned gentle. “Let’s get you home then.”

  Thirty-three

  Genevieve helped me upstairs and into bed. She said I cussed a lot. All Wednesday I took pills from the doctor that made me woozy. In between them I slept. Thursday morning Mrs. Z. let Ginny make me a coddled egg with some bread crumbled in it, which was about all my sore lips, not to mention my jaw, could handle. After I finished it, I slept some more.

  By Thursday noon I was bored. More than that, I was angry, impatient to nail the men who had caused my suffering. I’d settle for whoever sent them.

  “Maggie, don’t be a fool,” chided Ginny as she helped me dress. “You’re in no shape to go to your office.”

  “I’ll take a cab. There’s an elevator. I’ll only stay there a couple of hours.”

  I’d taken only half a pain pill that morning. My head felt clearer. A mug or two of coffee would make it feel even better.

  “You’re weak as a kitten,” she argued.

  “I won’t get any better if I baby myself.”

  “How would you know? You haven’t tried it since I’ve known you.”

  In the end I won. It required agreeing that Genevieve could accompany me. By the time we got downtown, I was glad she had. She settled me at my desk and went across the street for my java.

  “Promise you’ll call if you start feeling wobbly,” she said when she’d delivered it.

  I nodded. “Thanks, Ginny. You’re a pal.”

  When she’d gone, I sat sipping coffee. The solidness of my desk, the street sounds, the familiar knock of my radiator all seeped into me. Strange tonic, maybe, but one that worked for me. My ribs still screamed and the cut on my lip burned like it was fresh, but knots eased out of my muscles and I felt steadier. In control again.

  Whoever had sicced those men on me in the vacant apartment had sent me a warning in very large letters. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood to read. Not when logic was telling me I got the rough treatment only after I’d begun asking about the little girl. That, on top of Theda’s frightened departure, made me think I was getting close to whatever someone didn’t want me to find.

  The little girl must be real. She must also be close enough I could find her, talk to her. That meant whoever was trying to stop me knew her identity. That meant ... she could now be in danger.

  Having thrown a fit to get down here, I had to admit to myself I wasn’t in shape to do much of anything. The only thing which came to mind was checking on Corrine and Isobel. I’d wanted to yesterday, but hadn’t been able to face going downstairs and back to use the telephone.

  “Oh, we’re doing splendidly,” assured Corrine. “Any news of Neal?”

  “I was on the sick list yesterday. May be for a couple more days, if you want to get someone else—”

  “No, no. I don’t think we’d trust anyone else.” One of her students was warbling a vocal exercise in the background.

  Corrine said it was wonderful having Franklin around again and that the new pooch was settling in fast. We hung up.

  Maybe I should
get a dog, let him guard my office, I thought. And me, when I was in this kind of shape.

  I preferred cats.

  Cats weren’t exactly in the same league when it came to protection. Maybe I could get a vicious one like Mrs. Z’s. One that would sink its teeth into every set of legs that came through the door. Possibly not good for business. And possibly my thoughts weren’t quite as coherent as I’d believed when Genevieve was trying to reason with me.

  I forced myself to get up and take a lap around my desk. I tried to clear my head by breathing deeply, only to have the effort blocked by the bandages imprisoning my ribs. Finally, after thinking some, I called Rachel.

  “Want to meet for a drink?” I invited. “I’ll buy. Make it someplace dark.”

  ***

  Rachel’s movements were uncommonly slow as she slid into the seat across from me in a nondescript bar on Third Street. Her midnight eyes began to glitter as they scanned my face. Forgetting her lighter she ripped a match from the book on the table and started a cigarette. Still studying me, she blew a stream of smoke over her shoulder.

  “You look like dog puke.”

  “So nice to have a friend to cheer me up.” I knew from the sting of my stitches I must have grinned.

  She cupped her elbow in the opposite hand.

  “Four-thirty did strike me as early for cocktails. Now I see why. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Better for pain than little white pills,” I said giving a small salute with the old fashioned I was sipping through a straw.

  She inhaled some more and blew smoke out her nostrils.

  “When did this happen?”

  “Tuesday.”

  Rachel summoned the waiter and ordered a Gibson.

  “Was it the man Pearlie expressed concerns about?” she asked when we were alone again.