Murder at the Flamingo

by Rachel McMillan

  “I went snooping around the apartment last night. Luca gave me a night off on account of those goons threatening to kill me.”

  “How benevolent.” Reggie leaned over her desk.

  He placed an envelope on the desk.

  Reggie ran a fingernail over the pile. “He will suspect anyone but you.”

  His eyes met hers and he blinked to focus. “But we’re doing this together.”

  “Have I earned your trust so quickly?”

  “Yes,” he said immediately, not faltering on any part of the quick syllable.

  “Swell.” She smiled, lifting the envelope. “Is this anything someone might lose his pinky finger for?”

  “Or his life,” Hamish countered sourly.

  She made great ceremony in opening the flap, and several telegrams fell out. “That’s it? A few telegrams?” She scanned over them. “They’re pretty evasive and I have heard much worse on the phone.”

  “I can’t make anything of this.” Hamish’s voice sounded deflated, and a sheath of black hair fell over his forehead.

  Reggie worked her teeth over her bottom lip. “We’re not looking hard enough. Everything is a puzzle. We don’t have all the pieces.”

  “Maybe Luca isn’t involved.”

  “Are you trying to convince you or me?”

  Reggie leaned forward, and Hamish wiggled his nose to boost the bridge of his glasses higher. Aware of the whistle of his breath, she drew back slightly. He smelled like cotton and lemon with a bit of espresso on his warm breath.

  FLORENCE (STOP) CICERO (STOP)

  “This is the one wretched thing about the brevity of modern communication.” Reggie clucked her tongue. “It just makes it a connect-the-dots—and if you don’t have all the dots . . .”

  “I flipped through these last night over and over again. Trying to find something.” He chewed his lip. “I can only think that he left something behind. In Chicago. And he moved things around some business or something and it’s catching up with him. Someone seems to be in the know. At the center.”

  “Cicero,” Reggie repeated. “That means something to you.”

  “Other than what Luca calls me . . .” Hamish shrugged.

  “Nate mentioned someone who had control of the North End. Well, at least the higher end business of it. It sounded a lot like organized crime.” She watched Hamish intently for a reaction.

  “If Luca knows about any of that, he refused it. Maybe someone is dead set on seeing that he is a part of the enterprise. Implicating him.”

  Reggie leaned back. “That would explain their roughing him up night before last.” Her eyes held Hamish’s a moment. “And you.”

  Hamish nodded, suddenly far away. His hand quivering with a mind of its own before he had the foresight to tuck it in his pocket.

  Reggie surveyed him closely. “What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked softly.

  Hamish averted his eyes. He was breathing more heavily now, the two fingers of his steady hand tucked in the open slat of his shirt. Counting under his breath.

  “You’re all white.” Her voice quickened. “Hamish . . .”

  He slowly rose from his chair, then sat down again. Reggie watched him a moment longer. He was staring straight ahead, his breath coming in gasps. Noting the rope of red around his neck from his run-in with a stick two nights before, she winced at how painful it must have been for him. Yet she knew his current symptoms weren’t a side effect of his being nearly strangled. This was something different.

  Five minutes later he was much calmer, though he ducked his head low, his shoulders inching toward his ears. A turtle trying to hide in its shell.

  Reggie watched him, but when he finally took a tentative look in her direction, she turned back to the telegrams. “Are you all right?”

  He waved his steady hand. “I have this . . . these . . .” He stuttered a little. “Episodes now and then.” His breath was shaky but evening out.

  “I’m sure whatever Luca’s involvement, it isn’t anything dastardly.” She tried to convince herself as much as she did him. “Luca cares too deeply for you and would never let you come here if he thought you would be pulled into a dangerous business venture.” She narrowed in on his face.

  “He’s not trying very hard to hide, if he is involved in something.” Hamish’s voice was barely a whisper. “Everyone knows where to find him.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Luca’s always hiding something. But now—”

  The phone rang. Reggie held up a finger. “Wait.”

  “Luca Valari’s office, Reggie Van Buren speaking.”

  “Florence?”

  “Pardon? The reception is very bad.” The caller sounded distant, his voice crackling as if in a tunnel.

  “Is Florence there?”

  Reggie’s heart thrummed. “You must have the wrong number. I am sorry. I . . .”

  But the man kept talking. Reggie plugged her finger in her opposite ear to block out the sound from beneath the window, the slight thud of footsteps overhead.

  “Luca.”

  “No. He’s not here.” It wasn’t the wrong number. “Do you have questions about the Flamingo?”

  “I’m in trouble. Tell him Cicero isn’t working out.”

  Reggie startled at the name. Luca’s nickname for Hamish. Reggie tried to listen a few beats more, but it sounded as if someone was holding a sheet of paper up to the receiver and crinkling it in her ear.

  “Anything?” Reggie was relieved to hear the question in his regular voice.

  “Chicago is following your cousin.” She looked at the telegrams.

  “I should have known Luca was still involved in something. But he told me this was his fresh start. If there were just some creditors, I could live with that. I thought he’d changed his ways. Become . . . honest.” It was such a little word but held so much to Hamish now.

  “We’ll help him open the Flamingo.” Reggie folded her hands, reasoning with herself. “If only to find out who those goons are and why Chicago keeps calling and who Cicero is. Then I’ll go find some nice steno pool work and you can go back to Toronto.” She smiled at Hamish and looked over his shoulder to the hallway where Nate was locking his office door.

  “Nate!” she called. “Come in here.”

  Nate jogged over. “Can’t stay for Winchester today. Have to check out a property.”

  “So Mr. MacMillan found you.”

  “I won’t complain at easy money even if that fellow is involved with the likes of Baskit and Schultze,” he said easily.

  “You told Reggie that someone owns the North End?” Hamish asked, tracing at a paper with his pinky finger, then scratching at his collar, exposing the red line on his neck.

  “What happened to your neck?” Nate’s eyes narrowed in. “Looks dreadful.”

  “Some goon roughed him up at the Dragonfly two nights ago,” Reggie said. “Maybe someone is after Luca for not being part of whatever scheme you told me about.”

  Nate’s eyes stayed on Hamish. “It’s a myth, maybe. But someone is at the center of—what’s the best way to describe it?—a spider’s web. Knows who to connect with. Knows where they’re going to find the best deals. No one of my level or Mrs. Leoni’s would have any access to any information, of course. But if you have someone like Schultze, or even that Brian MacMillan, sniffing out property, you can make a killing. Sniff out cheap rentals and invest the money in a big-time scheme.” Nate checked his watch. “I really have to go. Shame about your neck, though.”

  Hamish bobbed a small nod and Nate was on his way, leaving Reggie and Hamish to look at the telegrams again.

  Hamish ducked his head, embarrassed. “I suppose Luca could have been susceptible to something . . . if he was threatened in Chicago. If he was trying to make a new start . . .”

  Hamish was convincing himself more than he was her.

  “You needn’t worry about me looping the two of you together,” Reggie said. “I mean, if that crossed your mind. Because I don’t
know you that well, but no one can hide being this wet around the ears.” She laughed. “No. No. I’m not mocking you. I’m just telling you that I am a Van Buren of the New Haven Van Burens. I’m used to phonies, Hamish DeLuca. And you don’t have what it takes to be one.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Help Luca put Chicago behind him. Open the Flamingo. Then return to Winslow, Winslow, and Smythe. It made sense. Stay long enough to see wrongs righted and to ensure that Luca put the past behind him. Hamish nodded to himself, returning the telegrams to their drawer, then he snuck out of the library and doubled back to the main room that was now filled with crates and baskets.

  The finest cheeses, jellies, olives, foie gras, and caviar. The choicest brands of cigars that the girls, filling the seams of their high-waisted boy shorts in perfect curves over their polished T-straps, would distribute. Luca had secured a deal for premium cigarettes bought in bulk cases. He stood to the side and demanded and thought and planned and inclined his wrist, the whiskey glass he was holding casting prisms throughout the room.

  “We’ll get you a new suit!” Luca told Hamish.

  “I was already fitted for a new suit,” Hamish countered. The telegrams were safely returned, but his hand still burned with the memory of them. He told himself he wanted to protect Luca from falling into the life he was trying to outrun, but he felt like a traitor nonetheless.

  “Not one that will be appropriate for Wednesday evening,” Luca insisted, grabbing his cousin’s lapel. “Cicero, everything has to be perfect. Just has to be. A stitch out of place is bad luck. I have to get this right.”

  Hamish worked his lip. His mother had always warned against putting all of his eggs in one basket. He knew he always put a lot of faith in Luca—if for no other reason than Luca never asked him to hide his hand behind his back, or reminded him to duck away before his anxious episodes became apparent to the public around them. Luca’s unending faith in his new club, his last shot at putting the past behind him—it was something Hamish wanted to support. If he could. He wanted to devote himself to Luca’s cause.

  Luca had been rising earlier since the night at the Dragonfly, and Phil had slept on the sofa the past few nights. “Just in case one of the men from the Dragonfly shows up,” Luca explained. “It’s more for your protection than my own.” He looked over Hamish’s injured neck, his eyes filled with concern. Luca was living on coffee and half-eaten sandwiches, their crusts hardening under the flecks of dust illuminated by the light from the half-open curtains. Hamish was tired of overpriced food and inventory and contracts that crossed his eyes with their small print. He wanted to take his bike and steal down to the North End. Ignore the people weaving in and out of the penthouse: the flowers and phone calls and raps on the door with more deliveries.

  Of course, shipments were also trucked in large amounts to the location in Scollay Square. But Luca wanted to keep a personal eye on the most expensive of the club’s accoutrements.

  “Do you worry you’ve spent a little too much capital up front?” Hamish mumbled as Luca continued examining his wares, harried but still perfectly groomed. On Luca, even stress fit like a bespoke jacket.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Money, Luca. Our penthouse is filled with thousands of dollars of foodstuffs most of Boston can’t afford.”

  “O ye of little faith.” Luca’s black eyes sparkled. “To make money, you spend money, Cicero. This is an investment in taste. I cannot possibly fathom opening a club with bathtub gin and candy cigarettes.” He swerved back to his bounty.

  Tom Schultze arrived with Brian MacMillan at his heels. In Luca’s presence, Brian turned into a different person; clingy and charming, shrugged out of the shyness from his first visit to the office. Hamish slowly sipped his Coke, wondering what Brian wanted.

  Schultze leaned on his silver-tipped walking stick, rocking casually. With the hand not cradling the stick, he was holding up a print. He noticed Hamish watching him.

  “Come here. Come see my latest find.”

  Hamish inched toward him.

  “You seem like someone who might appreciate some history. Maybe it’s the glasses. More than your cousin here. I’m sure he’s told you why I buy so many properties in the North End.”

  Schultze’s gaze moved to Luca. Hamish followed suit. “I am trying caviar.” Luca was spreading tiny bubbles of inky garnish onto a cracker. “That’s more exciting than your antiques.” Luca nibbled at the delicacy. “Your wife’s favorite brand, Tom.”

  “She won’t be there,” Schultze said. “I told you, she’s visiting her infirm mother.”

  “Convenient.” Luca laughed. “And yet the illustrious Mary Finn will be my star cigar girl.”

  “And Ben Vasser is your official police detail. That was confirmed this morning.”

  Luca’s look was unreadable to Hamish. “Ben. Interesting.”

  Hamish took the offered frame and held it up. “I know this drawing,” he said.

  The sketch was of uniformed men with muskets in detail that reminded him of an old-time political cartoon. If the scene had been in color, Hamish knew their tunics would have been red. “Is this Paul Revere’s piece from the Massacre?” His brain matched the grim representation with the stones his bike wheels had glided over a dozen times since arriving in Boston.

  “A good eye.” Schultze was impressed. “This is the oldest piece in my collection. I was just getting it appraised.” He looked up to Luca. “Your cousin is far smarter than you are, Valari.”

  “I won’t argue that,” Luca said through a mouthful.

  Hamish still looked closely. History told him only five men perished, with six men wounded nonfatally; but the scope of this sketch painted a far grimmer scene. As if the shots and smoke were in the barrage of an intense battlefield. A picture cast in his mind just as Paul Revere had more famously cast it in pewter: men slaughtered on the brink of emancipation.

  “It looks a lot like the pewter imprint. Paul Revere’s?”

  “You know your history.” Schultze’s small mouth revealed all of his teeth—overcrowded, tripping over themselves for space.

  “My father taught me that the stories are always going to be in whatever we have that represents the most public consumption. Newsprints and public bulletins are far more . . . alive . . . than some stale recollection after the event.”

  “Your father is a smart man. A historian?”

  “A reporter.”

  “Mmm.” Schultze absently swung his stick.

  “Your stick.” Hamish nodded to it. “Another relic.”

  Schultze smiled like the serpent in the insignia and held it up for Hamish’s perusal. “You really do have a keen eye.” He tilted the head in Hamish’s direction. Hamish adjusted his glasses and peered at the detailed etching. The rattlesnake he recognized from Revolutionary history.

  “Join, or Die.” Schultze’s eyes followed his track around the artifact. “Become one of our union or perish. The emblem of one of the Gadsden flags. All of the early states are parts of the body of the rattlesnake. Deadly when together.”

  Hamish ran his finger lightly over the engraved emblem. It was well crafted. He smiled at Schultze, and it was then that he realized the man hadn’t once looked him in the eye. Not over the course of their conversation. His father had told him that a real man will look another man straight on. As an equal.

  Schultze tapped his stick and moved toward an open crate of cheeses, wood shavings of stuffing springing in all directions.

  Luca offered Hamish a cracker with caviar. Hamish, having never tried it, gave it a small nibble.

  “I hate the texture.” He wrinkled his nose.

  Luca chuckled. “I have something more palatable for you. Wait here.” When Luca reappeared he was holding a jam jar. “Better?”

  Hamish smiled brightly. “Aunt Vi’s lemon jam.” A prick of home sickness stabbed him. His aunt’s careful writing on the label.

  Luca stretched his arm around Hamish. “Don’t get all
misty-eyed.”

  “I’m not.” He blinked and fiddled with the lid of the jam jar. Luca handed him a cracker and he dipped it in, his mouth watering just thinking about the tart taste soon to be on his tongue. It was better than he remembered.

  Later that evening, Phil set out for a cigarette break and to see his girl, and Luca and Hamish stretched by the window, watching the traffic in tiny dots below.

  “You feeling better?” Luca asked. He’d sent Fidget home early, so they were gnawing at the end of large Italian sandwiches purchased from a deli a few blocks away from the Common.

  Hamish unconsciously felt his neck. “I’ll live.”

  “That I am glad of. I don’t want my uncle rapping at my door. He’d throttle me if anything happened to you. Did you send your letter?”

  “What? Oh.” Hamish had forgotten his excuse for being in the study the night before. “I just have to sign off. Do you think someone would mail it for me tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  Luca winked at Hamish. “Just two more sleeps.” Something he would say when Hamish was little and Luca telephoned about his arrival. The times when he actually kept his word. “But that’s so far away,” Hamish would whine. “Only a few sleeps,” Luca would respond.

  Hamish picked out an olive from the nub of the sandwich he couldn’t finish and nibbled it. That Luca. That was the Luca he would see this through for. “Are you ever worried about some of the phone calls that come in?”

  “At the office? That’s what Reggie is for. To charm them.”

  “I just hope you didn’t leave things too unsettled in Chicago.”

  “Cic, we talked about this. The Flamingo will change everything. We are so close.” Luca took a long sip of Coca-Cola and bit into his sandwich, a slight smile on his full mouth as he watched the first thumbnail of moon peek through the purple and blue sunset sky.

  They were close. And then Hamish would have to reconcile with the inevitable: a life that took him back to Toronto. Away from Luca and the penthouse and the baseball games, yes. But also a life away from Nate and Reggie.