Murder at the Flamingo

by Rachel McMillan

  “But he’s at the middle of something, isn’t he?” Reggie asked. “I mean, we have an idea, but I want to hear it from you.”

  Fidget took a moment to look between them, then settled on Hamish for a moment. “Everyone can be bought and sold. Everyone wants money. Those who have it want to preserve it. Those who don’t want to find a way—a way and someone who can act as their guidepost. A way to start nightclubs and enterprises using the right connections.”

  Reggie whistled. “You mean the right people who will help you find a way to squeeze money out of people and businesses that are easy to squeeze?”

  Fidget shrugged. “Not proud of it. But I always thought I was one removed. Luca runs a legitimate business. Frank and I just went over contracts. Lent a legal eye now and then. My husband is a good lawyer. But Schultze was on his tail. Thought Frank was behind the operation. It wasn’t the case. I just fidgeted with the books.” She looked up knowingly. “It’s what your cousin has always called me.”

  “And Luca knew all of it? Had access to everyone?” asked Hamish.

  Fidget shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” She breathed. “All I know is that Luca saved Frank’s life. They told him he had to send Frank away.” She paused. “Away.” She folded her hands. “Your cousin hid him. Found me a job and safety.” Her eyes roamed the penthouse. “I sometimes think he’s running away too.” She turned toward the door. “But I don’t want this life anymore. It was one thing when I could hold on for my Frank. When he comes back, and I mean this with all respect, I never want to see your cousin again.”

  “I understand.”

  She reached up and touched Hamish’s face. “But you are a good boy, Hamish. And your cousin inspires great loyalty.” She shook her head. “If Mark Suave is prowling around here and he knows about Frank, then we all have only a matter of time.”

  Hamish looked up and over at Reggie with wide eyes. She didn’t seem to follow his trail of thought, flashing him a look.

  Hamish tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Do you think you could ring Phil?” Hamish asked.

  “Of course, but I think this is his afternoon at his other job.”

  “We can meet him. He doesn’t need to come to us.”

  “I wish I could read your mind. I know it’s buzzing ahead at a frantic speed,” Reggie said once they were in the elevator. Hamish didn’t respond until they were under the sunlight of Tremont Street, hailing a cab.

  “No bicycle?” she asked warmly as Hamish gave the cabbie the address Fidget provided them.

  “We’ll visit Phil and then go to the Flamingo.”

  In the wharf, the boats bobbed red and white and blue. The water licked and lapped, tickling the shore with a glisten. Hamish shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t want Phil to see his right hand squeeze and relax. Phil’s face was stone. “I have a ten-minute break.” Phil looked between them, unamused. “I don’t just drive Luca, you know. I have another job.”

  “I know. That’s why I was happy you would meet with us.”

  Phil pulled a long drag on a cigarette. “It’s part of working with Valari. I have to be there for you anytime. Day or night. Lucky you’re low maintenance.” He looked Hamish over. Then his gaze swerved to Reggie, looking her up and down and up again. “Not sure what you’re about.”

  “Did you drive Frank Fulham too? Did Luca ever talk to you about the extent of his business?”

  “You think your cousin talks to me? I just drive.”

  “But you knew him in Chicago?”

  Phil cursed, startling a seagull that shrieked loudly before flying away. “He’ll do a good turn by you.”

  “What does that even mean? Are you capable of completing a thought that doesn’t sound like it’s made up with leftover lines from a Sam Spade villain?”

  “Easy, Reg.” Hamish didn’t like the way Phil tensed and grated her with a look.

  “Your cousin is a powerful person and he inspires great loyalty,” Phil continued.

  “So you know Mark Suave, then?”

  At the best of times, Phil’s face never betrayed any emotion. Now it was a sculpture in perfect stone, unetched. “I drive, Mr. DeLuca. I am paid not to listen.”

  How could you find someone who was so disinterested in everything happening around him? Hamish had inched toward adventure since the moment he stepped from South Station on his first day. He couldn’t imagine closing the world out and shutting down when there was so much to see and experience and do.

  Hamish spent more time at the office, knowing that was the best place to await another Frank Fulham phone call. He wondered, as did Reggie, how many times this missing link to the mystery of Luca’s move to Boston had rung before without her knowing. Frank did call again, and Hamish gave him Luca’s address. He wondered if things would have played out differently had he spent more time at the office the moment he arrived in the city. The office—while far away from Luca—was turning into a key way to intercept phone calls and learn the truth about his cousin.

  “Your wife wants you back,” he said simply. If Frank was the reason Luca left Chicago and the reason Mark Suave and his man were on Luca’s tail, Hamish thought it was about time Luca was pulled into the light. “I’ll wire the money. No? You have it. You’re safe, Mr. Fulham. We’ll make sure of it. It’s time to come back.” He wasn’t sure how or when, but it was time to put something right.

  As right as the moment Reggie arrived. Yes, right. There was something right about the space they shared together, the way her expensive perfume lingered even after her commute from Charlestown. He could smell it now.

  “Look at you offering to wire money.”

  Hamish clicked the receiver. “You know I have none of my own. I’d find something of Luca’s to pawn. It’s his mess.” His neck heated under his collar and his ears twitched. Was this what true anger felt like? His father had always had a temper: yelling and ordering people around, flushing red at an inconvenience. Never anything truly harmful, of course, his bark far worse than his bite. Hamish was certain with his quiet disposition he hadn’t inherited it, but maybe Luca was bringing some of it out.

  “Well, at the very least, he isn’t our murder suspect,” Reggie said, drawing him back.

  He realized he had been gazing out the window until the light blurred his eyes and she, of course, was eager to get back to the corpse at hand.

  “Still could be Schultze.”

  Hamish shook his head and straightened his collar. “No. He wasn’t lying to me. I have this . . . sixth sense when someone isn’t completely authentic with me.”

  “And it’s not Dirk.”

  Hamish shook his head. “That fellow strikes me as someone whose only loyalty is to himself—and his pocketbook.” Loyalty. He chewed on the word. His ears twitched when he thought of how often he and others had used it in the same sentence as Luca’s name. Luca inspired great loyalty. Luca was someone to whom one wanted to be loyal—regardless of the cost. It may well have been his cousin’s second name for all the times he had heard the two words in the same sentence. “Johnny Wade.”

  “Johnny had a thing for Mary Finn,” Reggie said. “Why would he want to see her dead?”

  “Jealousy of Schultze.” Hamish felt they were going in circles. He drew one on the desk with his fingertip.

  “Imagine being jealous of old Schultze when you have the good looks and charm of Johnny Wade.”

  “Maybe they argued and he used a bit of force with Schultze’s stick and she . . . well . . .” Hamish spread his hands to finish his line of thought.

  “But why stay around, then?” Reggie put her journal into her handbag and leaned back against her chair. “Why not cut and run the moment the police named it an accident?”

  “Because he saw an opportunity?” It sounded like a question and not a statement.

  “What?”

  “I overheard him talking to Bill about the right kind of exposure for the club.”

  “How can the r
ight kind of exposure be murder?”

  “Publicity sells. Luca’s business has been bigger than ever.” He thought back to Brian MacMillan and how desperate he was to inch his way into Luca’s good graces and wield some of the power he believed Luca had.

  “So he did it out of some loyalty to the Flamingo? I know Wade’s worked at a few clubs, but it’s just that—a club. What made this one so special?”

  “It was a chance to start over,” Hamish said, remembering the way Luca’s eyes sparkled when he talked about his new chance, his new club. The Flamingo represented prosperity—for Luca, certainly.

  “And it’s not Luca,” Reggie said for the umpteenth time. He knew she was just arranging her thoughts by mentally checking off any possibilities.

  “No.” Luca—his Luca—would never just see the end of someone. He didn’t do things that way.

  Hamish stood and grabbed the back of his hair. “No one else is credible. When you eliminate the impossible”—he paraphrased a line from the Sherlock Holmes stories integral to his childhood reading—“whatever is left is the truth.”

  “And it wasn’t Dirk.” Reggie counted with a hand. “It wasn’t Dirk or even Schultze. And not Luca. Or Lily.”

  “Mary could just be a tragic accident. Not the middle of this web at all.”

  “With no motive. In the pictures there is always a motive. I know. I know what you’re going to say. This isn’t the pictures.”

  “An accident gone wrong.” He sighed, imagining Johnny Wade confronting the girl of his dreams, attempting to paste on a smile for his customers while the woman who painted the corners of his imagination flirted with a club investor for money. Hamish looked up a moment, startling Reggie.

  “What? Your eyes are so intense right now . . . they . . .”

  “Close your eyes!” Hamish demanded, stretching out his hands to map the scene. “Imagine an argument between a handsome bartender and his cigar girl.”

  “Not hard,” Reggie snarked. “I’ve seen it a million—”

  “Hush, Reggie!” Reggie clamped her lips. “Imagine they are fighting about the intentions of Schultze: the investor of this big, sparkly club. But then it turns into an argument about something else.” Hamish warmed to his theme. “You see, the girl wanted to break away from this world. Had dreams of . . . whatever girls like her have dreams of . . . Hollywood? Broadway? Kids? Who knows! Johnny promised to save money from his bartending gigs and then he would find a cushy mainstay job. One like Roy Holliday had. Do you see it, Reg? At least nod, for the love of heaven. Good. All right. So Johnny had heard rumblings. He’s a bartender. No matter how careful the inner workings of crime are in Boston, lubricated tongues can tell tales. He hears about Luca. Galbraith’s a decent enough guy but a bit too aboveboard. Johnny no longer wants to live on tips. He knows Mary hears the same things. She tells him she knows a way to the center. Together, they are the perfect pair—the perfect way to get to the middle of it. Whoever is making money, they will be able to skim from it. Heck, they were both there the night before the opening. You saw the way they looked at each other. The chemistry . . .”

  “It was palpable. Like Gable and Colbert.”

  “Shhh!” Hamish hushed, glad she couldn’t see the smile stretch across his face at her equally palpable excitement. “The night of the Flamingo opening, Mary Finn tells him she’s sick of waiting. She’s had a bit of champagne on her break. Heated from the dance floor. She wants to make a break from Schultze. From this world. But Johnny . . .” Hamish smiled a little as the pieces fell into place. Then he smiled some more. The more he explained it to her, the smoother his voice became, free of ripples or trips. Confident. Like Luca. Like Johnny Wade.

  “Johnny wanted to stay.” Reggie’s nose was wrinkled with her concentration behind closed eyes.

  Hamish smiled for a different reason altogether. “Yes. They fought. She fell. She died. Johnny needed to think about himself. He heard—as I have constantly since the moment I arrived in this stupid world—that Luca inspires great loyalty. He could twist Mary’s accidental death into something . . .”

  Reggie’s eyes shot open. “He could pretend that it was for Luca! For the publicity! He had worked at clubs! He had read the papers. He could have a safeguard. Luca, being Luca, would be let off . . .”

  Hamish loved matching her mental stride. “And Johnny had the security of having done something to bring business to Luca’s club.”

  “Yet it’s been a few days.”

  Hamish chewed his lip. “Maybe he wants things to settle down. For the books to inflate.”

  Reggie was almost bouncing in her chair. “We can get a confession!”

  “How?”

  “It’s a gamble. But if you’re right . . . and why wouldn’t you be right? It’s the only thing that checks out and you’re brilliant. Hamish, you’re brilliant and . . .”

  Brilliant? He knew he was book smart. Everyone told him so. But everyone telling him things would never replace the confidence he was only starting to find in himself. He wanted nothing more than for the things he believed his greatest limitations to prove his greatest strength. Would this murder, this moment, be the tip of that iceberg? Hamish scratched his neck. “Reggie, it’s hardly decent to be this joyful about discovering the identity of a murderer.” The seriousness of his statement didn’t match his tone.

  “I’ll tell Johnny we’re onto it. That we know Luca appreciates his magnanimous gesture of loyalty.”

  “You’re being hyperbolic.”

  “Only when the occasion warrants it.”

  Suddenly the office seemed small. Reggie and Hamish’s eyes met and the walls closed in around them, not able to contain the energy that sparked in the small space. Finally, they abandoned it for the buttery swath of light warming the North Square. But instead of seeing the cracks and crevices, the soot stains, the line from the Temporary Employment Agency stretching out the office door, and the annoying children cloying for a spot in line in front of the Revere House, Hamish only saw beauty: steeples and russet brick and a place of miracles, large and small.

  “I will meet you at the Flamingo tonight! I am going to bring my best mink stole.”

  “You had time to pack your mink stole while you were hastily planning your great runaway?” Hamish raised an eyebrow.

  “Something about solving a murder makes you almost insufferable, Hamish DeLuca.”

  “Sorry . . . I . . .”

  “No. No. I like it. Let me change. We know Johnny Wade has a weakness for women who play into his charms. You change too! So I’ll meet you? Just outside the club? A date?”

  A date? Of course Hamish’s first official date with a girl would be her ringside seat to his inevitably poor attempt to approach his cousin about a murder. “And I’ll find out why Luca was down there in the first place,” Hamish said, emboldened by her enthusiasm and the thought of her in a mink stole. “Luca Valari may inspire great loyalty”—Hamish let a touch of derision slide into his voice—“but he is not above confrontation.”

  “Confront Luca.” Reggie smiled. “It’s about time.”

  Though her voice was light, Hamish knew she was dead serious.

  “And not just about Mary’s death.” Hamish whistled low. “Fidget was right. Mark Suave let Luca open his club; but he won’t be patient forever. He’ll expect some kind of payment for Fulham.”

  “What kind of payment?” Reggie swallowed, deflating the buoyancy of the conversation as the sunlight hid behind a cloud.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  CHAPTER 25

  They met at the appointed time, Reggie radiant and spinning around in her stole for his benefit.

  “It’s too hot for that.” Hamish cleared his throat, but they both knew the nights were falling shorter—and a cool breeze was rustling over the fluorescent lights of Scollay Square, drawing the curtain on Hamish’s summer of freedom.

  Reggie was saying: “Tonight is the night! Where every one of the focal players in our
little mystery congregates, where—”

  “This isn’t a picture, Reggie. It’s not the end of The Thin Man.”

  “I know! I am just trying not to be nervous.” She punched him in the arm playfully. “Guess some of your nerves are rubbing off on me.”

  “You are only as strong as the moment that finds you braver than you have ever been,” Hamish quoted, not remembering where he heard it. Maisie, maybe. Or one of his father’s articles. Probably his father’s articles.

  Then he saw it: a fluorescent emblem of a deeper secret. A flamingo jaunty and tall, brash and pink, a siren luring people to loud music.

  Hamish crossed the threshold into the Deco hallway of the club. Reggie took her time at coat check to give him a head start.

  Hamish took a deep breath, trying to conjure the command he’d had of the conversation in the office earlier that afternoon. He was braver than he thought. He was the only person who didn’t believe himself capable. He’d change that.

  “Still playing detective?” Luca fingered his cuff link. Hamish swallowed. This would be harder than he thought. It was one thing to imagine a scenario with Reggie, another to stand in front of Luca and tell him that he knew who he truly was.

  “I need to talk to you.” He decided to start with the name drop. “About Frank Fulham.”

  The lights were low. Roy Holliday and his band were running scales. They flitted over a minor key.

  “What do you know about that name?” Luca’s smile was pasted on for the benefit of the delivery boys and the band, preparing everything for another night. “Good job, Roy. Maybe try something a little slower tonight. Around eleven. Just when people have had a few too many cocktails and are on the lookout for a new partner.”

  Hamish leaned into his cousin. “The funny thing, Luca, is I do know when people are lying. Or not being candid. There is something uncomfortable about it that makes me anxious. I feel it. Except with you. A person with an incredible memory. A person who always gave me an adventure. You were having one of your own, weren’t you?”

  “We should go to the bar. It’s quiet there.” Luca’s smile didn’t waver. Hamish nodded.