She’d come around to the front as she spoke. Both men stared at her for a very long moment.
“Well done!” exclaimed Peter.
Flora smiled at him.
“Aren’t you a clever girl to figure that out,” her father said tepidly. His eyes drifted back to the list I’d prepared. “Nine burglaries, then, and only six of them are our customers, plus one that appears to be shared.”
“But that means seven are our customers,” Peter said pacing.
“I’ll bet the one behind this is that scallywag Morris Gibbons!” Throckmorton bristled. “It’s just the sort of crooked scheme he’d pull. Try to make us look bad and then steal our customers!”
“Rival products company,” Flora told me.
Somehow I didn’t think someone like Woody Beale was throwing his muscle around to help a guy poach customers for office supplies. Even some of the robberies looked like small potatoes for Beale. But I didn’t think we were likely to hit on the answer tonight.
“It’s getting late,” I said. Everyone, myself included, was likely to benefit from time to mull over the tidbits tossed up in the last few hours. “We need to sleep on this – see if anything new pops into anyone’s head. First thing tomorrow I’d like to stop by your office to look at some of your delivery records. Peter, your part in ending this mess is going to start before then, bright and early.”
Twenty-one
The list of burglaries I’d given Throckmorton was out-of-date by the following morning. A story detailing a break-in at the warehouse of a cigar and cigarette distributor on South Dixie saluted me from page one. I read about it while I sipped my first cup of coffee at McCrory’s lunch counter the following morning.
“Hear you’ve been sick,” I said when Izzy brought my oatmeal.
“Kid. Couldn’t tell,”she said under her breath.
It never had occurred to me she might have kids, but I got the picture. A first-rate waitress would still have a job if she called in sick, but not if she stayed home to care for a child who was. I liked Izzy. We didn’t talk much but we said things with looks and grins. I guessed a lot of customers didn’t even see a waitress, not any more than they did the salt shaker anyway.
“My admirer been back?” I asked when she refilled my coffee.
Izzy shook her head. Al or whoever it was had probably just wanted a close look at me. Wanted to make sure he tossed the right girl into the ditch.
After breakfast I headed on down to Throckmorton Stationery and Business Supplies to look over Peter’s delivery schedules on dates Al had ridden with him. Peter had been eager to pull them and go over them with me. When I held firm on my plans for him, his cousin Flora said she’d be glad to do it. Her office was on the floor above her father’s, one of four small rooms opening off a short corridor that set them apart from a large open space with clusters of desks. Men and a scattering of women sat at the desks, some talking on telephones, others clattering away on adding machines or typewriters. Others were surrounded by neat stacks of papers which looked like orders or billing forms. I recognized Thelma bent over a desk in one corner.
Apparently Throckmorton himself was the only one in the firm who rated an outer office and his own secretary. One of the girls at a typewriter pointed me to “Miss Flora’s” office. The door stood open and Flora was typing away at a roomy little typewriter stand placed at right angles to her desk. The table and desk matched to a T. Suppressing a twinge of envy at the thought of how nice it would be not to heft my Remington out of the way every time I needed to spread papers out on my desk, I rapped on the door jamb.
The concentration on Flora’s face gave way to a smile as she looked up and saw me.
“If you go any faster that thing will start to smoke,” I said.
“Advantages of a business school education.” Her mouth twisted. “Pull up a chair. That one’s quite comfy. I thought it would be best if I was the one to type what you wanted. Keep anyone who works here from getting curious.”
“Smart.” I tried the chair she’d indicated. Leather covered the padding that cushioned its seat and back and part of the arms. Nice as it felt I wondered if it might make visitors stick around longer than they were welcome.
“Here, have a look at these while I finish,” Flora suggested sliding me a manilla folder which held half a dozen or so typed sheets. Turning back to her machine she began to clatter away.
If her fingers ever missed a key I didn’t see evidence on the pages before me. The top of each held a date when Peter had let Al ride with him, followed by names and addresses of businesses who received a delivery that day. Counting the page she was working on, it looked as though the total came to eight trips in a little over five weeks. So few times to land Peter in so much hot water. I had time to compare the first page against my list of places burgled before I heard the zip of the final sheet leaving Flora’s typewriter.
“If you like, I’ll give you the carbon copies as well,” she offered peeling them apart. “But you did mention that your office was searched–”
“Makes more sense to keep them somewhere else.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“Why don’t you keep them?”
“I hoped you might say that. We’ve a safe here and it’s quite fierce. They’ll be quick to get to if the others are lost.”
I had a feeling most of Flora Throckmorton’s abilities were being wasted in her current position.
“Peter get off okay?”
She nodded. “I drove him to the station myself so he couldn’t turn stubborn. He thinks he’s being a coward of course, leaving town. But I see your point wanting him out of the picture. You can get more done if you don’t have to keep an eye on him as well, isn’t that it?”
“Mostly. Also his disappearing will make Beale at least a little bit nervous. Beale won’t expect it after the way Peter stood up to his goons. When crooks get nervous they sometimes get careless. They do stupid things. Whether that happens or not, at least Peter’s safe. I expect his father’s side of the family will be glad to see him.”
“Yes. It’s probably been six or seven years since he made the trip to St. Louis.”
I’d been scanning the last page she’d typed. Nothing popped out that made me want to shout ‘eureka!’.
“That place that got hit last night one of your customers?”
“Dawes Tobacco? Yes. And it’s on this list, I’m afraid. Father had a conniption when he read about it. He’s already beside himself at the realization Pete doesn’t think working here is the be all and end all – and fretting about how to manage without him while Pete’s out of town. The robbery at Dawes has started him worrying that customers will start to notice how many of the places hit do business with us.
“Last night he said some competitor might be trying to ruin his business. That sound likely to you?”
“Morris Gibbons?” She started to laugh but then grew thoughtful. “He’s a horrible man. Loud and self-important. And greedy, I’d say. I’m sure he’s underhanded enough. But he doesn’t have guts enough, I don’t think. Not to do it on his own, and certainly not to get mixed up with someone who’s an out-and-out gangster like you say this man Beale is. Gibbons would love to steal our customers, but this seems too grand a scheme for that, don’t you think?”
I did.
“Anything in this list of deliveries catch your eye?” I asked.
“One can’t type well and think about what one’s typing. Let me have a look.”
Her chair had rollers. She pulled it around to the side of her desk and I slid the typed pages sideways so we could both see them.
“None of the places robbed were from their first trip together,” she said after a minute.
I’d noticed it too. Could be a way to prevent a connection between the robberies and Al turning up. Or could be the first time was only a test run to see if Al could make contact; find a way in, get away with whatever it was they were planning. Flora rested her chin on her fist.
“Do the ones that aren’t your customers all use the same supplier?”
“Don’t know. Sorry.” Her brows were drawn in concentration.
“Any of them get their supplies from Morris Gibbons?”
“Fine Brothers used to three or four years ago. I can’t say about now.” Leaning back she tapped the last page. “What I do notice is that only one of the smaller accounts Pete made deliveries to on these particular dates has been robbed. And it was the first one hit.”
Testing the waters, I thought again.
“After that they’re all big accounts?”
“Speaking only for ours of course, the next one was. But then there was a medium one. After that they’ve all been big, except for the one where we only do half their supplies.”
We looked at each other. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it meant something and she knew it too.
“How long would it take you to look up all these places, not just the ones that were robbed, and mark the big ones?”
“I don’t need to look. I can tell you right now, except for a couple that sort of fall in the cracks between big and medium.”
Ten minutes later Flora tapped the pages together and slid them toward me. The big accounts were marked with a red check, medium ones with blue. A few times she’d stopped and pursed her lips as if reviewing ledgers in her head. I began to wonder if she’d memorized the average monthly bill of every Throckmorton’s customer. When she told me the dollar amounts she’d used as the basis for big and medium I whistled.
“They equate, more or less, to the size of the company,” she explained. “The bigger the company, the greater their need for office supplies. There are exceptions, of course. Some places use more paper because they do lots of reports or contracts – insurance firms or big law offices for example. And some of the really big ones like The Cash use several suppliers. Wouldn’t it be a plum to get all his business!”
‘The Cash’ was John Patterson’s cash register company, one of the jewels in the city’s crown. It had gotten deliveries twice in the period we were considering, but it hadn’t been burglarized. Flora frowned, maybe thinking as I was that getting linked to a burglary there would just about ruin a company.
“You’re a whiz to work with,” I said neatening the typed pages in their folder and getting to my feet. “Thanks for helping on this.”
Flora stood up too. We shook hands. She walked a few steps with me toward the open door through which I’d entered. Just before we got there, to my surprise, she stepped past me and closed it.
“There’s something I thought I should mention, now that I know what’s been going on. I didn’t like to say anything around Father and Peter, but twice in the last week or so I’m pretty sure someone has followed me. A car, I mean, meandering along several cars back–”
“Watch out,” I said bluntly. In a couple of sentences I told her about driving into the trap with the moving truck and waking up woozy down in a ditch. “I can give you the name of a good bodyguard,” I offered.
“Thanks all the same, but I’m on good terms with the men on the loading dock.” Her eyes danced. “There are two in particular, brothers who’d put Paul Bunyan to shame. I’m sure they’d be glad to pick me up and deliver me home in their truck every evening if I pay them a bit for their time.”
“See if you can get your father to ride with them too.”
“Easier said than done. I’ll try.”
She opened the door and we shook hands again. I hesitated. “Maybe with Peter away your father will start to notice how well you know this whole operation.”
Her mouth gave its wry little twist again. “I shan’t hold my breath – but thanks.”
Thelma was on her way somewhere with a stack of papers when I came out. She nodded at me. Her eyes were red from crying, and I wanted to say something to her, but I didn’t know what. That her boyfriend was an idiot but his heart was in the right place? The best I could do was to nod in return.
I had plenty to think about walking back to my office.
To top it off, I got there just in time for a phone call from Muley.
Twenty-two
“This Mavis?” growled the voice at the end of the line.
My visit to the Ace of Clubs had nearly slipped from my memory, it seemed so long ago. In fact, not even three days had passed.
“That’s right,” I said, saved by remembering the name I’d used.
“Bartender down at the Ace said you got somethin’ Benny Norris left for me.”
It wasn’t quite what I’d said, but I’d roll with it seeing as how it had led him to call.
“You must be Muley,” I said. “I was just about giving up. Tell you what, why don’t you meet me at the Arcade–”
“Ix-nay. I, uh, I gotta stick close to home. Look after a sick friend. You know where the Ace is. Why’nt you bring it over there tonight? Quarter of nine?”
I’d already been ambushed once this week and that was plenty.
“No thank you,” I said. “It’s bad enough going into that dreadful place in the daytime. I could leave work right on the dot; maybe make it there by a quarter past four –”
“It has to be after—. It has to be later!” His voice skidded up a couple of notes. Not the sound of someone setting me up. The sound of panic. I was almost certain he’d been about to say the meeting had to be after dark.
“Okay. Okay,” he said hastily. “It’s just that I gotta stick close ... and this friend don’t sleep so good in the day.”
He was scared. My gut and mind both revved anticipating I was finally onto something.
“How’s this?” he was saying. “Landlady where I stay lets renters sit in this little piano room off the parlor. Ain’t no piano there. That sound okay? Brown’s Rooms. One block up from the Ace? Same street?”
The neighborhood was still lousy, but I could make it work. Park under a streetlight. Maybe find someone to ride along. Have my gun in my pocket.
“I bet it’s that insurance he said he’d just got last time I saw him. Poor bugger. Said it would help him if ever he got in a tight spot. Turns out it’s me it’ll help.” He paused for me to confirm it. I didn’t. He gave me his address.
“Don’t tell no one you’re coming to meet me, though” he cautioned. “Can’t always trust people, they find out some stiff left you something.”
* * *
For several minutes after I hung up I continued to sit on the edge of my desk and swing my legs, increasingly satisfied about all the things I finally knew. I knew Al had used the deliveries with Peter to get inside businesses and look around. I knew what those businesses were and where they were located. I knew Al worked for Beale. I knew Benny Norris had worked for Beale too. I knew Benny had come into money but gotten upset that someone was trying to make him a scapegoat. And now I knew one of Benny’s pals was scared enough he was lying low.
There were plenty of things I didn’t know, too. Like what Al was looking for inside those businesses. Was he checking the merchandise? Hunting an easy or lucrative haul? And why was Muley scared? And why had Benny Norris thought insurance could help him?
At the moment, though, one thing I didn’t know bothered me more than all the others: Beale’s boys knew what I looked like, but I wouldn’t recognize any of them.
I didn’t like being at that disadvantage. I’d come back from meeting with Flora Throckmorton keen to drive past all the businesses on her list to see if anything in their locations caught my eye. I headed out again, but with an amended plan. As I passed the open door to Simpson’s Socks, Maxine glanced furtively up at me, then glued her attention on the envelope she was sealing. The pot of roses sat on the counter.
Ten minut
es’ walking put me in the lobby of the Daily News. I asked one of the clerks at the counter to call upstairs and tell Matt Jenkins someone wanted to see him.
A few minutes later he came down the stairs, eschewing the elevator. He was in his shirt-sleeves. They were closing on deadline. His steps slowed as he came toward me.
“You want something,” he analyzed cocking his head and folding his arms. “Something you know is so unreasonable you don’t dare even come upstairs for it.”
“And here I thought I was protecting you, staying where no one would see me and get curious if you asked questions later.”
“Since I’m down here now, I might as well hear it. It’s always fun watching you when I turn you down.”
“There’s a guy named Al. Beale’s right-hand boy. I need to know what he looks like.”
Jenkins grimaced. “Thought you were going to lay off looking at Beale, Mags.”
“Yeah, but some of his boys suckered me and ran me off the road a couple nights ago. I want a straight table.”
Jenkins shook his reddish halo. His face had gone somber.
“Jesus, Maggie –”
A woman stopped at the end of the counter nearest us and began to talk to one of the clerks about placing a classified. We stepped out of earshot. Jenkins turned so he could keep an eye peeled for other newshounds who might give us a gander.
“What’s Al’s last name?” he asked folding his arms.
“Don’t know. He’s a snappy dresser. Scar on one pinkie.”
“Oh, sure! I always make sure to take a few shots of their hands. This one’s a shoo-in.”
I glared at his sarcasm. He gave me a look that pitied my dimness.
“And just how do you expect me to look someone up in the files if I don’t know the last name?”
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