Someone yelled from upstairs to see if the ambulance crew was finished. I guessed they were needed to bring Muley down. I no longer was eager to make his acquaintance.
“My landlady locks the door at half past eleven,” I told Freeze. “Any chance we could finish this up tomorrow?”
He hesitated. He was a by-the-book sort. One of the cops keeping gawkers away outside stuck his head in.
“Lieutenant, there’s a camera hack out here says he heard Miss Sullivan was inside and does she want a ride downtown?”
Jenkins. Bless him, he’d waited. Or maybe it was someone else. I got along okay with a lot of the press corps.
Freeze chuffed out a breath. He gave me a stern look. “I suppose I can trust you not to discuss what happened here?”
I smiled.
Connelly and the ambulance man who’d bandaged me helped me to my feet. My leg hurt like hell, but I could limp okay. The odor of cordite was fading. It no longer masked an underlying smell of dust and lye soap and mops gone sour from scrubbing too many floors. Clutching my tam, which I wouldn’t be wearing again, I stepped outside and took a grateful gulp of clean night air.
Jenkins spotted me and hoofed it over to offer an arm when he saw the bandage. He even dropped me at Mrs. Z’s although he spent the whole time grousing that the competition would beat him on this. I gave him Muley’s name and nickname, enough for him to score a nice little beat on information at least, but not enough for Freeze to know it came from me.
“Once cop cars started arriving and I found out you were okay, I ran up the street to that dump of a bar and called the city desk. At least I’ll get a place on page one tomorrow,” he told me as he pulled to the curb at Mrs. Z’s.
I’d declined his initial offer to drop me at the emergency door of Miami Valley. Further doctoring of my leg could wait until morning. Waving him on his way I went stiff-legged up the walk. At least Mrs. Z’s beastly cat wasn’t lurking somewhere to add to my misery.
On the porch one of the girls was holding hands with her beau. We said hi and I went on in so they could have another smooch or two. In the front hall I stood for a couple of minutes listening to the orderly tick of the big walnut grandfather clock and savoring the clean smell of my surroundings. Mostly it was an absence of smell – no stale grease, no souring mops, just the faintest hint of lavender from the little china potpourri dish on a sideboard next to the clock. The stairs felt reassuringly solid under my feet as I climbed them.
When I opened the door to my room, I almost stepped on a folded up piece of paper someone had shoved underneath. Grunting some at the effort, I bent to retrieve it. The paper was pale blue. I undid it.
On Main.
I have more.
Jolene. She had something on Beale. She’d be at work now, peddling her cigarettes, and I felt too worn and too down in the dumps to wait up. I went down the hall and gave my face a fast wash. Back in my room, I let my clothes fall where I took them off, then crawled into bed with the covers over my head.
Twenty-five
Crooks and killers set so much store by brawn they overlook gals. Jolene looked smug as a stray cat in a dairy the next time I saw her.
On weekend mornings we had kitchen privileges. Mrs. Z put out a pitcher of coffee cream and let us use her toaster and teakettle. We supplied our own mugs and some of the girls took turns buying coffee. Others brought down tins of tea from their rooms. Everyone pitched in for a couple of loaves of bread and a stick of butter. Every now and then somebody’s mother or aunt or sister gave them a jar of jelly to share. Being a farm girl, Jolene was an early riser in spite of working late. She was already at the table, sharing the paper with Esther and Constance and nibbling a slice of toast, when I made my way in.
Her eyes widened at the bandages wrapping my leg.
“Golly! What happened to you?”
“I was following a guy and a rotten board gave way when I stepped on it.”
The girls were always pestering for tidbits about my work. For once I could tell them the truth, slightly edited.
“Good thing you weren’t following that man who got shot,” chirped Constance.
“Because then somebody turned right around and shot at the man who shot him! There must have been bullets everywhere,” added Esther. They were sisters and shared a room. Esther waited tables while Constance took a secretarial course. She slid me the front section. “Look – there’s a picture of where it happened right there on the front page!”
Spread across four columns of The Journal was the front of Brown’s Rooming House with police cars clustered around it. Poor Jenkins, losing out to the competition. Still, the cutline under the photo said the deceased hadn’t been identified, and Jenkins had a name to run with his page one picture, so he’d feel some better.
“I need my coffee,” I announced to the room in general. Jolene got the hint. She waited until I’d worked my way through half a mug and looked over the first few pages of the front section. Then she made a show of yawning and getting up for more hot water.
At the opposite end of the table from me, Esther and Constance had their heads bent to the society section, which they poured over almost line by line. Jolene freshened her tea and moved to my end, putting her back between me and the others and keeping her voice down.
“The girl I told you about has Wednesdays off, so Thursday was the first chance I had to talk to her, and you weren’t around yesterday.”
“Yeah, thanks for the note.”
“I tried to make it vague – like it could be about a dress shop or something if anyone else saw it.”
“You’d make a first-rate spy,” I said.
Jolene looked pleased. “Anyway, while we were putting our costumes on I got her talking. Chattering, I should say. I told about some wild things I’d seen at The Mademoiselle. Then I said, ‘Hey, I bet you’ve seen plenty, working at one of Woody Beale’s places. I’ve heard he keeps the desk in his office stacked with moolah and sometimes he invites some of the girls who work for him back and stakes them all to a poker game.’
“Well, she laughed and said that was the wildest thing she’d ever heard, that the manager had sent her back to get a key or something a time or two and she never saw any money, just Mr. Beale and the men who work for him sitting around and talking or maybe playing a few hands themselves. But...” She stretched glancing casually back to make sure Esther and Constance still were occupied. “ ... she said way at the back behind the office was this private room where two, three times a week some real high rollers came to play poker. She said that table sure had stacks of cash.”
I gave a silent whistle.
“How about that, huh? I make up a story and it’s almost like it’s halfway true.” She plucked a long blonde curl from its overnight tangle and twirled it around her finger.
“This girl say anything else about the place?”
“Just that when there was a poker game a couple of girls from out front would get sent back to take care of the high rollers. Bring them cigs and sandwiches and like. The manager had picked them, used the same three or four. One night one was sick, so the manager picked the girl who was telling me this and sent her back. He told her she needed to be discreet and not tell anyone what she saw and she’d get good tips. Which she did. But one of the so-called gents kept pawing her, and she didn’t like it, so after a couple of weeks she started looking around and found another job and she quit.
“Some story, huh? And all while she was straightening her stockings. Can you believe it? I swear, she must talk a mile a minute.”
Genevieve came into the kitchen, dressed and groomed like she meant to go shopping.
“Oh, my,” she said spotting my leg. “Aren’t you a vision of loveliness.”
“The face that launched a thousand ships,” I said. “Jolene, you are one smart cookie. I owe you a picture show.”
Beaming, she got up and bounced on her way. Ginny and I had a cup of coffee together while I gave her the same brie
f account of my injury I’d told the others. Then I brushed my teeth and got my purse and took my leg for a looksee by old Dr. Hallorhan. He’d been patching me up since I was a kid.
* * *
Waiting to see Doc Hallorhan took most of the morning. When I finally got in he sudsed me and picked out some overlooked splinters and doused me with a punitive amount of antiseptic. After that came a lecture that took almost as long as the treatment. It left me just enough time to get over to Wheeler’s Garage, which closed early on Saturdays.
“You got a date tonight, Calvin?” I asked when he and Eli had been reassured that the DeSoto and I were both fine.
Calvin ducked his head bashfully and allowed as how he didn’t.
“How’d you and your tin lizzie like to earn a couple of bucks?”
We worked out the details and I said good-by. It was half past one and some good Irish whisky would soothe the stinging in my leg a lot better than a couple of aspirin. Besides, if I didn’t stay busy I’d start thinking about how close I’d been to learning something from Muley. So I took a trolley as far as I could and then walked over to Finn’s.
On Saturday afternoons it was quiet and cozy, giving no hint how noisy it would be when evening rolled around. I helped myself to a slice of cheese from the wedge on the counter, cut a slice of wholemeal soda bread and took an apple from the bowl next to it. As fine a lunch as a body could ask, particularly after Finn’s wife brought me a tumbler of whiskey and water that was stronger on the whiskey.
I savored my meal and listened to a couple of old codgers playing dominoes in the corner. There was time now to look through the rest of the paper I hadn’t had time for that morning. I was in hog heaven playing lady of leisure when someone kicked the chair across from me out so forcefully I jumped. Mick Connelly dropped onto it. His eyes were blazing.
“Your da didn’t turn you over his knee half enough, you smart-aleck brat. I suppose you were having a grand time spinning Freeze that cockamamie yarn last night and watching me squirm. Let’s get the fence straight. You mouth off to him or the other brass, you get yourself dragged down the station, I won’t lift a finger to help just because I happen to be Billy’s partner.”
If I hadn’t neared the bottom of my whiskey I’d have thrown it at him.
“You’ll be making snowballs in hell before I ask you for help! I’ll pick my scraps where I want, and I’ll take my licks in them and it’s none of your damn business!”
His hand came down, imprisoning my wrist as I started to stand. “Like hell it’s not. You listen now, and good. I know you’re holding things back – but I don’t know what. I don’t know your connection to that gobbo got killed last night or why you really were there.” Heat from his body smothered me like a blanket. His grip was making my wrist go numb.
“But if you care so little for Billy and Seamus you’ve got your toe in something crooked I’m not looking the other way. Understand?” He leaned closer. “If you’re wheedling information from them or you get mud on their names after all their years of service I will personally – personally – see you locked up for as long as the law will allow. No matter how fond I may be of Billy. Or that Seamus is the finest man I’ve ever met. Or how that fallen angel look of yours fogs a man’s senses!”
I was flabbergasted. My effort to pull free only made his fingers tighten.
“Let go my arm, you big ox, before I kick you where it counts!”
We were hissing more than speaking, but around us other ears were straining to hear. Finn’s wife. The domino players. A guy with a crooked nose who was laboring to write something, scratching out as much as he kept. Connelly’s eyes held mine so fiercely that I wondered if he’d even heard me speak. An interval passed before he looked down, blinked at the sight of his hand, and released me. Rattled by his intensity, I sat back rubbing the place where his fingers had been.
“You call yourself a cop? You’re acting more like the thugs you’re supposed to go after. Now you do the listening: Last time anyone called me dishonest was Maureen Toohey in fifth grade. I knocked her flat. I’ve got a job to do, same as you. Maybe I don’t blab all I know sometimes. Neither do you. Or Freeze. Or Chief Wurstner with his hat full of braid. But I have brains enough not to hold back anything that could get someone killed. Or hurt if they didn’t deserve it. So if you want to flex your muscles go flex them at someone else.”
With that I got up and marched out, hobbling so much it probably spoiled the effect.
He didn’t follow.
Finn’s wife, who was something of a romantic, probably thought we were having a lovers’ spat.
Twenty-six
“Golly, I’ve heard of The Owl. It’s for fellows with plenty of moolah,” Calvin said. Usually he was almost too bashful to speak around me, but nervousness had loosened his tongue. “This old clunker of mine’s going to look out of place.”
“Not as shined up as you keep it and the way it purrs,” I reassured. “And we’re just going to drive through the parking lot a couple of times. Remember?”
He nodded.
It was somewhere past ten and we were headed north on Main with downtown and the river retreating behind us. Even though Calvin’s car was old and would have been a rattletrap in other hands, he kept it in as fine a shape as I’d let on. In a restless stream of pleasure seekers out for a Saturday night of dancing and booze, we wouldn’t rate a second look.
Calvin had picked me up at Mrs. Z’s. I’d had two good reasons for hiring him. If any of Beale’s boys happened to be hanging around outside the nightclub, they wouldn’t recognize Calvin’s Plymouth the way they would my car. The twofer was that since I didn’t need to keep my hands on the steering wheel, I’d be able to jot down license numbers as we rolled through The Owl’s parking lot.
The nightclub sat back from the road and was decked out in stucco with red tile. Arches across the front created an illusion of someplace foreign – Mexico or Cuba, I’d guess. Businesses were getting sparse this far from downtown Except for the club, all the other places around were closed.
“Let’s pull in somewhere, watch who goes in and out,” I said.
Across from the club, on a side street, we found a darkened restaurant. Calvin pulled up close to the building. It hid us from the traffic on Main but gave a great view.
For a while we just sat and watched. People came. People went. The club had a doorman and a guy in a white jacket who parked cars. I watched one girl practically fall out when her date opened the car door, she was so loaded. None of the cars that came and went looked familiar, although about the only one I’d recognize would be Beale’s big green job. Mostly I was after a sense of the place, its rhythm.
“Gonna be chilly tonight,” Calvin observed.
I already was noticing it. Even the dandiest mechanic couldn’t make a car warm when the engine was off.
“I brought a flask,” I grinned pulling it out of my coat pocket.
“I brought a Thermos. Coffee. Warms you right up. Just say if you want some.”
“Thanks. Likewise you and the hooch.”
He shook his head. “My dad’s a real hard Baptist. Made me swear I wouldn’t dance or drink tonight.”
We fortified ourselves with our respective beverages. I missed the warmth of my tam, but wearing it might have been flirting with bad luck, given the bullet hole in it. I didn’t have my .38 either. The cops were entertaining it. I didn’t expect to need a gun or I wouldn’t have brought Calvin, even if his tall male form did make great window dressing. Just in case, though, the friendly little automatic from my car now nestled in my purse.
Not long before Calvin picked me up that evening, I’d knocked on the door to the Mrs. Z’s apartment, which occupied half of the ground floor. While Butterball gave me the evil eye from a chair, I told Mrs. Z I was working that night and might need letting in again. Taking a look at my bandaged leg she gave a disapproving cluck and walked to the little desk where she kept her accounts and paid her bills. She opened
a drawer and took something out and handed it to me.
“I can’t say I like the business you’re in. It worries me, frankly, and it’s much too rough for a nice young lady like you. But you’ve lived here four years without causing a speck of trouble. From now on if you think you might be late, just come and get this. Slide it under my door when you get in.”
I stared down at the key to Mrs. Z’s back door. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
“And, Margaret,” she added. “Don’t mention this to the other girls.”
Butterball hissed.
Freed of the need to keep an eye on the clock I could afford to let things at Beale’s club hit full swing. It was almost eleven when I told Calvin to make his first pass through the parking lot. We left the shadows of the restaurant, went out and over and came up Main again.
“Remember, take it nice and slow,” I coached as we turned in. “We’ve already been to another joint, maybe want a livelier one. Or we’re getting a late start, can’t decide where we want to light.”
Where cars were concerned, you didn’t need to tell Calvin anything twice. He glided along like someone hunting a parking spot. A Tommy Dorsey tune spilled out of the club. The sax was weak. A pudgy guy with a cigar and a girl in a white fur shrug came out arguing. If the car park man or the guy on the door so much as noticed us they didn’t show it.
Beale’s nightclub looked to be popular. Spots for a car were rare in front. Calvin’s Plymouth moseyed along the white stucco wall toward the rear. A few cars were parked nose out away from the building, probably brought around by the boy in the white jacket. But it was a handful of cars attached to the building like nursing kittens that drew my attention.
I noticed the building had two back doors. One was faintly illuminated with an awning the size of a doormat, the door a married man entertaining a girl could duck out if an acquaintance who might not understand came in the front way. The door that interested me was maybe five yards to the left and almost faded into the wall. No light. Unmarked. Beale’s big green Packard, along with several other cars, sat next to it facing a RESERVED sign painted on the stucco. On the far side of the public door, three other cars waited.
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