A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “The Chinese treasure crickets, Harry. Any school child knows that.”

  “Then what’s special about this one?”

  “Nothing. But I found it at a farm where Lou Ling may be employed.”

  “If you found the revolver he used, it would be a little more definitive.”

  “Well, perhaps next time you can participate more actively.”

  She asked the waiter the way to the second Chinese farm, said to be on the nearby Bowery Bay.

  “Willie there can show you.” He nodded toward a young fellow at the bar. “He speaks their lingo. Hey, Willie! These people want to visit the Celestials.”

  Willie came over to the table and we invited him to sit down. He looked to be about seventeen or eighteen and was built like a farm boy.

  “Do you honestly speak Chinese?” Emmie asked.

  “To get by. I truck their goods over to Chinatown for them. I have a regular route.”

  “Do you happen to know a man named Lou Ling?”

  “The cricket charmer, sure. He’s just up the hill.”

  “Did you see him today?”

  “Not that I remember.” He picked up Emmie’s gourd. “Where’d you get this?”

  “The farm behind the silk works.”

  “That’s nothin’. You should see the ones Charlie Lam makes.”

  “Is he a friend of Lou Ling?”

  “He makes the cages. They all catch crickets, but only Lou knows how to catch the females.”

  “Can you take us to the farm and introduce us?”

  “Sure, I guess so.”

  I went and gathered Thibaut from the bar, where he was performing his cricket in exchange for beer. Once outside, I saw a sign advertising the infamous North Beach Casino—known by its patrons as Erbe’s. If the White Rats wanted a meeting place away from the theatres, this would be an excellent choice—well off the beaten path, at the far end of Bowery Bay.

  Willie led us up a hill that overlooked the bay. It was nearing sunset now, but the farmers were still at work. Willie exchanged a few sentences with one of them.

  “He says Lou never came home last night. He’s been doing some job in the city until late. The cops were here this morning looking for him. Why do the cops want him?”

  “There was a shooting last night where he works,” Emmie told him. “Lou was supposed to shoot another man with a prop gun, only someone substituted a real gun, and another man took the place of the fellow playing the victim.”

  Willie looked to me for interpretation.

  “It seems Lou Ling accidentally shot another man.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve thought Lou knew which way to point a gun.”

  “Do you think they might be hiding him here?” Emmie asked. “We want to help him prove he wasn’t at fault.”

  Willie reentered dialogue with the farmer.

  “He says no one’s seen him. But if they were hiding him, I don’t suppose they’d let me in on it. I’ll tell you what though, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lou is around.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, if he lost his night job, I wager he’ll be looking for crickets. And Lou says there’s no better place in New York to catch the right kind of crickets than Bowery Bay. On account of it being so quiet.”

  “So, if we lie in wait, we may see him tonight?” Emmie asked.

  “Could well be.”

  “Will you stay with us? We’ll need to speak with him.”

  “I have to get up mighty early in the morning.”

  Emmie tried coaxing, but it wasn’t until she pulled five dollars from her purse that Willie’s resolve melted. She then instructed us to find blinds from which we could spring on Lou Ling when he arrived.

  “Why don’t you ladies take position near the farm here with Willie,” I suggested. “I’ll take Thibaut and we’ll cover the slope below.”

  “Do crickets prefer slopes?” Emmie asked.

  “The right-thinking ones do.”

  “We should have a signal,” she said. “Can you hoot like an owl?”

  “Give me a quart of gin and I can hoot like a convention of elks.”

  She asked the same question of Thibaut in French, and he replied with a convincing demonstration. Then he and I went off. About halfway down the slope I left him in a little stand of sumacs and then went on to a windbreak that lined an old farm field. I made myself a comfortable seat of grass and sat down.

  6

  Willie was right, there did seem to be an unusual number of crickets about. And as dusk was eclipsed by night, the chorus grew even louder. By then, the darkness was near impenetrable. But further along, I could see lights shining in the few houses that lined the bay, and beyond those, the illuminated entertainments of North Beach—Erbe’s casino among them.

  I waited a good long time, just to make sure Emmie didn’t come around looking for me, and also to give Thibaut a chance to fall asleep. I knew from our days at sea that he was an inattentive lookout. And with his belly full of lager and bratwurst, I felt sure he was already fast asleep. I crept down to the road that ran along the bay.

  Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a bull charging down the hillside. Thibaut stumbled out of a thicket and fell at my feet. He had psychic powers when it came to drink, and I should have realized there was little chance of leaving him behind. It wasn’t hard to imagine how his falling out with his partners had come about. A fellow with Thibaut’s predilections would make a poor partner in any business, but particularly one involving an inventory of liquor.

  I helped him up and we started walking. Beside us, a fleet of small yachts bobbed at anchor, and the Ferris wheel that dominated North Beach was already visible ahead. The family attractions were winding down and the cars back to Hunter’s Point left full. But at Erbe’s casino, near the tip of the point, business was brisk.

  Unlike those of France, most casinos at American resorts like North Beach are nothing more than humble dance pavilions. If any gambling were to take place it would be greeted by scandal. Erbe’s, however, hewed to the European model. At least in its entertainments. The edifice itself was a good deal more primitive.

  New York was rife with betting parlors and poolrooms, but no place was as open about it as Erbe’s. I suppose that was partly because it was so far from the favorite haunts of the morality workers of Manhattan. Erbe, no doubt with the connivance of the local precinct captain, simply took advantage of the neglect.

  We arrived in the barroom about ten. If the White Rats were meeting after the shows in Manhattan, they’d have difficulty arriving before eleven. So we naturally stopped at the bar. After quickly dispatching the first round, Thibaut went into his act. The cricket, the owl, and the tiger were all well received, but it was the ape that truly captivated. He leapt up on the bar, whooping and howling, picking nits, etc. Unable to compete, the fellow at the piano began playing accompaniment.

  I can’t say I was surprised. I’d been exposed to Thibaut’s genius on board the steamship L’Aquitaine. I remember one episode in particular. Each evening after dinner, I’d bring Thibaut a bottle of wine. That was key to my ruse of keeping him distracted. On this occasion, I found him with a bag of mail he’d taken from the hold. He was opening letters and reading them as a way to while away the hours he spent alone. As soon as I provided him an audience, however, he began performing them. Solely through gesture, he revealed the emotional core of each. There was love requited, love unrequited, love forbidden, love betrayed, and a lost puppy in Marseille. A lot of tears were shed that night.

  But let us leave that moving scene and return to the story at hand. With the time now ripe, I went upstairs and began looking around for where the White Rats might be assembled. There was a roulette wheel running and several tables of rouge-et-noir. And off of this main room, smaller ones where fellows were playing poker. I popped into one and then another, and in the third found three fellows not doing much of anything.

  “Private party,” one told me curtly.


  “Excuse me, I was looking for a friend.”

  “Do you see him?”

  “No, but perhaps you know him. Ernie Joy.”

  The three of them gave me hard looks. Well, two of them did. The third made a little stage laugh. But at least I knew I was in the right room.

  “What’s your game, fella?”

  “I’m looking into Mr. Joy’s death.”

  “For who?”

  “Jimmy Yuan, the owner of the establishment where he was shot.”

  I then had to go into a rather lengthy explanation of Yuan’s business and what had happened the night before. Meanwhile, several additional members arrived and it was necessary to begin all over again. The story didn’t sound any less ludicrous on the second telling.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Well, Joy’s death was either the result of an improbable set of coincidences or it was intentional. In which case it had to have an intricate plan behind it. And a motive that required the killer to be beyond suspicion. This was no simple murder, whatever it was.”

  “So what do you want from us?”

  “Was Ernie Joy’s life endangered by his association with the White Rats?”

  “You mean, would the syndicate have him killed to keep him from joining?”

  “They’d just blackball him,” another fellow interjected.

  “Well, if the purpose behind blackballing him was intimidation of others, wouldn’t killing him be even more effective?”

  “Why Ernie? He hadn’t even signed on.”

  “But he was thinking seriously about it, wasn’t he?”

  “Maybe. But there’re others who’ve been in since the beginning.”

  Then one of the late-comers piped up.

  “Why the hell are you telling him all this? Who is he? Do any of you know him?”

  “Maybe he’s on the level, Cliff.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he was sent here by the same people who had Ernie shot. If you’re on the level, tell us what Ernie was really doing in that warehouse.”

  “I told you what I know.”

  “That Ernie went on a midnight tour of a make-believe Chinatown? And you idiots believe that? He’s a damn spy. You know what they did with spies at Homestead? Slit their throats and threw them into the Allegheny.”

  “Monongahela,” I corrected.

  “What?”

  “The great battle at Homestead. It was on the Monongahela, not the Allegheny.”

  “It’s the Ohio that flows through Pittsburgh,” another fellow interjected.

  “The Ohio flows out of Pittsburgh,” I corrected. “The Monongahela and the Allegheny flow into the city.”

  “How the hell does that make any sense?”

  “The Monongahela and the Allegheny are tributaries of the Ohio, which originates in Pittsburgh,” I explained. Or tried to. I suppose I should have known better than to attempt to give a roomful of vaudevillians a lesson in riverine toponymy. My reward was a half dozen blank expressions and a good deal of derisive snickering.

  Then the lights went off and back on, twice.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s a signal. The cops must be on their way to break up the fun.”

  “And the first thing they’ll do is take everyone’s name. We’d better skedaddle.”

  “You’re behind this,” the fellow called Cliff unhelpfully suggested. “A simple way to have us identified.”

  I didn’t wait around to test his skills at throat slitting. One of the more limber fellows crawled out a window and I followed. Unfortunately, I’d chosen a rather poor guide. It was a fifteen-foot drop with not much to hang onto. The first fellow had latched onto a drain pipe and was hanging there precariously. But I went straight down.

  It was one of those rare occasions when one thinks fondly of the pools of mud and manure you come across in stable yards. I wasn’t looking, or smelling, any too good, but the cushion saved me from breaking a leg. I limped behind some shrubs and waited.

  Luckily, the cops didn’t stay long. They left with the roulette wheel and a handful of fellows who looked to be employees of the casino. I imagined this was a form of dunning—Erbe must have been late with the monthly payment. I found Thibaut inside under a table, sound asleep. I shook him awake and we went off to find Emmie and Aunt Nell.

  It must have been close to one by the time we made it back to the farm. Thibaut and I hooted for a good ten minutes, but there were no responses. When we at last arrived home, sometime after four, the apartment was dark. I turned on a light and saw the jacket Aunt Nell had been wearing draped on a chair.

  I said good night to Thibaut. Then after a quick wash, I crept into our room with the light off and quietly slid into bed…. It was empty. Turning on the light, I looked about and saw that someone had been through Emmie’s things. Then I noticed the satchel she kept hung on the closet door was missing. She’d packed and gone off someplace. And without leaving a note.

  I went to Aunt Nell’s room and found the door ajar and the light on. She was sound asleep, but sitting up, as if she’d been trying to stay awake. I was all in myself, so I just turned off the light and went back to our own bed.

  You’re probably wondering why I didn’t show a little more concern over Emmie’s whereabouts. Well, I’d learned long before that investing in any anxiety on Emmie’s behalf brought very meager returns. Granted, in this case a good deal of trouble might have been saved if I had taken some decisive action. But I’m no seer. And, as I said, I was exhausted.

  I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake until I was forced to by Aunt Nell’s persistent prodding.

  “What time is it?” I asked her.

  “Never mind that. Didn’t you notice Emmie was gone?”

  “Yes, I noticed. But she didn’t bother to leave a note.”

  “I was to explain when you got in, but I’m afraid I dozed off,” she said apologetically. “Where did you go last night?”

  “To a meeting of the White Rats.”

  “You might have let us know. We hooted our hearts out.”

  “The cricket charmer showed up?”

  “Yes. About eleven, a lantern went on inside the shanty. Then three men came out. Willie said they were looking for crickets. But that Lou wasn’t among them. Then, a little later, another Chinaman came. This was Lou, Willie told us. He spoke with the others, and took some things from the shack. An older man told him he needed to leave, or the police would catch him. Then gave some more complicated instructions Willie wasn’t sure of. But something about a boat. When you didn’t respond to our hooting, Emmie insisted we follow Lou.”

  “Did Willie go with you?”

  “No, he said he didn’t like spying on his friends like that and he went home. We followed Lou back to the car stop where we had dinner and got on the same car he did, then changed cars when he did. The second car took us over the bridge back to Brooklyn, and at a ferry dock he got off and walked down past a big factory to the river. There were all sorts of boats here and he approached one of the canal boats. He called over to the cabin something we couldn’t make out, and a woman emerged. He handed her a piece of paper and she took it into the cabin, then returned and motioned him to come aboard. By then we were very close and Emmie recognized the woman. ‘That’s Captain Stanton,’ she said.”

  “Who’s Captain Stanton?”

  “I asked her that and she said it was too long a story. She wanted to board immediately, but I dissuaded her. She agreed we would come home and fetch you. Then we heard another man approach Captain Stanton’s boat. He was a seaman of some sort. He called out for the captain and told her she should be ready to leave at 6 a.m.

  “We got back to the apartment about two and waited for you to get home. About half past three, Emmie said she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. I suggested we call the police, but she said the police would be of no use. Then she went in and packed a bag. I was to explain to you that she was going to take a berth on Captain Stanton’
s boat. She told me that the captain did a business transporting Chinamen who’ve been smuggled in from Canada.”

  Then she smiled and added, “It’s just like King Brady, isn’t it?”

  “King Brady?”

  “The dime-novel hero who seems to be in a perennial battle with the highbinders. My cook, Anna, has me read her every issue.”

  “A little too much like that. Are you sure you weren’t reading one as you fell asleep?”

  “It all happened just as I told you, Harry. Emmie could be in grave danger.”

  “Well, if she is, it’s her own fault. Did you see the name of the boat?”

  “The Sophie Arnould.”

  “Do you remember where it was docked?”

  “I think so. But it will be gone now.”

  “Let’s hope they were delayed.”

  After dressing hurriedly we took a cab up to Williamsburg, then walked along the riverfront behind the sugar refineries.

  “It was here.” She pointed to an empty berth.

  I went over to a sloop where some men were loading barrels of sugar and spoke to the fellow watching—and no doubt in charge.

  “Wasn’t the Sophie Arnould berthed here?” I asked.

  “Joining a tow this morning. Behind the Captain Shandy.”

  “Where’s that take place?”

  “Out on the river here. But they’ll be headed up the Hudson by now.”

  “How long’s it take for them to reach Albany?”

  “Oh, two days. Give or take.”

  “I don’t suppose they stop anywhere along the way?”

  “Not usually. She was loaded full with sugar.”

  “Going where?”

  “Oh, up the canal.”

  “Buffalo?”

  “Could be. She came down with lumber for the piano factory, might be from Tonawanda.”

  “The Steinway factory?”

  “That’s right.”

  I thanked him and we headed off to catch a car for home.

  “One thing I forgot to mention, Harry.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When Emmie and I left here earlier, we saw two Chinamen who seemed to also be watching the Sophie Arnould.”

  “Did you recognize them from earlier?”