“You fiddle, do you?” Connelly looked up with interest.
“Ah, the woman doesn’t know what she’s on about. Haven’t touched it in years.”
Half a dozen people were crowded around Seamus, most asking questions about his Victrola. Seamus was having a good time. Everyone in Finn’s was having a good time.
I felt bad Billy had missed it.
* * *
After letting the mellowness at Finn’s swirl around me awhile, I set out for my car. It was where I usually left it in a brick-paved lot near the produce market on Fifth. From the end of the work day until four in the morning or so when small farm trucks bound for the market and workers at coffee shops began to arrive, the lot was fairly empty. Tonight there were maybe eight or ten vehicles.
As I crossed the street to the lot, I heard footsteps behind me, faint but distinguishable. I looked casually back but saw no one. Odd. If someone else was headed this direction, I should have seen them.
Unless they didn’t want to be seen.
My hands already were in my pockets because of the chill evening. Now the fingers of my right hand settled around the familiar contours of my Smith & Wesson. I slowed my steps imperceptibly, then all at once stopped.
The footsteps behind me stopped one step too late.
There was a light pole at Fifth and Patterson. Two other lights shone, not very brightly, on the backs of nearby buildings. Enough illumination reached the parking lot to walk without stumbling, but you couldn’t see far, and the shadows surrounding the few cars remaining were deep.
“Is there some reason why you don’t want to be seen?” I asked aloud.
Silence answered.
There were plenty of bums on the streets, but they didn’t scare me. Mostly they were people out of work with nowhere to go, harmless in ones and twos unless they were crazy. Bums didn’t shy away from making noise. Like the woman in the garbage can that afternoon, they kept clattering away, determined to claim whatever scrap of food or shelter they had their eyes on.
From the corner of my eye I caught movement. There. Parallel to me now, disappearing behind a car. I was sure I’d glimpsed the silhouette of a prominent chin, or a chin with a goatee. A prickling at the base of my neck confirmed it. I eased the gun out of my pocket.
“I have a .38,” I said to the darkness. “I’ve used it a couple of times, and I don’t miss.”
If whoever was there had a gun, they might shoot first but at the distance, in the dark, they weren’t likely to be very accurate. Chancing a quick look around to make sure no one was creeping up from another direction, I began to move toward my car. My keys were in my free hand.
“Last chance to come out from behind that car. Trolley’s just about due. If I start shooting, they’re bound to hear it and stop.”
A shape broke free of the shadows and bolted away. The light on a nearby warehouse caught the merest flash of a fleeing man with jug ears. He sprinted toward the street. A car appeared out of nowhere and swerved to the curb. The man jumped in. They were gone in the blink of an eye – as fast as they would have been if the man had roughed me up or stuck a knife in me.
I got into my DeSoto and punched down the door locks. A pulse was racing in my throat.
I had no more doubts that Draper’s partner was real.
Twenty-two
Frank Keefe asked me out three times the following morning. If I hadn’t already made him out for a skirt chaser who probably saw a turndown as a challenge, I might have been flattered.
The first time was shortly after I’d gotten in from dropping my weekly laundry bundle at Spotts’ Cleaners. I’d been through the mail and was just commencing the inside pages of The Journal when the phone rang.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said. “The Biltmore? Hotel Miami?”
“Thank you again, Mr. Keefe, but didn’t I tell you no yesterday?”
“That was yesterday.”
I smiled in spite of myself.
“You’re a charmer,” I acknowledged. “And I suspect it would be a lot of fun. But the answer’s no for today, too.”
I’d managed to skim my way through four more pages before the phone rang again.
“How about tomorrow, then? If the places I mentioned don’t appeal, how about the Saville?”
This time I laughed. He was persistent, I’d give him that. Why was he showing this interest in me?
“It’s not the places, and it’s not the day of the week. I just make it a point not to mix business and pleasure.”
“I thought you were just tying up loose ends.”
Touché.
“I’m as loose as they come,” he coaxed. “I might let you tie me up, too, but I’d need to think about that part.”
I shook my head. Even by telephone, he was enjoying this sparring. So was I, as a matter of fact. What were the odds he had a wife and kiddies tucked up somewhere?
“Mr. Keefe, don’t you have work to do?”
“Not as much as an honest man would,” he said cheerfully.
“Find some. And thank you again.”
I hung up. Surely that would be the end of it.
Five minutes later the phone rang again.
“How about just cocktails then? Today after work? You wouldn’t risk being seen with a roué like me late at night.”
“Mr. Keefe–”
“Don’t think I don’t find you completely tantalizing, Miss Sullivan – because I do. But a couple of things have occurred to me which you might find useful regarding... your current matter. Whether they are or not is hard to say, since I don’t really know what you’re looking for.”
I leaned back in my chair. He’d met with Hill yesterday. Maybe he’d learned something. Or maybe he was up to something.
“Fine,” I said. “How about Scott’s?” It was on Second, not too far from either of our offices.
“Quarter past five?” Keefe asked.
“Okay.”
“I’ll look for your lovely blue scarf,” he said.
* * *
Sitting and speculating what Keefe might tell me held some appeal. My plans for the morning were already laid out, though. They consisted of a tête-à-tête with Vern. I flipped through the rest of that morning’s paper and was opening the drawer to get my purse when somebody knocked at the door. Before I could answer, an arm appeared waggling a sack which I knew by its aroma held donuts. Jenkins followed the arm.
“Thought you might be ready for sustenance,” he said offering it. “That gruel you eat for breakfast can’t fill you up much.”
I bit off a nibble. It was warm and crumbly.
“Daily News paying its photographers to sit around taking donut breaks these days, are they?”
“Going to be running pictures of the Pope’s funeral ’til hell freezes over,” he sniffed. “Such a backlog of local ones I figure I can take half the shots I usually do the next few days and still be okay. Besides...” He paused dramatically. “I thought you should see I can find out about drunken socialites as well as any gossip harpy.”
He looked smug. I enjoyed my donut.
“Nellie Thorndike, daughter of Chester, was discreetly escorted out of a bash at Hotel Miami,” he began, counting off fingers.
I smiled as if tickled all the way to my toes.
“Europa Blaine’s wrecked two cars, maybe three. Daddy gave her a bigger car – and her own chauffeur.”
I smiled.
“Ferris Wildman’s sister got so stink-o she took a swing at a cop. She might have good reason to stray, too, since hubby’s a sponger and did time behind bars.”
I frowned to keep my interest from showing. “Wildman,” I said. “Who’s that?”
He attempted a look of pity, reveling in my lack of knowledge.
“Probably the richest of the bunch.”
“Blaine owns a railroad.”
“So does Wildman, probably. Or part of one. He owns pieces of a lot of things.”
“And all these women are p
laying hanky-panky with businessmen? Or maybe the same man?”
Jenkins’ face fell. “Well, I don’t know anything there–”
“In other words, the only thing you’ve brought me is donuts.” I twirled a pencil between my fingers. “Tell you what, I have a line on a woman who might know something about the lady in question. She’s moved to Chicago, though, so I need a phone number.”
“Why would I be able to get it any better than you?”
“Because, my dear, they were socially prominent. Her name’s Lucinda Graham.”
“Ah.”
“I’m sure your fête and fashion pages will want to carry a paragraph on them from time to time – Daytonians making a splash in the big city with their elegant dinner or whatever. Ergo, the gals who work on those pages have it. Get it and I just might cancel your debt.”
I stood and collected my purse.
“Always delightful to see you, Jenkins, but I need to be somewhere.”
* * *
Vern Tarkington’s auto showroom was on North Main, at a prime location. He ought to be making a pretty penny. I turned into the lot, still shaking off a few drops of guilt over making Jenkins think the information he’d unearthed for me was useless. Most of it was, but what he’d turned up about Vern being in prison was pure gold. I expected it to come in handy in the chat I was about to have with Wildman’s brother-in-law.
As soon as I stepped through the door, a salesman came strolling me. He had his hands in his pocket and was shaped like an egg.
“Say, that’s a dandy little DeSoto you drove up in,” he smiled. “Couple years old? I’ll bet you want to move up to something a little nicer – a little more stylish. Am I right?”
“Actually,” I looked coyly down and fluttered my lashes, “I’m here to see Vern.”
Only the briefest of pauses ensued before he adapted. His smile remained fixed in place.
“Of course.” He gestured politely. “Vern’s in his office.”
Apparently I wasn’t the first girl to come in hunting his boss.
A secretary or clerk of some sort sat at a desk in front of two partitioned-off rooms at one end of the showroom. The door to the one on the left was open and that room was empty. As the secretary looked up, I put my finger to my lips and raised my shoulders in girlish conspiracy.
“Shhh,” I simpered. “I want to surprise him.”
Before she could answer, I scooted past and opened the door to the right.
“Yoo-hoo, Vernie,” I cooed. “Surprise, surprise!”
I closed the door. Vern had his chair tipped back and his feet on his desk. He was in his shirt sleeves, reading a magazine. His head snapped up. His feet came down.
“Just who are you and what–? I know you. You’re that snoop who was at the house yesterday asking questions.” He rose indignantly. “Get out before I throw you out!”
“Nice to see you, too, Vern.” I pulled down the shade on a small window overlooking the showroom. I figured that probably wasn’t uncommon when Vern had a female visitor.
“You lied to me yesterday, Vern. Since I was brought up to give even people I don’t like a second chance, I’m here to offer you one. I thought you might prefer to talk without your wife around. If not I can invite her, and maybe her brother–”
“How dare you accuse me of lying!” Across his forehead beads of sweat now detracted from his carefully waved hair.
“Because you did.”
Uninvited, I sat down in the chair in front of his desk and undid my coat.
“What’ll it be, Vern? A cozy talk here, or include your wife?”
Vern gritted his teeth. He sat without grace.
“You came around asking if we knew somebody named Draper,” he snapped. “We said we didn’t. And we don’t. Now leave.”
I made a tsk-tsk sound.
“Now that upsets me, Vern, your lying to me again. You went to Draper’s office. You tossed your matchbook down on his secretary’s desk. The matchbook advertising this business.”
He laughed harshly.
“Honey, I pass out hundreds to people. Or they pick them up when they come here looking at cars.”
“His secretary remembers you. You threw it at her.”
“So what? Okay, I went to see Draper. I was trying to sell him a car! I go to see lots of people.”
“Is that the best you can do, Vern? Your were trying to sell him a car?”
“Believe whatever you want,” he said belligerently. “It’s the truth. Then rumors started that he’d swindled people. When I saw you there in the study, and you started grilling me like you’d grilled Dorothy, I knew what you’d think–”
“What would that be?”
“That I was mixed up in it. Dorothy’s brother treats me like scum. He’d like nothing better than to connect me to Draper – frame me if he had to–”
“Quit lying, Vern. Draper’s secretary jotted down every person who came in and what they wanted. When you slung that matchbook at her, you also told her to tell Draper ‘he’ll be sorry if he tries to dodge Vern’.”
Vern saw he was cornered. He moved with surprising speed, springing up, rounding the desk, grabbing me by the shoulders. I’d anticipated the move and let his own momentum help. As he bent to yank me to my feet I threw my weight toward him instead of resisting. With a string of profanity he toppled back, losing his footing as he hit the desk. He landed sprawled on his elbows. His eyes glittered hate.
“For the record, Vern, you don’t scare me much. Not with all your phony muscles parked on the coatrack.”
I nodded toward his suit coat with its absurdly augmented shoulders. A snarl escaped him.
“Now level with me unless you want me to tell Dorothy’s brother that you’ve done time in the pen.” I was only guessing that he’d kept it from Wildman, but Vern’s face went white. “Dorothy recognized Draper’s name yesterday. How? And please don’t tell me she sells cars too.”
More beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. Other places too. I could smell his fear.
“She’d – overheard her brother talking to someone. One day when she went there. It – they were talking about investing in some deal of Draper’s.”
He licked his lips. I was standing so close to his knees that he couldn’t sit up without tangling with me, which for the moment he didn’t seem inclined to try. He remained on his elbows, watching me warily.
“What else?” I prompted.
His eyes slid toward the door as if seeking deliverance. Or evaluating his chance of escape.
“I... I knew Doro’s brother wouldn’t let us borrow money from him. So I talked to the bank. I went to see Draper to ask if he’d let me in on the deal. But he’d already taken off. That’s all.”
He licked his lips again. Somewhere along the way he was lying. If I squeezed him now he’d clam up. If I let it go, there was a decent chance nervousness and his anger at me would make him do something stupid. Vern wasn’t dumb, but he wasn’t half as clever as he probably thought himself.
“Muss your hair up, Vern.”
“What?”
“Muss your hair up.”
Reluctantly he raised a hand and halfway complied. By then I was at the door. Opening it wide enough for anyone interested to get a peek, I called back in my coquettish voice.
“Oh, Vern, you’re such a kidder.”
The clerk outside kept her eyes fixed assiduously on some paperwork. I leaned in and gave her a cheery wink anyway.
“Isn’t he a kidder?”
Twenty-three
I left Vern’s showroom and drove down a block. Then I turned around and found a parking spot where I could sit and watch in case he came storming out in a hurry to tell somebody I’d been there. Our encounter hadn’t done anything to change my opinion that Vern didn’t have what it would have taken to be Draper’s partner, but he knew something about the whole business that he wasn’t telling me. After thirty minutes of sitting and watching, all I had was a fogged up wind
shield and cold toes. I drove back downtown and had a bowl of soup and a mug of coffee to warm up.
After that I paid a brief visit to Stuart Wildman’s governness, who was pleasant and gracious but said she didn’t know the first thing about his father’s business associates. From there I headed for the address where Rogers the chauffeur rented a room. I’d gone half a dozen blocks when an alarm at the back of my brain began to go off. Had that old gray Chrysler I saw in the rearview mirror been behind me ever since I’d left Wildman’s place? Had I glimpsed it even earlier than that? Maybe when I’d first set out from downtown?
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 12
