The Pearl Dagger

by L. A. Chandlar

  So it was on this bustling day that we ended up at the police station and we were all reminded of Fio’s legal background. By law, the mayor can sit as magistrate. The station was suddenly a court and a blur of action. Fio covered several cases, getting to the bottom of them quickly.

  I was pooped. It had been a long day of running around. It was stuffy inside our makeshift courthouse and smelled like sweat, old food, and hopes teetering on the edge of redemption and disaster. My back hurt from the hard bench I’d been sitting on for a long time, and I stifled a yawn as the final person came forward.

  A middle-aged, rather nondescript man came up. He’d been arrested for running slot machines and pinball machines in his deli. The guy was too skinny and had a weirdly invisible quality. Despite his gauntness, a small paunch pushed out and over his belt, his oily balding head shined from the yellow lights, and his shoulders caved inward, weirdly giving him the same malformed look as the older, persevering rats in the subway. But I couldn’t really say what color hair or eyes he had, it was all too vague. He gave me the willies. I watched as he drank a glass of water, dribbling a little out of his mouth. When he spoke up about his case, his voice was whiny, capping off the sleazy persona and bringing Dickens’s Uriah Heep to mind.

  Fiorello listened to this Mr. Eugene Murk with distaste written all over his face. He found that the pinball machines and slots were mechanical larceny and the players didn’t get a gambler’s chance.

  He topped the day off with a resounding declaration that shook the station: “Only a moron or imbecile could get a thrill out of watching these sure-thing devices take people’s money. Let this serve notice to owners, racketeers, and other riffraff who run this racket that they will enjoy no comfort!”

  The skinny, greasy Eugene would be held for trial. But as he left the makeshift courtroom sullenly and with a few policemen outright laughing at him, he turned around and gave Fio a look that I’d never be able to erase from my mind. The hair raised on the back of my neck. I got a bad feeling that this would not be the last of Eugene Murk.

  CHAPTER 3

  Roarke had heard about our busy day and met me at the office after work, dying to hear all that had happened. Needing to breathe, and to be in a place that exuded energy and life, we headed uptown to meet our friends at one of our favorite spots, the Savoy. We quickly ditched our coats in the coat room after we paid our entrance fee of sixty cents.

  Roarke and I looked at each other with silly, eager grins. The music was pumping through the massive place, its earthy, rebellious sound making me walk faster into the heart of the fun, looking for our friends who were to meet us here. “Stompin’ at the Savoy” just happened to be playing, written a few years ago by Chick Webb; he was leading the band tonight. I pulled Roarke along with me, into the thronging masses.

  The room was dazzling with its soaring ceiling and double bandstand that ensured the music never stopped. If one band needed a break, the other one on the opposite side took up where they left off. Large mirrors covered the pink walls, with twinkling colored lights, and a spring-loaded floor that was scrubbed every night and replaced every three years. But the most shining, exhilarating aspect was the people at the Savoy.

  We spotted a couple of familiar faces and went by to say hello. Two NYPD officers, Pete, an on-again-off-again boyfriend of Valerie’s, and Scott, a constantly amused friend because he had the funny ability of showing up at my most spectacular moments. Such as tackling a would-be purse snatcher and arriving at the police station in high style, perched on the end of a junk cart.

  “Hi, Pete! Scott! How are you?” I greeted.

  “Great! Boy, this place is hopping tonight,” exclaimed Pete, whose head was several inches above everyone else’s.

  We all took a moment to enjoy the energy, then grabbed the nearest person and joined the dance. The hot music swirled around us, and the camaraderie of the physical art of dance united us all. Ever since the day it opened, the Savoy was consistently near capacity, a staggering four thousand. I swear the place held a kind of magic. Despite the racial tensions outside those doors, inside the ballroom, no one cared one iota if you were poor or rich, black or white, uptown or downtown . . . you just had to dance.

  Roarke and I were doing our best with the Lindy hop and I overheard the couple next to us. The guy said to the gal, “Hey! Clark Gable just walked in the house!”

  The gal replied loudly over the music, “Oh yeah? Can he dance?”

  Roarke and I grinned at each other as we heard this exchange. Just then I felt a heavy-handed tap on my shoulder.

  “May I cut in?”

  I looked behind me, then had to raise my eyes way up to greet the giant man standing behind me. “Sam! How are ya? Sure! Let’s go!”

  Roarke nodded to Sam Battle and quickly found another partner. Sam was a close friend, and he and his wife, Florence, frequently went out with Finn and me. Florence was dancing with her brother, and their fancy footwork just about set the floor on fire. The determined set to her jaw as she concentrated on her moves was in complete juxtaposition to her prim pearls and the utter joy that shot sparks through her eyes. Her bobbed hair bounced in time with the music, and she squealed with glee when they executed a perfect Lift Flip up and over his shoulder.

  Sam was a very large man and quite the vigorous dancer. I braced myself because dancing with him was like dancing with a thunderstorm. He flung me around and I pretty much just had to hold on for dear life. I enjoyed every second.

  This might have been the only place in the country where a white person could dance with a black person and people didn’t look at the two opposite-colored hands touching; they looked at the rhythm, the footwork, and the absolute joy of the dance.

  Sam and Finn hit it off last summer when we saw Voodoo Macbeth together. Usually Irish policemen didn’t socialize with black policemen. But Finn had dealt with a lot of discrimination aimed at himself back in England because of his Irish roots. When Finn had firsthand experience of being denied a position with Scotland Yard simply because he was born in the wrong place and had the looks of an Irishman, not to mention signs in store windows saying No Dogs, No Irish, it affected him deeply.

  Thinking back to our date at the theater, there was just something about that Voodoo production of Orson Welles’s. At the theater, I kept watching Finn out of the corner of my eye, wanting to see his expressions during the magnificent show. His face had a raw look, completely unveiled, uninhibited. But one scene in particular had hit Finn hard.

  Double, double, toil and trouble;

  Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

  Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

  Then the charm is firm and good.

  I felt a twinge of concern as a curtain of emotion had come over him, filling his eyes with wariness and a kind of fear. What was the cause of that? At the end, it was obvious that the play had moved him. He adored Welles’s adaptation, its eerie jungle theme and hypnotic drums. It was absolutely spellbinding and thought-provoking.

  Just then I was suddenly brought back from those thoughts as Sam lifted me high up and then into a stomach-dropping dip, my hair brushing against the floor, his big grin never quitting. I was right back up again and my muscles were starting to feel flimsy when Sam bellowed, “Finn! Over here!” My rubbery arms were pretty relieved for the pause in the action.

  “Sam, thanks for the dance!” I yelled.

  Finn shook hands with the six-foot-three-inch-tall, almost three-hundred-pound man and energetically slapped him on the back. Then he laid eyes on me and scooped me up.

  “Hi, love,” he said as he gently pulled me close and turned to the mellow tune with a smoldering saxophone. I always enjoyed dancing with Finn. And I didn’t have to brace myself quite as much as I did with Sam.

  I sighed. “This is nice.”

  I felt his chuckle. “You looked a bit like a rag doll with Sam.”

  “I felt like a rag doll. He’s a one-dance-a-night kind of guy.”

 
“And your favorite red shoes are scuffed,” he remarked in his British accent tinged with Irish, which I happened to find very attractive.

  I had forgotten about that from my escapade with Roarke the day before. I could have easily scratched them while dancing, but something in my eyes must have looked shifty. I was thinking of the sleuthing with Roarke that always ended up with us running away from criminals.

  Finn’s eyes narrowed as they pierced mine. I tried to look innocent. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Oh dear.”

  I changed the topic. “Come on! Let’s go get a drink.” I took him by the hand and we threaded our way through the crowd to the long bar. They didn’t serve hard liquor, so we ordered two beers instead of a trendy cocktail. The cold, frothy lager hit the spot.

  “I have an appointment with Commissioner Valentine and Fio tomorrow afternoon,” said Finn as he placed his glass on the counter.

  “Oh yeah? New case?” I asked.

  “Well, it might be an old one.”

  “Another Red Scroll mystery?” I asked with a dubious cock to my eyebrow.

  “Not sure. As you know, that gangster the Crusher has been making thinly veiled threats against Fiorello because of his penchant for demolishing the whole pinball racket.”

  Knowing I wasn’t good at hiding things from Finn, such as my more dangerous moments from sleuthing around on this exact case, I took a big swig of my beer, hiding my face behind the glass.

  He squinted knowingly at me, but kept going. “Well, I’m wondering if they think the leftover crew from Donagan might be behind it.”

  “And therefore the Red Scroll Network.” He nodded. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t have their panache. Besides, we don’t know for sure what happened with Donagan, who killed him, and if there really was some sort of heir to the Network,” I said.

  “True. But I think Fiorello and Valentine want us to make certain that it’s dead.”

  Just a month or so ago, a few criminals were after the proof of identity to claim the legacy of Rex Ruby, leader of the Red Scroll Network. We’d thought the heir was Donagan Connell, and when we found his dead body, the final gold pawn upon his bloody chest (Rex’s last pawn), we knew Donagan’s underground crime syndicate had come to an end. But just who killed Donagan? I was guessing that person was the heir. And then what?

  I filled him in on most of the details of my sleuthing with Roarke. “Finn, so Roarke has an informant, Punchy, who found a message that he’d been hired to take to someone, but he hadn’t known who. That message was about Fio and getting him out of the way.”

  He ordered another beer, then said to me, “I take it you and Roarke followed him to see whom he was meeting. Yes?”

  “Yep. And it was definitely the Crusher.”

  “Well, that confirms that he’s most likely the one behind all these mutterings. Thanks. We’ll keep an eye on him. Did you . . . get into any trouble?” he asked warily.

  “Nah. Nothing much. Hey, look! Clark Gable really is here!” I stood on tiptoe to get a better look at him.

  “I wonder if he can dance,” said Finn with a cheeky grin.

  CHAPTER 4

  The following day, I sat at my white chair in my smoky-blue room, cup of coffee in hand, reading before the beginning of the day. The front door downstairs burst open to a cacophony of Ripley’s barking and Fiorello’s bellowing. I walked to my dresser and checked my shoulder-length brown hair. I smoothed my navy-blue jacket and cream skirt, and added some rose-pink lipstick. It hadn’t snowed in a bit, so I was okay wearing high heels to work without boots. I slipped on a navy pair with little ankle straps and headed downstairs.

  Fiorello was already at the table enjoying a coffee and some scrambled eggs and bacon.

  “Morning, Mr. Kirkland, Aunt Evelyn, Fio!”

  “Laney Lane, my girl!” greeted Fiorello.

  “Grrrrrr.” Our usual banter brought a smile to my face. “How are you, Fio? How’s Jean’s cold? Feeling better?”

  “Oh, yes, yes. Just needed a bit of a rest.” The La Guardias had two children whom they adored. Fortunately, his daughter’s bout of sickness was just a small thing. Everyone dreaded pneumonia, and the seasonal outbreaks of scarlet fever. I’d heard of a new drug possibility, they called it penicillin, but it sounded like a miracle medicine, just too good to be true. Something that would stop pneumonia in its tracks? I had two friends die in elementary school from a simple scratch that turned into blood poisoning, and several more that contracted scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Every season it seemed some young child died on the block. I wondered what it would be like to have a drug that stopped that. I feared it would never happen. But one could hope.

  Aunt Evelyn retrieved the pot of coffee and patted Fio’s shoulder as she walked by. “Good, Fio, I’m so delighted. You need to bring the family over soon! We haven’t seen them in quite a while!”

  I studied Kirkland’s face as he thought about having the La Guardia kids over. Kirkland liked the energetic children, but they adored him and showed it in overwhelming displays of affection, which made him turn all red and bluster around a lot. In fact, I think they scared him a bit.

  We all chitchatted about our day ahead. Aunt Evelyn was working on a particular painting that must have captured her imagination because she kept sending longing looks over toward the stairs that led up to her studio. She was dressed in her long skirt and peasant top that was her favorite painting uniform, and her black hair with fine gray streaks cascaded down her back.

  “You don’t have to stay, you can go paint right now, Aunt Evelyn,” I said with a sardonic grin.

  She blushed and sputtered, “Oh no, no. I’m fine. I just have a good idea. I need to work on it today because tomorrow, Nina and I are going to the Jewish Theological Seminary to see some of the museum pieces.”

  “Oh? For inspiration on your own work?” I asked.

  “Actually, I’m trying to convince Frieda Warburg to donate their family mansion—it’s utterly a behemoth for them to keep up—especially since Felix, the chancellor, isn’t doing too well. She needs to plan ahead.”

  Aunt Evelyn—artist, philanthropist, rascal—had friends in all places, high and low, notable and obscure, religious and irreligious. Nina Mittman was a close friend and also a patron of the arts. They were always running around to various institutions telling people what to do.

  I chuckled and turned to Fio and said, “Hey, ah, Finn tells me that he has a meeting with you and Commissioner Valentine today.”

  “No, Lane! We have a meeting with Valentine today.” I widened my eyes and was about to say something clever but he interrupted me. “No time to talk! We’ve got work to do!”

  With that daily mantra exclaimed, Fio took up his fedora, cocked it at a rakish angle, and saluted Kirkland in farewell. I grabbed my large purse and notebook, said a quick good-bye all around, and raced off after my boss.

  We took a different way to work every day. Sometimes the bus, sometimes the elevated trains along Second or Third, or the subway along Lexington, or like today, we hopped into the awaiting car.

  “Hi, Ray!” I exclaimed to the driver and self-proclaimed bodyguard. Fio set himself down into the car and immediately got to work. First, he arranged his desk that he had outfitted in the backseat. Then he began rattling off directives to me as he simultaneously looked at his calendar and jotted down his own notes. He wrote a little reminder to stop by his art school.

  Fio adored music and art. He played a mean horn, sometimes at funny moments including the takedown of the Artichoke King and Daley Joseph, two of New York’s infamous criminals. New York audiences often found Fio guest-conducting at the symphony. The High School of Music and Art was his dream, and he made it come true last year. His face lit up every time anyone mentioned the school. Art was life to him. Maybe that’s why he and Aunt Evelyn had a special relationship. They understood each other.

  We arrived at City Hall and I raced up the steps. Inside, I admired the gorgeous
rotunda as I did every day when we climbed toward our offices. I’d never get tired of that view.

  “Morning, love.” And that view was pretty nice, too.

  “Hey, Finn. How are ya?”

  We shared a smile in the doorway to our offices.

  “Ahem.”

  I pulled my eyes away from the grin that consistently sent sizzles up and down my spine, and turned to see Valerie and Roxy, my favorite work cohorts, smirking at us with knowing looks in their glittering eyes. They each had a cup of coffee in their hands, ankles crossed, watching us like an entertaining sideshow. I heard Finn’s chuckle behind me.

  “I’ll see you with the police commissioner at five.”

  “Great. See ya, Finn.” I turned my eyes to my friends, Val in her dark green pantsuit with brass buttons with the high-necked blouse she favored, honey-colored hair perfectly complementing her sweetly freckled face. And petite Roxy, with her to-die-for cleavage nicely highlighted in a black sweater with her short, flaxen hair silhouetting her round face.

  “Enjoying your coffee?” I said with a mock sneer.

  Val’s eyes went wide. “Oh bugger. I thought he had a morning meeting today.”

  “Oh God, he’s here! Go! Go!” yelled Roxy, running for her desk.

  I cackled as they both bolted back to work as I could just hear Fio’s quick footsteps clipping down the hall at the last few feet before the door.

  “Good morning!” he boomed, slamming the door open. The office had been in a nice and busy flurry already, but when the Little Flower entered, we doubled our efforts. And Fio didn’t believe in coffee breaks. So . . .

  I got to my desk and immediately slipped a piece of paper into my typewriter and started typing up the list of items Fiorello discussed on the way in. There was already a line of petitioners waiting. We made our way through the day, the clock utterly not moving. I wanted to get to the meeting with Valentine. I was feeling antsy for some reason.