by B A Black
Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Epilogue.
About the Author
Cold Was the Ground
A Houston Mars Mystery
◆◆◆
B.A. Black
Copyright © 2019 by B.A. Black All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected]
FIRST EDITION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not exist without the help, encouragement, and wrangling of my dedicated editor Stacy and my supportive author friends. Thanks for all the Tuesdays!
To Misha, who gave Houston his name.
1.
In the first years of the big, hungry depression, blues gets brighter, sings more closely in duet with every man’s heart. The gin-stinking air is the only fresh breath to be had. People come north into the cold, not because the chances of making it are better but because Chicago is only a rowboat ride from Canada and real booze. They can’t grow enough in their desiccated and dusty fields to turn a decent crop in their own stills and bathtubs.
It’s December 4th, 1930, and downstairs the black, frozen street cuts through the snow like a slash from a straight razor. Houston Mars stands in his sparse office and watches the icy street glitter threateningly under the wan street lights. His thoughts turn over slow and quiet—muffled memories of old betrayals.
It seems appropriate company to the voice sliding out the open door of his partner’s office—Bessie Smith singing ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’ like a great jazz prophet, narrating the lives of so many men. The saddest jazz marking the dying of music and men and spirit. It’s one of the few records his partner hasn’t hocked.
Nobody’ll buy them now.
Houston is watching the front door of the building, hoping one of the passers-by will hitch up their tired shoulders and walk in, labor up three flights of creaking stairs and push open the frosted glass door of their combined offices.
No one does. In Salvatore’s office, the music sighs to an end, the hiss of the needle over spinning, blank record.
Houston hears Sal lift the needle, and then the metal clunk and catch of his petrol desk lighter. The scent of tobacco comes next. On good days, smelling tobacco when he hasn’t had any in a while is easy. Cigarettes remind him of the trench—of periods of work followed by agonizing, tense boredom. If he’s not working, he doesn’t smoke.
“We better close down,” Sal’s voice proceeds him. Houston doesn’t turn around.
There’s some echo in him, an emptiness and iciness reflected up from the street below. It holds him hypnotized.
“Say,” Sal says. “Did you hear me, Mars? It’s almost six. If we want to get home-”
Houston isn’t so sure he does want to get home. After the war, he used to have a good apartment, a promising start in police academy. The bright gleam of the 20’s blinded him. Like vision only comes back slowly after a photographic flash bulb goes off, things have transformed in the aftermath to a black and white image. His new apartment is no treat— a dismal gray box like an afterimage on the bad side of town.
“What are you in such a hurry for?” Houston asks Sal, as he straightens his back a little. It’s lighter inside than outside, turning the dirty glass pane of the window into a poor mirror. Over his shoulder, the ghostly figure of his partner has a telltale glance at his watch, a hesitation that lasts a moment too long.
Suddenly, Houston knows what he’s in a hurry for. South of the Loop. Trouble.
“It’s cold outside,” Sal says. “Dark. The bus only runs ‘til seven.”
“Alright,” Houston says. “Pack up then. You’re gonna have a long, cold walk home.”
“Who said I wasn’t going home?” Sal asks, but he doesn’t make a fight of it. He steps out of sight. Down below, Houston watches the six o’clock bus pass by.
“You got that look in your eyes,” Houston says, letting his tone creep low, trying to keep it neutral.
“What look?” Sal demands, indignant. He leans back into the doorway.
“It’s cold outside,” Houston says. He doesn’t want to admit concern, or to think about his partner holed up and helpless, deep under. He’s seen men drown. “Your back, huh?”
“All winter,” Sal admits. He’s shrugging into his old, heavy wool coat. The lining is slowly tearing out. “Been a cold one.”
Houston turns around. His partner, Salvatore Costanzo, is a Brooklyn-born Italian from a big immigrant family. They’ve scattered themselves all over the continent like dandelion seeds. Sal has Jean Gabin good looks: a thin, tall man with impeccable jet black hair and none of the inclination toward roundness that his brothers—six of them—display. For an Italian, his nose isn’t bad either.
In this light, his eyes are dark. They don’t catch anything, scatter nothing back. They’ve always caught Houston like that, drawing him in and down. There’s a cigarette in Sal’s mouth as he pulls on his gloves. Houston tells himself indulging once will make the next time he has to go without worse, does his best to convince himself of the argument.
“You gonna stay all night, Mars?” Sal asks, tipping his head toward the door. “Still thinking about the one that got away?”
“You just missed the bus,” Houston tells him. He tells himself that he knows Sal means their last case, purloined from their doorstep by one of Chicago’s finest.
“Another one will be along,” Sal says
“I’ll stay a little longer,” Houston says. “Maybe someone will bring us some trouble.”
“Sure. Maybe Santy Claus. Don’t miss the last bus, Mars.”
Houston promises he won’t, and his partner graces him with one of his dazzling, mysterious smiles. The kind that suggests he’s an older being than his body allows, some creature who knows all the secrets of the universe. It’s a cheshire smile, exactly the sort Houston imagined as a child when his mother read to him about Alice’s adventures. Sad and manic and well-deep.
Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin…
If Sal does know everything, he’d know what a dismal place Houston has to return to. Home is no warmer and no more welcoming than the office. As cold as the glittering street below.
Houston watches Sal track dirty footprints into the pristine snow of the sidewalk, watches him board the six-fifteen bus for The Chute, and then watches the falling snow cover the tracks back up again. Two years ago, Vice shut down the bars and the more obvious brothels in the Levee, and cleaned out all the working girls who couldn’t pay them to look the other way. You can still catch a ride down there, if you have the cash; not many do. The girls are going hungry too. You can also, if you know where to look, catch a dragon.
Houston doesn’t think about it. Instead, he discovers that Sal’s left the light on in his office again. There’s a half-empty cup of cold coffee on Sal’s desk. Houston picks up the cup, turns off the light, and drinks the dregs. No sense wasting it when guys on the street were begging for a dime. The faint taste of his partner’s tobacco lingers. Houston pushes his hand absently against his mouth for the pressure, and rinses the mug out. The sink only runs cold water. He sets the mug upside-down next to his own chipped cup and starts to close up shop.
By the time he’s cleaned up and got his coat on, leaving the tap on in the bathroom to drip so the pipes don’t freeze, the snow is getting heavier.
It’
ll be a long, cold night for war veterans, Houston thinks. He was lucky, pulled over in the reserve medical corps in the last month of the war. It was messy, hellish work, but he hadn’t been shot. He saw enough of that to know to be thankful for it, and some days he lights a candle to St. Michael to ease the shouting ghosts in his mind when he wakes with nightmares of sawing through endless limbs, suturing countless holes.
He’s missed all but the very last bus, and Houston waits in the pale light of the street lamp, breath a big cloud whenever he exhales, and wishes he could see the stars. The night is a purple-gray, awash in thick, heavy snow. Cars nose along the streets in slow motion, sound eaten up by the thousands and thousands of hungry flakes—silent as they pass. It’s a killing night, Houston thinks. The kind that takes people without shelter and sends them away forever.
Would the pearly gates look like this? Would the people the cold claimed be able to tell the difference between white drifts, except for the end of the pain and cold they felt? Houston hasn’t had the money for cigarettes in weeks. He wishes he checked Sal’s ashtray, resolutions be damned.
A figure appears out of the snow, like a vision in the desert. Some shining mirage that would recede as you approached, desperate to survive. A hurried woman walks down the street with quick steps toward him.
Houston watches her with his hands jammed into his pockets, taking in the fur stole, the patent leather handbag. She’s in the wrong part of town. Her heels cut through the snow fearlessly, warriors felling foes. He knows that her determination paired with her clouded expression means trouble.
She tries the door he just locked.
“It’s closed,” he says, raising his voice over the consuming silence of the night. She wheels around, startled, her blue eyes wide and dark with fear.
“It’s okay,” he assures her. With the heels, she’s taller than he is. Her bag looks strangely heavy. A formidable weapon, maybe. “We usually close at five.”
“Are you Houston Mars?” she asks, and he notes how she keeps both her hands on the bag now. Afraid he might say no, try to take it from her.
“Down to my bones,” Houston says. Now he really wishes he had a cigarette.
“Please,” she says, looking back the way she came. “I need to talk with you.”
Houston knows she isn’t the sort of woman in the sort of trouble that will bring her back tomorrow during business hours. He nods, moving forward to unlock the door again without a word, as the final bus rolls by.
◆◆◆
Upstairs, Houston turns the lights back on and gives the radiator a crank.
“Sorry ma’am,” he says, as he pulls out the other chair in his office for her, letting her get settled. “Would you like some coffee? I can’t offer anything but black.
It might settle her obviously rattled nerves.
“No, thank you,” she says, clutching her purse in her lap like a shield. “Do you mind if I smoke, Detective Mars?”
“Not at all,” Houston says, fishing out the ashtray he keeps hidden away. Top drawer—active cases—empty except for the big glass tray. In the bottom, it says Chesterfield, a giveaway from a more prosperous time.
“My partner smokes,” Houston explains, hoping not to seem desperate. Clients don’t like to know you are their only case, unless they are asking you to drop everything else.
“Sure,” she says, in a frail tone that suggests she doesn’t buy his almost-lie for a second.
“You got a light, Detective?” she asks, pulling a thin pack of smokes out of her purse. “My matches are all wet.”
“Sure,” he says, getting up. Of course she’s the sort of woman who never needs to light her own cigarette, not that Houston pays much attention to such things. Houston’s lighter is out of petrol, but he knows Sal’s is on his desk.
He returns with the lighter, working the good flint only once before it catches. Houston can see the wedding ring on her hand, now that her divested gloves are folded demurely on his desk. “So what can I do for you, Missus …”
“Winsome,” she says, offering her free hand, palm down. “Alfreda Winsome.”
Houston knows the name—an old family with stock in steel, some of the folks who made out the best after the war. They even still seem to have a little money, if they aren’t playing pretend until all their nightmares go away like so many other well-to-do folks seem to be.
He takes her hand politely, but doesn’t press his mouth to it. Her skin is cold.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Winsome,” he says, calculating how much trouble she has to be in to send her so far downtown. “You must be married to Charles.”
The youngest son. It’s guess-work. Houston knows the older two “boys”—Arthur Jr. and Robert Winsome—are in their fifties by now, raising their own sons to inherit the family business, if anything is left of it or the country after the depression is done with it. Charles, younger by twenty years, is from old Arthur Winsome’s second marriage. He was a surprise, sired by Arthur when the man was in his seventies.
“Why, yes,” Mrs. Winsome states in a sugary-sweet tone of surprise. Houston gets the impression she uses it often on men who like to “impress a gal” and like to know how clever they are for doing so. “How ever did you know? Alfie and Charlie, isn’t it just obscene?”
She says the last with resignation and a sad smile that passes over her features like the changing of the leaves in fall. It renders her face as bare and anguished as winter branches afterward.
“Just a lucky guess, Mrs. Winsome,” Houston says. “What seems to be the trouble?”
For a long moment she smokes, appearing to gather her thoughts.
Finally, she says, “It’s my husband, Detective Mars. Charlie is missing, and I’m worried that this time, he’s not coming back.”
There’s a long pause while she lights another cigarette, Houston steadying the lighter for her. It seems to take a lot out of her to admit her worry, and in that, Houston has some clue to what Alfreda Winsome must be like normally — a real tough dame. Respectable. The kind of girl who will get in up to her elbows when push and shove come together.
“The thing you have to know about my husband is that he’s no stranger to wandering,” she says, exhaling smoke into the haze slowly filling Houston’s office. “This isn’t the first time he hasn’t been home in a couple of days.”
“You think he’s unfaithful?” Houston asks. It wouldn’t be his first case of cheating husband.
She laughs, a rich sound, bright like the the bells ringing down in the sad streets over empty Salvation Army buckets.
“You don’t know my husband, Detective,” she says. “I’m sorry to laugh at you, it's just—you must be the last person in this entire world who doesn’t know.”
Houston doesn’t like the sound of what’s coming, like a storm with his name on it rattling the shutters.
“My husband is a sally,” she says, with no sign of shame or flinching. “A homosexual, they say now, like a diagnosis.”
Houston says nothing, tries to show no reaction. He wants, very badly, a cigarette.
“And that, I have to say, suits me just fine, Detective Mars,” she continues, in a high, tight, defensive tone. “A girl’s got enough to worry about on the street without having to be on guard at home, if her man’s going to get drunk and start in on her.”
“That’s a very dark worldview,” Houston says.
“That’s my world, Detective. A woman’s world. When things go bad for you men, they get worse for us.”
“I suppose that must be true, if you’re saying it,” Houston says, as charming as he can manage. He tries to steer the conversation back toward safer territory. “If I’m following you, Mrs. Winsome, it’s not uncommon for your husband to be gone for several days in search of favorable company…”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she accuses. “How could I marry a man like that?”
Houston shakes his head, but he doesn’t verbally deny it. It’s a dangerous
world for men like Charles Winsome and Houston Mars. “I’m not in the business of passing judgment, ma’am. Just trying to lay the facts out as they are. Why don’t you tell me the whole story?”
She gives him an assessing eye that would make St. Peter jealous at his pearly gates. “I was told you wouldn’t judge, Detective, but I had a hard time believing it.”
“Other people’s laundry pays my bills,” Houston says, as carefully as he can. “If everybody was squeaky clean all the time, I’d be out of work.”
That seems to settle Mrs. Winsome at last. She puts down the shield of her purse, and Houston finally settles back into his chair across from her. He pulls out his notepad.
“It’s like you said, Detective. Charlie sometimes spends several days out of the house,” she admits, with a long drag off her cigarette. “He’d always tell me when he was going, for how long he thought he’d be gone. Charlie didn’t want me to worry, and for the most part, I didn’t. What he did was dangerous, but Charlie never ran into anyone scary. I met a few of his friends and they were lovely. Like Charlie—not a mean bone in their bodies.”
Houston doesn’t argue that he’s met plenty of mean men “like Charlie”. He makes a shorthand note. “And this last time?”
“Started like any other. Charlie said he was going out with a few friends. They have a boat and a fishing lodge up on the lake.”
“When was this?” Houston asks, beginning to solidify a picture of events. A boat was smart. No chance for any wayward eyes, good excuse of fishing or sporting. Private. If it was a nice boat, comfortable.
“It was Saturday, Detective. This one just past.”
“And how long does he usually stay out?” Houston asks, eyes on the page.
“Like I said, usually a day or two. He’s careful,” she says. “Charlie never wanted his father or brothers to find out. He said it would have just killed the old man. He hasn’t been any less cautious after Arthur died, but there are, of course, suspicions. His friends all know, of course.”