by Warren Court
The Lady Burns Bright
Copyright © 2019 Warren Court
All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
For Tina and Katherine
Chapter 1
Melanie Fabes was about to step off the pavement to cross against the light when Armour Black grabbed her arm and held her back.
“Be careful,” he said.
“Armour, there’s no traffic.”
“Just wait.”
It was mid-afternoon and they were on Yonge Street in Toronto. The early morning rush on this major thoroughfare in the city had dissipated and there were long stretches where the street was clear, allowing jaywalkers to zigzag across. Nevertheless, Melanie complied and they waited until they had a green light.
They’d spent the morning at the Royal Ontario Museum and were making their way southward towards Union Station to catch a train home to Hamilton, an hour west of Toronto. It was a subway ride up to the ROM from Union, but the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day so they’d decided to do the return trip on foot.
Melanie had surprised Armour with a trip to the big city to see the museum’s jazz age collection and they’d enjoyed it. There was one section of the exhibit on flappers and Armour had spotted a playbill to a musical follies show that had run in Toronto in 1920. The flapper on the cover of the playbill had looked remarkably like Melanie. She disagreed, but she’d gamely struck the same pose with pouting lips and gay abandon that the girl on the playbill had, much to Armour’s amusement.
There had been dozens of photos of life back in the roaring twenties, and Armour had studied them all carefully. He had squinted at one in particular for a long time that showed a sizable crowd in front of a large circus tent. The caption underneath the photo had said ‘Side Show at Canadian National Exhibition, 1920.’
“Doing research?” Melanie had asked. “I thought there was nothing you didn’t know about the twenties.”
Armour had grinned. Melanie was relentlessly teasing him about his chosen lifestyle, and he was secretly grateful for her putting up with his oddities. Armour lived what Melanie called “out of time”; he dressed in period clothes, drove a vintage Model T and shunned all pre-1930s technology.
But for Melanie, on this trip, he had “dressed down” and wore just a pair of slacks and a green cotton short-sleeved shirt, and that was it. He would never admit it to Melanie, but he had felt uncomfortable at first deviating from his regular attire. As they’d made their way through the museum, though, he had relaxed and completely forgotten about it. Back out on the street now, however, he felt stripped of his protective shell. Normally he would not go out without a bowler on, or a fedora or his newsboy cap. His head felt uncomfortably bare as they walked down Yonge Street.
Armour had wanted to treat Melanie to lunch at the ROM’s cafeteria, but she’d nixed that idea. She hadn’t come all the way to Toronto to eat museum cafeteria food, she protested, and told Armour about the Shawarma House on Yonge. Armour had no idea what a shawarma was, but did not want to disappoint her. He was paying the price now; the long walk south was making the spicy, exotic food gurgle around in his stomach. He never could handle foreign foods; he knew he would eventually need to use a washroom. Maybe they could stop in for a cocktail at the Royal York across from the station, he thought. He knew the hotel’s library bar made a splendid Old Fashioned.
“Hey look,” Armour said, and pointed at a steel and glass tower across the street. “That’s where the Pegasus Theatre used to be.”
“No, that’s where Sam the Record man used to be,” Melanie corrected him.
“I’m talking before then.”
“Oh, let me guess—you’re referring to something from the turn of the century.” She stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Melanie Fabes. Nice to meet you. And you are. . .?”
“Cut it out.” He grinned. “Yes, in the twenties. The Pegasus, biggest theatre in Toronto. One of the last independent ones. It’s a shame they don’t honour heritage around here.”
“Only so many buildings from olden times you can keep, I guess. And they have the Pantages and the Princess of Wales. Those are old,” Melanie said.
“I guess.”
Armour and Melanie had been friends for so long that she knew anything out of his mouth would be about a time long past. She had accepted the fact that it was quite normal for him to speak as if it were the 1920s and that she had somehow been transported back there along with him. When he had his visions, his blackouts—that’s when things got scary, for inevitably those spells, as he called them, were connected to something bad that had happened long ago. Something murderous. Something unresolved.
Armour often wondered what he had been like before the change, before the nervous breakdown he’d suffered after his wife was murdered. Those were just vague memories to him now, and it saddened him. As the days wore on, he found it harder and harder to remember his old life. What had his wife’s face looked like? What it was like working as a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator? He wondered if he and Melanie would have been friends then.
They crossed another block. Armour tried to steer Melanie around a man lying on the pavement with a sleeping bag over him. Melanie stopped and put a loonie in his cup.
They continued on, pausing at shops Melanie was interested in. Armour was working up the nerve to take hold of her hand, to grasp that slender and delicate appendage, when a man he didn’t know from Adam ran around the corner and shot him in the face.
Chapter 2
“Armour, stay with me. Stay with me!” Melanie was shouting at him.
Armour blinked his eyes a couple of times and tried to speak.
“Just stay quiet.” Melanie held a red kerchief she’d been wearing around her hair to his face, and he could feel the warmth of his own blood, then nothing. His body went numb. Armour started to feel as light as air.
“Somebody help me!” Melanie screamed, but the sound started to fade like someone turning down the volume on a radio. “No, Armour! No, you don’t…”
The white mist that surrounded Armour started to dissipate and he coughed. He could smell the exhaust of leaded fuel. A truck with a wooden stake bed roared up the street and its tailpipe belched as the driver shifted gears.
“Hey, gumshoe,” someone said.
Armour coughed again and waved the last wisps of exhaust from his face. “Come again?” he said.
“I said, Armour, you gonna pay for that?”
Armour was standing next to a wooden newsstand. There was a sign: Billy’s City News. There was a man inside the stand surrounded by newspapers and paperback books and confectionaries.
“Billy?” Armour said to him.
“Who else?” Billy was barely five feet tall, with a scrunched-up face and ruddy cheeks. He wore a newsboy hat and had on a leather smock over a tired, drab grey suit. His fingers were short and fat, and the knuckles were creased with dirty black lines. The fat cigar he was holding was the same circumference as his fingers and gave the illusion of an extra digit.
“The paper,” Billy said. “Two cents.”
“Oh. Right.” Armour unfolded the paper. It was a copy of the Globe. He saw the date: September 8th, 1920. Armour smiled and then frowned as he thought on that for a second.
There were several stacks of different newspapers besides the Globe. There was the Toronto Star Daily and the Empire Mail News. There were magazines with illustrations of beautiful, glamorous flappers in short, sparkly dresses and distinguished men in top hats and tails. An edition of Life Magazine had a black and white cover photo of Russian soldiers in trench coats and fur hats ho
lding long rifles with equally long bayonets. There was a magazine titled The Sons of the Realm whose cover featured a photograph of marching men with sashes around their waists. His gaze returned to the Empire Mail. He was sure he had never seen a copy of it before.
“How much for this?” He pulled an edition of the Empire off the top of its stack.
“Two cents. Says it right on them,” Billy said.
Armour handed Billy a nickel and waved off the penny change.
“Thought you were strictly a Globe man, Armour?” Billy said.
“The Globe… and Mail?” Armour said, referring to the eventual merger of these two Toronto news flagships that he was certain was going to happen, though he couldn’t explain it to save his life. He resisted the urge to pinch himself, hoping this dream would dissolve of its own accord.
“Huh?” Billy said.
“I’ve always been a Globe and Mail man,” Armour said quickly.
“Armour Black?” said a voice behind him.
Things were clearer now, and he saw that Billy’s City News sat in front of a sturdy brick building eight stories high. There were honks and hoots, and Armour saw a parade of Model T’s and other cars pass by. A Ford Essex in beautiful maroon trim with brilliantly shining headlamps came chugging up the street. A cop, wearing a blue overcoat with brass buttons and a hat similar to what the British bobbies wore, hustled into the middle of the street and directed the traffic with toots from his whistle.
Armour turned to the man who’d spoken his name.
“You’re Armour Black?” the man repeated. “I was looking for you. Went to your office. Your girl said you were out. Didn’t know when you would be back in.”
“I just stepped out for the papers,” Armour said, and looked the man up and down.
The man was thin and his cheeks were hollow. His clothes were clean and pressed but they seemed too big on him. Like he’d been somewhere and lost a lot of weight. Maybe prison? He had on a fedora. Armour felt sweat roll down his forehead; he made to wipe it away and his fingers touched a hat. He removed it. A bowler, his bowler; he’d recognize it anywhere. He could tell by a tear in the inside band. At least there was something in this dream that was real, tangible.
“We had a one o’clock appointment. I phoned yesterday. You said to come by your office at one. You okay, fella?” the man said.
“Yeah, Armour. You don’t look so swell,” Billy said.
“I’m fine. Just need to get in out of the sun.”
“You crazy? This is the first real nice day we’ve had in a week,” Billy said, and he turned to help another customer.
“Can we still meet? It’s urgent,” the man said.
“Sure. You are. . .?”
“Roscoe. James Roscoe,” the man said. They shook hands.
“After you,” Armour said, ushering Roscoe ahead of him. He had no idea where he was going. Roscoe led Armour down a side street to a modest four-story building. The sound of the traffic faded. Armour had an odd sense of familiarity as he got closer to the building.
The man went into the building and Armour followed. They crossed the lobby to an elevator, pressed the button and stepped in. An elevator attendant nodded at Armour as he closed the door, and Armour watched him push four. Two men and a woman ran at the elevator as the attendant was pulling the outer door closed. It was a metal gate that expanded accordion style. He pushed it open to let this trio board, then closed the outer and inner doors.
The woman wore a mauve dress. She gazed at Armour with familiarity and winked. The two men she was with ignored him.
Armour skimmed the headlines of the Empire Mail as the elevator slowly climbed up.
Irish uprising – Brits to crack down
Robbery at Toronto Armouries – war surplus weapons stolen
Toronto increasing spending for Harbour expansion.
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and he and Roscoe stepped off. Armour saw his name etched in black paint on a smoked glass door right in front of the elevator. Armour Black Investigations.
“In here,” Armour said, and he opened the office door with confidence.
“Yes, I know. I’ve already been here,” Roscoe said.
The front room was small. There was a desk and two stiff-backed chairs. A slim, attractive brunette with her hair bobbed sat behind the desk filing her nails. She stopped when Armour entered.
“Mr. Black, a Mr. Roscoe came by—” She began, then blushed. “Oh. He’s with you.”
“I know,” Armour said. There was a name plate on her desk. “Olive. Please take Mr. Roscoe’s hat.”
Armour crossed the office to a back door marked Private. It opened on to a longer room with a large wooden desk at the end of it. There were two chairs, considerably more comfortable than those in reception. Along one wall were arranged a half dozen wooden filing cabinets. Along the other wall was a long leather tufted chesterfield sofa.
Armour moved behind the desk. It was all familiar, but at the same time it wasn’t, and the sensation was getting to him. It was making him queasy, and he just wanted to collapse on that couch and go to sleep and wake up where he should be. But where was that? When was that?
He dropped the newspapers on the desk and sat down, motioning to one of the chairs in front of him.
“So, Mr. Roscoe, you wanted to see me about. . .?”
“I want to hire you. You were recommended as a private investigator. But if you’re not well…”
“I am well. I overdid it last night, you know, and I’m a little dry this morning. Speaking of which, can I get you something?”
Roscoe nodded.
Armour went to one of the filing cabinet; he couldn’t explain how he knew it, but there was a bottle of Old Grandad’s there and two low rocks glasses.
With drinks poured, Armour returned to his chair. It was comfortable, but creaked under his weight. A solid wood and metal swivel office chair; what a beauty, he thought. Armour was a bit of an antiques nut, and would have loved to have this in his home in Hamilton. He frowned. That thought, “his home in Hamilton,” didn’t ring true. Now, why had he thought that? He was already in Hamilton; he lived and worked here.
Armour put his drink down.
“I need you to find someone. He’s disappeared, and I’m awfully worried about him,” Roscoe said.
“Name?” Armour said.
“Kevin Foley,” Roscoe said. “Aren’t you going to write this down?”
Armour patted himself but found no pen or pencil. There was an inkwell on the desk, however, with a fine-looking jade-coloured Wahl-Eversharp pen in it. Armour opened the right-hand desk drawer and saw a shiny and lethal-looking snub-nosed .38 with wooden grip lying there. Two boxes of ammunition lay beside it. He gulped and closed that drawer. Next drawer down had a yellow legal pad in it.
“Okay, so tell me about this Mr. O’Leary.”
“He’s been gone a week. It’s not like him.”
“And who are you to him?”
“Just a friend. We were in the service together.”
Armour scribbled on the pad. “Where does he work?”
“Harbour commissioner’s office. He was the assistant to the harbour commissioner.”
The way he said it made Armour look up. Roscoe wrinkled his forehead and looked at him expectantly. If there was some sort of significance there, it was over Armour’s head. “Do you know where he lives?”
“No, I do not. Somewhere in Cabbagetown, I think. You know how those micks… I mean, he’s there. He’s Irish, obviously, with a name like Foley.”
Armour grunted.
“How much do you charge?” Roscoe asked.
“Umm.” Armour thought. “Ten dollars a day?”
The man weighed that. “Okay.”
“Plus expenses,” Armour added quickly.
“Of course.”
“Where was this man last seen?”
“How should I know? You’re the gumshoe—you figure it out,” Roscoe said curtly, and th
en admonished himself. “My apologies. I checked with his work. They haven’t seen him in days.” He stood up. “Here’s two days in advance. Write this number down.”
Armour wrote down the phone number Roscoe recited.
“Whoever answers it, just ask for me and I’ll call you back.”
“Okay.” Armour stood, and as he shook Roscoe’s hand, he noticed a green tattoo on his arm that snaked up his wrist and disappeared under the sleeve of his jacket. Roscoe’s grip was strong and harsh, and Armour saw a gun swinging under the man’s armpit.
Armour watched Roscoe retrieve his hat from Olive and leave. He then let out the breath he’d been holding and finished his whiskey in one go. He went out to see his girl and handed her Roscoe’s deposit, which she put away in a lock box.
“Olive,” Armour said.
“Yes, Mr. Black?”
“How long have we known each other? I mean, how long have you worked here?”
“It’s coming up on two years, Mr. Black.”
“And it’s safe to say that while working in a private investigator’s office, you’ve seen some pretty strange stuff, some pretty strange characters come and go?”
“And how,” she said.
“So, you’re used to the unexpected, the out-of-the-ordinary?”
She nodded.
“Great. I’m going to ask you a strange question. I would appreciate just a straightforward answer.”
“Shoot.”
“Where do I live?”
“How the devil should I know, Mr. Black? Not like you’re ever invited me over. I couldn’t come over anyway. I’m engaged,” Olive said, and flashed a ring at Armour.
“Right,” Armour said. “It was just a joke I heard. I can never remember jokes too well; wanted to try it out on you. I’m going out for a bit. We don’t have any other appointments today, do we?”
“No, Mr. Black.”
“You can take off early, then. Go spend time with your fiancé.”
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Black.”
Billy’s was running a brisk trade when Armour made it back out to Yonge Street. Businessmen were milling around the stand, picking up their copies of the paper to read on the omnibus or streetcar ride home.