by Marvin Kaye
It grew hot as he climbed the stairs, and the smoke that made his eyes water and set him coughing seemed to be increasing. Where was it coming from? But there would be a door at the top, an unlocked door out to the parking lot. And if Alvin were truly lucky, Sammy and his gambling debts would all be buried under several tons of cement and glass and light fixtures and casino décor and burned up like a cancelled betting slip.
Alvin thought that he was near the top, when he stumbled on something, lost his balance, and, in a terrifying skid, bumped down to the landing below. He crawled back up, one hand extended to feel his way. Touched something, make that someone. “Get up,” Alvin said. “Get up. We have to get the door open.”
No response. Alvin levered himself upright with the banister and stepped over the man, he was pretty sure it was a man; he thought he’d touched a tailored jacket. He flailed around in the darkness, frightened that he’d miss the door or get turned around and tumble down the steps. It would be a bad move to fall, to break a leg or get knocked out, for the stairwell was definitely getting hotter and smokier.
Don’t, thought Alvin, don’t think of it. This is my lucky night. Don’t panic. He ran his hands along the wall until he touched, finally, a metal doorjamb with the door push bar to the left. He heard the shriek of the alarm, saw the lights of the parking lot beyond and felt the rush of cold night air offering salvation. “Come on,” he called back to the prone figure. “We’ve got to get out.”
No reply. Alvin’s first impulse was to run, but with the discovery of the door and the certainty of escape, his panic receded. His better nature sent him back to kneel beside the figure, where he forced himself to pat the shoulder, to lay his hand against the chest, and touch the neck. No thumping heart, no fluttering pulse. Nothing.
Heart attack possibly. Or stroke. There was no time for a better diagnosis, for heat was coming up the stair well, and who knew what would happen or what sort of pipes were running along the ceiling. Alvin decided to drag the body outside just in case he was wrong, in case the man was breathing. He was struggling to get a grip on his heavy and repulsive burden when he touched something square and firm. It was a wallet, and Alvin could feel that it held a good deal more than his own.
The guy wouldn’t need it now, Alvin thought, and he stuck the wallet in his pocket. A little financial reinforcement sure wouldn’t come amiss when he didn’t even have enough to buy a cup of coffee. Besides, he was owed something, wasn’t he, for trying to help?
Alvin opened the door, and, in the faint light from the lots beyond, he looked at the man. Medium height, a bit heavier than he needed to be, with a square face and dark hair rather like Alvin’s own. There was Lady Luck for you. Guy with a good job at a casino cops it on the exit stair five feet from safety, while Alvin, who’s lost everything, walks out the door.
It could have been me, he thought; instantly, another possibility opened up. Alvin weighed his own wallet and keys. Was he lucky tonight or what? He decided he was, and after the briefest hesitation, he stuck the keys and the wallet into the stranger’s pocket and fished up a set of car keys in exchange. With the alarm shrieking in his ears, Alvin stepped out to the parking lot.
Lights, sirens, and screaming emergency vehicles; thick clouds of red tinged smoke against the pinky night sky; hoses and pump trucks, firemen armed with respirators and heavy slickers and boots; cops with their fluorescent vests and bull horns, and drifts of survivors, some already draped in blankets. They would be lined up and organized and identified and kept waiting in some central location.
But he had found an alternate route and could walk out and be gone. For good if he wanted, leaving behind Sammy and Megan and Rosewood Flooring & Carpet and the threat of visits from collection agencies, legit and otherwise. Alvin felt the euphoria of the evening returning: this was his biggest gamble yet.
He just needed to find the car. Guessing that the man was an employee and that his car would be parked nearby, Alvin walked to the nearest lot and began tapping the key. Five minutes later, he saw lights go on in a big Cadillac. He had his ride and a nice one it was, too, with leather seats and a fancy dashboard with a GPS screen.
Alvin got in and backed the car out of its parking slot. He left the lights off and negotiated by the stanchions still glowing against the smoke filled sky. He drove to the far end of the lot, shut his motor off, and waited with his head down until a brace of police vehicles raced past him, then pointed the Caddie to the exit road and the state highway.
The reaction set in a few miles along the winding country road when he started shaking and turned cold and thought he would lose everything he’d ever eaten. Alvin pulled over and sat with the car door open and his head between his legs, while waves of nausea surfed on images of the collapsing gallery and the black stairwell and the screams of the gamblers whose luck had run out for good. I could be dead, Alvin thought. I could be squashed flat as road kill and just as dead.
When he could finally get back behind the wheel, he pushed the heater up to full power and eased back onto the state road, trembling all over and driving like an invalid. A lighted donut shop promised warmth and food; he pulled into the lot and checked the wallet.
When he saw the dense pack of hundred dollar bills, Alvin started to laugh. If there was nothing smaller, he still wouldn’t be able to get coffee, and he’d be no better off than when he left the poker table. Alvin took several minutes to regain control, then further investigation revealed a twenty and two singles, courtesy of Matthew P. Newthorpe, who stared back at him from his laminated driver’s license. It gave Alvin an odd feeling to see that Matt, who was dead and now reborn, was less than a year older and the same height to the inch.
Alvin went into the shop and ordered a cup of coffee and a sugar donut.
“To go?” the girl asked. She was a washed out blonde with an over bite and dark patches under her eyes, who looked too young to be working so late.
“I’ll have it here,” Alvin said, for he realized suddenly that he had no place to go. He sat down at one of the plastic tables and warmed his hands on his coffee cup, then dunked the donut in the hot liquid and tried to bring various bodily systems back on line.
He had a strong impulse to tell the counter girl about the casino disaster, the collapsing gallery, the darkness and smoke, about what it felt like to step on other human beings and how he, himself, had nearly been trampled. Alvin recognized that thought as a potentially bad move. He refilled his cup and bought another donut, instead.
The shop was warm and bright. Alvin felt that he had had enough darkness to do him for quite some time, and he would like to have spent the rest of the night eating donuts and telling the counter girl about his adventures. Don’t do it, he thought, although Alvin realized that it wasn’t natural to escape from such a horror and say nothing.
And don’t stay too long, either, for off in the distance, he heard the wail of an ambulance. Some emergency vehicles might come this way. Or the cops would and wouldn’t they stop for coffee, donuts, a chat with the counter girl? Alvin got up. He was tempted to leave her a big tip but that would not do. Matthew P. Newthorpe could not afford to draw attention to himself.
He nodded and went out. When the cold night air hit him, he began to shiver again with delayed shock. Alvin decided that he had to find somewhere warm. He could hardly drive to the Newthorpe residence and let himself in, even though he had the keys. There could be a Mrs. Newthorpe, maybe small Newthorpes with their father’s dark hair and weak eyes, even a white-haired mom or dad.
Alvin reminded himself that he had to fight fantasy and keep control. Matt Newthorpe was no more unless you counted Alvin himself, who would soon disappear and turn Newthorpe’s cash into a fresh start. He had to focus on that and on luck, on the idea that this was his lucky night.
Just the same it was hard to concentrate when he could still hear screams and groans, human and material, and when good fort
une and calamity kept jostling each other for priority. He was feeling very tired, too, and Alvin decided that he’d take a room. He’d get a good sleep and make a fresh start in the morning. He repeated that to himself several times as he started the car and turned it around and headed for the interstate where he knew there were motels.
He was so concentrated on his plans that he did not notice the dark car at the back of the lot. The driver pulled out without lights a few seconds later and tracked him down the interstate to a big chain motel. Alvin went in, obtained a room, and came out to move his car to the far side of the building. The dark car followed, and when Alvin parked the Cadillac, stopped directly behind.
Alvin got out and turned, curious. It was his lucky night and he did not feel uneasy, only vaguely puzzled, until a man stepped from the car and pointed a gun at him. “Hey,” said Alvin. “What’s the matter?”
“You know what’s the matter, Newthorpe.”
Alvin tried to explain; he fished up the wallet and pointed to the glasses on the real Matthew P. Newthorpe. “If it’s the money,” he said, fumbling for the bills, but that was either a mistake or too late, because there was a sharp, popping sound. Alvin was flung back against the Caddie’s shiny flanks, and he was still trying to explain about Lady Luck and fresh starts and the vast differences between himself and Matthew P. Newthorpe, when he slid off the fender and dropped, silent, to the ground.
THE RUBA ROMBIC ROBBERIES, by Gary Lovisi
A Bentley Hollow Collectables Mystery
“Mr. Hollow,” the voice over the telephone pleaded. “My name is John Castle and I’m calling because my wife and I are very worried about our Ruba Rombic.”
“Ruba…who?”
“Rombic! Ruba Rombic!” the man at the other end of the line said intently. “It’s not a ‘who’, it’s a ‘what’. Ever hear of it?”
“Okay, Ruba…What?” I replied, confusion and annoyance creeping into my voice as I wondered just what this fellow wanted. Since my wife had left me and I’d retired from the police, I’d led a rather quiet life these days, buying and selling antique collectable glassware, playing a little golf, buying some old books.
“Ruba Rombic, it’s Depression Glass,” he explained.
“Oh,” I replied with a shrug. Though I collected Depression Glass, I’d never heard of this variety.
“Mr. Hollow, I read about you in the local paper last year, that thing about the Fenton Art Glass and the old lady who died.”
“Yes,” I replied carefully.
“So I thought I’d call to hire you. Our Ruba Rombic has been stolen and my wife and I are at our wits’ end. We want you to get it back for us.”
“Ah, look, Mr…?”
“Castle, John Castle. My wife’s name is Susan.”
“Well, Mr. Castle, I’m retired now. I don’t even know what this Ruba Rombic is and even if I did, I’m not a licensed private investigator. You need to go to the police if you have been the victim of a robbery.”
“I know that, but you’re a collector,” Castle said seriously. “That’s what matters most.”
So that’s how I got into it. The next day I drove out to Woodmere and the nice big house that John and Susan Castle lived in. The Castles’ castle.
He was a retired industrialist and she did volunteer work and collected antiques. They seemed like nice people. They were both big art deco collectors, which was a bit out of my area of interest and affordability. I collected Depression Era glassware—but I soon discovered the two areas did overlap—they overlapped especially when it came to Ruba Rombic.
I shook my head as I looked at the photos Mrs. Castle showed me of the precious glassware items she said had been stolen from their home.
“Aren’t they lovely!” she gushed.
Could she be serious? I kept mum. It certainly appeared to be some kind of glassware, Depression Era for sure, but I’d never seen the likes before. I’ll give them this, the stuff was certainly unique—there was nothing quite like it in Depression glass. I learned later that it was made from 1928 to 1932 by the Consolidated Lamp and Glass Company—designed by Ruben Haley—but the main thing about it to me was that it was so damn incredibly ugly. I mean, it looked like something created by a mad man’s warped brain, or a bad Flintstones episode. It looked like it was glassware straight from Wilma and Fred’s dinner table.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Susan Castle added. “The Cubist-inspired geometric forms make it one of the most original American glass designs of the 20th century. It’s the essence of Art Deco/Art Moderne.”
I flipped through the photos again without comment, because I hardly knew what to say. The stuff was absolutely horrid. It was unbelievably gross and though I collected Depression Glass and loved it all because it was so lovely and esthetically pleasing, this stuff was quite different. The photos showed me items that were apparently pitchers, cups, plates, bowls, and vases, all of various colors of glass, but hardly your garden variety, nicely-done Depression Glass. This stuff was composed of hard geometric shapes with harsh sharp angles that made each piece look twisted and bizarre. It was atrocious stuff.
I stared at each photo with astonishment and dismay, while the Castles’ spouted amazing monetary figures for the values of each piece. Five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars for certain pieces. That the stuff was rare I could well believe, but that it was worth so much money seemed incredible.
“They’re simple, yet so quintessentially Art Deco,” John Castle enthused. “Rombic means irregular in shape with no parallel lines. Ruba came from Rubaiy, meaning an epic poem, or perhaps it was a shortening of the designer, Ruben Haley’s first name. No one knows for sure. It’s not important. What is important is that our collection is gone and we want it back.”
“John and I bought each piece many years ago, Mr. Hollow,” Susan Castle added sadly.
“You can call me Ben, short for Bentley,” I said.
“Thank you, Mr. Hollow,” she replied, ignoring my request. I could see she was devastated by the loss. She went on, “We bought our pieces decades ago when there was no market to speak of, we paid very little. It was a steal, really. Since then, however, advanced Art Deco collectors and even museums have started displaying Ruba Rombic. Prices have shot up astronomically.”
“Our problem, Mr. Hollow,” John Castle explained, “is that we could never replace this collection if it were lost to us forever. It’s not a matter of insurance money, it’s that you cannot find the pieces anywhere. Period.”
“So they’re scarce?” I asked.
“Rare, Mr. Hollow. They are rare, none are to be found,” Castle replied. “It is estimated less than 1,500 pieces have survived.”
“So why me? Why not go to the police?”
John Castle nodded, “Good question. We did go to the police, of course, initially. They told us…”
“Mr. Hollow,“ Susan Castle interrupted, “we know who took the pieces. It was Simon James, another collector.”
My eyebrows arched. I’d heard the name, of course. James was a mover and shaker in our fair city.
“And you told this to the police?” I asked.
“Of course, but nothing was ever found in a search of James’ home. James is a collector too, and has a wonderful grouping of pieces, among them a top-notch collection of Ruba Rombic, but of course all his pieces are validated with bills of sale from reputable dealers. He showed these to the detectives with obvious amusement. The police found nothing incriminating.”
“The bottom line, Mr. Hollow, is that our complaint, without any proof, means the police will not investigate any further. Captain Wallace told us he could not afford to bother such an important member of the community without conclusive proof,” Susan Castle said softly.
“Well, if what you say is true,” I said, “he had to have a pro do the actual job. Someone from out of town, I’d
guess. Tough to find. A man like James wouldn’t steal it himself. But what makes you think a big shot like Simon James would do such a thing? And what would he do with this stuff once he had it? It’s not the kind of thing he could easily sell. Even on the collector market, glassware like this would have a very limited interest. The other thing is, if James has a similar collection, why would he even want to steal yours? I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me. And you say nothing else was stolen?”
“No, nothing else was touched, only our Ruba Rombic,” John Castle admitted.
“I know that son-of-a-bitch stole my precious glass to…Well, you know what he’s going to do with it, John? My God, I can’t even say it!” Tears rolled down her cheeks. Susan Castle’s anger and hopelessness finally had gotten the better of her.
“Easy, Susan,” her husband said, comforting his wife with an affectionate hug. “Why don’t you go inside and lie down a while. I know you’re upset. Take a pill and a nap. I’ll square things with Mr. Hollow.”
Susan Castle dried her tears. “Get them back for me, Mr. Hollow, please.”
I watched as she walked into a bedroom down the hall. She shut the door behind her with a loud slam. I was left alone with her husband.
“My wife—she’s emotional,” John Castle explained.
“I understand, but I don’t know if I can help you. Honestly, this all sounds very confusing. Why would someone like Simon James steal this stuff?”
Castle sighed, “He’s a collector too, Mr. Hollow. He and I have the largest collections of Ruba Rombic in the world. You see, Simon and I go way back. We began in business and politics decades ago, we also began buying up Depression glassware when it was dirt cheap—especially Ruba Rombic. Now each piece is going for big money.”
“Okay, I understand that,” I said, my eyes darting to the photos of the missing glassware. I shook my head, wondering who would even want to collect this stuff. I figured the only reason it must be so valuable today is that when it was sold in the 1930s no one had bought it. I sighed. “Look, what could a big-shot like Simon James do with the stuff? He could never sell it.”