by Graham Marks
Cursing the day he’d ever crossed the path of that Sicilian snake-in-the-grass, Bowyer weaved his way across the room, only spilling a drop or two of the pale yellow liquid as he sat down heavily in one of the leather armchairs. Mind you, he reminded himself, he really had no one else to blame for his present predicament – it had all been his very own clever-clever idea to get involved with Mario and his people.
On the face of it, it had been a great idea! At the time, he’d thought it was one of his best, because both sides wanted the self-same thing: to win the election; to elect Herbert Hoover and to keep the country Republican for at least another four years. And with the money Mario had at his disposal, there’d been plenty of ways to see that the Democratic candidate, Al Smith, wouldn’t have a chance – from Minnesota to Texas and Illinois to Kansas – come November.
With Hoover in the White House, everyone got what they wanted: Bowyer moved up the ladder in the Republican party, and Mario got the continuation of Prohibition for as long as possible. It being as good as a licence to print money. With that kind of situation at stake, early on there’d even been talk – if Smith had looked like having a real chance – of some kind of accident to remove him permanently from the picture.
The word “assassination” was never explicitly used, but Bowyer remembered being shocked, and also excited, that the notion was being seriously discussed by men he knew personally. Looking back, that was when he should’ve realized he was way out of his depth; that it might not be such a good idea to be doing business with types who didn’t give a second thought to doing such things as “getting rid” of a Presidential candidate. Even if he was a Catholic.
But Bowyer hadn’t thought that. Instead, he’d enjoyed being pals with men who really did light their cigars with $100 bills, who literally had money to burn. These were men who, as long as things were going their way, could be very generous indeed; although, as he was discovering, when things didn’t go their way…
Bowyer tried hard to change that particular train of thought, but the only other thing that came to mind was the part old man MacIntyre had to have played in what he was now thinking of as his downfall. And, once again, Bowyer saw the finger of blame pointing directly at himself…if he hadn’t got it into his head that he was going to somehow push and shove MacIntyre into selling him the Circle M ranch, well it stood to reason that MacIntyre would never have sent that darn picture-taking grandson of his to spy on him! And he wouldn’t be sitting here now, up to his neck in more muck and manure than you could shake a stick at.
Knocking back the whiskey in one go, its soft, anaesthetic glow curling down his gullet, Bowyer became aware that there was someone standing in the open doorway. And they didn’t look like a member of the estate’s staff…something about the gun in their hand, and the trilby and grey-brown overcoat they were wearing, being the clues there.
“Who you?” Bowyer screwed up his eyes, trying to focus better. “Everyone’s gone…no one here, ’cept little ole me…”
“Someone’s at home, Cap!” the man called out as he came across the room. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Bowyer.” Bowyer stared at his whiskey tumbler. “Empty…” he said, and botched an attempt at standing up.
“Mr. Bowyer…”
“Nope!” Bowyer waggled a finger and shook his head at the man now standing a few feet away from him. “Not Mist Bowyer…Mist Dunne!”
“Okay, Mr. Dunne, what are you doing here…where is everybody?”
“Dunno.” Bowyer made an almighty effort to get up, launching himself to his feet; delighted, and not a little surprised to find that he’d made it, he stood, swaying like some ungainly plant in a stiff wind for a couple of seconds. But this endeavour had taken it out of him. On top of which, his nerves were shot, he hadn’t eaten anything since he couldn’t remember when – but he had drunk really quite a lot of Scotch – and the combination was lethal. Bowyer blacked out.
The Bureau officer watched as the man in front of him dropped the heavy cut-glass tumbler he was holding and then fell to the ground, face first, like he’d been chopped down. He hit the carpet with a thud and didn’t move. The officer approached, kneeled down and felt the man’s neck for a pulse; he wasn’t dead, but the officer suspected, from the smell, that he was dead drunk.
“You have to whack him?”
The officer looked back over his shoulder to see Captain Maynard coming into the room. “I didn’t hit him, Cap, he hit the bottle – three sheets to wind, and then some, I’d say.” Standing up, he pointed at the whiskey glass.
“Who is he?”
“Says his name’s Dunne, leastways that’s what I think he was trying to tell me.”
“Bowyer Dunne, by any chance?”
“Spot on, Cap; how’d you know?”
“Chief Bonner has mentioned him as a ‘person of interest’, but I was under the impression he was down in Topeka.”
“Anyone else here?’
Captain Maynard shook his head. “The birds have flown, no doubt back to their swanky nests in Chicago. Which makes me wonder, who tipped them off we were coming?”
“You think we got a leak in the squad, Cap?”
“I think it has to be a possibility…”
32 AT THE END OF THE DAY
Trey looked at his watch as the unmarked police saloon car turned into his street. Twenty to seven, and still light. He’d promised Mrs. Cooke he’d be home in time for an early supper, and with just minutes to spare. Only he hadn’t reckoned on being escorted upstairs by a plain-clothes police officer, who he knew had specific instructions to deliver him to the door of his apartment and see him safely inside.
He was on his own now as Mr. Shady Jones, who had told Trey he was not at all keen to spend any more of his time around po-leece than he absolutely had to, had asked to be dropped at the first train station they came to. And another police officer was driving Mr. Pisbo and Velma, along with Banjo, home in the Chrysler which, apart from the shot-up headlight, had survived the day pretty much intact. A fact that had made Mr. Pisbo swear he’d never buy any other make of automobile.
What the exact and final outcome of the shoot-out had been, Trey wasn’t entirely sure, because, as per usual, no one would tell him a single thing. All he did know was that Captain Maynard had left with a bunch of men “to see what was up at the Twelve Oaks place”. On the plus side, he had at least remembered where he’d seen the man before, the one who’d emerged unscathed from the car that had been chasing them. It was Tony Burrell, the person he’d photographed posing by the Duesenberg at the T-Bone ranch party – and who was still waiting for the picture he’d paid so handsomely for! It had to be some kind of coincidence; even though Austin J. Randall was pretty clear that he did not believe in coincidences, and neither should anyone wanting to be a Private Investigator.
As the car approached the Tavistock Building, Trey could see that work had started on the repairs to the foyer, with at least one of the broken mirrors already replaced. He wondered if the foyer’s marble floor was still blood-stained.
It was only last night – not even twenty-four hours ago, he reminded himself – when the elevator doors had opened and he’d been presented with the aftermath of the shooting: the body on the floor, the smell of cordite, the blood, the men with pistols, a whole extraordinary picture made up of things he’d only ever imagined before. He remembered how he’d fallen asleep dreaming of some cops’n’robbers scene from a movie, with a car being chased up the street as a hoodlum sprayed the vicinity with his tommy gun. And here he was, coming home after having been involved in just such a “type of incident”. Only he’d been in the driving seat.
“You all right, son?” The policeman pulled up by the Tavistock. “You look a tad thoughtful.”
“Just thinking about today…I, um, I coulda got killed…”
“From what I hear, you are one lucky kid – that was some set-to you got yourself involved in there. Is it true what they told me, that you w
ere driving one of the cars?” Trey nodded, and the officer cut the engine. “Bet that wasn’t what you had in mind when you left here this morning.”
Trey got out of the car. “Sure wasn’t, mister…”
He’d left the building hoping to discover what had happened to Alex, only to find himself right in the middle of the kind of action he’d read about in Black Ace magazine any number of times but never, ever thought he would actually be caught up in. Oddest of all, in the midst of all the hair-raising activity – the rescue, the shooting, the near-miss and the general panic of the chase – he had seen Alex! In that moment, as the Chrysler and the two-tone Packard rocketed past each other, a hair’s breadth apart, their eyes had locked in a mixture of stunned recognition and utter amazement.
Then, in the little time Mr. Pisbo had had before being taken off to be looked at by a doctor, he’d told Trey, Velma and Shady to all keep their lips firmly buttoned about the real reason why they were out in Fox Lake. They should, he’d said, just claim they’d come out for a picnic, with Trey coming along to keep Velma company. If questioned, they were to have no idea why they’d been shot at and chased. Shady had said that was fine by him, as he rarely had any idea what Mr. Pisbo was up to, and Mr. Pisbo had replied that everything was also fine by him, as Shady wouldn’t have to try very hard to act dumb.
The long and the short of it, Trey thought as he and the policeman crossed the foyer and made for the elevators, was that he hadn’t said anything to anyone, particularly about having seen Alex. Not even to Mr. Pisbo. But the fact was, he’d seen Alex out at Fox Lake, sitting up front with his chauffeur, Davis. Which either meant he’d somehow managed to escape his kidnappers, or had never been kidnapped in the first place…and if that was the case, what had Trey seen happen through his binoculars down on the street?
And then there he was, standing outside the front door of his apartment, the policeman rapping on it with his knuckles. Trey took a deep breath and tried to prepare himself for what was, no doubt about it, going to be an evening of being royally told off. While this would not be a first for him, he had a feeling it might well be an occasion to remember. When the door opened and he found himself looking at Mrs. Cooke and not his mother or father, Trey felt that maybe his luck had changed. If only a little.
“As good as your word, Mr. Trey, as good as your word; your father’s home, so get yourself ready for dinner, lickety-split now!” Mrs. Cooke beamed at Trey and then looked askance at the officer standing next to him. “I think that will be all, young man.”
The officer, who was about to say something when the door was summarily shut in his face, decided that life was too short and he’d rather get back to his station house, sign off and get home. It was, after all, Saturday night.
33 QUID PRO QUO
For the first time, Trey thought probably in his entire life, he had positively welcomed a Monday morning during term time. It had been a tad trying, at home. For everyone.
To begin with, everything had seemed pretty much okay as his parents appeared not to have been informed about The Fox Lake Incident. Instead, his father’s attentions had been solely focused on Friday night’s break-in, and the shooting downstairs. The arrival of a couple of police officers to interview Trey about it hadn’t done much to keep him out of the spotlight, and he did come in for some stick for leaving the apartment armed with a baseball bat, but it had all come down to a mild enough telling off for “inappropriate behaviour”.
In Trey’s opinion there really hadn’t been the need, right there and then, to complicate matters by going into detail about what had happened out at Fox Lake. After all, he was fine; amazingly enough, considering what had occurred, there was not a scratch on him. And there had been a point where he’d wondered if it would ever be necessary to come clean, which he should’ve known was wishful thinking on his part. The situation deteriorated somewhat once the cops had left – and after his father had taken a phone call from Gramps. Then he really had got it in the neck.
There’d been a niggling concern at the back of Trey’s mind ever since Captain Maynard had asked him if he was related to Ace MacIntyre. He could not for the life of him work out why he’d wanted to know that, or what Gramps could possibly have to do with anything. Well, so much for Austin J. Randall not believing in coincidences, was all he had to say about the matter! What with his gramps and Captain Maynard’s boss going way back and being the best of pals.
Which was how it had all come out. Every last detail.
The end result of his father’s exhaustive and stern inquisition had been that Trey was sent to bed early and grounded for a month. A month! For being something of a hero! Leastways, that was how he saw it. And he wasn’t the only one to get it. His father had made it quite clear that he held his mom and Mrs. Cooke responsible for letting Trey “run riot” while he was away.
As he walked through the Mount Vernon Academy gates that chill September morning, the only shine Trey could put on the whole deal at home was that at least his father did not hold with corporal punishment. Striding up the main path he kept his eyes peeled for Alex. He could hardly wait to get the low-down on what had happened.
That day, like every other Monday, Trey’s timetable meant that he would not be in the same class as Alex all day. He should, though, run into him at a break, or at lunch; that was how he’d originally engineered meeting him. But Alex was nowhere to be found.
Searching out someone he knew was in the same home room as Alex, Trey heard the rumour doing the rounds that Alex had left and was going back to New York. His first thought was that he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye, and the second that it was a shame they’d never get to know each other better, because he had a feeling that, under different circumstances, they might have been firm friends. But, if your dad was connected with the Mob, being friends was always going to be difficult.
After school, walking home on his own and trying to figure out how to convince his dad to change his mind about grounding him for so long, Trey got the distinct feeling he was being watched. The previous night, having had his lights turned out early, he had flattened his torch batteries by reading some more of How to Become a Private Eye in 10 Easy Lessons under the covers. In the chapter entitled Learning to Trust Your Instincts, Austin J. Randall had said that honing the ability to know when you were being watched was imperative. He’d been far too tired to get his dictionary and look up “honing” and “imperative”, but he got the general gist.
Trey was fully aware that the one thing you should never do was let the person following you know that you knew you were being followed. But it was real hard not to look around, searching for the telltale signs – people studiously not looking at you was a big one – or taking evasive action. The whole way home the hairs on the back of Trey’s neck were up and he felt like he had a target pinned on his back.
He tried to see if the same car kept on going past him, as that would’ve been a real giveaway, but he didn’t want to be spotted staring at number plates. He also tried to keep an eye out for anyone looking particularly shifty, but saw nothing at all suspicious. So he was, to say the least, astonished when, as he neared his building, he heard someone behind him call his name. Glancing back he was bowled over to see Alex coming up the street towards him, smiling like nothing had changed when they both knew it had.
“I saw what happened, after you left here – it looked like you’d been kidnapped, Alex! I didn’t know what to do, but I had to try and find out if you were okay!” They were up in Trey’s room, tucking into the freshly baked walnut cake Mrs. Cooke had given them.
“Me as well! But they didn’t mean to snatch me, Trey, they made a big mistake, those two guys…they were after you!” Alex brushed some crumbs off his mouth. “Great cake, by the way…actually, it was some pictures you’d taken they were really after, which I have a pretty good idea are the ones with Uncle Mario in them.”
“How’d you know?”
“Heard ’em talking, just b
efore they let me go, and when you weren’t home when I called I figured they must’ve gone back and kidnapped you!”
“I called your place!” Trey could hardly believe what he was hearing. “The person I talked to gave me some flim-flam about you not being at home, like the cops had told them to keep quite about you being lifted! Wait a second, wait a second…” Cogs whirred in Trey’s head. “Those two guys were after my pictures?”
“Kind of…what one of them said was it was the film they wanted.”
“So that’s it!” Trey hit the palm of his hand with his fist.
“What is?”
“We got burglarized Friday night! Some guy got in, and a cop got shot in the foyer.” Trey prepared to take another bite of cake. “There was a lot of blood, let me tell you.”
“You saw it?”
Trey, his mouth now full, nodded.
“Was the guy dead?”
“Dunno…” If he was, Trey thought, then he’d seen two dead bodies in two days. Amongst a whole lot else. “So, you going back to, um…to New York? That’s what the talk is…you know, at school.”
“Yeah. We’re going back…” Alex shrugged. “My ma never liked it here so much.”
“Oh, right.” Trey nodded sagely, thinking, no wonder, after what had happened at Fox Lake.
“What the heck were you doing out at Fox Lake?”
Alex’s question, out of the blue like that, made Trey think that he must have mind-reading abilities.
“Looking for you…we were looking for you.”
“We?” Alex looked shocked. “You were with your parents?”
“No! And sorry for nearly crashing into you, but we were being chased.”
“Davis was real impressed with your driving.” Alex grinned. “He said you did good not to hit us.”
“My gramps taught me this summer, on the ranch.” Trey put his plate down on his desk. “You won’t believe what happened next!”