The Silver Gun

by L. A. Chandlar

  “I thought so. I’ve been watching you,” I purred, and I walked away to the other end of the bar.

  His eyes grew dark, and a look of desire stole over his face. He took the bait and came over to me. “Can I get you something else?”

  “Sure, I’ll have another,” I said, nodding to the barkeep. There was no way I was going to drink another one. “Thank you. I’m Julia,” I said, offering my hand.

  “Lyle,” he said, taking my hand in his. He grasped it warmly, smiling, with a look on his face that said he knew he was handsome. And he was, with his dark hair and blue eyes. But he was almost too good-looking in an artificial way, too up front and overly aware of his good looks. A little of Lyle went a long way, and I found myself wanting to back up.

  I decided to stay along the same lines I had been going. I turned around with my back to the bar, elbows resting on it. I regarded his buddies, and as he turned around to look at them with me, I flicked my wrist, deftly pouring my scotch onto the floor, then pretended to down it. I said, “Yep. I bet, whatever you do, you are the boss.” He nodded, loving my praise, gobbling it up.

  “Yeah, those two?” he said, nodding toward his buddies. “They’re all right, but I pretty much tell them what to do and”—he snapped his fingers—“they do it!”

  “And let’s see, I bet you work with other powerful people in the city, don’t you?” I asked, trying to fawn over him.

  “Mm hmm,” he replied, saying without words, Oh, do go on! I smiled broadly and inched just a tiny bit closer to him, hoping his alcohol had done its work.

  It had. He continued on a lovely, self-absorbed route. “Oh, yeah, Julia. In fact, I work with a coupla major players in the city. Things are gonna be changin’ around here real soon. I got a big, big job coming up.” I tried to wrangle my face into an expression that didn’t say what I was really thinking (He’s such an ass), but reflected that I was extremely impressed. His tightly pulled-together composure was losing the battle with the copious amount of alcohol he had consumed. His eyelids were getting heavy, and his speech was starting to slur. He started calling me Chulia.

  “Really, Lyle? A big job?” I said, with wide eyes. Please, please, please keep going.

  “Oh, yeah. Big time. It’s gonna make my career.”

  “Really, Lyle? What do you do?” I tried to sound innocent and naïve, willing him to divulge that crucial piece of information that I was hunting for.

  “Oh, let’s just say I organize people and . . . big events in the city.”

  “Really? Can you bring a friend to this next big event?” I asked, coyly nudging his elbow with mine.

  He chuckled, loving the fact that I was practically throwing myself at him. “Oh, honey, this next big event isn’t something quite up your alley,” he said, giving me an all-knowing smile. “It’ll be shpec-tacular, but, uh . . . something you’d want to see from the shide-lines.”

  “The sh—sidelines?” I asked, with an engaging smile, prompting him along.

  “Yeah. In fact, let’s just say the best seats will be in Manhattan. I’d stay out of Queens August tenth, Chulia.” My stomach lurched. Hot damn, that was it.

  CHAPTER 22

  Keep going, keep going come what may.

  —ML

  Finn was casually leaning up against a railing, watching us. I could see the strain on his face. I was pretty sure he’d decided that this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I guess having me near a guy like Lyle was very different in theory versus reality. It was catching up to me as well. I didn’t think I could keep this up much longer and was trying my hardest to think of a good exit plan, but not coming up with anything very promising.

  Lyle was just about to get a little uncomfortably close, his breath sending out waves of alcohol, when a presence made itself known behind me. But it wasn’t Finn; I could still see him about twenty feet away, and his face had a horrible, oh, shit look on it. I looked up and saw . . . Peter.

  “What on earth are you doing here, Lane? And with this creep,” he practically yelled. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea to call Lyle a creep. I cringed, knowing full well what was about to happen.

  “Lane? I thought you said your name was Chulia.” But before I could say something cunning, like, Yes, Julia Lane at your service, Peter’s insult made its way to Lyle’s fuzzy brain. “Hey, pal! You can’t call me a creep! Whadaya think you’re doing?”

  Friends from both parties of Lyle and Peter started to form ranks around their comrades. Finn only had eyes for me. In fact, at the moment, I only had eyes for me, as I really, really, really wanted to escape. The men were all flexing their muscles and their fists. The music slowed down and stuttered to a stop as the band noticed something happening and wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.

  But before anything could get out of hand, we all heard the unmistakable chook-chook of a shotgun being cocked. Everything, everyone froze instantly.

  The massive barkeep actually had two shotguns, one held in each bulky arm. “Is there gonna be a problem here?” he rumbled from a deep throat.

  Everyone’s arms relaxed, fists went down, faces tried to look innocent, and everyone shook their heads in a uniform, Of course not! I took my cue, ducked down, and ran toward the door. I saw Finn follow, and I didn’t look back. I went right out the door, turned left toward a main avenue, and hoped Finn would catch up to me.

  He did, of course. I wasn’t running, but I was walking at a rapid pace. I hadn’t looked back once. I just wanted space between me and Lyle. And country music. I heard footsteps come up behind me and felt an arm come around my shoulders to pull me close as we kept up our pace. I bent my head to his shoulder in greeting for just a moment. He was so solid, so warm.

  In a guilty, apologetic voice, Finn started talking fast. “I’m sorry, Lane, I shouldn’t have asked you. I just saw how you’ve handled everything lately, and then when you slugged that weasel guy, I just let it get out of hand. . . .” He stopped walking and looked at me. “Wait a minute,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You’re laughing! You got something!” He started to walk again, keeping his arm around my shoulders. “You’re absolutely incorrigible, Lane.” I could feel his chest shaking with mirth.

  “Well, I did get something, Finn. But that Lyle is really something else.”

  “Oh, yeah, you could say that again.”

  We made our way down side streets and avenues, making plenty of turns to make sure we weren’t being followed. “Did you know Peter was going to be there tonight?” I asked Finn.

  He hesitated for a minute, tensing. “No, I didn’t know he’d be there.”

  “Do you think it was coincidence, or was he following up on some lead or other?”

  “He and his buddies didn’t look like they were ready to work.”

  “Frankly,” I said, in a pained voice, thinking of the gut-wrenchingly awful song, “it’s hard to imagine anyone going there on purpose.”

  Finn laughed. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  He looked down at me and said more softly, “You really do look beautiful, Lane. Do you want to get a coffee? Then I have a couple of friends I’d like us to go see later. Would you feel up to that after our little adventure?”

  “Sure, that sounds great. But, ah, no more alcohol.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Yyyes, do you drink scotch often, love?” he said, with the lift of an eyebrow.

  “No. Only when necessary. And tonight it seemed utterly necessary.” I cocked my head to the side as I remembered something I hadn’t thought of in years. “My father used to drink scotch on the rocks at night once in a while. I loved the decanter that we had in the library.”

  “Seems like it went down quite easily,” he said, with a smirk in his voice.

  “Yep, sure did,” I replied, with a smack to my lips.

  We came to a small mom-and-pop diner and went in. We slumped down into a booth, ordering two coffees and two slices of warm blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. It made me think of th
at little postcard in my parents’ album about the place in Maine.

  “Okay, so out with it. What did you and Lyle discuss that made him look at you with such enchantment?”

  “Were you jealous, Finn?” I asked, vastly interested in his reply.

  “Most definitely.”

  “Hmm,” I replied, fully enjoying his answer. “Well, he wasn’t enchanted with me.”

  “Oh, sure . . .”

  “He was enchanted with himself.”

  I filled him in on the big job Lyle was working on, and Finn’s smiling eyes grew serious and intense as I got to the point. “I asked him if he could take a date to this next big job that sounded so interesting. He was plenty pleased that I asked, but said that the better seats were on the sidelines; the best seats would be in Manhattan. I had started to think that he meant the target would be in Manhattan. But then, he said that I should stay out of Queens. On August tenth.”

  Finn had been in the middle of taking a drink of coffee, and he slowly put the cup back onto the table, not taking his eyes off mine.

  “Queens. August tenth. Good Lord, Lane. They haven’t even told the Schmidt brothers an exact date. They’re trying to keep it as quiet as possible, for the least number of foul-ups. Nice work.”

  “Thanks.” It was new and a bit of a thrill to feel like we were a team. “But, Queens is a pretty big place. Any ideas about where? And what they’re planning?”

  “Nothing too solid yet. But our meeting later tonight may prove to be enlightening. It usually is,” he said provocatively.

  Our pie came, and I had worked up quite an appetite. The warm, gooey center was delicious, and the cold vanilla ice cream was melting into the pie. Finn and I both looked up with gratified smiles on our faces. The cold linoleum table was smooth to my fingertips as I made figure eights with my middle finger on the table. We finished up our coffee and pie, then started walking toward our next rendezvous.

  “So, where are we going?” I asked.

  “To see a couple of friends,” he repeated. We walked uptown and came to an old, Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant. It was late, and it looked like the place was cleaning up for the night. But when we entered the dark interior, friendly waiters pointed to the back, where we were obviously expected. We went to the back and around a curtain.

  “Well, look at what we have here!” I said, sauntering over to greet Fio and Mr. Kirkland.

  “Good evening, Laney Lane!”

  “Grrrrr.” Which made him smile broadly.

  “Have a seat, you two, and we’ll get down to business. Would you like some coffee or something?” I said no thank you.

  I mumbled to Finn, “Maybe another scotch will be required.” I heard Finn’s low laugh behind me.

  “Mr. Kirkland and I have decided that it’s high time we all got our cards on the table, so to speak,” said Fio. “Again.”

  “Mr. Kirkland . . .” I said, realizing that something I’d been ruminating on for a while now was looking to be true. I started to feel that the joke was on me, that I was the only one not in on some big secret. I was not fond of that sensation. My face must have revealed that sentiment, because Fio started talking faster and took his grin down a notch.

  “Lane, I think things are coming to a head, and I’m guessing we all have some information. So, we need to get it all out in the open. I figure that you might have several things that we are in the dark about, and there are a few things that you need to know as well.” I looked at Finn questioningly as we both nodded in response. Despite them being very courteous, the air felt like it had the slimmest edge of them treating me like a little girl. I was not a little girl.

  I decided that I’d like to take the reins back for a moment. I sat down, crossed my legs, put both hands on my thighs, elbows out, and leaned forward like I was about to give them a pep talk before the big game. “Excellent. Here’s what I know, gentlemen . . .” My eyes were flashing and sparking at each of them in turn as I spoke carefully and firmly. “First of all, Fio, you and Finn Brodie, here, have been working together for at least the past year to keep tabs on the Tammany Hall crew and clean up the corruption of the NYPD. Of course, Finn is undercover posing as what, a dirty cop?” I enjoyed the fact that Fio’s jaw dropped open and Finn didn’t move a muscle except for a long blink that spoke volumes.

  I carefully looked at them, scrutinizing their faces, trying to determine if they would be honest with me about some questions I had. Finn and I had never spoken about his involvement as an undercover cop, and I wasn’t sure how he would feel knowing that I knew what he did. There were a lot of dark parts to undercover work, and I couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to be thought of as a dirty cop.

  “I have a question, though. Finn, how is it that you’ve been reporting to Fio, yet he didn’t know you were working with Daley Joseph?”

  “Well, it started with Commissioner Valentine, initially,” Finn replied. Lewis Valentine had indeed worked hard to clean up the corruption in the NYPD. “To seek out which cops were corrupt, someone clean had to look corrupt. It only took a few whispered notions to get it out that I might be dirty. I would report to Valentine, and in the meantime, Daley and Donagan showed up. They had always worked with dirty cops, so my job turned into undercover work with them. Fio, in conjunction with Valentine, had asked me to keep him posted on any Tammany dealings, but he didn’t know about Daley and Donagan. I’d told Valentine about their interest in the mayor, but we didn’t notify Fio until much later because we didn’t know enough information.”

  I nodded thoughtfully, a lot of the pieces falling into place.

  Another thought occurred to me. “But what was the deal with dressing up as a fireman?”

  Finn shot a glance at Fiorello, who had a pleased smile plastered onto his face. “Well . . .” he began, with a funny roll to his eyes, “Fio wanted me to get a feel if Tammany had infiltrated the fire department as well. He had the fire chief set up a few times where I filled in at certain departments. That day you saw me, I had seen Danny approach Fio, so I wanted to be sure he was all right.”

  Fio chipped in, “I had Finn everywhere! Then, when you started getting into trouble, I had him keep an eye on you once in a while, too.”

  I looked at Finn with a smirk. “You had your eye on me, huh?”

  “Oh yes,” he replied with a devilish smile that made my face turn pink.

  I kept going, beginning to enjoy myself immensely. “So, Roarke and I found the guys who are probably the ones who will execute Daley Joseph’s plan of some kind of explosion: the Schmidt brothers. And from our little expedition tonight, we found out from the Schmidt brothers’ boss that the big event will be”—I paused for effect, making them draw in a little closer—“in Queens, August tenth.”

  Finn spoke up with a smirk, “Yes, gentlemen, Lane is quite resourceful. You should have seen her the other day. Sucker punched one of the Schmidt brothers.”

  “What? Those huge guys?” asked Fio, with his screechy voice.

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “Just the little weasely one.”

  “Bah!” barked out Mr. Kirkland.

  “So, you’ve been busy, Lane,” said Fio, with a father’s look of being distraught with a troublemaking daughter.

  “Oh, yeah, plenty busy,” said Finn, in his delicious accent.

  “All right, so I laid my cards on the table, now let’s hear yours,” I said, pointedly nodding at Fio. “Oh, wait,” I said slowly, pretending that I had just remembered one more significant thing. I decided that now was the time for my final bombshell. “One . . . thing . . . more.”

  Mr. Kirkland quietly said, “Oh, hell.”

  “I still don’t have all the details, but Mr. Kirkland . . .” I nodded at him and looked him right in the eye. “I know you were friends with my father. Close friends. There is a lot to your past that I’m sure I don’t know, but . . . I do think you were involved in espionage in the war. With my parents.”

  CHAPTER 23

&n
bsp; Don’t lose heart if it’s very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.

  —ML

  Everything came to a standstill. No one moved, no one spoke, and no one breathed. I was quite sure Finn had not known that part, about Mr. Kirkland’s involvement. Well, not that I had put it all together, exactly; I was making an educated guess. A supremely cocky guess.

  Fio looked from me to Mr. Kirkland and back again. “Espionage, Kirkland? It seems to me like we have even more cards to get out on the table than I thought. I wish Evelyn were here to help us put some organization to all this.”

  As he spoke these words, she came sweeping into the restaurant, eyes beady, ready for battle. She had her get-down-to-business attire on, no whimsical or flowery bohemian skirt tonight: crisp, dark red skirt and starched white blouse. Her black hair was up in a full bun at the nape of her neck. Even with her conservative attire, she had an exotic air blended with a somewhat fearsome countenance. The men all rose to greet her, but she hushed them all down and took her place at the table, opposite Fio.

  “From your shell-shocked expressions, gentlemen, and from your gratified sneer, Lane, I take it that you just blasted them with your knowledge of your parents, Finn’s role in all this, and anything else juicy that you came up with recently.” It was my turn to look baffled. How did she do that? I quickly brought her up to speed. She merely nodded at my information, but there was a wicked gleam in her eye.

  She briskly continued her organization of the meeting. “I knew you’d be getting your cards on the table, as you enjoy saying, Fiorello, so I had to look all over for you, since I was not invited. I’m sure it was just an oversight. So, here I am. We need to hear from each one of us. Kirk, I think you should go first to give us some background, then we’ll end with Fio so we can see how each of these threads makes up the tapestry of our case.” We were putty in her hands, ready to do whatever she asked. “But to give you more time, Kirk, and since your mouth is still open . . .” He shut it precipitately. “Lane, dear, how did you know about Kirkland’s involvement with your parents? How did you find that out?”