by Holly Baxter
“Which interests who?”
Dr. Tsung raised his hands in a gesture of despair. “Who sells cocaine to all the silly young men and women? Who deals in liquor, gambling, prostitution? Who would be corrupt enough to be prepared to enslave thousands for profit?”
“Capone.”
Tsung bowed his head. “So I believe. It has started already. Just at the edge of Chinatown itself, there is a new house of opium being run by a member of that man’s organization. A tea shop, or so it would appear from outside. Just another disguise at which they have become so proficient. The police do not bother with Chinatown, and they do not bother with this teashop. But there the web begins.”
“You say it’s run by a member of Capone’s outfit?” Archie leaned forward. “Do you know his name?”
Dr. Tsung thought for a moment. “I believe it is Jake something.”
“Jake Manotta?”
Tsung nodded. “That is it. Jake Manotta. The teashop is called The Copper Kettle. In the British style. But no one drinks tea there, unless they enter by mistake.”
Archie looked at Hugh and Drew.
“I suddenly feel the need of a nice cup of tea, don’t you?”
“Oh, definitely, old bean.” Drew’s English accent was excellent. “Abso-jolly-lutely.”
***
The Copper Kettle was not likely to have casual customers. The lace curtains in the window were yellow with smoke stain, and there was dust on the display of pastries on the table just behind the glass.
Archie and Hugh stood on the opposite corner, watching. They had been there about ten minutes, and in that time several people had gone inside. One was Chinese, the others were all white and young, with slightly haunted faces. Not at all your usual teashop clientele.
Drew came back and joined them. “There’s a back door to the alley,” he said. “Windows are barred and blanked off from inside. Couple of vents down low. Smells weird back there. I think I read somewhere opium smoke smells sweetish, so maybe that’s it.”
“An opium den.” Hugh shook his head. “Here, in Chicago. It’s not enough they can sniff themselves silly with ‘snow,’ booze themselves witless, gamble what little wages they get straight into Capone’s pockets, now they’re taking up smoking opium? I thought that went out with Sherlock Holmes.”
“He took cocaine.” Drew was a stickler for details.
“Yeah, yeah, but in one of those stories at least he goes into some opium den in Limehouse or somewhere…” Hugh was still not entirely sober.
“This is 1931 and I still want a cup of tea.” Archie’s face was grim. “We may have to fight to get it.”
“Maybe you should call for some help?” Drew sounded nervous. He was a drinker, not a fighter. His mother told him so.
“No knowing who would come,” Archie said. “That’s my problem, gentlemen. Not knowing which of my fellow officers is in Capone’s pocket—and that includes my Captain.” He looked from one to the other. “Ellie could be in there right now. Are you with me?”
“Oh, shit,” said Drew, morosely. He followed the other two across the street, lagging only a little behind, and muttering, “The game is afoot.”
The sweet smell Drew had described hung heavily inside the dirty little tearoom, which was hardly big enough to hold more than three dusty tables, each set for four. They crossed the narrow room to a door in the rear wall. It resembled a swinging door but was locked. Archie banged on it, taking out his gun. “Open up.”
Silence.
Archie banged harder on the wooden panels and again demanded entrance. There was a scuttling sound from behind the door, low voices arguing. Finally a key turned in the lock and the door was slightly opened. “Sorry, we’re clo—”
Archie shouldered the door fully open, revealing not a kitchen full of copper kettles, but a small office with a desk, chairs, and a large fancy Chinese cupboard beside a further door at the rear. The sweetish smell was stronger still, and indeed the two men in the office seemed slightly dazed by its presence. That suited Archie just fine. He displayed his gun.
“Evening, Jake.” His voice was bitter.
The man behind the desk gazed at him as if pleasantly surprised. “Well, if it isn’t Archie Deacon.”
Jake Manotta was built like a bull gone to fat. His thin black hair was greased back straight from a high forehead, and his moustache was hair-thin. He wore an expensive suit, and there was a jewelled stickpin in his silk tie. The only thing that set him apart from Hollywood’s vision of a gentleman gangster was his hands, which were covered with heavy gold rings on each thick finger. Jake’s version of a permanently available knuckle-duster.
Archie remembered his friend Joe Concetti’s dead face. It had been battered to pieces by those hands and those rings. He remembered now some of the strange indentations in Joe’s torn flesh, deep holes shaped like diamonds. His finger tightened on the trigger.
If Manotta noticed, it didn’t seem to bother him. The man who had opened the door was skinny but mean looking. Hugh and Drew had come in quickly behind Archie, and they had Manotta’s assistant by an arm each, preventing him from drawing the gun in his shoulder holster.
All Hugh kept thinking, as he clutched the man’s arm and smelled his sweat and cheap hair oil, was “they all dress the part, they all dress the part,” as if some central authority ruled appearances. He hadn’t let on to Archie, but he was terrified, and he was pretty certain Drew was, too. If it hadn’t been for Ellie, he could never have done this. Any of this. He looked past Manotta’s sneering face. Who was behind that rear door? More gunsels? Bigger and meaner than the one he held, who seemed to be vibrating with fear or anger? Guys with machine guns? Capone’s people loved machine guns, their “Chicago typewriters.” So much noise and destruction—a lot of bang for their buck. People in Chicago automatically dropped to the floor at the first rattling fusillade.
“I’m looking for a girl, a priest, and a Jew.” Archie kept his voice and his gun level.
Marotta stared at him for a moment, apparently perplexed, then laughed out loud. “I’ve heard of weird sex, Deacon, but that particular combo is new even to me.”
“What’s in that fancy cupboard?”
Manotta kept his eyes forward, and blinked, slowly. “My underwear.”
“Open it.”
Manotta indicated his refusal with a stream of spat-out Italian. Archie raised his gun and fired straight between the large brass handles of the cupboard. The noise was deafening in the small room and both Hugh and Drew nearly wet their pants with the shock of it. They didn’t recognize Archie, suddenly. Outside, he had seemed a nice, regular guy, maybe a little grumpy. Now he looked just like Manotta, grim and mean.
After a moment, one of the splintered double doors of the Chinese cupboard swung open. Inside were shelves filled with odd paraphernalia, pipes, boxes, and syringes. Arche went around the desk and opened the other door, keeping his gun on Manotta. He examined the objects curiously, took a couple of the boxes and put them in his pocket. Then he went to the door beside it and opened it.
A pall of smoke swirled toward him and he nearly choked. Beyond he could see a neat line of cots with people on them. He turned to Manotta, who was watching him with apparent amusement. Lifting his foot, Archie knocked Manotta’s chair back, leaving him sprawled on the floor. Then he went into the semi-darkened room. All of the people on the beds were Chinese, some lying staring and mumbling to themselves, some asleep. At the far end of the room sat a Chinese woman, doing something on a table littered with long pipes and other objects like those in the cupboard. He heard a step behind him. Manotta stood in the open doorway, grinning.
“Want to try it? I can give you a good price.” He seemed unafraid, even unbothered by being dumped unceremoniously on the floor of his office.
“Where are the kids?”
“What kids?”
“I saw them come in myself. They weren’t Chinese. I didn’t see them
leave.”
“Oh they were just passing through, collecting supplies,” Manotta said. “They went out the other way.” He nodded his head toward yet another door Archie hadn’t noticed in all the smoky haze. The smell was getting to him, he felt a little strange. The door was in a side wall, and he realized it led to the building next door. “Maybe what you want is in there,” Jake sneered.
Manotta followed Archie to the other door. Beyond it was another room, also filled with supine bodies. But there was no smoke here. Just idiot smiles on the faces of the people sprawled around on the floor. Around them was a litter of glass ampoules and hypodermic syringes. Archie whirled to face Manotta.
“Cocaine, too?”
Manotta shook his head. “Oh, no. Not cocaine. Something new. Something much, much better. Heroin. Takes you to the moon, Deacon. Takes you high and wide. I can give you a good price there, too. I’m the sole dealer in Chicago, but I’m getting ready to expand. I can get it for you wholesale. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s small, and no overheads like bottles and trucks and sawdust bars or nightclubs. It’s the future, Archie. When Repeal comes, we’ll be ready. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
Chapter Twenty-three
After the exotic surroundings of Dr. Tsung’s Chinese medicine shop, and the squalor of the Brass Kettle, Kercheval Street was a pleasant contrast. Archie parked near the Browne house and looked down at his hands. Hugh and Drew had barely restrained him from attacking Manotta, and he wished again that they hadn’t, even though he would have come off second best to Manotta’s weight and diamond-studded rings. They had phoned an anonymous tip to the police about the Copper Kettle, but he doubted it had been followed up. If the police took action, they would no doubt find all the evidence gone. Small and portable with no overheads, Manotta had gloated. Which meant he could move fast. But Manotta was right—the cops let Chinatown police itself. The tip wouldn’t be taken seriously.
“Sal must be here by now,” Drew said. He had phoned her from St. John’s House. They got out of the car and walked back to the front path. As they did there was a flash of lightning and a distant crack and rumble of thunder. A sudden breeze turned the young leaves on the trees backward, and their pale undersides shone in the light of the streetlamps. The lights were on inside the Browne house, but all the blinds were drawn and it was eerily silent. Hugh realized that, for once, Alyce’s precious radio was turned off.
They went up the steps and along the porch. Hugh knocked. “Hey, in there. It’s Hugh. Let us in.”
There was a sound beside them, and the blind of the front sitting room was pulled slightly aside and a wary eye peered out at them. After a moment the front door was unlocked and Mrs. Browne stood there, her look eager. “Have you found her?” she asked.
Hugh shook his head and the three of them walked in. Mrs. Browne, very downcast, locked the door behind them. Archie was startled—three versions of Ellie sat looking at him, along with Sal Schultz. Mrs. Browne became suddenly formal and introduced her girls—Marie, Maybelle, Alyce. All the Browne women had Ellie’s big dark eyes, except Maybelle, whose eyes were deep blue, but she had Ellie’s mouth and chin.
Maybelle spoke up. “She’s at Mr. Lee’s house.”
The three men stared at her. Had they been going around in circles for nothing? Had Ellie been at Lee’s all along?
“Are Anselm and Cohen with her?” asked Hugh, who was the first to recover.
“We don’t know,” Maybelle said. “We were cut off.”
“She phoned?” Drew was very taken with Maybelle.
Maybelle nodded.
“I wanted to go right out and get her, but Maybelle said Ellie told her we were in some kind of danger.” Mrs. Browne’s hands twisted together, her knuckles white.
Archie frowned. Danger, here? How could that be, unless Ellie had given the ming dao her address, and that seemed unlikely. What’s more, how had she become separated from the others, if she had, and gotten to Lee’s house? Why hadn’t she come home? Thunder rumbled again, far-off.
“I’ll make some coffee,” Marie said. “You all look absolutely terrible.”
“Hugh, why has this happened? What is going on? Why don’t the police do something?” Mrs. Browne’s eyes went to Archie. “You have to go out there right now. You have to!”
Archie saw she was near breaking point, and understood how this sudden eruption of violence into her heretofore quiet life had shaken her deeply. For the Browne family, like most of the families in Chicago, violence happened downtown, and in a few suburbs like Cicero, but never “here.” He doubted a shot had ever been fired within their hearing, nor the snarling rattle of a machine gun, and police sirens came only from a distance. They lived on the shores of Chicago’s violence and corruption, but a newspaper story didn’t draw blood on Kercheval Street and hundreds of other streets like it. Reading about criminals was like hearing about a neighbor’s wayward relatives. They were gossiped about and conjectured over, but never seen or heard. Therefore it was all the more shocking when one came face to face with their reality.
Archie Deacon was bone tired, and wished Mrs. Browne would sit down, so he could. Finally she did, and he, Hugh and Drew almost fell into sofa and chairs. He looked at his two “assistants” and was sorry for them. Hugh covered crime, but only from the sidelines. Drew dealt with crime, but only in his imagination from his usual position on the office sofa. Archie knew they had been frightened at the Copper Kettle, but they had come through for him. He only hoped they could continue. If they felt as lousy as he did…
“Coffee.” Marie arrived with a tray. Hugh took a cup gratefully, and couldn’t help wondering if there was any of her wonderful apple pie in the pantry. Marie wasn’t as classically beautiful as Maybelle, nor as lively as Alyce, nor as exasperating as Ellie, but there was a warmth and heart to her that always soothed him. He drank his coffee down, leaned back against the sofa, and closed his eyes. If, after all this, Ellie wasn’t dead, he would certainly kill her himself. If only she hadn’t been so nosy, so persistent, so stubborn, so…adorable. He’d been so pleased at her new job, sure it would absorb all her energy. Unfortunately, as so often before, she had fooled him.
Drew felt very peculiar. He was not accustomed to “family.” He had no siblings, his mother had always been unstable, his father an absent mystery. He had grown up any old how, educated himself with omnivorous reading, found a small talent for the new medium of radio, and got through life with the aid of a bottle or two. Now here were all these women, nice women, kind and loving of one another and their cousin Hugh. He and Archie were outsiders and he felt lonelier than ever. He glanced over at Sal and saw understanding and sympathy in her eyes.
Good old Sal.
He drank his coffee and listened as Archie explained what they had been doing, and what he thought of the situation they were in. Archie was like the Browne family, just plain decent. How he had managed to avoid being touched by the tide of corruption like so many of his fellow officers had was a mystery to Drew, who usually took the easy ways out. In which case, he asked himself, what the hell am I doing here? But he knew—it was Ellie. It was all about Ellie. For all of them.
“We’ll go out to Lee’s place, now,” Archie finished, setting his empty coffee cup down on the floor. “We’ll get Ellie and then decide what to do next.”
Drew and Hugh looked at him in surprise. Next? They were going to do more even after they had rescued Ellie? Looking at one another, each saw dismay.
Holy cats.
***
“Keep going! Keep going!” Hugh’s voice was almost shrill. They were moving along Lake Shore Drive, looking for Lee’s place.
“But that’s…” Archie protested.
“Put your damn foot down!” Hugh, in the back seat, clutched Archie’s shoulder. “Go past, go past.”
Archie did as he was told, only at the last moment seeing what Hugh had seen. A green delivery truck with a pig o
n it was parked next to the entrance of the Lee mansion’s drive. Two figures were inside, hardly discernible through the heavy rain that had begun to fall. On their right faint lines of white were visible on the glittering blackness of the lake as it churned before the wind.
He drove on along the shore until they rounded a bend, then pulled over to the side of the road. They could hear the angry thud and wash of the waves on the stony beach even through the car’s closed windows.
“Do you think it’s just those two, or are there more of them around?” Drew asked, nervously.
“No idea.” Archie was thinking hard. He pulled a battered pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket and regarded them balefully. “I said I’d give these up. Hell with it.” But every white cylinder he drew out was bent and split. Drew took pity on him and offered one of his own. Lighting up was difficult, as both of them were shaking.
“Do you think they’re all in there?” Hugh asked from the darkness of the rear seat. “Anselm, the other guy, and Ellie?”
“I hope so,” Archie said. “I’m tired of running around like a dog after its own tail.”
Drew considered the glowing end of his own cigarette. “Getting them back won’t solve much, you know. That ming dao bunch will go on trying. We don’t even know how many there are in the whole group. Could be dozens—hundreds.”
“One thing at a time.” Archie coughed, glowered at his cigarette and threw it out of the window in a golden arc. It fell onto the wet grass beside the car, sizzled, and went out. “We’ll have to circle around through the woods at the back. If there are more of those bastards back there, we’ll pick them off as we go.”
“But if you fire—” Hugh began.