A dog scuttled down the street past Charlie’s office building, the only source of movement except the icy wind whipping old newspapers down the empty pavement. Vivian glanced at her watch. 12:03 p.m. She climbed the steps and opened the door without knocking.
Maxine wasn’t at her desk, and Vivian breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t know if she was up to the scrutiny today. Not after the morning she’d had. Charlie poked his head out of his office door and frowned at her. “You’re late.”
“By four minutes,” she protested.
“Come in.” He waved her into his office, and his head disappeared back behind the doorjamb. She took her coat off. Good to his word, Charlie had actually had someone come in to look at the radiator. Now it was sweltering in the cramped little space. She waved one hand in front of her face, but the warm, dry air it swirled in front of her nose did little to cool her.
A man was already there, seated in a chair behind Charlie’s desk. He was in his mid to late sixties, dark hair peppered with gray and dark eyes—a rough but pleasant face. He cocked his head as she walked in, and the gesture reminded her of someone. Then Charlie walked to the opposite side of the desk. His head was cocked at her in exactly the same way.
He gestured to the man sitting next to him. “This is my father, Charlie Haverman Sr.”
“Call me Cal,” the man said, standing and thrusting out his hand for a shake.
Vivian took his hand, and he pumped hers forcefully several times. She tried to hide her surprise in her stilted smile. The person who might shed some light on her father’s nefarious dealings was Charlie’s father?
Mr. Haverman was darker than Charlie, shorter and stockier. She knew he was not Charlie’s biological father, but there was something in the way he carried himself that reminded her of Charlie. Mr. Hart might have given Charlie his height and good looks, but this man had given Charlie his character.
“I must confess, I’m a little confused,” she said, turning from Cal to Charlie and back again.
“Pops was a track detective at Hawthorne.” Charlie turned to his father. “For how many years?”
“Twelve. And two at Lincoln Fields before that. I’m retired now. Well, semiretired.”
Vivian glanced back and forth between the men again. That explained virtually nothing. She looked at Charlie, but it was Cal who continued.
“Hawthorne is right next to Sportsman’s Park,” he said. He registered her blank expression and continued the explanation. “They started running horses when the government ran Capone outta the dog-racing business in Illinois.”
Vivian opened her mouth, and then closed it again.
“He’s also familiar with the Racquet Club.” Charlie tapped his index finger on the cover of the ledger sitting in front of him at the desk.
“I…” Vivian shook her head. It felt like she’d walked into a movie already in progress. “What’s any of this got to do with my father?”
“Did you bring the photo?”
“Oh yes.” Vivian pulled the frame from her bag and set it on the desk. Charlie’s eyes focused on a young Vivian, and one corner of his mouth curved up in a smile. Then the smile faded and he pointed at her father, speaking to his own father out of the side of his mouth.
“Do you recognize that man?”
Cal squinted at the photo, leaned in, leaned back again, and then nodded. “Sure. That’s Easy Artie.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes at the man, unsure that she’d heard him correctly. “I’m sorry. Easy Artie?”
“Yeah, that’s what they called him.”
“Who?”
“Everybody,” Cal said with a shrug. “He was at the track a lot. Last I saw him was sometime in the summer of…oh, that was probably 1930? The summer before Capone got in hot water.”
He was at the track a lot. Her father. Everyone called him Easy Artie. Capone. This information was all coming too fast for her to process. And it couldn’t be true. Charlie was pulling her leg. He had to be. She looked at him, but his expression was serious.
Cal leaned forward, smiled, and placed the tip of his index figure on the figure seated directly below her father. “And that cute little thing is you, isn’t it?”
Vivian didn’t answer. Her mind was numb.
When she’d gathered her thoughts, Vivian said, “So? He liked to go to the track, that’s all.”
Cal squinted at Vivian and thunked the tops of his fingers on the desktop twice. “As I recall, your father was pretty chummy with some important people.”
“Chummy?” she said, her head swimming.
He nodded, looked at her for a long time, his finger tapping on the $200 to Al line in the open ledger. “Big Bill Thompson, for one. The crooked mayor himself. Capone had that fella in his pocket. Had ’em all in his pocket.” The photo in her father’s study flashed through her mind, and then the headline from the newspaper the night he’d died: CAPONE CITY HALL BOSS. “And the big man himself, of course—when he was still the big man. Your father knew him. Capone owned Sportsman’s next door, but he used to come to Hawthorne from time to time. Better class of pony. I saw your father with Capone with my own two eyes. They were pals.”
Vivian shook her head, her eyes on the fingers twisting in her lap.
“So, he met the man,” she said, her voice flat. “Capone was a celebrity. My father couldn’t resist.”
“It was common knowledge that Easy Artie was under Capone’s thumb. I don’t know how far under, but—”
Vivian held up her hand. “That’s not true.” She settled her shoulders and took a breath. “I mean, this information is…unexpected. But where’s your proof?” She looked from Cal to Charlie. Two men so unlike and alike at the same time. Identical expressions of sympathy on their faces. That infuriated her. There was nothing to sympathize with. Her father could not be who they said he was.
“I figured you’d say that,” Charlie said, leaning back in his chair.
How dare Charlie think he knew her that well.
“Maybe you should take her to see Moochie,” Cal said, turning to his son.
Vivian returned her attention to the older man, one eyebrow raised.
“Moochie,” Charlie repeated, considering the idea. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I mean, there aren’t many guys around from those days anymore. But there’s Moochie, and he might know something. Give you this proof you’re looking for.”
She pulled at the buttons at the top of her dress. God, but it was warm in this room. She felt light-headed.
“I’m sorry, doll. This is a lot to take in, isn’t it? But it’s the God’s honest truth.”
All of this was a crazy fever dream, Vivian thought. She blinked and looked out the window at the dirty brick of the building next door. Doll, she thought. Had Charlie’s father just called her doll?
“Anyone for coffee?” Cal stood, his chair legs scraping against the wooden floor. No one answered, but he left the room anyway.
Charlie’s eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose as he returned his attention to Vivian.
“Sorry, Pop’s never been one for tact.”
She couldn’t focus on anything but the swirling fact that her father had been chums with Al Capone, and everyone on God’s green earth but her seemed to have known about it.
“But Freddy said my father wasn’t involved in anything illegal,” she said. She looked back toward Charlie and was alarmed to see concern in his eyes. She must not have been taking this as well as she thought.
“Yeah? Well, I think it’s pretty obvious that either Freddy is the world’s most unobservant business partner, or he’s been lying to you.”
She shook her head. It was all hard to believe, but why would Charlie’s father lie to her? He wouldn’t, was the answer. He had no reason to.
She cleared her throat and pulled the appointment boo
k from her pocket. “There’s also this. I found it in my father’s study when I went to get the photo this morning.” She handed Charlie the book. “Someone tore out the page following his death.”
Charlie opened the book, letting pages flip until he reached the one covered in leaden gray pencil. He studied it for a moment, passing his fingertips over it. His eyes flicked to hers, recognition there that she’d learned this trick from him. “Who or what is W-son?”
“I don’t know, but my father never got a chance to meet him…or her.”
She locked eyes with Charlie.
“And someone wanted to make sure that no one would find out they were going to meet?”
She nodded, her stomach churning at the idea. It could have been an innocent thing. Her father could have ripped that page out himself, but she knew he hadn’t.
“And Top-C?” he said.
She looked down to where he was pointing on the page. In the upper right-hand corner, near the edge of the leaden-gray cloud where Top-C was written in her father’s tight, precise hand.
She shrugged. She couldn’t think clearly. “No idea.”
“Maybe where they were going to meet? I’ll look into that too.”
He nodded and stood. He rested an index finger on her face in the photo, raising an eyebrow at sixteen-year-old Vivian, a childish bow in her neat bob. “Look at you, so sweet and innocent.”
She snorted as he slid the framed photo back over the desk. She fumbled the photo into her bag with numb fingers as she stood to go. Charlie continued walking behind her toward the open door. Then she felt him lean down, his lips close to her ear. “I’ll take experience over innocence any day of the week,” he said, his breath warm on the nape of her neck.
Chapter Seventeen
Vivian glanced at the ornate clock that hung on the outside of the Fair department store at the corner of State and Madison. She should be headed to the studio. They had a live episode of The Darkness Knows tonight, and time was tight. Instead, she’d found herself walking the two extra blocks west past the Grayson-Cole Building to the Rookery.
“Vivian.” Della seemed surprised. She hadn’t expected her, which had been Vivian’s plan.
“Hello, Della. Is Freddy in?”
“He is, but he’s very busy. He’s in conference.”
Of course. Wasn’t that convenient? All Vivian could think was He lied to me. Freddy looked me in the eye and lied to me. She eyed the half-closed door. “Might I come in?”
Della blinked. “Oh, of course.” Della opened the door the rest of the way and stepped awkwardly to the side as Vivian entered. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Yes. Tell me the truth, she thought.
“I wanted to talk to Freddy, and I was hoping to get in out of the cold for a few minutes. It’s terrible out there today.” Vivian took off her gloves and rubbed her hands together.
Della glanced toward the window as if she didn’t quite believe her. “Can I get you some tea?”
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
Vivian’s eye fell on the windowsill next to the filing cabinets.
“You still have a green thumb, I see.” She nodded toward the veritable jungle on the windowsill.
“Yes, they’re my babies.”
“What’s this?” Vivian pointed at a glass dome over one of the plants.
Della smiled at her and then tapped the glass cloche with her fingernail. “It traps the heat,” she explained. “Like a mini greenhouse. This poor plant would die in this climate without the heat and moisture.”
Vivian followed Della’s gaze out the window to the drab gray winter sky, still thinking about meeting Charlie’s father…and what he’d told her about her own. She blinked the thoughts from her mind and smiled at Della. “I love that all these exotic plants are growing right here in dreary old Chicago.”
“Me too. It gives one some sort of hope, doesn’t it?” Della smiled down at the plant like a mother at her child.
“So what is that? The plant, I mean.”
Freddy’s door flew open and banged against the wall.
“Della, they’ve pushed the hearing up to—” He fell silent and glanced back and forth between Vivian and Della. Della had begun to raise the cloche from her prized plant to show Vivian, but automatically began to lower it again. “Della. I’m going to need your help immediately.” His attention shifted to Vivian. “Hello, Viv.”
“Hello, Freddy,” Vivian said.
“A surprise to see you here again—so soon.”
“I was hoping to talk to you.”
“No time, I’m afraid,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “I’m late as it is.”
“Can we talk later then? It’s important.” She was unwilling to say more in front of his secretary.
“Of course,” he said. Then he rushed from the office—without his coat and hat, Vivian noted.
Della and Vivian turned to each other. Della’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“He did say he needed my help, didn’t he?”
“I thought so,” Vivian said. She shrugged.
“Mr. Endicott’s been out of sorts lately,” Della said, shaking her head. “Would you still like that tea?”
“I would, thank you.”
Vivian sat in the chair in the small waiting area while Della went to the pantry in the back of the office. “You’re in luck,” she called back to Vivian. “I’d just put the kettle on to boil. Milk?”
“Yes, please.”
Della returned in a moment and pressed a steaming mug of tea into Vivian’s hand.
“You were about to tell me about your plant. What did you call it?”
“Oh yes, the odollam.” Della walked over to the windowsill again and tapped her fingernails on the glass cloche. Then the telephone on her desk rang, startling them both. Della looked back and forth between the glass cloche and the ringing telephone a few times before she finally chose the telephone. “I’m sorry, I have to get this.”
“Of course.”
Della picked up the receiver. “Mr. Endicott’s office. How may I help you?” She pressed her lips together. “Now? Okay, I’ll be down in a minute.” She hung up and blew the wisps of hair out of her face in exasperation. She turned to Vivian. “There’s a package at the front desk in the lobby, and they refuse to deliver it. Told me I have to go down there and sign for it.” She shrugged.
“Go ahead,” Vivian said. “I was just leaving anyway.”
“No, no, you stay right here and finish your tea. I won’t be a minute.”
And then Della was gone, the door of the office clicking shut behind her. Vivian sat with the tea warming her hands. Her eyes ranged over the plants, the drab square of Chicago sky in the window beyond, and then onto the filing cabinet behind Della’s desk. The filing cabinet. Vivian put her cup down and shot a quick glance over her shoulder at the closed door. All was quiet in the hall.
Vivian pulled the drawer labeled W open with a grunt. She flipped through the files, mumbling each name under her breath as she passed. “Watson, Wilson,” she repeated to herself until she reached the end of the files in the drawer. No Watson. No Wilson.
She started to return to her tea, but after one step reversed direction and went back to the filing cabinet. This time she headed for the H drawer. She flipped through the thickly packed file folders, not expecting to find anything in here either. But then she stopped and sucked in her breath. There it was. Heigel, Oskar. She glanced over her shoulder toward the door, then pulled the thin file out and opened it. She scanned the few papers it contained. It did indeed look like immigration paperwork—at least to her untrained eye. The date on most of the papers was March 1925.
She snapped the folder shut and lifted it to put it back in the file cabinet. She jumped to the chair and was sitting, legs crossed, serenely sippin
g her tea when Della returned with the package.
Vivian smiled close-mouthed as Della heaved the package onto the desk. One thought was in her mind: If Oskar and Freddy didn’t know each other, why did Freddy have that file in his office?
• • •
The ad man was lurking in the control booth again for the eight o’clock show of The Darkness Knows. He stood chatting with Mr. Banks as he flicked ashes into the tray at his elbow. Vivian was watching them surreptitiously from behind her script when the studio door opened and Gloria appeared, a cheery smile dimpling her cheeks. Vivian had been hoping the girl wouldn’t show—not without Everett—but there she was. Vivian glanced up at the clock. Yes, there she was with only five minutes to air.
Vivian glanced at Graham at the far side of the room, but he hadn’t noticed Gloria’s entrance, and there was no time to alert him now. Vivian sighed in exasperation. Graham had been the one to invite Gloria, and now he was so wrapped up in himself that he hadn’t noticed she’d arrived. Vivian couldn’t help but notice that Gloria’s smile had dimmed somewhat when Vivian turned her attention back to her. Well, there was no help for it now. Vivian smiled brightly at the girl and headed toward the control room, motioning for Gloria to follow.
Strangers in the control room made Vivian nervous at the best of times, but the return of Mr. Marshfield, the Sultan’s Gold Cigarettes ad man, had her sick with anxiety. All she could think about was impressing him enough that he would consider adding her to the nationwide magazine ad he had planned for Graham. And impressing him meant no slipups. Impressing him meant being the consummate professional—something Vivian had trouble with, despite her best intentions. She stopped in front of the men and smiled at each before half turning to include Gloria in the group.
“Hello, Mr. Langley, Mr. Marshfield,” Vivian said. “We have a visitor for this evening’s performance. May I present Miss Gloria…” Vivian faltered. She realized she’d forgotten the girl’s last name.
“Mendel,” Gloria supplied with a smile. She offered her hand to Mr. Langley, and he took it, giving it a firm shake.
Homicide for the Holidays Page 17