The Gold Pawn

by L. A. Chandlar

  Why did I have to pick these darling navy blue high heels today? I should have worn something more suited for running. I should always wear something more suited for running. We looked down Park Avenue and sure enough, there was a fleet of police cars, followed by fire trucks coming up fast. Looking east toward Lexington, two flumes of smoke were reaching up above the short buildings. But it wasn’t a house fire. It was something different. And I didn’t like the look of all the commotion.

  “Come on, Lane!” yelled Roarke as he started sprinting toward the smoke.

  I made it there pretty close to Roarke, holding a huge stitch in my side. When I turned that final corner, a tight, tense feeling in the air startled me as if I’d run into a wall, making me stop dead in my tracks. There was a weird, strained quiet all around even though there was a lot of commotion. Roarke stood stock still, arms out to his sides in a tense, ready-to-jump posture as we took in the scene of absolute chaos.

  I struggled to make sense of it. People were running wildly on the sides of the street. In the middle of the road was a crashed delivery truck with thick black smoke and flames shooting up from the engine. Directly behind it was a police van that had smashed into it, the driver slumped at the wheel.

  Right then, about six men in black suits with black masks and machine guns circled around the police van. Roarke and I dove to the ground just as the machine guns erupted in a furious storm.

  When they stopped, I carefully peered up and at first I thought they had shot randomly into the crowd; there were a few bodies scattered about either injured or dead. But then I saw that their aim had been directed mostly at the back of the police van. A large masked man grabbed an ax and approached the van. With one mighty hack, he cracked the now shattered rear door and lock. Through the smoke of the fire, I saw the door raggedly swing open. Right in the opening stood a guard with his hands desperately grasping at his neck, his legs kicking out, trying to fend off the attack.

  Someone behind him held the chain of handcuffs around his throat, pulling tight. The guard finally slumped, his legs coming to a standstill. The chain was pulled up and over the guard’s head and he was shoved out of the van with a boot to the back.

  Into the sunshine, with his rusty, nappy head held high, his large chest expanding as he breathed in a deep and satisfied breath . . . stepped Donagan Connell.

  CHAPTER 19

  “He meant to murder you. You had a fine escape.”

  Suddenly the cars all started moving at once and the men in black dissolved into the crowd, taking Donagan with them like a vile magic trick.

  The cavalry arrived. But it was too late. Fiorello was distraught as his sedan pulled up, and all of us were in a tragic state of bewilderment. Casualties, possible deaths, and Donagan Connell was on the loose.

  Roarke and I chipped in helping the wounded and calming the crowd; there was one fatality. Fio was livid. Donagan shouldn’t have been escorted anywhere. He must have had someone on the inside schedule the transfer. Fio would be having some choice words with the warden and the guards at Sing Sing who were supposed to inform him of any visitors for Donagan.

  Hours later, back at the office, Fio called in the warden, Mr. Lewis Lawes, and two guards. Fio had me come in, too.

  I walked in, pad of paper held tightly in my sweaty and nervous hands. The warden and two guards were very pale with wide eyes. Deep sadness and seething anger was also just beneath the surface of their somber faces.

  “Lane? Have a seat, I called you in so you can take notes and see if there’s anything we might have missed.” I forgot to bring my chair, so I had to take one of Fio’s enhanced chairs.

  “All right,” Fio continued. “Let’s go over it one last time.”

  The warden, a large and sturdy-looking man of about fifty, well known as a proponent of prison reform, began. “Well, as you know, we received the typical documentation about transferring the prisoner to the courthouse due to a trial date that had been moved up. Nothing looked out of the ordinary about it. As is the case with all transfers, I handled the vehicles personally and did not notify any of the guards about who was being transferred or exactly what day or time until that very moment. So there couldn’t be a leak at my prison.”

  “No,” said Fio, thoughtfully tapping his pen on his desk. “You’re right, I think the leak is higher up. If you received falsified paperwork, it’s definitely higher up. But Donagan had to get some information back and forth.” He turned his eyes to the guard on the left.

  “And you say there were no visitors?” Fio asked him.

  “No, sir, nothing odd at all,” he replied with a gulp.

  Wait a minute. Fio hadn’t asked about any visitors out of the ordinary or odd, he’d asked about any visitors at all.

  “Hold on,” I interjected carefully. “Did Donagan have any visitors at all? Any family or anyone?”

  Fio’s and the warden’s eyes darted to me, then back to the guard.

  The guard said, “W-well . . . his little old mother came in every week. But she’s ancient. It took her almost ten minutes just to walk from the guard station to the door.”

  Fio gripped his pen with ferocious strength, his fingers turning white, and made a strangled sound in his throat. But I caught his eye, pursed my lips, and gave a curt shake to my head. He took a breath and collected himself, containing his rage.

  “All right, gentlemen, thank you for your information. And on a grave day like this, we appreciate you coming in. We will do all we can to catch the people who have done this.” With that, they were dismissed. After I showed them out, I walked wearily back to Fio’s office and sank down into one of his miserable chairs.

  Fio looked at me unsmilingly. “So. This little old mother making weekly visits to Donagan. Who do you think orchestrated that?”

  “Pfft. Eliza, of course.” Both of his eyebrows raised as he looked at me over the top of his glasses. “I know, I know. She’s gotten under my skin before.”

  Fio made a rude noise.

  “Just bear with me a minute,” I said, biting back a chuckle. “We know beyond a doubt she was partners with Donagan from our last case. And they were definitely more than just business partners.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And we know that she’s fabulous with disguises and dramatic skills enough to fool her own mother, let alone a couple of guards. She sure fooled all of us.”

  “I actually agree with you. We don’t have proof, yet, but I think that’s a reasonable assumption. And uh, Lane . . . Thanks for catching me in our meeting. I was about to erupt. I specifically told the warden to notify me of any visitors, but the guards were just looking for visitors who stood out. However, they don’t need to carry that extra burden. At least, not today. Today is dark enough already,” he said contemplatively, as he looked out the window at the city he loved.

  * * *

  The next morning dawned cold, but sunny. It was Thanksgiving. Despite the sadness of the day before, we had a houseful of guests coming and already the wonderful smells of herbs, onions, bread, and coffee were wafting up from downstairs. Above me, I heard Aunt Evelyn in her studio with soft music playing and an occasional footstep making the familiar sound of floorboards creaking.

  I still had my head on my pillow and my fingers stroked the soft cotton of the warm sheets. The air was a little frosty, so I longed to stay in my cozy covers. The pillow next to me was plump and untouched. I wondered what it would be like waking next to Finn. Every day. I smiled to myself thinking of his dark eyes smiling back at me, how he’d look all rumpled in the morning, the hair on his muscled chest as I’d run my hands slowly down . . .

  And with that thought I got out of bed—no use torturing myself. I wrapped my big, fluffy pink robe around me and found my slippers. I walked sleepily up the stairs to the studio and plopped down on a pile of tarps.

  Aunt Evelyn was painting a colorful scene of skaters on a frozen pond in Central Park. She usually painted in the abstract, but occasionally she woul
d do an artful landscape or picture like this. You could see the individual skaters, but they weren’t crisp and clear-cut. Each one had a modular, modern shape and was slightly blurred with the wind running through them. They had coats and hats as colorful as a bowl of jelly beans. The brown trees and buildings surrounded the scene, keeping them safe. And there was a couple in the middle of the rink. Something sweet and longing about them. They were reaching out to each other, about to embrace, definitely happy, with a beseeching tilt to the woman’s head.

  Evelyn looked at me and smiled knowingly. “You miss him a lot, don’t you?”

  I let myself fall straight over into the pile of tarps and said pathetically, “Yeeeessss!”

  She laughed. “Yes, and I always think that all that talk of distance makes the heart grow fonder . . .”

  “Grrrrr,” I interrupted.

  “Yes,” she chuckled. “I always think it is quite a crock of . . . Well. Enough said.” She tilted her head and looked at me closely. “You’ve decided to go back to Michigan soon, haven’t you?”

  How does she do that? I had just made up my mind last night.

  “Yes, I’m thinking next week sometime, so I can be back here at least a couple of weeks before Christmas.”

  “Well,” she began, “I think I can arrange something for you and me to go out maybe Tuesday or Wednesday—”

  “Well . . .” I tentatively interrupted.

  “What, Lane?”

  “Well . . . I’ve been giving it some thought.” I got up and slowly walked over to the large, colorful canvas that hung on her wall behind her. It was an experiment she and I had done a while ago, painting to music. I am no painter, but the experiment was something I would never forget. The polonaise by Chopin moved me, moved my body and my hands and my fingers to paint along with the powerful music. I went up to my canvas and reached out my hand. With a delicate touch, I brushed my middle finger along a wide stroke of dark magenta, lightly feeling the texture of the paint and the canvas underneath.

  I thought of Finn, touching his face, the lapels of his suit coat, the feel of my face pressed up against his strong chest, the sound of his heartbeat and the perfect fit of his embrace. That feeling that our bodies were made for each other. That he felt like home.

  I thought of that time when we had been covered in debris from a bomb blast, and we had shared deeply about our past: of the death of my parents and about the painful betrayal of his brother, Sean. Not only had he betrayed Finn, but there was something else that we hadn’t even talked about yet. It was obviously a painful secret, that would take time to carefully unfold. Sean had done something that had profoundly harmed Finn both physically and mentally. When Finn and I had that moment with each other, I had the feeling that if we could talk about and work out those things, that one extremely difficult time, then we could move on.

  It felt the same now.

  “Aunt Evelyn, I don’t understand what happened at the Rochester house. But I feel like it’s something I have to overcome. And it’s something that I need to do on my own, or I’ll never be able to move on.”

  She took a deep breath, not at all pleased that I had just suggested going alone.

  “Please, Aunt Evelyn, I don’t need a long time by myself. Maybe just a few days. But I feel very strongly that . . . that if I can figure this out and work it through, this one difficult time, that I might be able to move on. And after yesterday . . . Damn it, Aunt Evelyn! If there is any way that I can find clues about what’s going on with Rex Ruby, I want to help. I know that there are more parts to the puzzle of my parents’ death and what the hell is behind that silver gun and the gold pawn. And I need to figure it out.”

  Her eyes sparkled, her mouth set in a determined line. “Lane, if you feel strongly about it, I’ll support what you want. And I’d much rather have you angry and spunky than downcast. But I think it would be unwise to have too much time there by yourself. Besides, we don’t really know who was behind the death of your parents. That perpetrator could still be around.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “But, I completely understand the need to tackle and overcome something on your own two feet. What would you think about going out this Tuesday or so and then I could come out a few days later, perhaps by the weekend?”

  “I think that would be great. Oh, and I can also find out if Tucker will be around. He said that he goes to Detroit frequently and he would be around if I needed anything.”

  Aunt Evelyn didn’t look exactly pleased about that.

  As I headed down the familiar staircase to my room, I firmed up the notion of going on my own. It was just easier to do it by myself. I wouldn’t have to keep explaining my feelings or find all of them looking at me, wondering if I was okay. Yes, I really wanted a few days to myself. As I stepped across the threshold into my blue and white room, a line from my Book came easing its way into my mind: “. . . you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.”

  The festivities of Thanksgiving Day began bright and early with Valerie dropping by to help with preparations. She also brought the new magazine that had just come out this week: Life. I took it in my hands with great expectation. It was to be a photo journal of all of life’s various activities and I was excited about the fact that some of the photojournalists and writers were women.

  There were more and more of us women working in professional roles, but the career world was still a boys’ club. Even with my job being a bit more than a secretary’s, which seemed to be a profession tolerated by men, I had responsibilities that usually fell to men and believe me, it was a tough arena. I conducted interviews and wrote community relations articles, crafting words to my own views and opinions. And I had to fight for respect. Respect is always something you earn, but as a woman in a man’s profession, I had to work three times harder than a man, with four times the excellence, to get the same degree of respect. At least with my role working so closely with the mayor, I was usually exempt from the degrading fanny pats that a lot of secretaries received when going around delivering coffee and lunches to a group of men at the table. I may have let it slip once or twice that I was good with a knife. Maybe. And I had a definite plan worked out if it did happen. I’d only had to use it once.

  Life magazine had a unique cover of what looked like an industrial site, the light on the sides of the great factory making the massive structures imposing and strange. Inside were wonderful articles, but I also loved the advertisements. The cars coming out next year looked incredible. The ’37 Plymouth looked fabulous, but the new Ford V8 was amazing. However, new cars were almost seven hundred dollars, a pretty heavy chunk of change on my salary, not that I really wanted a car in the city, I hadn’t learned to drive yet. But they did look marvelous. Then there was an ad for Thanksgiving dinner, and to aid in the digestion, it recommended smoking Camel cigarettes. I only smoked once in a while. With my fall into icy waters when I was ten, sometimes my breathing wasn’t up to par, so smoking wasn’t my thing. Most people casually smoked but Aunt Evelyn, extremely outspoken on issues of smoking, never let anyone smoke inside. She made a fuss over the smoke harming the artwork we had in the house. So there would be no helpful smoking to aid our digestion tonight.

  Another early arrival that morning was—I have to admit a most excellent strategy on my part—Morgan. I asked her to come and help this Thanksgiving Day, assuring her that we needed the help and as it was a day for friends and family, we wanted her to come. She still looked iffy, so I made it seem that it was a working arrangement, that we needed her help and would be paying someone else to come anyway, so why not her? That seemed to help her get over the hump of pride and awkwardness. She arrived on our doorstep clean and nice-smelling, with a pink blush to her face from what I presumed was rigorous scrubbing. I hid a smile that would h
ave definitely offended, and thanked her for coming.

  Valerie, Morgan, and I all jumped in chopping vegetables, peeling great mounds of potatoes, prepping the humongous turkey, cutting up fresh fruit for a salad, setting the table, washing the silver, dusting and cleaning, etc. It was a wonderful bustle of activity with a lot of laughter and after a couple of hours, I was happy to see the set of Morgan’s shoulders relax.

  Only one time had I seen her in action, with a few of her other urchins running around the city here and there. I could immediately see what pulled her back to the streets: She was their captain. She was one of the older ones and had probably taken quite a few under her wing. The streets were very dangerous. I had no doubt she tried with everything she had to keep her followers safe. With her hair tied back and a cap upon her head she’d looked just like a boy; a smart move on her part. She was a funny mix of tender youth and hardened maturity. When we rescued her, we thought she might be younger, but I think she was about sixteen or so.

  As I looked over at Morgan wiping a small bit of soap off Valerie’s nose, I glimpsed some happiness in her. Probably being part of a big family event, being useful, but also not being in charge. Just for the day. Every leader needed a break now and then.

  Later on, everyone started showing up: Roxy and Roarke, the La Guardias, and a few surprise guests whom Aunt Evelyn had adopted for the day. There was a man named Albert and his wife, Elsa Einstein; Big Sam, whose wife and kids were visiting his mother-in-law; Nina Mittman, who was an artist and fellow women’s rights advocate; and another man whom I recognized but couldn’t figure out from where, Bob something or other. I missed his last name. Bob was the life of the party, making funny quips the entire time, with Big Sam’s deep and booming laugh punctuating the time, making us all smile wider. Or was Bob’s name Leslie? Bob Leslie? Something like that, but he seemed awfully familiar. I think I had heard his voice on the radio . . . Albert apparently never left home without his violin, which he affectionately named Lina. We got to hear all sorts of songs, but you could see by the rapturous look on his face that Mozart was his favorite.