by Maia Chance
So—I want to make this perfectly clear—when I clung to Ralph’s arm as we approached Lem’s table, it was merely because I felt a smidge skittish.
“Take it easy, kid,” Ralph whispered in my ear. “You’re wound as tight as a ukulele string.”
His breath on my ear sent one hundred watts flashing straight through my belly and down to my toes, causing me to totter. “Take it easy?” I whispered, steadying myself on his arm. “This is Lem Fitzpatrick. I heard that at the movies, he eats nails instead of Cracker Jack.”
Ralph chuckled. “Just a rumor.”
Lem looked up from his cards when we stopped beside him. The green-shaded lamp threw his eye sockets into shadow, but I saw his jaw tense.
“Howzit?” he said. He eyed me up and down like a rack of lamb in a butcher shop window. “Say, we’ve met, haven’t we?”
“We may have crossed paths.”
Fitzpatrick squinted up at Ralph. “I’ve seen your mug before, too, haven’t I?”
“Sure,” Ralph said. “This mug was once on a Coca-Cola advertisement.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I said, “I have a small business matter I’d like to sort out with you.” I looked around at the motley gang of slicks, thugs, and molls stooped over their cards. “Alone.”
“How about next month?”
“What about right now?”
“All right,” Lem said. “But you can’t bring your strong-arm man.”
Fear shot through me. “Allow me to at least bring my, um, business partner, Berta Lundgren.”
“Another dame? Fine. Meet me in my office in a coupla minutes.”
“Where is your office?” I asked.
“Up on the roof.” Lem lit a cigarette, eyes pinched against the smoke, and turned back to his cards.
As we walked away, Ralph whispered to me, “Sure hope you’ve got that gun I gave you in your garter.”
“What good would that do me?” I said. “I wouldn’t even know how to shoot it, and I already have a difficult enough time keeping my seams straight.”
19
I joined Berta at our table and broke the news. As a result, she had to visit the powder room. Twice. Then we said good-bye to an oddly pale Ralph and returned to the freight elevator. It clanked all the way to the roof. The door moaned open, and freezing wind gusted in.
“Good thing we brought our coats,” I said, hugging myself.
Berta did not answer. I couldn’t see her well in the dim light, but I knew her silence was less about being afraid of Lem Fitzpatrick than about her phobia of heights.
We stepped off the elevator. The glittering city expanded around us, and the sky glowed a deep plum. Water tank, fire escape … and Lem Fitzpatrick, lounging on the ledge, looking out at the city, smoking.
Berta and I approached him.
“Hello, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I called.
Lem half turned. “Why d’ya look so scared? I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
We stopped a pace away.
“We’re not afraid,” I said. Unconvincing.
Berta was eyeing the ledge with wide eyes. “But we are cold. I have no desire to contract whooping cough, so shall we get down to brass tacks?”
“Sure.”
“You tell him,” Berta whispered to me, taking a step back.
I cleared my throat. “It’s like this, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It seems that your, um, underlings—”
“Henchpersons,” Berta corrected.
“—your henchpersons stole some items that were contained in an argyle sock on a New York–Boston train two evenings ago.”
Lem tossed back his head and barked with laughter. “That was you two? Haw-haw! My boys said it was a coupla rough customers! Haw-haw-haw!”
“You must return the items,” I said.
“Those items are worth some heavy sugar,” Lem said. “So’s the sock, for that matter. Felt like genuine cashmere.”
“Those items didn’t belong to us,” I said, “and we’ll be arrested for theft if they aren’t restored to their rightful owner by Tuesday at midnight.”
“Not my problem, dollface. Unless…” Lem took a crackling draw on his cigarette. “Know what else my boys told me? They overheard something about you two sleuthing up in Carvington, Connecticut.”
Berta and I didn’t answer.
“Here’s the deal. I’ll give you back your items if you do something for me.”
“Oh?” I said. Would he ask us to become contract killers, or perhaps burlesque dancers in one of his speakeasies? I could just picture Berta agreeing to such terms.
“It’s that fish company up in Carvington,” Lem said.
“Fish?” I said. “What could possibly interest you about fish?”
“None of your business, but I’ll tell you anyway. In case you hadn’t noticed, oysters are one hot commodity in the restaurants here in New York.”
“I had noted the craze,” Berta said, “although why anyone would wish to consume them quite escapes me.”
“I hear you loud and clear, lady, but my chefs douse the little buggers with lemon and butter and all sorts of cream sauces, and people slurp ’em down. If you ask me, it’s like swallowing snot.”
“Pardon me,” I said, “but it’s a fish company in Carvington. Not an oyster company.”
“Huh. You sure about that?”
Actually, I wasn’t. At the warehouse on the Carvington waterfront just that morning, Abe Murden had certainly covered up his powerboat in a hurry. And then—yes!—there was that file in Rudy Montgomery’s study, marked OYSTER PRESERVES.
“Also,” I said, “you mentioned your … chefs?”
“At my restaurants,” Lem said. “Ambrose’s—heard of ’em? Got three and I’m thinking of opening up a fourth. Bought up the chain last year after the founder, Leopold, had a kinda scary accident.”
Eek.
“I got my own oyster suppliers, and don’t much care for the way these boys in Carvington are underselling me. Delguzzo’s? The Golden Grill? Cheaper oysters! My profit margin has shrunk to the width of a cat hair.” Lem tossed his cigarette end over the side of the building. “I wanna know exactly what’s going on up there in Carvington. So here’s what I want you girls to do. You’re gonna get a camera and go and photograph that so-called fish company’s operation. The pier. The warehouse. The fishermen. The boats. Hell, I want you to get your roly-poly rumps on a dinghy and go photograph their goddamn bay. They’re doing something real funny up there to cut costs the way they do, and I wanna see exactly what so I can—” Lem clucked his tongue, slicing a hand across his throat. “—take ’em down. Bring me photographs. If you do that, you can have your sockful of items back.”
I licked my dry lips. “Are your restaurants’ oyster profits really worth more than those items? And what do you intend to do with the photographs?”
“Just get ’em!” Lem shouted.
Berta and I shrank back.
“Unless, course, you don’t want your items back.”
“Um,” I said, “we—”
“We shall do it,” Berta said loudly. “We will deliver an assortment of photographs to you by Tuesday at noon.”
Lem broke into a lazy smile. “Swell. Mail ’em to Caffè Agostino when you’ve got ’em. Address ’em to Felix the Cat. If I like what I see, I’ll have one of my boys deliver your sock to you.”
I swallowed the panic rising in my throat. This was no good. No good at all.
* * *
Once Berta and I were chugging downward in the freight elevator, I swung on her. “Why did you agree to take those photographs? You must consult with me about these things! It’s—it’s underhanded and unpartnerlike.”
“Why did I agree? So that we may retrieve those diamonds and avoid Theo Wainwright’s having us arrested.”
“Don’t you see, Berta? Lem has no intention of returning the diamonds. They have got to be worth a fortune! It’s simply impossible that oyster sales at his restaurants are worth more. Now, thanks to us,
he’s going to have his cake and eat it, too. Who knows what he means to do with those photographs? He might be planning to fog the fishermen or blow up their warehouse—”
“Oh dear.” Berta touched her locket. “Such possibilities did not occur to me.”
The elevator thunked to a stop at the level of Caffè Agostini.
“Yes, well,” I said, “now we’re in a jam.”
As usual.
“Let us go home,” Berta said. “We have no further business at the Moody Elephant, have we?”
I thought of Ralph, who was probably at that moment goggling at Jillie Harris’s exquisitely painted face. “No,” I said. “No further business.”
* * *
We were trudging upstairs to our apartment when Mrs. Snyder popped out of her door in a dressing gown and a headful of curling pins.
“You’re here!” she whispered, waving a memorandum pad. “I took down two names and numbers of people who said they heard you on The Filmore Vacuette Hour and might have a case for you.”
“Splendid,” Berta said. “Excellent work, Mrs. Snyder.”
Mrs. Snyder ripped the sheet from the pad, passed it to Berta, and bade us good night.
The telephone was ringing when we stepped into our foyer. Berta hurried to answer it, and returned, disappointed, to say that it was for me.
“Hello?” I said into the receiver.
“Glad you got home safe.” It was Ralph. “G’night.” He hung up.
* * *
I slept till nearly noon—the first solid night’s sleep I’d had in days—and then staggered into the kitchen, where fresh coffee steamed in the percolator but no breakfast awaited me. Rectangular cookies were cooling on the baking rack, however, so I put a few on a plate, poured myself some coffee, and sat down.
“There you are,” Berta said, sailing in. “I have just been across the hallway speaking with Mrs. Snyder. She will have her work cut out for her. How did you ever sleep through all that ringing?”
“Ringing?” I bit into one of the cookies. “Golly, Berta, these cookies are hard as rocks.”
“Those are teething biscuits for Baby Alistair, Mrs. Woodby. The ringing of the telephone. We received six calls from prospective clients this morning, bringing us to a total of eight. There are two fresh cinnamon rolls in the bread box. I took the rest to Mrs. Snyder.”
Now I had to compete with Mrs. Snyder and her infant for baked goods?
“Now, then, let us review our case,” Berta said, pulling out her detecting notebook.
Ten minutes later, I had devoured the cinnamon rolls and we had refined our to-do list. Well, Berta called it our “list of hot leads,” but to me it seemed lukewarm at best. It looked like this:
Visit Glenn Monroe’s apartment, search for clues about his private life and possible interest in treasure.
Dig for more details about Isobel Bradford’s impostor at Carter’s Menswear in Mystic, and in Carvington.
Ask Theo why he was at New York City Hall last month.
Research Miss Murden’s new motorcar—funds linked to Carvington Fish Co.?
“The trouble is that Theo Wainwright and Miss Murden are surely spending most of their time at Montgomery Hall,” Berta said, “and we have been banned from the premises. How are we to interview them?”
“I can’t imagine either of them agreeing to speak with us on the telephone. We’ll think of something.”
After I dressed, I pulled on a coat and my late husband’s rubber overshoes, and promenaded Cedric up and down puddle-bogged Longfellow Street. The trees were nearly bare, and the leaves that had so romantically fallen now clogged the gutters.
* * *
As Cedric and I walked back to Number 9, I noticed Ralph’s Chalmers at the curb in front of my steps.
My blood began to simmer. I quickened my pace and, seeing him sitting behind the wheel, I rapped on his window.
He leaned over and lowered it. “Morning, kid. Nice stompers.” He was chewing something and holding a newspaper.
“You have some nerve, persisting in this ridiculous ruse.”
“It’s not a ruse, it’s my bread and butter. And why would I stop? Mr. Wainwright hired me to tail you until you wrapped your case, and by the looks of it, that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.”
“You’re wrong. We’re this close”—I held up a pinched thumb and forefinger—“to cracking this thing. I’m warning you, Mr. Oliver, you stay out of our way.”
Ralph was studying our second-story windows. “Say, what did Mrs. Lundgren make for breakfast?”
“You’re impossible.” I spun around, clumped up the steps in the rubber overshoes, and shoved inside.
Upstairs, I told Berta we had company in the form of a ginky gumshoe.
“Has Mr. Oliver had breakfast?” Berta asked. “You did not eat both cinnamon rolls, did you, Mrs. Woodby?”
“Yes,” I said, “I did. And don’t feed him, for Pete’s sake!”
Berta and I packed our suitcases. I waited as Berta badgered Mrs. Snyder one last time, and then we set forth in the Duesy with Ralph tailing my bumper. Berta had nestled the Eastman Kodak Brownie, our collapsing hobbyist’s camera, in her handbag.
“I spooled in a fresh roll of film,” Berta told me as I zipped uptown.
“You know, we never really agreed on what to do about Lem Fitzpatrick’s demand for those photographs. You simply steamrolled ahead and told Lem that we’d—”
“We must take those pictures. Lem has the diamonds. How else could we possibly retrieve them without risking life and limb?”
“Do you really wish to horse-trade with a gangster?”
“The prospect is more appealing than that of women’s prison.”
I didn’t doubt for a moment that Theo would have the police arrest us for theft. Would a court of law convict us? The fact that Berta had a sometime gangster beau certainly wouldn’t impress a judge and jury. So even if there was only a slim possibility that Lem Fitzpatrick would honor his word and return the diamonds, well, as much as I hated the idea, we had to take a stab at it.
“All right.” I sighed. “We’ll take the photographs.”
“I knew you would see reason, Mrs. Woodby.”
“I wouldn’t call the plan reasonable,” I said.
20
The first stop was Glenn Monroe’s home, the address of which Jillie Harris had supplied last night, 412 at the Branson Building, Central Park West. This was a monstrous chunk of a late-Victorian luxury apartment block. Pointy, steep roofs, gargoyles, tiers of bow windows, encrustations of wrought iron—the works.
I parked across the street. Ralph rolled up behind me, and I shot him a dark look in the rearview mirror. He winked, and shook out his newspaper. He wasn’t coming in, then. Good.
Berta, Cedric, and I swanned past the Branson Building’s doorman without incident. The concierge inside the lobby was another matter.
“Excuse me,” he called in a stony voice from behind his desk. “May I be of assistance?”
“Allow me to do the talking,” Berta whispered to me out of the side of her mouth.
“All yours,” I whispered back.
We approached the concierge.
“Good afternoon,” Berta said. “I am here to interview for the position of assistant cook in the kitchen.”
“Oh?” the concierge said. “I was not aware that a position had been advertised.”
“It has not been advertised,” Berta said. “You see, my cousin used to work in the household of the Gregorys of Henderson Place, and it was there that she met the son-in-law—a chauffeur, you see—of the former assistant to the head cook of the Branson Building.”
The concierge’s eyes were glazing over. “Quite. And who is this?” He looked at me accusingly.
“My deaf-mute niece. I was forced to bring her along for the day, as her mother is having a kidney operation.”
“But I saw her speaking to you.”
“We both are able to read lips. A most
nifty skill.”
“Very well. You will find the stairs down to the kitchen beyond the elevators.”
“Thank you,” Berta said.
A minute later, Berta and I descended into a hallway outside a clattering, steamy kitchen.
“Now what?” I said. “No one down here will believe your outrageous tales.”
“Perhaps not,” Berta said, “but there are always the dumbwaiters.”
“How do you know they’re dumb?” I said indignantly.
“You misunderstand, Mrs. Woodby. Look.”
I followed Berta’s pointed finger to a long row of metal dumbwaiter doors, all surmounted by brass plaques indicating the apartment numbers to which they led.
“Ah, there is 412,” Berta said.
“Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no.”
“It is spacious,” Berta said in lulling tones. “Not at all like those horrible little dumbwaiters that hold nothing more than a tea tray. Your hips are smaller than mine, Mrs. Woodby, so I am afraid you must go up.”
For the first time in my life, I wished my hips were bigger. “Oh, fine.” I pushed Cedric’s leash into Berta’s right hand, dumped my handbag in her left, made certain the coast was clear, slid open the dumbwaiter door, and climbed in. I had to remove my hat and scrunch myself over like a pill bug, but I fit.
“Good luck,” Berta whispered, and slapped the door shut.
Blackness, and the aroma of ham wafting from another dumbwaiter. Then, a shudder and the groan of cables. Up, up I went at a pace just slow enough to foster horrific visions of plummeting to my death (weren’t the cables groaning a little too vociferously?) or else being somehow sandwiched at the top.
The dumbwaiter stopped, and here was another sliding door with light shining through the crack. I pried my fingernails into the crack and slid the door open.
I tumbled out onto a tiled kitchen floor. I got up, dusted myself off, and looked around. The kitchen appeared to be utterly unused except for a half-full bottle of gin and a few dirty dishes on the draining board. I tiptoed through the apartment, heart thumping, and took stock.
Sitting room: Masculine leathers and glossy wood. Grand piano. Tall windows overlooking the park. Whopping framed photograph of Glenn in a white dinner jacket over the fireplace. Large selection of cowboy novels and typed radio scripts on the bookshelf. Nothing hinting at treasure. Rolltop desk holding tidy piles of bills and receipts (restaurants, tailors, hatmakers, hairdresser, manicurist, masseuse), bankbook (robust balance, strictly biweekly deposits, and no large, blackmail-payment-like deductions).