Jack reached in his pocket and pulled out a bill. He handed it to Grace.
“I’m a great admirer of Lincoln. But there’s no one like Grover Cleveland.”
“Grover Cleveland? A thousand dollar bill? What do you think I am? A bootlegger?”
Their Studebaker transported them comfortably from Chester’s home in Bankers Hill to downtown San Diego. They went past the affluent homes guarded by large gates and bordered by Balboa Park, where during the day, uniformed English nannies pushed baby carriages, to downtown’s seedier sections. Flappers replaced the proper British nannies as they came closer to the speakeasy.
“Lets go to the pawn shop first.”
The pawn shop was conveniently located next to a speak easy, offering broke drunks a way to pay off lost bets. You could always count on finding gold billfolds, flasks, and watches.
Tatania got out first. She lept on the counter, paws on it, while Jack showed the striking blonde’s picture to the pawn shop owner.
“This girl doesn’t look like she was at the intersection of despair and dreams that never come true. That’s the type of customer I see.”
“Do you have any other type in a Pawn Shop?”
“Guys that lose money gambling. Or whoring around in a speakeasy. Drinks a little too much foot juice. Starts kissing another dame’s toes. Excuse this talk, Grace.”
“I excuse it.”
“She’ll excuse it if I’m not the one doing it,” Jack said.
“And don’t want to tell their wives they’re out of dough for the mortgage or rent. So they pawn something they think she won’t notice missing. Like golf clubs. Or if she does notice, she won’t mind.”
“They’re at the intersection of Fear and Secret.”
“Aren’t we all?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“Chester’s a wet blanket. Maybe she wanted to have some fun.”
Chapter Five
They left the pawn shop and went to the train station. A train seemed the most likely way she’d leave town.
“Do you think we’ll have time for swimming?” Grace looked at a swimsuit in the window of Martson’s department store downtown. Beautiful basic black. She liked the scalloped neckline.
Without streetlights or stop signs in sight yet, despite more autos on the roads everyday, walking in downtown San Diego became especially adventurous. They ignored the cacophony of horns and shouts.
“I always have time to see you in a swimsuit.”
“I would have remembered her,” their friends at the train station said when they showed Cecile’s photograph. Tatania jumped up on a bench. The birds nearby looked nervous. Zeus rolled around on a brochure.
“I’ve seen her before,” one station agent said. “I’m sure I’ve sold her husband and her tickets to L.A. before. He negotiated a discount.”
“She’s missing,” Jack said.
“She didn’t leave San Diego with her husband.” Grace played with her hair. Jack raised an eyebrow.
“If she didn’t leave by train, is terrified of ships, and doesn’t know how to drive, would she ask a stranger for a car ride?”
“Too risky. And where would the stranger take her? Even if she found someone headed out of town, what are the odds of getting far on the road without the car breaking down? Would she do that with a stranger? She’s supposed to be a cautious girl. Probably thought she was going to lead the perfect life. Married to a broker. Figured she didn’t need to learn to drive. She married a guy who not only had a Bentley, he had an elevator on the side of the house to take her to the third story bedroom. She didn’t need to climb the ladder of success. He built her an elevator.”
“Aren’t husbands always supposed to be an elevator? Wives should just relax and enjoy the ride?”
Grace and Tatania exchanged looks.
Zeus rolled around on a cruise ship brochure. Tatania walked over to him and sniffed it.
Grace picked it up, and said, “It’s a brochure for the Pacific Steamship Company.”
“What are we missing?” Jack asked.
“Champagne.” Grace replied.
Chapter Six
“Bottoms up,” Jack said into the grate at their usual speakeasy downtown.
Tatania lept up on a stool and awaited her serving of milk.
“Bees Knees.” Grace spied her favorite French Champagne behind the bar.
“I didn’t know you’d be able to keep getting Moet shipped here during Prohibition.” Jack noticed several bottles on the counter.
“Prohibition isn’t stopping anything. My contacts in Epernay are the cat’s meow.” The bartender served Tatania first. He kept a bottle of milk for her. Zeus jumped up next to Tatania and waited to be served. Grace patted him gently.
“Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine,” a poster in the speakeasy proclaimed. Someone had drawn a beard on the woman in the poster.
“Seems like that would only decrease her chances,” Jack said.
Tatania sniffed a ship in a bottle on the counter before delicately lapping her milk.
“A sailor traded that for some whiskey last week,” he explained.
“Lovely,” Grace twirled the bottle around in her delicate gloved hand, emerald and diamond wedding ring sparkling on a black gloved finger. The ship turned and then uprighted itself again. Tiny U.S. and California flags adorned the ship.
“I heard you two got hitched on a train coming back from TiJuana.”
“Classy.” Jack smiled.
“Met on a train. Married on a train. One never stops moving with Jack. Why do sailors make ships in bottles?” Grace asked.
“Gives them something to do with the empties. This one’s on me. Congrats to Jack.”
He poured three glasses of Moet and held one up in a toast.
“Why not congratulate Grace on marrying me?”
“She’s a lot better looking than you.”
Tatania put a paw up on the ship in a bottle and meowed.
“She looks like freshly fallen snow.” The bartender stroked Tatania’s silky fur. Your hand seem to sink into layers of softness when you pet Tatania.
“Are you two working on a case or honeymooning at my establishment?”
“Have you seen this girl?” Jack showed him the photo of Cecile with the mysterious smile.
“She’s like a modern day Mona Lisa. Only better looking.”
“Perhaps modern photography is more flattering than Renaissance painting,” Grace suggested.
Tatania meowed. Zeus licked his chops and rolled over for a tummy rub on the barstool.
“I’d remember her. Who is chasing her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone’s chasing this dame. Husband? Lover? Both?”
“The husband hired us.”
“Did you check the pawn shop next door? Maybe she pawned her wedding ring. If she was leaving the husband.”
“Of course. But if she’s leaving the husband, on her own, she might keep wearing her wedding ring to keep men from bothering her or approaching her,” Grace said.
“Like a rogue on a train?” The bartender asked.
Grace laughed. “Jack was with Tatania so I knew he must be alright.”
“Good to see you, old mate.” A man in Captain’s uniform tapped Jack on the back.
“Surprised?”
“Come on, it’s a speakeasy. How surprised could I be to see you?” He smiled.
“Is it true you got married?”
“Here’s the evidence in front of you.” Jack pointed to Grace.
“I’m called Grace.” She held her hand out and he kissed it.
“I heard you’re beautiful. But that description doesn’t do you justice.”
“Don’t listen to him, Grace. Sailors will say anything.”
“I didn’t know you were a sailor, Jack.”
Tatania, with her typical perspicacity, jumped down from the bar stool, and brushed against the captain’s jeans, revealing he was a good guy. Tatania only
marked good humans.
He put his cap down on the counter.
“This one’s on the house, good to see you on land, Captain.” The bartender put a shot of whiskey on counter.
“Where did you two meet?” Grace asked.
“We both flew in the Great War.”
“And then he went to sea. Even the mermaids aren’t safe now,” Jack joshed.
“You still flying?”
“Yes,” Grace and Jack said in unison.
“When you’re not solving mysteries?”
Tatania meowed. Really. They all knew who solved the mysteries around here.
“We’re actually trying to solve one now.” Grace pulled the photo of Cecile out of her notebook.
“Love a job that includes drinking.” The Captain took a shot of whiskey and stared at the photo. He shook his head.
“What?”
“Be careful. Don’t say she’s beautiful. Grace doesn’t always like to share attention.”
“Oh please, don’t be all wet.”
The Captain looked at the photo and shook his head. He downed another shot of whiskey.
“Let me see it again.” He stared at the photo.
“She looks a little like a barmaid we just hired. But she has red hair and goes by the name Maureen O’Neill.”
Tatania snuggled up to the Captain. She loved the intoxicating scent of seafood he carried with him. Better than brandy.
“We’re in port for a couple days. Ship needs some repairs before she leaves for Alaska again. Dame walked in and asked for a barmaid job immediately. Almost like she’d been waiting at the dock. And she had a kitten with her that looked like Tatania.”
“Reason enough to hire her.”
“Here’s our first shift of ship workers arriving now.” The Captain waved to a group of men that stood in the doorway.
“Where would I be without great ship builders?” The Captain asked.
“On land?” Grace looked at the sun tanned faces of the ship workers.
Chapter Seven
Pacific Coast Steamship Company’s ships departed from Spring and Fourth Street and ventured up to Alaska with stops between where one could easily get off and disappear in an eagerly embarking throng. Grace and Jack were friends with the ship workers. Not as well liked as Tatania and Zeus, but still liked. Tatania spent the time they talked at the shipyard jumping back and forth from land to the ship, sailing over the tops of the railings. Zeus rolled around by a fisherman, just in with his tuna, who threw a fish to him. He proudly ran away with the fish in his mouth and dropped it on Grace’s new Mary Jane pumps.
“Thank you,” she said to Zeus, picking up the scent of fish now emanating from her feet.
“She’s not on here. Thanks, sport for showing me.” He handed back the passenger list to one of their friends.
“You’re welcome to come aboard and look around. We’re going to be in dock until tomorrow,” he said.
“Thank you.” Grace smiled gratefully.
“It’s nothing. Jack and I used to go out drinking together.”
“If I never drank, how would we solve a case?” Jack asked before Grace could say anything.
Grace watched Tatania, still leaping onto the boat and back.
“She could have been traveling under an assumed name. If she didn’t want to be found.”
“Or she might have been allowed on the boat for free.”
“You’re saying that she could jump like a cat?”
“I’m saying that men sometimes give things away to pretty women. Like free tickets.”
“Women are like cats.”
“Thank you.”
“If you want to leave your husband, where would you go that he’d never look for you? And obviously this is a hypothetical because you’d never want to leave me.”
“And obviously I wouldn’t answer if it was personal. Of course she’d go to a ship to hide. I bet she knows how to use a gun. No one could just abscond with her. She left voluntarily. Chester’s a funny egg.”
“I was waiting for you to say that.”
“Didn’t have to wait too long.”
“If he controlled her dough, where could she get the clams to get out?”
“Beauty is an amazing currency.”
Tatania watched Zeus attempt a landing on a pigeon when it briefly alighted on deck, Grace pull up a dress strap fallen on her shoulder, Jack staring at Grace pulling up a dress strap fallen on her shoulder, and surmised that three of them combined had less focus on the case than her.
Zeus jumped up next to Grace on the deck chair and then jumped to the other side of her. A well mannered cat, on his best days, he didn’t leap on top of humans and preferred to politely jump over them.
The sea rushed forward next to the ship, foaming, and Grace felt unanchored, and yearning again, the way the sea always made her feel until she touched Jack again, and all things seemed possible.
Women swam in a snake like formation in one of the ship’s saltwater bathing pools.
“Is this part of an act? The women?” Grace asked.
“Isn’t everything?” Jack asked.
A shipyard worker looked Grace up and down.
“That’s some tomato,” he said.
Jack glared at him. He gulped.
Tatania strolled through the ship and immediately located the kitchen. It might not have anything to do with the case, but she always liked to stay on top of her food sources. Zeus followed behind her.
“Look at the little angels, lets get them something to eat,” an assistant chef paused from preparing salmon to say.
Satisfied that she’d be well fed if they stayed, Tatania went to the Captain’s private cabin. She climbed up on the Captain’s shirts. His clothes had an intoxicating scent of sea, and succulent fish, and no hint of dog. If she hadn’t been content with Jack, she might consider making him her human.
She saw the door open. She swivelled her ears three times, and became invisible again. Zeus crawled under the bed. Two men brought in fresh towels. Zeus and Tatania ran out quickly before they were noticed.
Chapter Eight
“Toot Toot Tootsie, Goodbye” was playing on the Victrola of the ship’s Smoking Room. Grace and Jack didn’t smoke but seemed to always be surrounded by smokers. Tatania and Zeus always gravitated towards window sills with open windows in smoking rooms. When they didn’t see an open window in the smokers room, they left and found the comfiest chair on deck.
“Miss, the Smoking Room is for men only.”
“It’s for women now,” Grace said, looking over her shoulder at Tatania and Zeus exiting. Usually, a spasm of panic grabbed her when the cats weren’t in sight, but on the ship, they were contained. She carried a tablet and a pen, eager to take notes.
Jack leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I know, but it might be better for me to question these fellows without you. They might tell me stories about meeting her that they wouldn’t in the presence of the lady. If they’re regulars, commuting from L.A. to San Diego and back, they would have noticed her.”
Zeus rolled over to greet her when she walked back out. Tatania twirled her fluffy tail around to the front of her. “Very pretty, Tatania,” Grace said. Tatania nodded in agreement.
“You dropped your pen,” two fishermen called out.
When she turned around, one said, “Yeah, we were watching you. I’m a guy,” he said.
Tatania meowed in the vein of isn’t that obvious. Grace liked the attention but hadn’t felt tempted by anyone since meeting Jack.
“You’re the cream in my coffee,” Jack sang, returning to her.
Grace flipped through the magazine’s pages on the deck table. An ad for Obesi-tea proclaimed that you could drink weight off while you ate. It promised that it was offered in hotels and all good druggists. Seriously? Did anyone go to a hotel or druggist and say, I”ll have Obesi-tea? And did anyone ever respond, it looks like you already have it. Even more remarkably, the tea ad said it was a safe
and sane weight eliminator.
Then there was another ad for soap that said it could wash fat away.
“Do you think that’s true, Jack? Could a soap actually wash fat away?”
“Well, if it’s bacon fat and you apply it right before you get in the shower. Do you want to try it?”
“Lets go below deck,” Grace suggested.
Chapter Nine
The loud engines below deck never bothered Tatania because she was deaf. They thought they spotted Cecile, in a room set aside for ship employees, in a bunk bed, without a view. The employees lived in close quarters with barely a foot between the bunk beds. She’d leave a home in swanky Bankers Hill for this?
Looking at the ocean view might be free, but the employee quarters on board ship didn’t have a view.
“Cecile,” Jack called out, when the woman walked past them.
She turned around. Tatania remembered seeing her once before in Tent City. She liked swordfish. She’d given Tatania a few bites while she was eating outside Tent City Cafeteria. She’d had a birthmark on her arm that reminded Tatania of kitten whiskers. She’d noticed it when she took off her gloves.
“I’m not Cecile. It’s not me. I’m Maureen O’Neill.” It was raining and her hair dye began to run off in the rain, staining the shoulder of her raccoon coat.
“Be careful. Your fur can get damaged in the rain,” Grace said.
She knew before she looked. She felt her hair. Then she saw the red on the raccoon fur. It looked like the raccoon had been shot.
“I used henna to dye it.” She trembled.
“Looks beautiful,” Grace said.
Tatania put her paws up and meowed like a baby. Cecile smiled, relaxing.
“Chester’s not with us.” Jack reassured her.
“But Chester hired you?”
Jack nodded.
“I didn’t want to marry him. My mother kept pushing me to marry him because he convinced her that he had a lot of money.” She pet Tatania and thought of the kitten she’d hidden away.
“And then my father died, and I inherited a lot of money. He spent it all. I can’t stand my mother. It’s a relief to be away from Chester and my mother.”
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