“Information, Russell. That’s all.” She looked at Talbot. He stood over the clippings about the dance marathon, staring at them. “Don’t tell Harvey,” she whispered.
“Tell him what?”
“I’m trying to find out some information on one of the partners at the Blue Valley Racetrack. You’ve been writing about it. A lot.”
“No more than any story.”
“What’s your interest? You think it’s a scam or something?”
“Maybe. What’s your interest?”
She sighed. “Client privilege. But this Palmer Eustace is a slippery character.”
“Slippery as smoke.”
“So he is colored?”
He squinted again, calculating. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing. I got nothing against colored folks. I just want to know if you can say for certain he’s colored. Like you’ve met him. Because if you have, and you can give me some information on him, maybe I can help you out.”
“With what?”
“Information. Savvy?”
Russell’s chair creaked under his weight as he leaned back to think. He scratched under one arm. Bit his lip. His eyes darted around the room; then he leaned forward. “What you got?”
“A little life story.”
“From who?”
“His mouthpiece.”
“Vanvleet? That shyster?”
Lennox raised her eyebrows. “You know where he’s from? How he makes his money?” She watched him. “I don’t have all day.”
“How do I know you ain’t stringin’ me with Talbot?”
“Talbot—that nance?” She smiled over at Harvey. “You don’t. But I’m not. You’ve got something I want. Or do you?”
He laced his fingers over his belly and gave a small nod.
“Then it’s a deal?” He scratched and finally nodded again. Lennox pulled her chair up close and got a good whiff. She said it fast. “Word is, he’s from Tulsa. That he owns a bottling plant there. Some think he smuggled in hooch from Canada, made his money that way.”
“Tulsa?” He nodded to himself, leaned over his desk, scribbled some notes onto marked-up sheets of type. She let him go a few minutes on his own, then cleared her throat. He ignored her and kept scribbling.
“Your turn, Russell. Spill it.”
He glanced at her, then back at his papers. He stood up suddenly, throwing his chair back. Lennox was up in a flash. “Where you going?”
Russell waved his left arm vaguely. “I gotta—” He stepped away, but she was on him, digging her heel into the top of his right foot. He groaned and pulled on the desk with both hands. She grabbed his filthy shirtsleeve and held tight.
“We had a deal, Raunch.”
He wriggled out from under her foot. Lennox caught the rope belt and tugged it hard, pulling his feet out from under him. Russell landed back in his chair, then bounced to the floor. Before he could scramble away, Lennox put one foot on his shoulder. “A deal’s a deal, Russell.”
He grimaced under her heel. “Okay, okay. Let me up.”
“You gonna make good?”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me up.”
She stared hard at him. “I’ve got a blade in my pocket. And I’m not afraid to use it.” He flattened out both hands, palms up, in surrender. She slowly removed her foot. He pulled himself up to the chair, his face red and sweating.
Talbot stood in front of the desk. “What’s going on?”
“Russell was just helping me out,” Lennox said. “Weren’t you?”
“Ain’t your business, Tall-butt. Buzz off.”
Talbot scowled at them both and backed away to his own desk.
“Okay,” Russell said, watching Talbot’s distance. “I got a photo.”
“Of Eustace?”
He nodded. “I’ve been after that shyster for weeks to set me up with Eustace. Told him I thought the man was nobody, a phony, a front. And if I didn’t see a photo or meet the cat, I was going to print it that way.”
“So he sent you a photo?”
Russell looked around the newsroom suspiciously, pulled a string of keys from his trouser pocket, and unlocked a bottom drawer, to the desk. From the back of the drawer he pulled a file folder, and from the folder, a small two-by-three-inch photograph. Russell sat down and hunched over it. Lennox sat next to him.
“Let’s see it,” she said.
Russell held it out but didn’t release it. He whispered, “My place was tossed. They been following me. Yesterday I saw—” He swallowed hard.
“A midget?”
He let go of the photograph. “How’d you know?” He stared at her bandage. “What’d they do?”
Lennox pressed the tiny photograph onto the desktop. Two men stood in an office overlooking the city. Vanvleet’s office, she thought. One was a light-skinned Negro, dressed in a satin vest, starched shirt, snap-brim hat. She didn’t know him. He wasn’t smiling, just looking at the other man—who was Louie Weston.
“Damn.”
“You know him?” Russell whispered.
“This one. Louis Weston. In the firm with Vanvleet.”
Russell was scribbling again. “You vouch for him? He’s jake?”
She shook her head and stood up. Handed the photograph back to Russell. He stared at it hard, trying to get it to release more secrets.
“Looking forward to your story, Russell,” she said, backing away. “Hey, get that shirt washed. Send me the bill.”
Lennox drove to a diner. With her notebook in front of her as she ate the blue plate special of pan-fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy, she made notes, ideas, everything about the case. She put her own ideas about Palmer Eustace in a separate notebook, trying to work out what was going on but getting nowhere. Louie Weston knew. That fact grated on her. Anyone but Louie.
Up at the county lockup, Lennox waited in a hard chair to see Amos. The matron moved as if through molasses, but she finally ushered Lennox through the dim hallway to his cell. He lay on his side, staring at the wall. They’d taken his clothes now and given him gray cotton pants and a white shirt. He didn’t turn as the matron unlocked the door.
“Amos?”
On the floor were the scattered pages where he’d scribbled out “Eugenia” and “England” and “war.” Lennox stopped, not wanting to step on them. “Hey. You okay?”
He rolled over and sat up. His face was thin and drawn, washed out by the gray walls and single bulb. “Dandy.” He rubbed his eyes and coughed. “You?”
She wanted to tell him about John Lazia and Iris. About Raytown and Edna. About Georgie and the racetrack. He lay back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. “What’s the weather like, then, lass?” he asked.
“Still hot. A little breeze, though.”
“A breeze. What’s it smell like?”
“Urn. Hay, the river, dry fields.”
He closed his eyes.
“Amos? Can I bring you anything?” She remembered suddenly she’d promised him oranges. She hadn’t brought them, or anything. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. He laced his fingers across his ribs. Lennox backed out, walking away while the matron turned the key in the lock.
Where was Iris? She had to find Iris.
Lennox drove to the office. Again she had the feeling someone was following her, first a black sedan like the midget’s, then a blue coupe, then another black sedan. Too many cars for a tail, she thought, but lost them in the Market anyway. At Shirley’s desk, she typed up a report for Vanvleet. It was slow with one hand. But she had to turn it in today. That meant seeing Louie, too. Not much choice in that.
When it was done, she sat at her own desk and looked out over the city. The streetcars followed their neat tracks up the hill and out of sight. She looked through her notes in the other notebook and found the name of the racetrack manager.
“Vance Moore, please.” The switchboard operator told her to wait.
Another woman came on the line and Lennox as
ked again. “He’s not in. Can I take a message please.” Lennox looked at her watch. “When does he come in?” “Today, I’m not sure. Usually, he’s in by noon.” “Is there somewhere else I can reach him? It’s important.” In the pause, she could hear a pencil beating against a desktop. Tap-tap, tap-tap.
“Miss? Can I reach Mr. Moore somewhere else?” The secretary sighed. “He’s probably at his other job. Which is at Overland Meatpacking, if you must know.”
Lennox had been to Overland Meatpacking before. It was Georgie Terraciano’s business, only a short drive down the hill to the Bottoms from the office. She found a small office annex on the far side of the parking lot from the slaughterhouse. It looked like a plain shingled cottage, painted appropriately blood red and remodeled for business purposes. She pushed open the door and waited by an empty desk inside a front room.
Somewhere in the back of the offices, a radio was playing band music. Lennox sat down on a wooden chair. It was four o’clock. She had the report in her handbag, ready for Vanvleet. She wanted to ask Vance Moore about Georgie Terraciano, but now she knew she couldn’t. Moore worked for him. So she would ask about the racetrack, about Palmer Eustace and Floyd Wilson and the audit Amos had supervised. Anything, to get him talking.
A man came in, glanced at her before looking for something on the vacant desk. He wore a bookkeeping shade, small glasses on his nose, and garters to hold up his shirtsleeves. His fingers were stained with ink. He nodded at her, then disappeared again.
Lennox got up and opened the outside door. Where was the secretary? The smell on the breeze down here was a far cry from dry fields. The stench of the slaughterhouse was rich. She shut the door and sat down again. It was 4:15. She couldn’t wait forever.
The back hallway was unadorned, the wood floor scuffed. She followed the sound of the radio to an open door. The nameplate on the man’s desk read ELMORE CURTIS. The bookkeeper.
He looked up at her knock. “Can I help you?”
Lennox stepped into the room. The bookkeeper stood up, his look wary. “I hope so. I’m looking for Vance Moore. I was told he works here.”
The man’s coffee-colored skin set off his white shirt and yellow satin tie. His wavy black hair stood stiff above the green eyeshade. He glanced nervously at Lennox, then came around the desk. “I don’t know about Vance. Where he is. Hasn’t Ethel come back?”
“No, there’s no one—” Lennox stared at the man. “You’re Palmer Eustace.”
“I beg your— My name is Elmore Curtis.”
“Right. And also Palmer Eustace. When it’s convenient.”
Curtis smoothed his pencil mustache nervously. “If you’re looking for Mr. Moore, I can take a message.”
“Did Vanvleet put you up to this? No, it was Georgie, wasn’t it?”
“Please. You must leave.” The bookkeeper stepped to the door of his office and pointed the way out.
“I saw your picture. With Louie Weston at Vanvleet’s office. You’re fronting for Georgie as the racetrack owner.”
Curtis began to shake. “Please. Go.”
“What is he paying you to front for him? I hope it’s a lot, because he’s making a bundle. That track brought in two million last year. And he’s betting on his own horses, and ya know what? They’re winning. And the worst of it? If something goes sour, the books get audited—I mean the real books this time— then the G-men come sniffing. Who do you think he’s going to let go down for this?”
He blinked, taking this in. His eyebrows jumped. He went back to his desk and sat down, as if acting in a dignified manner would make everything right. “But… the paper said half a million.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the paper.” Lennox looked at him, huddled in his smudged starched cuffs. So eager to believe. If he bought Georgie Terraciano’s line, who wouldn’t he believe?
“I don’t know anything about the track,” he said quietly.
“I need your help, Mr. Curtis. I need evidence on what Georgie Terraciano is up to.”
He ran a hand over his hair. “I only know what he tells me.”
“Did he ever mention a woman named Iris Jackson? Or Rose Schmidt.”
He frowned. “No.”
“What about something called ‘the Truman money’?”
“The senator?”
“Only Truman I know. Ever hear of a stash of his money?”
“No. What’s this about?”
“What about John Lazia? What did Georgie do for him?”
He blanched. “Who told you that?”
“Seems it’s common knowledge. Georgie was one of his lieutenants. Do you know what he did? You worked for Georgie back then, didn’t you?”
“I knew John,” he said carefully. “Everybody did. I’m not sure what Mr. Terraciano did for him.”
“Come on,” Lennox hissed. “Don’t give me that crap.”
The man laid his hands carefully on a ledger on the desktop. “I have a family. I have a job. Are you the police? Because Mr. Terraciano has friends, see?”
“No, I’m not the cops. And Georgie’s friends may not be so friendly anymore. And you, Curtis?” She leaned over his desk. “You’ll have a job breaking rocks if Georgie lets you take the fall.”
He squirmed on his chair. The radio announcer launched into a commercial for Anacin. They listened to the jingle.
“I tell you, I don’t know anything about the track.” Curtis glanced at her bandaged hand. “Who are you working for, then?”
“Somebody who wants Georgie stopped.”
Curtis clenched his jaw, dabbed sweat off his eyebrows. Finally, he sighed. “This was years ago. It ended—everything ended—when Lazia was killed.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Georgie ran Lazia’s book back then. Took all the bets, made the payouts. He was the top man behind Lazia. When Johnny was killed, Georgie thought he was gonna take over. But Lazia’s bodyguard, Freddie Salvatore, he got the job.”
“Freddie got indicted.”
Curtis nodded and swallowed hard. He glanced up at Lennox as if he was thinking about indictment himself.
She said, “Does Georgie still work for the organization?”
“Freddie busted his chops when Lazia got snuffed. Didn’t want Georgie muscling in, so he got rid of him. Cut him out of the action.”
“Then Georgie gets his own action going, ponies, racetrack, betting. Even fixing it so his own horses win.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I stay away from the track. As a matter of fact, I’m allergic to horses.” He smiled lamely.
Lennox examined his patient, frightened face. “Does Georgie have a girl on the side?”
“There’s been stories. Some cigarette girl from one of the casinos, women like that.”
“But nobody permanent, or visible.”
He glanced at his watch. “The shift will change in a few minutes and the parking lot will be crawling.” He stood up, took off his eyeshade and garters, and hung them on a peg. He put on a plaid sport coat and shot his cuffs. He took a snap-brim hat off the rack.
Did he know more? In his position, she would try to be involved in the boss’s shenanigans as little as possible. Just enough to hang on to the job.
He positioned the hat on his head. “Best if you go first.”
Lennox drove up out of the Bottoms and back to downtown. She should have called the law offices first to let them know she was coming. That way, she might have bypassed Louie Weston and talked to Vanvleet. She wanted to ask the old man about Amos, too, and his defense. But now there was no time.
It was hot and stuffy in the Packard. The wind had picked up, catching skirts and hats. Children played ball in the street. She parked the car on Tenth near the New York Life Building. She chucked her blade into the pocket of her gray trousers and took off down the street.
Pushing open the heavy brass doors to the building, she patted her windblown hair as she waited for the elevator to descend. Should she go back to Amos tonight and tell him a
bout Palmer Eustace? Would Amos think that was an important break? So Georgie was having his bookkeeper front for him as owner of the track. So what? That would be Amos’s reply. He had bigger fish to fry.
With a clunk, the elevator doors opened. Louie Weston and Reggie Vanvleet were laughing with Sam, the operator. Louie called out her name.
“Everybody’s gone home, Dorie.” Louie put his arm around her shoulders, turning her around in the lobby. She twisted out from under it. “You got a report for the old man?”
“Has he gone?”
“Your partner’s keeping him busy over at the courthouse all day,” Reggie said. “Nobody’s seen him since the morning.”
Lennox frowned. Vanvleet wasn’t at the jail with Amos. Making a deal with Herb somewhere? “I should go up and leave the report with his secretary.” She turned back to the elevator, but it had closed and gone. Fifth floor, the needle showed.
“She’s gone, too,” Louie said. He smiled at her, and she wondered what she had ever seen in him: a slick, lying sharper. Was that something she’d aspired to once? Someone like Georgie Terraciano? Reggie looked a little off balance, into the tiger’s milk again. They were a pair. No better than the criminals they served.
“What’s that on your hand, a butterfly cocoon?” Louie asked.
“We’re headed over to the University Club, Miss Lennox. Care to join us?” Reggie offered his elbow.
Louie exploded with laughter and punched Reggie playfully in the shoulder. “Come on, old boy. Don’t be daft.”
Jumping over the streetcar tracks, Lennox held on to her hair as the wind swept in from the west. She was relieved that Louie had dragged Reggie off to the club. She didn’t have to make any excuses. She didn’t even care about his insult that she wasn’t University Club material. She was past caring about Louie.
At the corner, the wind was calmer. The air smelled better up here. Not for Amos, she thought. She would come by the office first thing in the morning and drop off her report. It was done. She felt good about that. Iris wasn’t found, not yet, but she would be.
The knee felt good today. Lennox flexed it as she walked to the Packard. Maybe because it was almost fall, and that brought memories of school days, or maybe it was the giddiness she felt at the Star, but she thought about running again. She gauged the distance to the corner, a hundred yards, maybe more, and wondered what her time would be now. Dismal no doubt, especially in creaky oxfords instead of cleats, on Pendergast cement instead of the track.
Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set Page 22