Swing Town Mysteries Dorie Lennox Box Set

by Lise McClendon

  Under the bridge, she began to look for the fishermen’s shacks as the light dimmed to a shadowy purple. She crossed the railroad tracks, three sets. The sun had set and a gloomy stink rose from the earth. A path appeared, used by fishermen to reach the river, and the going was easier for a while. Then the path petered out and she pushed aside cattails and weeds, turning her ankle in puddles, cursing the swamp.

  She reached the top of the bank at last and caught her breath on the sidewalk near where Talbot had parked his car that day. What time was it? Her wristwatch had disappeared. Setting her shoes on the pavement, she sank down to examine her feet.

  Her socks were torn, covered with muck and algae. She stripped them off. A few cuts, but nothing serious. She tried to wring out her wide-legged trousers at the hem, and she let out a small scream when she saw the leach on her calf. She picked it off and heaved it into the bushes.

  A wild dance then, patting and wriggling and yelping. People in cars were staring at the dripping, hopping, cursing woman on the sidewalk. She wanted to strip off her trousers, right there, but settled for a quick hand down her waistband, here, there, up there, down here. No more slimy animals. She relaxed and picked off one of hundreds of half-inch-long strings of algae that clung to her skin and clothes.

  Lennox didn’t want to think about her hair. Tucking wet strings behind her ears, she walked barefoot the six blocks to Charlotte Street, keeping her eyes down. As she rounded the corner to her street, she bumped into Jenny.

  The old woman let out a mewly howl. “Eeeuw. Don’t touch me, girlie. Oh, it’s you. Got a smoke?”

  Lennox pushed past her. If only she could get a bath. Get clean, get this swamp muck off. She concentrated on that. Then this nightmare will be over. She walked up the steps to the front door. That goddamn fussbudget prig better not be in the bath.

  “Miss Lennox!”

  A cluster of residents, and Harvey, huddled near the bottom of the stairs. Mrs. F. wore her cleanup apron with its big Hawaiian flowers, the twins sensible suits. Betty and Ilo were half up the stairs, but they turned and stared.

  She nodded at their wide-eyed looks, lowered her head, and circled them. Just let me get up the stairs. Just let me get in the hath.

  “What’s happened to you, young jouster?” one of the twins asked.

  “Look at your clothes!”

  “Oh, dear, that smell,” said Mrs. Ferazzi. “Bring those down right away, dear, and I’ll wash them up for you.”

  “I’m burning them,” Lennox said, mounting the steps.

  “Oh, no,” Ilo said softly above her. “Those were my favorite trousers.”

  “I certainly don’t have clothes to burn,” Betty said.

  “Dorie?” Harvey called. “Dorie, wait.” The voices began to rush together and she felt smothered by them. “What a stink.” “Did she jump in the river?” “Winkie’s in the bath again.” “Let us help.” “She’s barefoot.” As she reached the landing, Lennox turned, covered her ears, and yelled, “Leave … me … alone. All I want is a bath. So leave me alone!”

  At the second floor, she heard his heavy steps come up behind her. “Don’t, Talbot.”

  “Wait, will you? I’ve been looking all over for you. Some things have happened.” He grabbed her arm and she winced. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just… filthy. So let me go, all right?”

  “Come with me. To my mother’s place. She’s got a big tub. Lots of hot water.” He took her shoulders. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “What—don’t I look like my usual million bucks?”

  He touched her cheek. “Did you get sunburned?” She pulled away. She felt a last jag of anger bubble up and pop. Harvey took her hand, her bad hand, and she made a low cry. He switched hands, led her down the stairs. Outside, he put his arm around her waist. In the Chrysler, he said nothing about the smelly stain she was making on the upholstery.

  Lennox fell asleep in the bathtub. Mrs. Talbot came in and helped her wash out her hair. A grown woman needing help bathing. Ridiculous. But the old woman was so kind, round-faced, double-chinned, the type who bustled and cooed and clucked and brought soft, sweet towels from a cupboard. Lennox was sure she was dreaming.

  The house, she knew. It was the mansion by Loose Park where they’d swum. Talbot had fibbed; didn’t want his family to make a difference, he said. So this was his secret. He was rich. Inside, the house was expensive without being stuffy, with soft chairs and family portraits, and warm shades of red and yellow. In one of Mrs. Talbot’s terry-cloth robes, Lennox sank into a soft chair in a sunroom off the kitchen. Harvey brought her a cup of cocoa, something she never drank, didn’t like, but which she gulped down greedily now.

  “What about a sandwich?” Mrs. Talbot asked from the kitchen. Harvey sat in the chair opposite her, staring at his knees. “Is tuna salad all right?”

  “No fish,” Lennox said.

  “How about that roast beef from last night, Mama?”

  Mrs. Talbot puttered around the kitchen. Lennox ran a comb through her hair, tucking her feet up under her. The slap marks, both human and river-inflicted, had faded. She wondered if Harvey could see the handprint on her cheek. Her bottom lip was still fat. She looked at him over her mug.

  “You call your mother mama?’’

  “Why, what did you call yours?”

  She noted the past tense. “Verna. Or ‘you slut.’ “

  He squinted, half smiling. “You keep trying to test me, don’t you?”

  Mrs. Talbot brought out the sandwich on a little tea tray and placed it in Lennox’s lap. The bread was hearty, the mustard thick, the roast beef delicious. She tried to keep up the jive, ask him why he’d never told her about this house, his family, but her mouth was too full. Mrs. Talbot brought lemonade, freshly made. So this was what it was like to be rich. You take long baths and people bring you food and you eat good.

  Harvey pulled his chair up closer after sending his mother on to bed. “I know you’re going to tell me what happened today, and I want to know. But some big stories came through the newsroom today.”

  She drank lemonade so she could speak, but he put up his hand. “Just sit tight. For a change.” She made a face but kept quiet, popping the last of the bread crust in her mouth.

  “The feds are onto Georgie,” he said. “They’re investigating him for tax evasion. They think he’s got sources of income he isn’t reporting.”

  “The fixed races?”

  He shrugged, examining his palms.

  “Talbot, listen. I talked to Palmer Eustace today. Or the man calling himself Palmer Eustace. He’s fronting as the racetrack owner. He works for Georgie.” She leaned forward. “He told me Georgie was Lazia’s right-hand man, that he worked all Lazia’s book.”

  Harvey sat back, frowning. “I don’t know who this Eustace character is. But that isn’t true. My father was a lawyer, one of Lazia’s lawyers before Johnny bought it. He knew Georgie. Georgie was a thug, a low-level operator. He wasn’t Lazia’s second. Maybe that’s the story he spreads around, but it’s not true.”

  Lennox drank more lemonade. She wasn’t sure what difference that made. Georgie had heard about the Truman money—whatever that was—through Lazia. She was sure of that.

  Harvey continued: “A fella at the city desk says Georgie is in debt to some big-time Chicago trouble boys and he’s trying to hide his assets. They put a lien on the meatpacking plant today.”

  She wiped her mouth on a napkin. “All this happened today?” No wonder he was around the bend.

  Harvey searched her face with his eyes. “Did he do this to you?”

  “Don’t go into your Captain Avenger act, Harve.”

  “You called me Harve.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to call your mother mama.”

  He smiled. “At least you’re all right. How did you get all wet and—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, not tonight. Is that the end of the news, ace?”

 
; “There’s one more story, but you’ll have to wait until the morning paper for that one.”

  “That’s teasing. Is it about Georgie?”

  “No. And I can’t tell you anything. Except that it’ll knock your socks off.”

  “You are a cruel, cruel man.”

  She put the tray on the floor and grabbed his foot. Like a good boy, he had taken his shoes off at the door. She clamped his socked foot under her arm, tickling viciously. “I told you not to fuck with me, Harvey.”

  “Stop that! Hey!” He laughed, struggling halfheartedly to get away, until he grabbed her bad hand and the game was over. She bent over in pain, cradling the hand. He put his arms around her, whispering apologies. She rocked on the edge of the chair for a minute as the pain subsided.

  His lips pressed on her neck. She felt his warmth, smelled his cinnamon breath. To fall into bed with a man once, that was excusable. They’d been riled up by close dancing, tipped a few. But she was sober now. It would mean something. And it wasn’t something she could deal with, not now. She recognized the fear in her, and she hated the feeling. But it stuck on her, the feeling that knowing Harvey too well would be courting a bitter finale. He was too good for that.

  She stood up. “I better go to bed.” The rush of energy coursed through her. After nightmare tunnels and a river dunking, she felt so alive. But she said, “It’s been a doozy of a day.”

  Mrs. Talbot had laid out a gauzy nightgown, tissue-thin, with smocking across the chest. It bunched around her legs, trapping her as she rolled across the soft bed. She straightened it out and lay on the downy mass of pillows, staring at the lacy canopy. She would think about the case, about Amos. No, not in this decadent room, not Amos. Just the case, Iris Jackson, aka Rose Schmidt, aka … Was she really from Raytown? With somebody searching for Edna Klundt, breaking Ed Grady’s fingers, she had to be. They must have been friends. But where was Iris now? Where was Edna? She was no closer to finding either of them than she’d been days before.

  Lennox threw back the covers. Moonlight poured in the window. She needed air. The window was painted shut. Grabbing the terry-cloth robe, she tiptoed into the hall. In the living room, moon shadows streaked across the floor. She peered through the dining room at the pool. It lay still, twinkling, beckoning her outside.

  Lying on her stomach on the brick patio, she watched her reflection in the cool, still water. In the stillness, she heard Tillie’s high-pitched voice singing: Come sit by my side if you love me. Do not hasten to bid me adieu. A flush of sadness filled her chest. She was alone in this world. They had all bid her adieu.

  The pool shimmered, blue, dots of silver, aqua shadows. She trailed her fingers along the surface and wondered about the depths, if anyone compared the water at the top to the water at the bottom, the same clear water that never got to see the stars. Unfair that the water shivered and swirled like liquid metal and still some water remained at the bottom, held down and unable to breathe night air.

  She rolled over and looked at the stars. Amelia Earhart never let anybody keep her on the ground, never let them tell her no. Amelia, the wags in Atchison said, had a mother who let her play in bloomers at boys’ games. Verna had never made Dorie be girlish and prissy. She’d let her run full tilt, all over town, muddy, dusty, devil-may-care. So why blame Verna for everything? Why couldn’t she let Verna go?

  The door opened.

  “Everything all right?” Harvey asked.

  She stood up, the robe untied, her legs, her dark nipples outlined in the tissue gauze. She looked at her blue bare feet against the gritty brick, then up to his figure, shirtless in the moonlight. He was just a man. A man in striped pajamas. The pajamas looked silly and endearing. There would be men in her life, Verna alive or dead, Tillie, too. She had to believe that.

  “No,” she said. “Everything’s not all right. Come here.”

  In the blue ether moonlight, she slipped the robe off her shoulders, pulled out of the nightgown, and slid into the water. He came to her, soundlessly through the wet. They moved deeper into the slanted far end, down where a person could drown, down where the bottom slipped away, and she kissed him and held on.

  The dream returned that night, the argument on the bridge. She woke to birds and thin gold light. Strange this time, like she knew she was dreaming inside the dream, manipulating the people, herself and her mother. Verna looked tired, worn-out, not the way Dorie liked to remember her. And the words said, angry, sad words, words that finished it, whatever it was. A stillness fell on the bridge, like morning mist.

  Harvey snored, his left arm around his head. Something rattled in her mind from the night before, something about Iris. Georgie getting the squeeze was well and good, but Amos remained in the hoosegow. What about Iris? She rubbed her forehead, trying to think. The thought floated just beyond her consciousness.

  Clanking sounds in the kitchen meant Mrs. Talbot was up. Lennox slipped out of bed and into the robe. Coffee perked on the stove. The widow looked up from the table where she sat in a housecoat, gray hair down in a braid, chins smiling, reading the morning paper. “Sleep well, dear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Talbot said to help herself to coffee, so she poured a cup and sat at the old farmhouse table that anchored the bright modern kitchen. A red geranium sat by the window. Mrs. Talbot talked of rain pounding on the roof last night, but Lennox had heard nothing.

  “And Harvey, is he up?” She poured nearly an inch of milk into her cup.

  Lennox sipped coffee. “Didn’t see him.”

  The widow adjusted her bifocals and snapped the paper back. “Monarchs won last night, nine to three. Do you follow the Negro League? Harvey takes me out now and again when he gets tickets. Maybe you’d like to come along.”

  “Is he your only child?” She surprised herself. She hadn’t even known she was curious.

  “Oh, no. Three girls, all older. Busy with their own families now.”

  What had he meant about the surprise in the paper this morning? She scooted the front section over, twisted it around. “May I?”

  Lennox spread out the front page and looked for his byline. War news, more war news. London possibly bombed already. A small article on Georgie, just as Harvey’d said. Investigation by revenuers, lien against the meatpacking plant. He would be desperate, running scared from both the G and the trouble boys. She shivered. Would he come back for her? Would he keep looking for the money? She needed to find Iris—and the money—then this business would be over, nobody would be after anybody.

  She looked for a story by Russell, or the picture of Louie Weston and Palmer Eustace. Nothing. She was ready to turn the page, when she saw Harvey’s byline in the center bottom column.

  Vaudeville Piano Player Living on Street in Market

  By Harvey Talbot

  Fifteen years ago, Augustus “Gus” McElheaney played with the best, playing piano for silent movies and traveling shows, backing up entertainers like Katie Krippen, Fats Waller, and Alberta Hunter, touring the burlesque circuit of sepia performers.

  Today, he lives off the kindness of his neighbors in the Market area, a broken man but still a remarkable talent.

  Now using the name Luther Hanes, Gus McElheaney has hidden his past well. Pew of his neighbors know about his education at the Tuskegee Institute, or even that he plays the piano. He lives, according to his friend Poppy Henderson, a simple life.

  Things turned sour for Gus McElheaney inl927.He injured his right hand in a brawl in a speakeasy in St. Louis and was unable to play the piano. Not long after that, his wife left him, taking their three children. Soon McElheaney frequented the speaks, gambled, and was often fired from bands.

  In September 1929, he was arrested in Kansas City for the crime of a piano heist. He was found entertaining a crowd in the middle of the intersection of Eighteenth and Vine, playing Piney Brown’s baby grand piano, which he had wheeled into the street without permission. McElheaney spent six months in jail. When he was released,
the market had crashed and he had lost a piece of himself. He hasn’t worked in music since.

  But late at night, near Poppy Henderson’s boarding house on Cherry Street, the sound of tripping ragtime and sweet blues falls and rises in the air, and you know Augustus McElheaney is back at the ivories, working his magic.

  “Good morning, dear,” the widow said.

  Lennox looked up from the paper, to find Harvey standing next to her chair. He squeezed her shoulder, then his mother’s, and poured himself coffee.

  “It takes my boy a couple cups to wake up,” Mrs. Talbot said. “You might put clothes on with company here, Harvey.”

  He was wearing the blue-striped pajama bottoms. His eyes sparked at Lennox over his coffee cup. She gulped coffee and concentrated on the newspaper.

  “When did you find out all this about Luther?”

  “A couple days ago. Finally got Poppy Henderson to spill.”

  He sat down and checked the headlines, pushed the paper away. “Very protective, she is. But Luther inspires that, I guess.”

  “Augustus McElheaney,” Lennox mused. “That’s a mouthful.”

  “Who’s that?” Mrs. Talbot asked.

  “Fellow who lives down by Dorie. Piano player.”

  “He’s the one I hear at night.” She frowned. “Augustus McElheaney—was that his stage name?”

  Harvey nodded, fetched the coffeepot and poured for all. Lennox spun the strange name around in her head, trying to reconcile it with the man she knew as Luther. She hadn’t even known his last name, Hanes. Names, such a funny business. Take Iris. Or Rose. Or—She shook her head.

  “Can’t fathom it?” Harvey asked.

  Lennox put her forehead into her hands. That slippery thought about Iris Jackson—where was it?