* * *
Finn’s wasn’t an old place, but it felt like it. The scarred wood tables shone with polishing, as did the chairs which mostly didn’t match. An L-shaped bar ran along one wall. The only brass at the bar was the foot rail. The only decoration was a few framed photographs here and there on the walls, old people in front of thatched cottages mostly, although one was of three barefoot kids and another showed a flock of sheep filling an unpaved lane as they came toward the camera. Somebody had said that sitting here was like sitting in County Clare, but I hadn’t been there, or any place outside of Ohio, and maybe whoever said it hadn’t either.
I sat at a table halfway back, facing the door so the girl I was meeting could see me. My guess was she’d never walked into a joint by herself, but there weren’t many tearooms open this time of day. Finn’s was far enough from her building that no one she worked with was likely to turn up, yet an easy walk to the streetcar line. I came here a lot at the end of the week. After the one I’d had, I was glad to sit in friendly surroundings and sip some good dark stout while I wondered if the girl would show and if I’d learn anything worth knowing if she did.
My stout was halfway gone when she finally came in. I noticed her standing just inside the door. She was clutching her pocketbook in front of her for support. Raising one hand I tootled my fingers.
“Sit down,” I invited when she came over. “Any trouble finding the place?”
She perched nervously on the edge of the chair and shook her head. Her hands continued to clutch the pocketbook, which she balanced on her knees now.
“I was counting on your hat to help me spot you, though, so I’m glad you waved. It’s a wonderful hat,” she added with a wistfulness that told me she meant it.
“Didn’t think.” I smiled. In the interest of playing it safe, I’d ditched the hat before leaving my office. “Could I buy you a beer?”
She looked down shyly. “I usually stick to lemonade, or ginger soda.”
“They’ve got ginger. This time of year they have cider mixed with fizzy water, too. It’s pretty good.”
The novelty of it took her mind off her nervousness. “That does sound nice. I’ll try that.”
I went to the bar and brought it back. While she took a sip I got a better look at her. She had the soft-edged prettiness of a watercolor. Cheeks and lips uncommonly pink for a blonde. A sweetness about her that just about invited a man to break her heart.
“My name’s Maggie,” I said. “Maggie Sullivan.”
“I’m Thelma.” She swallowed, and it wasn’t from the cider. At least her pocketbook had found its way onto the table. “I – I overheard what you were saying about Peter – about Mr. Stowe. I didn’t mean to, but Mr. Throckmorton had asked for the inventories and Helène was busy out in the hall and when I saw the door was closed, I started to knock, but then –”
“It’s okay.”
“I heard you saying things about murder and Pe– Mr. Stowe being part of something crooked and it’s not–”
“Hey, take it easy,” I said. Her blue eyes were filling with tears.
“You don’t understand! He wouldn’t do things like you’re saying. He’s not like that. He’s honest. He’s good and he thinks about other people. He does! And when I heard you say Mr. Throckmorton had hired you to - to find out things about Peter – and that he could be in danger – Peter, I mean, I – well, I had to see what you looked like. So I came in.”
Her tears spilled over. I reached in my pocket and offered her a fresh white hanky. She shook her head and scrabbled in her purse until she found her own. It was edged in lace. Delicate. Like her.
I waited until the downpour ended and she’d dabbed at her eyes. “Have a drink of cider,” I encouraged. “You wanted to know what I looked like so you could wait for me outside?”
She took a couple of hiccuping little sips. When she looked at me the unhappiness on her face was laced with bewilderment. “I don’t know what I intended. I just knew right then – when I heard – that’s what I had to do.”
I sat back and studied her. The kid had been scared to death when she blundered into that office but she’d done it anyway. Only one thing likely to make her do something like that.
“Are you and Peter Stowe an item?” I asked.
Her blush was all the answer I needed.
“Nobody knows ... and that’s not why I said he’d never do things like the ones you were talking about. Anybody who knows him would tell you the same thing. He is good, and he cares about the business, even if–” She broke off and took a quick drink of cider in hopes of erasing her last words.
“Even if?” I prompted.
“It’s just, well, I don’t think he’s as crazy about the business as Mr. Throckmorton and Miss Flora are. But he’d never do anything to hurt the business – or his uncle.”
I nodded, which would let her think what she wanted, which was that I believed her. She wouldn’t be the first girl to think the rat she was crazy about was a saint. I was guessing ‘Miss Flora’ was Throckmorton’s daughter, but I’d delay the side trips until Thelma had spilled all she had to spill.
“That all you wanted to let me know about Peter? That he’s a good fellow?”
Her teeth crept out on her lip, but they didn’t bite down the way they had in Throckmorton’s office. She was only worried now, not scared.
“He - he might be in some kind of trouble. But I don’t know what – and maybe I’m wrong.”
“Okay.”
She frowned, still reluctant to be what she probably considered disloyal. “You’re some kind of detective, aren’t you?”
“Private. No connections with the police. Peter’s uncle came to me because he thinks Peter might be in some kind of trouble too. Says he’s been acting strange lately. Distracted. Jumpy.” I made the last one up and I didn’t mention the nephew’s new clothes. It worked.
“Yes. That’s it exactly .” She let her breath out and drank some cider. I gave her a minute. “We’ve been seeing each other since March. It’s kind of steady now. We - we really get on.” She blushed again looking shyly at the rim of her glass. “Like I said, nobody knows. It might not look right at work.
“Peter’s kind of quiet, but a couple months back – not long after the Fourth of July – he picked me up one night and he was in such a good mood. When I asked why, he just laughed and said because we lived in a city filled with possibilities. He took me to a really nice restaurant – fancier than we usually go to, I mean. I said we oughtn’t go someplace that expensive, but he said not to worry.
“After that he was like his old self for a while, only ... happier.”
“Then what happened?”
“I don’t know when it started.” She frowned. “I just began to realize he was quieter than usual. Like he had something on his mind. Then one day – it was maybe three or four weeks ago – we’d met to have a sandwich after work. We were leaving the restaurant and Peter had started to open the door. All of a sudden he let it close and spun around, said he’d left something on the table. Then he patted his pocket and said he guessed he’d been wrong. But it looked, well, phoney. Like he’d been avoiding somebody he didn’t want to meet.”
“Someone from work?”
“I don’t think so, because that weekend we went to a play at the Vic. After it let out we were bumping along with the rest of the crowd when a big car started to roll along next to us, quite slowly. Peter shoved some change into my hand and told me to walk on ahead to the corner and take a cab home.”
“Did he get in the car?”
“I don’t know. When I looked back I didn’t see him. Next day he apologized, said he’d seen someone he’d been trying to get in touch with. After that, he always seemed to look around a lot. He never relaxed.”
She was into her story now. Relieved to be telling someone. She gulped some cider.
“Monday ...” Her teeth scraped lightly across her lip. “Monday he was going to pick me up after he got out of this class he�
�s been taking. Sometimes we do that. Just have coffee or maybe take a walk. But he didn’t show up when he was supposed to. It was almost two hours before he called. He said he had a terrible headache. The next day when I saw him at work, his lip was all cut and puffy. There was a cut by his eye, too.”
Monday. The day I’d seen the goons from the green Packard muscle him. But they hadn’t roughed him up. A few hours later I’d followed him to the university and back and nothing had happened. When had someone gotten to him without my seeing? And why?
“Did you ask him what happened?”
“Yes. He said he got up in the night to take more aspirin and banged his head on the medicine cabinet.”
Thelma didn’t believe it. Neither did I. Her blue eyes were large with frightened pleading.
“Please – I know Mr. Throckmorton hired you to find out what Peter’s been doing. But can’t you help him somehow? Please. Don’t let him get hurt.”
Seven
My stout was flat by the time Thelma left. I got another one which I savored slowly as I walked my mind back through what she’d told me to see if I’d missed anything. Stowe lived in a respectable apartment building, so I couldn’t keep tabs on him in the evening unless he went out. That meant the roughing up he’d gotten on Monday must have happened in his own apartment and whoever gave it had known where he lived.
For the price of a cider for Thelma I now knew a good deal more than I had when I’d left Throckmorton’s office. I knew Peter Stowe had a girlfriend. She was a nice kid, not the floozie his uncle suggested as the cause of his behavior. If Stowe really was sweet on her it might explain his new clothes, even his distracted manner. But Thelma’s account of his split lip confirmed he was in serious trouble.
Could be he gambled and owed someone money. Thelma had denied it, but I wondered how well she knew him. When I’d asked about his friends, she couldn’t name any except Flora, his cousin. Thelma claimed he read a lot, mentioned his class again. In the end, I told her the best way to help Peter was to tell him to come to his uncle or me and level about whatever was happening.
It was going on six and Finn’s was getting noisy. Comfortable noise. Customers who knew each other exchanging greetings, kidding and laughing. It wound around me like a friendly cat, soothing me after a week I’d like to forget. Sitting here was the closest I felt to being at home. A month before my father died, I’d sold the house I’d grown up in to pay for his medical needs. Mercifully, he hadn’t known. Four days after his wake I’d had to clear out to make way for strangers.
I was contemplating a bowl of Irish stew – the real thing except without lamb since it was Friday. All at once I sensed someone had stopped by my table. Expecting to see one of the regulars at Finn’s I looked up. It was Billy’s new partner, the one with rusty hair.
“Billy told me I’d like as not find you here. Okay if I sit?”
Before I could answer he dropped onto a chair and slid a squarish parcel discreetly toward me. “Billy thought you might be glad to have this back.”
The shape was disguised but I knew without even lifting it my .38 was inside.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He was still in uniform. Tossing his hat aside he swept a glance at the surroundings. It reminded me of Jenkins’ camera clicking, capturing details. Connelly – was that his name? Mick Connelly.
“I have information, too, the price of which is a pint.”
“Tell Billy I’ll buy him the pint.”
“Ah, now.” He had a fine mouth and one corner lifted. “Trouble is, Billy wasn’t inclined to let you know whatever it was he learned about your admirer Beale. To my mind, though, if somebody picks a fight with you, you’ve a right to know who they are. So I did a bit of digging myself. It’s me you’d be owing the pint.”
Did I only imagine a challenge as clear as a finger reaching out to twirl a wisp of my hair?
“Yeah, okay.” I didn’t mind challenges. And I wanted the info. “What are you drinking?”
“Guinney if they have it.”
“They do.”
“I’ll go,” he said as I started to rise.
Finn, the pub owner, looked at me in surprise when Connelly spoke to him. I nodded to add the pint to my bill. Now Finn was going to read too much into that single pint and speculate about it with some of the regulars. I gritted my teeth. A party of four arrived and pulled out chairs at the neighboring table. Not the best situation for discussing crooks. Gathering my things I caught Connelly’s eye and signaled I was going to move.
A few minutes later he joined me at one of the seldom-used tables for two against the back wall. As soon as he sat down the table felt small. He undid the top two buttons of his uniform jacket, the mark of a cop off duty. Taking a pull of stout through foam he nodded satisfaction and stretched out his legs. He took a minute to look me over. I ignored it.
“There’s a file on Beale, as you might guess,” he began. “I may still be one of the new boys down at the station, but I’ve made a few connections with some not-quite-upstanding citizens here and there who filled in more details.
“First off, Beale has a record, but nothing major and well in the past. During Prohibition he worked for a bootlegger named Tuffy Langstrom. Was his accountant, if you can believe it. Apparently Beale’s a whiz with numbers.”
So far, it matched what Jenkins had told me. Langstrom had run a big operation, Connelly continued. Trucks bringing booze down from Canada; connections in Detroit.
“A fellow who grew up with Beale says he was a mean little s.o.b. even in knee pants. Claims he wasn’t just the outfit’s accountant, he was a button boy. The one Langstrom sent to charm somebody and follow it up with a bullet.”
Swell. Benny Norris had made it clear Beale wasn’t happy with me. I was guessing Peter Stowe was in the same boat. And so far I hadn’t heard anything that told me why.
“Word is he’s got a friend or two at City Hall.”
I looked up. Did that mean friends in the cops as well? If so I might have put my foot in it mentioning Beale’s name to Freeze. Was Connelly warning me? I didn’t think so.
“This bootlegger – Langstrom – ever get caught?” I asked.
Connelly took a pull at his beer before nodding. “Walked into some bullets when they raided the bakery he used as a front for his operation. Saved your fair city the price of a trial. Some of his boys got stiff sentences, but Beale claimed he thought the accounts he kept were for pies and cookies. He wasn’t much more than a kid, so he got off with two years. Been clean ever since. Owns a nightspot called The Owl up on Main. Another place named Fanny’s. Has one on West Third, Jimmy Joe’s, that accommodates Negroes. Model spots all – or at least as good as joints like that are likely to be.”
Owners of legit joints might make enough to ride around in flashy cars like Beale’s, I reflected, but they didn’t take along muscle. Legit guys wouldn’t mind people asking about their acquaintances. They wouldn’t send goons to warn people off, or rough them up. But I had no proof. Just speculation.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Not that I learned. Any of this shed light on things?”
Forgetting how tough I was I propped my chin on my hand. “Nothing socks me in the nose. But thanks all the same.”
Lacing his hands behind his head he tipped back in his chair. “Why a gumshoe? Why not a cop like your dad? The force has hired women a while now, Billy says.”
I wasn’t about to tell him about my brother taking off. I shrugged.
“Girl in our neighborhood had her husband run out on her. Then she heard rumors he might have another wife down in Cincinnati. It weighed on her, how she might have committed adultery. She... went mad. Killed herself. My dad said it might have been different if she’d had a private detective to help her.”
“Jesus.” His glass was empty. He got up. “Think I’ll start a tab. They serve any food here?”
I hesitated. This was my place. Special. If I told the truth he
might muscle in. Still, he’d done me a favor.
“On Fridays if you’re in the know and early enough you usually can get stew,” I admitted.
“Any good?”
“I was just about ready to have a bowl when you walked in.”
“I’ll get two then, shall I?”
That small twist of syntax and lift to his voice was the only hint he came from the shamrock shore. As I watched him make his way to the bar I wondered what part it had been to sound that smooth. At the bar he spoke to Finn’s wife, who lit up with the sort of smile young girls got over matinee idols. She moved to the two-burner hotplate she’d set up. Finn threw me a grin, noting the two bowls and no doubt adding to the story he was concocting.
Connelly returned with our bowls and took his first spoonful. “Just as I like it, more turnip than carrot,” he sighed. “So Billy and Seamus used to change your nappies, did they?”
I snorted. “The day Irish cops change nappies, the turnips in that bowl will talk.”
Chuckling softly he wolfed down more stew. I buttered a slice of the sturdy brown soda bread that could be had almost daily at Finn’s.
“So what county?” I asked.
“Monaghan. Little village between Carricktoe and Ballynowhere.” He looked into the distance, face softening even as he made the joke. “Grand place, barely rubbing along. I’d had some training knocking heads. Figured I might be able to find work over here, send a bit home to my ma and the younger ones.”
“And not a hint of brogue?”
“English school master. Beat it out of us.” He took a longer than previous draught of Guinness. When he lowered his glass he grinned. “Where are the freckles, then?”
“What?”
“Fair as you are, you must have them.”
“Well I don’t.”
His gaze wandered over my shoulders, dipping low across my throat. “Bet you’re covered with them where they don’t show.”
“You’ll have to wonder.”
He cocked an eye while I bit my tongue knowing this time he was the one who imagined a challenge.
1 No Game for a Dame Page 4