So I got up, pulled out a deck of cards, and sat at my desk, shuffling them.
Griff didn’t know anything about the plot against him, and he didn’t know any Irish people, so there was nothing more to be found out from that side of things. If I wanted to figure out who that king was, I needed to talk to Jack again. I’d just have to go see him down at the precinct station and make him ask me on another date.
The next day, instead of taking me directly home, I asked the chauffeur to take me to the police instead.
“To the station, miss? Are you sure?”
I was. Although I became quite a bit less certain once I set foot inside. Two men were having a fistfight right in the front hall. A policeman was dragging a youth down a corridor, and standing against the wall were three women wearing quite a bit less clothing than Theda Bara ever had in her movies.
I resisted the urge to cover my eyes with my pocketbook as I walked to the front desk.
“I’d like to see Jack Feeney, please.”
He raised a brow. “Are you sure you want Jack? Because if you’re not, then you could have me.”
I let my gaze drop to my toes, just like Janie did whenever anyone teased her. “I’m sure.”
“Just a minute, then.”
It took about ten minutes. And during that time, I managed to almost have my pocketbook stolen right from underneath my arm, and then I was very nearly knocked over by a man who reeked of liquor.
“Miss Winslow.” Jack hailed me with a smile, but as he approached, it dropped from his face. “Don’t tell me you’re here because you remembered something.”
“No. I’m here because—”
He leaned forward. “Don’t tell me.”
I leaned toward him. “Don’t tell you what?”
“Anything.”
He pulled up the counter and walked through. And then he took me by the elbow and hustled me right out of the station.
When we reached the sidewalk, he finally dropped my arm as he turned to face me. “Don’t tell me your conscience got the better of you.”
“My conscience rarely ever does that . . . even though it probably should. At least . . . that’s what my mother keeps telling me.”
He laughed. “So . . . what is it, then?”
“I just wanted to thank you for last night.”
“You’re welcome.” He was looking up the street with some interest as he answered. And then he turned and looked in the other direction.
I turned to look too, only it didn’t seem like there was anything to see. “Is there something—”
“Listen, can we go somewhere and talk?”
“Now?”
“Now. Only I just . . . just give me a minute. I’ll be right back.”
When he disappeared into the station, I told the driver to let my father know I’d had to work late and that someone would give me a ride home.
Jack came out just as the car was driving off. “I don’t suppose you’d want to go back to the North End, would you?”
“No.” I had no desire to see the inside of a speakeasy ever again.
“Then I’m at the end of good ideas.” He was glancing up and down the street again.
“Let’s go . . .” Someplace out in the open, where everyone could see us. “Let’s go to the Public Garden.”
He shrugged and put his hand to the small of my back, gesturing forward with his other hand. “Fine by me.”
We walked over to Tremont Street and up to the Public Garden, where we traded asphalt streets for paths and grass and flowers.
He took a deep breath as he pushed his hat up his forehead. “I haven’t been to the Garden in years.”
A string of giggling girls ran past us chasing a duck.
“And I’ve forgotten what it was like to be that happy.”
I glanced over at him.
His mouth was set in a firm, straight line. “Never thought I’d even get out of Europe alive. Lots of the fellows didn’t.”
“That ought to make you happy, then.”
“It should. But it doesn’t because it makes a person wonder, Why me? Why was I the lucky one? Why wasn’t it my head got blown off instead of his? And then it makes you ask if you deserved it.”
“Deserved what?”
“Deserved living. Maybe the other guy was a better guy than you were. Maybe he was the one who should have lived. Maybe you’re the one who should have died.”
“That’s a morbid way of looking at things.” Maybe that’s why he’d forgotten how to be happy.
“War is a morbid way of dealing with things, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “I guess.” I hadn’t thought much about the war. All of my friends had been too young to go and all of our fathers had been too old. One of our servants had gone to fight. He hadn’t come back, but by the time we were told he’d died, he’d already been replaced.
Jack swept a hand over his face, and when he was done, he looked like his normal self again. “Do you want to go on a swan boat?”
I looked at the boats plying their way around the lagoon, seats filled with couples or children. “I don’t think so.”
“Then can I buy you an ice cream?”
He bought us both a cone. We found a bench fronting the lagoon and sat down to eat. I finished mine before he did, so I decided I might as well ask him my question. “Do you know any kings, Jack?”
“Sure. The king of hearts, the king of spades, the king of clubs, and the king of diamonds.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, baby.”
He didn’t seem like a bad guy so much as he seemed rather . . . sad.
Janie would not have approved of this. At all. She wouldn’t be sitting here if she were me, which was quite funny if you thought about it because I was her. And if I hadn’t done such a poor job of being her, if I hadn’t botched that telephone transfer, then I wouldn’t be here either. But I was and I had a feeling, even if she’d made the same mistake I had, she never would have agreed to go with Jack anywhere.
“Are you asking about that telephone call again?”
I nodded.
“I’m a gambling man, so what I’m about to say is based on experience with all kinds of fellows you wouldn’t want your mother to meet. Stop asking around about kings and things you don’t know anything about. It won’t do you any good, and it might just get you into trouble. Some people get nervous when other people start asking questions.”
So there was a king!
“Understand?”
“Sure, Jack.”
“And don’t come down to the station again. You seem like a nice girl, and you don’t deserve to be involved in any of this. I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”
And I was trying to keep Griff out of trouble.
He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Want one?”
“No. It’s a dirty habit, and you shouldn’t smoke.” I made a swipe at the packet, but he pulled it out of reach.
“No kidding—picked it up in the trenches. But it’s good for the nerves.”
“What have you got to be nervous about?” He was a policeman for goodness’ sake.
“You’d be surprised.”
“Then tell me. How did you . . . how did you start with all of this? Doing favors for people? And making friends?”
He sent a sideways look over at me as he took a drag on his cigarette. He exhaled with a long sigh. “You don’t want to hear my sob story.”
“But I do.”
He waved his hand, which only had the effect of sending his cigarette smoke in my direction.
I coughed.
“Sorry.” He waved his hand in the other direction, trying to send the smoke away, but it only made it worse.
“See there? I always make a mess of things.”
I could have smiled, hearing my own thoughts repeated by him. “Tell me.”
“You owe people one favor and then you owe them two favors and then pretty soon you owe the
m everything you have. See?”
Frankly? “No.”
He sighed. “You really . . . ?” The look he sent me was one of pure frustration, but then he took another look. “You really don’t, do you? Maybe living up on that hill really does make people see things differently.”
“I’m not so different from you.” Only he was a boy and I was a girl. And he was a policeman and I was a co-ed, although I wasn’t planning to be one for much longer, and he’d been in the war and I hadn’t . . . so maybe we didn’t have so much in common after all. Except making a mess of everything. From what he’d said, we were both good at that.
“They say confession is good for the soul. I suppose . . . maybe it is. See, most of the fellows I grew up with got drafted, just like me. But some of them didn’t. And a couple of them got into trouble while I was gone.”
“What did they—”
“Doesn’t matter.” He said it so firmly, I didn’t dare to pursue it. “When I came back, I didn’t know any of that. And besides, I’d gotten a job right off the bat with the police department. Kept me away from my old neighborhood. But I ran into them one day down at a bar. We had a drink. They said they had to meet someone and wanted to know, would I drive?”
He sounded so miserable, I wanted to make him feel better about it, whatever it turned out to be. “That doesn’t sound like anything terrible. It sounds like you were just trying to be friendly.”
“Just being friendly. That’s right. I used to know my way around the city, figured it hadn’t changed much since I’d been gone. I didn’t have anything better to do, and I wasn’t on duty that day. Why not, I said. One thing led to another.” He broke off. “I’m not going to tell you what they did.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
He turned to look at me. “You wouldn’t want to. But you’d probably feel like you ought to and that’s no way to live.”
“But—”
“You asked for the story. I’m trying to oblige. Now. You going to listen or do I stop talking?”
“I’ll listen.”
“So they did something bad and there I am, driving the getaway car.”
“Did you know they had—”
“Wasn’t any way I couldn’t have known.”
“So you were—?” What did that make him? Not one of the bad guys. At least, not exactly.
“An accessory to the crime. That’s what it’s called. You didn’t commit the crime, but you helped someone else in the doing of it. Doesn’t look very good, does it? A cop who’s an accessory to the crime?”
“I guess it wouldn’t.”
“They thanked me, said they’d never bother me about anything again, and they didn’t. Not for over a year.”
“But . . . ?”
“But one day after work, they asked me if I couldn’t do them another favor.” He shrugged. “What could I say?”
“But . . . they aren’t your real friends. Real friends wouldn’t ask you to do whatever it is they asked you to do. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure I know that. But like I said, you try to do the right thing by someone. Over there, in the trenches, I traded places with a buddy one night. Let him sleep in my spot instead. There was less mud in mine, and he was fighting a . . .” He paused to scratch at his ear. He swallowed. “He was fighting a cold. I thought I was doing the right thing, just trying to be nice, only a mortar came in the middle of the night and landed right on top of him. Never could find any trace of him. I looked all over. Dog tags . . . something. Didn’t find nothing. That mortar was meant for me, don’t you see? Only it got him instead.”
“So . . . what are you saying? That you somehow deserve this?” Even I was smart enough to see the foolishness in that.
“Naw. I’m saying it doesn’t really matter.”
“Doesn’t really—! Of course it matters. You can’t just—you can’t just let them boss you around like that!”
“What choice have I got?”
“You can tell them to do their own dirty work.” That’s what they called it in the movies: dirty work.
As he looked at me his mouth stretched with amusement. “Sure. Just like that. And then they’ll turn me over to my boss for all those favors I’ve been doing for them. I have thought about refusing, once or twice. But the only thing I can figure is I’d find myself in jail. And can you guess how they treat cops in there?”
“But it’s blackmail!”
“That’s what they call it.”
“And you’re not doing something about it?”
“What would you like me to do?”
Something. Anything! Anything but sit beside me on a bench smoking a cigarette, telling me there was nothing he could do.
“There’s nothing I can do. I just have to keep on doing favors and hope that if I can save up enough money, someday I can leave this all behind. Skip town. You know?”
He was just like me. “Skip town and go to Hollywood.”
Jack smiled. “That’s right. Maybe I should go to Hollywood too. I could look you up when I get there.”
“But don’t you think—”
“No. I don’t think, not anymore. Nothing to be gained by thinking. Most of the cops I know are doing favors on the side for somebody. City Hall. Rumrunners. Bootleggers. So in the end, who really cares?”
“Who really—!”
He held up a finger as he cut me off. “But listen now to what I tell you: You’ve got to keep clear of all of this. A nice girl like you shouldn’t even be seen with me. People might start to get the wrong idea.”
“But . . . what about that kid you were talking about? The one they mentioned on the telephone.” Kid? Listen to me! Griff was ten months older than I was.
“What about him?”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“You can’t worry about what’s going to happen to other people. I figured that out during the war. The only person who matters is you.”
“But—but what if I know him or something?”
“You don’t know him. Might have seen him since you live up on that hill. Or heard of him, maybe. Most people have heard of him. But you don’t know him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because people like him don’t have time to say hello to people like you and me. Anyway, they’re not going to do anything to him if he starts doing what he’s told. He’s a smart kid. He probably will.”
Griff most definitely would not! “But what if he doesn’t?”
Jack narrowed his eyes as if my question had caused him physical pain. “He will. No use thinking too far ahead.”
“But the men on the telephone seemed to think he wouldn’t. And they were planning what to—” I clapped a hand over my mouth. I wasn’t supposed to be remembering the conversation. I was supposed to let him think I’d forgotten about it. Or hadn’t really heard it in the first place.
“I kind of figured that’s the way it is. You’re too smart not to have remembered what they said.”
Too smart? Oh sure! The one time someone thought I was actually smart was the one time I truly didn’t want to be. “I guess I—”
“Don’t worry. I already told them you don’t remember anything. But you’ve got to stop asking questions. Now.”
I must have spent an hour pacing in my room that night. I wasn’t supposed to see Jack again, and he didn’t want me asking any more questions, so I wasn’t going to get any information from him.
But there did seem to be a king involved. So that was one thing.
And Griff truly did seem to be in some kind of danger, didn’t he? I mean, Jack hadn’t actually said so, but he didn’t not say so either. So . . . from what he hadn’t said, I could assume Griff truly was in trouble and that was very bad.
At first the bad guys were just voices on the other end of the telephone lines. But now they were people Jack knew. They seemed to be getting closer and closer. Which just meant that I had to be on guard. And no matter what, I had to keep Griff
alive and that meant I had to figure it all out before I left for Hollywood in just a week and a half.
I was so close! If only I could figure out who the king was.
But Griff didn’t know anything, and Jack wasn’t going to tell me anything. If I needed information, it looked like I’d just have to find it somewhere else.
Griff. Mayor. Irish. Telephone men. Jack. Me.
Griff was out. The mayor seemed to be the problem. I didn’t know any Irish, and Jack wouldn’t tell me anything. That just left the men from the telephone call. I supposed . . . I’d just have to ask them who the king was.
15
I thought about it the next day at work as I patched through telephone calls. I still had the list of numbers I’d recorded that first afternoon, and that telephone number had to be among them. I just didn’t know which one it was. If only I could hear one of the voices again! If I couldn’t call all those numbers from work, I had to find a different telephone to use. I’d have to do it from home.
But . . . what if I called the right number and someone else answered? I’d never know it was the right number then, would I?
I chewed on a nail as I thought about it.
What if someone else did answer the telephone?
I could always ask for the man of the house. That’s what I’d do. I’d just start calling the telephone numbers. And then, once I’d found the right one I’d . . . well . . . what would I do?
A light blinked on the board in front of me. I plugged a jack in and flipped the switch. “Number, please.”
“Tremont-4613.”
I plugged in the other jack and flipped the switch again. Even if I was able to match the telephone number to one of the voices, I couldn’t take that information to the police. Jack had told me not to talk to him anymore. And even if I discovered the right telephone number, it still wouldn’t tell me anything else about those men. It was just a number, not a name, not an address—and Griff would still be in danger. I still wouldn’t be any closer to solving the puzzle.
I hated puzzles.
Janie would probably be really good at this. She was smart that way.
Another light flickered. I plugged a jack in and flipped the switch. “Number, please.”
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