Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12

by Dell Magazines

  “But no one knows where he is?” Her world contracted to Mario’s face while up the block, the banjo player and singer went into “For Me and My Gal.”

  “You lonesome, bella mia? Always together, you and Nicolino.” He crossed his fingers to demonstrate. “But now you got a new boyfriend? You no make such a pretty dress for nobody?”

  She laughed away the question. “So I’ve got an attic apartment,” she told him, “small but all to myself. I’ll show you where it is. Then you can come and go.”

  They pushed through hundreds, maybe thousands of people listening to music, buying street food, speaking in excited bursts about the strike. The Star claimed the populace shivered in terror of being without streetlights and transport,

  without food and necessities. But people here knew the unions wouldn’t let them suffer. The mood was festive, full of anticipation and optimism.

  The streetcars, though, were jammed full. Not just with celebrants. The drivers walked off tomorrow, and people were rushing their errands. A throng waited at the first stop they approached, so they backtracked to an earlier one, and then to a third. Even there, it was awhile before a trolley didn’t fill before she and Mario reached the door.

  They were finally just steps from boarding when Ella heard muttering behind her. A man, a lumberjack judging from the slivers in his cap, spat out, “That Teamster.” Someone else said, “Union voted nay—no friend of ours.”

  Ella blinked tiny points of moisture from her lashes. She looked through the drizzle till she spotted a young man under a streetlamp. He wore a shabby Navy uniform. It was taking months to get the hundreds of thousands of soldiers back from Europe. Skinny men in dirty blues or khaki flooded the streets of Seattle in December, streamed in steadily in January, and were more than a trickle even now.

  “Ought to go teach the skunk a lesson,” someone else said. “Hear him at the strike vote? Says Hanson’ll wait till the sympathy strikers go back, then he’ll brag he whupped us. It’ll hurt unions all round the country.” The crowd at the trolley stop rippled with threats and angry laughter.

  “Never heard of the Teamsters. Won’t be around long if it’s full of cowards. I’m I.W.W. Let’s go show him what it takes to make a union last.”

  “Leave him be.” Ella put out her arm to stop him. “It’s a new day. Don’t start it with blood on the street.”

  The Wobblie looked at her hand touching his sleeve. For a second she thought he’d bat it off. But Mario said to him, “Soldier boy, he gonna get it, you no worry. You see he’s got a goon follows him?”

  The Teamster was at the end of the block, where it met an alley famous for its shanghai tunnels. A few steps behind him, entering a circle of lamplight as the other stepped from it, was the goon.

  He was hatless, his hair glowing muted orange in the stippled beam. It was Marshal Killy. Ella was sure of it. The wide shoulders, the square head, the tiger-fur shade of ginger.

  The marshal was here. Close enough that if he turned, he’d spot her.

  Ella had seen the photos in The Star every day, marshals boarding trains west. She’d heard Ole Hanson brag he had hundreds of them coming. She’d even worried one might be Killy. Worried, but then reminded herself she had a new name now and false papers.

  With the instinct people show when being watched, the marshal turned toward her. She shifted to hide her face, then jostled her way up the streetcar steps. Had he seen her? Recognized her? There was no seat available, and the aisle was packed, but she elbowed her way to the back window. By now, he’d be following the Teamster into the alley.

  But it wasn’t so: He hadn’t moved, except to face the trolley. He seemed to be looking right at Ella now. Fog made it impossible to be sure of eye contact, but she felt it like a lightning strike.

  She told herself it didn’t matter—he couldn’t recognize her from this distance (though she recognized him). Her hair was different now, and he wouldn’t be looking for her here. He’d assume she was some other girl. It meant nothing, it was just coincidence that he stood motionless, watching. And in any case, he’d have to hurry away or he’d lose the Teamster.

  She was relieved when the streetcar started to move. As it arced out into the street, she shifted to look through a side window. She hoped to see Killy’s back as he retreated. But no, he was closer now. Close enough that she made out his scowl. She tried to persuade herself he couldn’t see her as well as she could see him, not with the trolley picking up speed. But then he bolted toward it.

  When he reached it, he began pounding the side with a flat hand.

  Another time, the driver might have stopped. People were friendly here. But the car was full, and a crowd waited for the next.

  Within seconds, Killy had to sprint to keep up. His knocking became insistent and closed-fisted. Ella watched the driver list left in his seat for a better look in the long side mirror. She craned for his view, causing a seated passenger to mutter and shift. She saw Killy pull a big nickel star from his pocket and wave it.

  So she’d been right, not paranoid, that night in Chicago. And now the tiger had found her again.

  Someone said, “A marshal wants on.”

  Ella hoped the driver supported his union’s aye to strike. She called out, “Ole Hanson’s got a nerve, bringing these lawmen here to bust our heads.”

  “I don’t see any marshal out there.” The driver doubled their speed.

  Ella heard the chatter around her, speculation about what had just happened. Mario had pushed his way to her side, and she spoke to him in rusty Italian. “I know that marshal.” Saying it made it seem more real. “The trolley takes too long at the stops—there’s no chance he won’t catch up. I think I have to—If I get off, can you get off too? Stay back so it doesn’t look like we’re together? If he leads me someplace, follow us. Will you? And then . . . then lure him away, in some other direction? Give me time to . . . Or . . . or I suppose knock him out if you absolutely have to?”

  “Certo,” Mario murmured. “Posso pur’ ammazzarlo.”

  “No!” She’d have no man’s death on her hands. And wouldn’t Ole Hanson love to see a marshal murdered here? The mayor probably hoped the week would start with blood and riot. He certainly didn’t want the strike viewed as a benevolence, rippling across America to change it for the better. “I just need enough time to get far enough away. That’s all.”

  Mario grinned to show (she hoped) that he was joking.

  At the next stop, she got off, then threaded through the crowd waiting to board. She didn’t look over her shoulder to check for Mario. She knew he’d be there someplace.

  She began walking toward the previous stop. At first only strangers came toward her. They were hunched into thick work jackets as the drizzle intensified. Then she saw a man running.

  She stopped, leaving it to the marshal to close the distance. If he was winded, maybe he’d be less careful. Less likely to notice Mario melting into a shadow or a group. And anyway, she couldn’t persuade her legs to take her closer to the tiger.

  Killy was upon her before she finished the thought. Without a word, he grabbed both her arms, pinning them to her sides.

  “Have I committed a crime?” She tried to pull free. “Did I read the wrong newspaper or criticize that politician you work for?”

  It was disconcerting to stare up at him, to compare his face to the image her mind summoned sometimes, late at night, when fears came over her. She’d forgotten details after three months. She remembered the pale brows and broad forehead, the slight flattening of his nose, the hint of a dimple on one side. But she’d recalled only the pale blue of his eyes, not the near-black outer rings, as daunting as bull’s-eyes. She’d wrongly thought his lips were thin and unpleasant when actually they were rather full. And though he was a head taller than she, and broad-shouldered, he didn’t actually tower like a menacing beast.

  “It is a crime, you know, to lie to a U.S. Marshal.” He was bumped against her as people hurried past on both sides,
rushing for the departing trolley.

  “And is it a crime to lie to someone who doesn’t tell you he’s a marshal? Besides, I admitted I was no schoolgirl.”

  “Yes, and then pulled a grand stunt to escape.”

  “I slipped away from a stranger who showed too much interest.”

  “Feared I was a masher, did you?” He showed his dimple, but it was no warm smile. “Is it not more traditional to refuse dinner with a man you find annoying? Or do you generally accept invitations and then create an uproar and disappear?” He gave her a little shake.

  “I didn’t create the uproar,” she lied. “I just . . . took advantage of it.”

  “But you’re done pretending you don’t know I’m a marshal?”

  “Are you done pretending you just like to chat about politics?”

  “Oh, that’s no pretense, more’s the pity. As to the rest, my girl . . . I supposed it would be simpler to talk to you without the star on my lapel.”

  “What did you want?”

  “I wanted you, Miss Gualtieri. But you guessed as much.”

  Only knowing Mario was close gave her the courage to ask, “Why?”

  “I thought we were done pretending.” But it seemed a question.

  She looked down. Whichever way she went in answering—keeping in mind either the jewels or Nicky—she might guess wrong and offer him a new suspicion.

  “You’re asking do I know the reason? I don’t,” she said. “But you’re not in Seattle to find me? You’re a strike-breaker for Mayor Hanson, I suppose.”

  “Lord, no. I told you in Chicago, my candidate, Mitchell Palmer, is a good progressive. Worked hard for the ten-hour workday when he was in the House, and I’m sorry we didn’t win the fight. Blame the Senate, but never mind that. I work for no mayor.” A short laugh. “And whatever you may think, it would be no favor to Hanson to turn strikers into martyrs. On the contrary. If we can prevent vigilantes from—”

  “Then why were you following that Teamster?”

  “Beck, you mean? Help keep the hotheads off him. He believes your strike will backfire. A view he’ll be defending with his fists, I think.”

  “If he voted nay, he deserves the trouble.”

  “That may be—what’s idealism without the occasional Pyrrhic victory? But it doesn’t make him wrong. You’ll have a hundred and ten thousand striking, two-thirds in solidarity and not for their own sakes. With no quarrel of their own, they’ll soon go back to work. And to the world it will look—”

  “We’ve heard it all before. It’ll look weak, and that only hurts the movement, and so there’ll never be another general strike. And so forth. And you may wish it, but it’s not so. This is just the beginning. Do you think idealists are babes in the woods? I’ll wager we’ve led harder lives than the likes of you.”

  “The likes of me, eh?”

  “What do you want?” Ella tried to calm down, to remember that her object was simple: to end up on a quieter street so Mario could distract Killy. (But he’d offered to kill the marshal. Did she truly trust him not to?)

  “All right then, I’ll put my cards on the table.” The marshal glanced over her shoulder. Had he spotted Mario? “I was sent to fetch you from that train. Got a personal call from Mitchell Palmer because it involved a neighbor of his, John Kingston. Yes, your employer. Kingston arrived at a mass grave in Virginia—shrouded, as if the flu had killed him. But he wasn’t gone, he was just— Well, there the details grow fuzzy. In need, let’s say, of clarifying.”

  “Mr. Kingston?” She couldn’t hide her shock. “I thought he must have died.”

  “But not at home? You never saw him sick?”

  “No.” There was danger here in the particulars. But it was accurate to say, “He never telephoned. Didn’t check if the children were— I thought certainly he was dead.”

  “As I said, some points needed clarifying. We contacted Union Station. Found you’d bought a ticket using your own name.”

  “You went looking for his servants? What ‘points’ could we—I—clarify? Mr. Kingston can’t think I had anything to do with . . . well, whatever happened to keep him away.”

  “What he thinks is someone else’s concern.” His tone worried Ella. “I was there to learn what you had to say.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask me? Immediately ask me?”

  “By the time I knew you were the one to question, you’d lied to me. That concoction about Georgetown. I found it interesting. And,” he showed the dimple, “I had no objection to dinner.”

  She recalled her terror, her confusion, all alone that night in Chicago. How close she’d come to being robbed, perhaps worse, before finding a pawn shop and getting money for a room. Because this marshal had no objection to dinner?

  “You think I’m stupid because I’m young and female,” she said. “But I saw the two men outside with you. Three marshals to question one girl?” She could see she’d surprised him. “Why should it take—?”

  “You ask this, after having eluded us?” Was that a hint of admiration on his face? “But reassure me, then. You don’t know how it came to be, your employer carried away for dead?”

  “The last time I saw Mr. Kingston’s face,” she said, “he was ordering me put out for the death wagon.”

  “Put out still living?”

  “He thought I’d die before it came.” She was gratified by the flash of dismay on his face. “But I didn’t. Cook found me in the morning. She said Mrs. K. banished her husband to his club. In case the sickness got on him, from helping carry me down. She didn’t want the flu spreading to the children.”

  “She sent her husband away at the height of a pandemic? You didn’t find that . . . cold?”

  “Everything about the Kingstons was ‘cold.’” She would leave it at that. “But when the baby got sick, the maid phoned Mr. K.’s club. He hadn’t shown up. The next day, when the older children . . . I’d been told Mr. K. kept a girl. In an apartment close by.” She shifted as more people walked past, their gesticulations too close to her face. “I called the front desk there, but it was too late at night. I got no answer.”

  “Kingston kept a girl? Young, like yourself?”

  “You’re asking was I—?” She tried to pull away. “So what if Mr. K. came back? Why should I know anything about it? I was a servant, not a . . . a . . . Why question me?”

  Kingston must have noticed the missing jewelry. His entire family dead, and still he’d noticed. His wife had boxes full, and Ella left most of it untouched. But the rich were like dragons, fierce in their instinct to protect treasure.

  “Is he angry I didn’t leave a note? To say when the children died? The wagon men keep lists, don’t they? Which bodies are taken from which houses?”

  Killy said nothing.

  “Why did he set the police after me? Just please say it and stop stalking me.” Her voice cracked with frustration.

  “Stalking?”

  “Yes! Yes. It’s like Champawat. Where a tiger followed villagers for miles to—”

  “I remember. Accounts of it filled the papers. A dozen years ago, was it?” He glanced over her shoulder again, his eyes narrowing. “She was a tigress, though, I think. Not a male.”

  Ella tried again to squirm out of his grip.

  “There was another story like it, turn of the century. It caught my fancy when I was a schoolboy. Did you ever hear of Tsavo?”

  He kept looking beyond her. Had he spotted Mario?

  “No. What does it have to do with—?”

  “If you like stories of hunter and hunted. It’s about two man-eaters.”

  He was playing with her. Dragging this out. Did he know what she and Mario had planned?

  “Maneless lions, this pair. Males who hunted together, even drove prey toward each other. Males of the species don’t do that, you know. They’re solitary, uncooperative. But these even shared a lair full of human bones.”

  “And did they pinion their prey too? To exasperate and demoralize it?”<
br />
  “In a way.” He smiled as he loosened his grip on her shoulders. “The British were certainly demoralized. Trying to build a railroad bridge over the Tsavo river, in Africa. They laid hundreds of miles of line—useless to them if they couldn’t get the bridge done. But the beasts kept pulling workers from their tents, dragging them off. Raiding the camp hospital as if it were a pantry. The railway tried everything. Deep thorn fences. But these lions, unlike others, were willing to crawl through. They tried enormous bonfires, but they were a unique pair, no fear of fire. The railroad even brought in a tribe of fierce hunters. But they soon ran away, convinced the lions were devils.”

  “Please,” Ella begged. “Whatever you need from me—”

  “The workers abandoned the camp—what else could they do? They went on strike, you might say.” He showed his dimple again. “Finally the British sent in a crack shot, a young lieutenant colonel. He hired the best game hunter on the continent to help him. And they set off—”

  “Are you arresting me? Or just toying with me before you devour me?”

  His laugh was low and chilly. “The game hunter, for all his prowess, was eaten alive. But the colonel soldiered on. Every night he positioned himself in a tree to wait. It was weeks before he got off a clean shot at the first lion. Hit it, all right, but it didn’t fall. It vanished.”

  The first lion vanished. In this twisted allegory, was Ella the first lion? And Mario the second? Or was the marshal talking about Nicky?

  She felt as if she’d scream from the stress. Surely the marshal hadn’t boarded her train in Chicago just to ask what she knew about Kingston. Whatever her employer told Palmer, it couldn’t possibly involve her. She’d been delirious with flu when Mr. K. left R Street. No, if Palmer phoned a marshal, it was either about the stolen jewels or about Nicky. But which?