A Hitch at the Fairmont

by Nick Bertozzi

  Hitchcock picked it up. “You overlooked this,” he said.

  “It’s just a paper clip,” Jack said.

  “We shouldn’t assume it’s unimportant,” Hitchcock said. “Clues don’t have signs on them declaring what they are. And they come in all sizes.”

  “But if we examine every piece of lint in my aunt’s handbag, we won’t have time for the real clues.” The frustration in his own voice shocked Jack. Would he see a new clue, or was he just wasting time?

  Hitchcock turned the clip over and over on his hand. “I suppose you are correct,” he said, and tossed it with the Kleenex.

  They cracked open each bottle, jar, and tube of Aunt Edith’s beauty supplies. One smelled of lavender. Jack sniffed another and got a sinus-clearing blast of eucalyptus. (No wonder Aunt Edith smelled like Ben-Gay, Jack thought.) Though most smelled cloyingly sweet, Jack decided that whatever was inside was just what it claimed to be. No hidden uranium here. He set them all on the floor.

  He picked up the three tickets from Peter Pawn’s Neverland. Printed on the left of each card were tags like “Item” and “Serial Number.” Lines on the right had been filled in by hand.

  “Look at this,” Jack said. “This one says ‘Item: diamond square-cut ring’ and ‘thirty-five hundred.’ So does this second one: ‘ring set with ruby and emerald, thirty-five hundred.’ The final one says ‘empire brooch, three thousand.’ ”

  “Thirty-five hundred plus thirty-five hundred plus three thousand. That’s ten thousand,” Hitchcock said. “Dollars, one would imagine. Was that not the same amount you found in the envelope?”

  “So she pawned her real rings?” Jack asked. “But she’s rich. Look at her stuff. Nice clothes. Two television sets. Jewelry!”

  “She had jewelry,” Hitchcock replied. “The pawnshop has it now. The rest bought on credit.”

  “I guess we are seeing her in a new light,” Jack said.

  “Yes.”

  “She lives at the Fairmont.” Jack said. “Do they give credit here?”

  “Her bill is unpaid.”

  Jack looked at the collection assembled on the coffee table. The four notes seemed the most informative. They were like a map with no compass. How strange they were, and ominous, each in its own way. The ravaged letter from the men’s room seemed to say “Defy me, and I’ll tear you up.” The newspaper article. It said, “Beware of hidden dangers.” And who writes a message with half-eaten chocolates? Only the handwritten note from the handbag, asking for two hundred thousand dollars, appeared normal. Jack felt impatient but forced himself to keep looking at the notes. There had to be something there. A missing piece to the puzzle. He looked and looked. Why couldn’t he see it?

  An inkling of understanding brushed against Jack’s mind. Something he had just thought kept circling in his head. He picked up the note from the handbag. “This is the only one that looks like a normal note.”

  “Yes,” said Hitchcock.

  “But the others are abnormal—weird ways to write a note. Chocolate. Newspapers. Torn-up paper.”

  “So it would seem,” said Hitchcock.

  Jack closed his eyes. He saw two circles. One marked “normal,” the other “weird.” Into the “normal” circle he put the handwritten note. Into the “weird” circle he put the three others. Suddenly he saw it.

  “But look at it in a different way,” he said. He was speaking faster now, eager to work through his thinking. He held up the handwritten note. “If this is the only normal one in the bunch, then it is really the odd one out. Just a regular note, but odd in its normal-ness.”

  “Quite true,” said Hitchcock, “but what does it reveal?”

  Jack ran his fingers down the face of the note, as if he could absorb the answer from the ink or trace a solution in the broad distinctive loops of the cursive letters. Handwritten.

  “Look,” he said. “Why does a kidnapper state the ransom demands by clipping letters from a newspaper, or circling words in an article?”

  “Because he does not wish to be traced by other communication methods, or tied to the crime by his handwriting,” Hitchcock answered. “If he has any professional standards at all.”

  “So why did he write three notes that leave no connection to the writer?” Jack pointed them out. “The chocolate note, the newspaper article, and our own note torn into a new message?” Jack’s hand rested on the handwritten note. “But he left another in his own handwriting?”

  “Perhaps he had someone else write the note?”

  “But why would someone write it for him?” Jack said. “Even his accomplice wouldn’t want to be traced, would she?”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t know any better,” Hitchcock said.

  “They both seemed like a pros at the mission.”

  “Regardless,” said Hitchcock, “we have a kidnapper and several notes about the kidnapping. They must all be connected.”

  Jack looked down at the collection of things on the table. He let his mind drift back to finding each one. How are they connected? How? That circling thought in his head finally landed.

  “Connected!” he cried. “Of course. You were right.”

  “Without question,” Hitchcock said. He folded his hands at his belly. “About what?”

  Jack fetched the paper clip from the trash can and held it before Hitchcock’s face. “That this was a most important clue!”

  He picked up the bills from Ransohoff’s, the hotel, and the television store. He clipped them to the handwritten note, back in its blue envelope. “This was how I found the handwritten note in Aunt Edith’s handbag.”

  Hitchcock stared at the little bundle of papers but said nothing.

  “Don’t you see?” Jack said as he pulled each piece of paper from the clip and laid it on the table. “Bill. Bill. Bill. My aunt kept all her bills together.”

  “So?”

  “The reason this first ransom note is handwritten and was hidden in Aunt Edith’s purse is because it’s not a ransom note at all!”

  “Then what is it?”

  Jack read the note aloud: “We’ll agree to two hundred thousand dollars. Bring it to the noon service at Mission Dolores on Monday. And let’s not play games, or I’ll be forced to end this job immediately. She’ll be dead and you’ll be blamed. Yours . . . S.’ ”

  “Don’t you see?” Jack said. “It’s just another bill—for goods delivered—or . . . or . . . services rendered. Aunt Edith pawned her rings to pay it. But never got the chance. It’s not a ransom note at all. It’s a bill!”

  “I see,” said Hitchcock, “but a bill for what?”

  A CLATTER FROM THE MAIN room interrupted anything Jack might have said. Jack jumped up and dashed through the bedroom door, Hitchcock on his heels. The door to the suite was open. The silver mail tray, upside down on the floor, rotated metallically on its rim, faster and faster until it clanked to a stop. From the hallway a bell signaled the arrival of the elevator.

  “Go!” Hitchcock said.

  Jack darted to the elevator. A white ski mask lay before it. Jack caught the door just as it was closing and forced it open. Shen was alone in the elevator.

  “Going down,” she said.

  “Shen,” Jack asked, “did you see who called the elevator?”

  “No,” Shen said. “No one was there when the door opened. Were you playing with the call button?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He turned to Hitchcock. “Whoever it was must have taken the stairs.”

  “I’ll follow him,” said Hitchcock. “My legs are longer! You go down to the lobby with Shen and see who comes out of the stairwell. But don’t approach him. I’ll not have you endangered.”

  “Check,” said Jack. He stepped into the elevator. “Lobby.”

  Shen hesitated. Then closed the door and began the descent.

  Jack still clasped the ransom note—no, the bill—in his hand. He shoved it into his pocket and stared at the brass arrow above the door that indicated the floor.

 
“Can’t you make it go any faster?” he asked.

  “Someone on three called. We need to slow down to stop.”

  “No! Don’t! I need to get to the lobby, Shen. It’s important.”

  Shen stood with her back against the wall, her right arm extended to operate the lift, her left arm angling across her stomach and chest, like she was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with the wrong hand. Her thumb hooked over the second button on her jacket. A brass button. Jack’s eyes followed the trail of buttons as it led down her lumpy jacket, under her arm, and reemerged near the bottom hem. Brass. Brass. Brass. But the last button of the jacket was different. Not brass. Sort of a white. Ivory maybe.

  So Jack knew.

  “You did it,” he said.

  “Please move to the back of the car,” Shen said as they stopped on the third floor.

  Jack lunged toward her as she moved to open the door. He grabbed her right arm.

  “You kidnapped my aunt. I know it was you. You left behind your button. I’d almost forgotten.” He wasn’t sure where the button was. He must have left it somewhere.

  “Button?” said Shen. The arm she had crooked across her jacket moved to cover the buttons.

  “You lost your brass button and sewed this white one on instead.” Jack pulled at her arm. As he jerked it away, something fell from her jacket and crashed to the floor. Glass sprayed everywhere. The silver frame from Jack’s suite lay at their feet.

  Shen shoved open the elevator door and pushed Jack violently backward through it. He might have been able to keep his footing, but he tripped over the family waiting there. They fell in a heap.

  “Out of service,” Shen said. The elevator door rattled shut. When Jack got back to his feet, Shen was already headed to the lobby.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jack, stepping over the family and shaking splinters of glass from his pants cuffs. He pushed through the door to the stairwell and nearly ran into Hitchcock as he rounded the landing from the stairs above.

  “Jack?” he said.

  “It was Shen,” Jack said, already running down the stairs. “She was the one in the room. She stole the picture of my mother in the silver frame. And she was there the night of the kidnapping too. She left a brass button.”

  “Button?” Hitchcock said.

  “I don’t know what happened to it,” said Jack, “but the night my aunt disappeared there was a brass button on the floor.”

  Hitchcock rounded the last flight of stairs just behind Jack. They bolted out into the lobby. Another operator was taking position in Shen’s elevator. Jack guessed Shen had feigned some sort of emergency so she could escape. Jack didn’t want to lose her. He sprinted across the lobby, and into the terrible grip of Mr. Sinclair, the head bellman.

  “In a hurry again, boy?” he asked. He squeezed and pushed Jack’s arm so hard that Jack had to bow a little to take the pressure off. “What is it this time? Another emergency, no doubt.”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “Where’s Shen? I need to see Shen.”

  “Then you would have done better to take the elevator than the stairs,” Sinclair said. “She is the operator—”

  “I haven’t got time for this,” Jack said. “It’s important.” A wash of numbness spread from where the bellman gripped his arm, tighter still.

  “Tsk. Somehow I doubt that. You’re lying again. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  “With such a worthless ante, I doubt any bookie would take the bet,” said Hitchcock, finally catching up. “Let the boy go.”

  The bellman’s mustache curled into a sneer. “Someday you’ll be sorry for acting so high-and-mighty.”

  “Today is not that day,” Hitchcock said, and he took Jack’s hand.

  They circled round and round, but there was no sign of Shen in the lobby.

  Opal was just propping open the door to Blum’s. Jack headed over toward her.

  “Hey, sugar,” Opal said. “Where’s your poet friend?”

  “Ummm . . . ,” Jack said.

  “I’m afraid he met with an unfortunate accident,” said Hitchcock. “Fell off a ladder during a poetry recital. Right onto his bongos.”

  “Was he hurt?” asked Opal.

  “We won’t be seeing him again, I fear,” said the director.

  “Oh.” If Opal’s pillowy form had left any place for her shoulders to slump, they would have.

  “Opal,” said Jack. “Opal have you seen Shen?”

  “Sure, sugar. She was just here. Made some change from the till for the cable car and scooted out the California Street entrance.”

  “Thanks, Opal,” Jack said, headed that way himself.

  “Anything wrong?” Opal called. But Jack and the director had already left the building.

  Outside, the cable car was just pulling away from its stop. On the backseat Shen picked the last shards of glass from the silver frame. Her eyes met Jack’s as the cable car started its smooth descent down the street. She looked sad.

  Jack and the director hastened after the cable car, calling for it to stop. At first they kept pace with the car, but when it rounded over the intersection with Powell Street, the grade became very steep. The car kept a steady pace down the hill, but the severe slope tugged at Jack, threatening to topple him with each step he took. He was forced to slow down or be dragged off his heels and skid to a bloody halt somewhere downhill. The cable car pulled away into traffic.

  Hitchcock looked up and down the street. “Never a cab in this town when you need one.”

  But another cable car pulled up behind them, empty save for the conductor and the man at the controls. Any other potential passengers had hopped on the previous car—the one Shen was on. Jack jogged up to the car, grabbed the cool brass pole, and jumped up onto the wrought iron steps. Hitchcock followed. The vibration of the wheels on the steel rails traveled up Jack’s body, from feet to teeth. The sound of whatever mysterious mechanism ground its slow gears in the slot in the road between the two rails clanked and rattled. Jack slid across the wooden benches and up to the man at the front of the car.

  “You the driver?” he asked the man.

  “The gripman, actually,” the man answered.

  “Can you catch up to that car down the hill?” asked Jack. “It’s very important.”

  “Not really, son. See, when I pull this lever back, the cable car grabs a steel rope that is constantly circling in the slot. So when we are moving, all the cars travel at the same speed.”

  “What if you let go of the cable?” Jack asked.

  “We’d go faster—” the gripman began.

  But he didn’t finish. At that moment Jack threw his weight against the man and pushed the lever forward.

  “Jack! No!” called Hitchcock. Too late.

  The car jerked forward. The gripman fell to the side, Jack was brought to his knees, and the cable car fairly flew down the hill. Jack tried to get up, but as the car barreled down the hill, the ride became a series of jolts and bumps that made standing impossible.

  Bystanders on the sidewalk were screaming now. The car shook and shimmied and jumped up and down on the tracks as it careened through the next intersection. The wind raked and tangled Jack’s hair. Car horns blared. The gripman cursed, and finally stood. When he pulled back the grip lever, there was a grinding sound and it jumped from his hands. He pulled some other levers. The car squealed again and jolted forward. They were flying toward the car in front of them. People on that car were panicking now, jumping off.

  They were going to collide.

  THE GRIPMAN ON JACK’S CAR heaved back on the emergency brake lever with all his might. This time it held. The car lurched again, then came to a stop just before hitting the car in front. Only a few feet separated the two.

  “Everyone okay?” the gripman asked. The conductor saluted from the back, where he’d thrown the rear brakes. The gripman turned to Jack. “Kid, that better have been an accident, or you are in a whole heap of trouble.” But Jack was already backing away, ready to jum
p.

  The gripman blocked Hitchcock’s exit. “You know this kid?”

  “Yes,” Hitchcock said. “My clumsy nephew.” He looked at Jack and nodded his head toward where Shen was running down the street.

  “This some Hollywood publicity stunt?” the gripman asked. “Yes. I know who you are.”

  “No stunt, I assure you. May we go?”

  “Are you kidding?” the gripman said, squaring his stance. His hands curled into fists. “You do realize that this could have been a major accident?”

  “Yet it wasn’t,” Hitchcock replied. “No one was hurt, thanks to you. And I am sure the boy didn’t mean to bump you.”

  The gripman scratched his head. “Well . . . It’s not like we don’t know where to find you if there’s a problem—famous guy like you.” A sly squint brightened his eyes. “Tell you what. I might be persuaded to let you go if maybe I were to see a character named after me in your next movie.”

  “That could be arranged, I believe,” Hitchcock said, extending his hand.

  The gripman shook it. “Name’s Popiano, but my friends call me Pop,” he said.

  Jack was already running after Shen as the gripman’s words faded. Fortunately, her bright red uniform jacket stood out in the crowded streets of Chinatown.

  Jack cut through knots of tourists, all gazing up at the red-and-green pagoda roofs that sloped out from the tops of modern brick buildings. These housed shops with porcelain figurines of dragons and cranes, or restaurants with leather-skinned ducks hanging in the windows, their necks wrapped tightly around thick metal hooks.

  Shen turned left and right, left and right, weaving her way through the maze of streets that made up San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jack wanted to catch her, but Hitchcock advised caution.

  “I’m not sure a confrontation on the street is the best thing,” he said, looking around. “There are sometimes certain . . . tensions in this city.”

  So they tracked Shen, careful not to lose sight of her or be seen themselves. They passed shops with live fish splashing in metal buckets and cats skulking in the shadows, waiting for a chance to pounce. Vendors, displaying their wares for the day, brought out glass jars filled with roots and leaves. The smells were unfamiliar. Musky. Spicy. And occasionally the smell of something dead. Now Jack and Hitchcock were far from the sightseeing spots. The customers milling about the shops were Chinese, buying items they actually used, not like the tourist trinkets for sale on Grant Avenue.