Authors: Eileen Dreyer
"I was looking into Peg Ryan, for the family."
"For the homeless headcase?"
"For the homeless headcase." Molly quickly explained what she'd found out "I was gonna go down to the MAC and see if anybody there can give me a definite idea."
Kevin was even less enthused about the news than Rhett. "You're not going to tell me on top of all my other problems you're going to get those files reopened."
"I don't know. But if there's some connection to what the FBI is investigating down at city hall, we may have something more nefarious than suicidal depression on our hands."
"Besides the missing file, you mean."
"Yeah. That, too. Want me to help look?"
Molly helped look. They all looked. They even forayed down into the old catacombs where the paper records of over a hundred years worth of deaths had once shared space with cockroaches the size of Winnebagos. Only the cockroaches were left. Those, a few boxes, and the artificial Christmas tree that sat atop the filing cabinets all winter.
No file. No reprieve. Alter she caught herself checking under the microwave in the lunchroom for the fifth time, Molly decided that since she obviously wasn't getting anywhere, departure would be the better part of valor. Especially since Winnie was due back from court and had to be told of the latest catastrophe.
It didn't matter. Molly could have sworn she heard Winnie's shrieks on the wind as she stepped out of her car ten blocks away at the MAC.
* * *
Molly could never walk into the lobby of the MAC without thinking of it as it had been in her childhood. The bastion of male power, white exclusion, old money. Richly paneled walls, overstuffed furniture, original artwork that all seemed to portray the sweeping male majesty of America. Beyond that, the handsome staircases and forbidden places that all smelled faintly of cigar smoke, fine liqueur, and power.
In those days, women were only allowed on certain floors, men swam in the nude, and blacks bowed and smiled at any of the subservient positions that required obedience and alacrity and little else. The term for power in St. Louis was "steam," because all the real deals went down in the sauna. At any time half a dozen white-haired heads rested in peaceful oblivion in the lobby's leather armchairs.
As a child, Molly had thought that all those men were dead. Her father had damn near had a stroke when his five-year-old progeny had stopped by the chair of one particularly wizened character and held the mirror from her purse under his nose, just like she'd seen in an Agatha Christie movie. The man had bolted upright, her father had scooped her away, and she had been exiled from family dinners in the club's dining room for six months. It had been the first time Molly remembered actively enjoying a moment of rebellion.
All the memories assailed her as she stepped inside. Some of the paintings had changed, the carpet had been redone, and everything modernized. Women were members, and members were required to respect the sensibilities of the ladies by donning swimming attire in the pool. The men and women walking about the lobby were younger, and there didn't seem to be as many priests in attendance. But Molly still smelled it. Old cigar smoke, old liquor, old power. She felt the overwhelming urge to pull out a mirror, just for old time's sake. Instead, she did something else considered unthinkable in her youth. She walked on back to the Grille.
The good thing about the MAC was that it retained the old club mentality. Members were recognized, courted, remembered, flattered. If Molly could talk to the hostess in the Grille, she could very well find out who comprised the Shitkickers themselves.
"May I help you?"
Molly had no trouble recognizing the look. The woman behind the desk was the soul of courtesy, but she still exuded the unmistakable impression that she not only knew that Molly didn't belong in that room, she didn't belong in the club at all.
So Molly smiled. "A moment, please. Are you always in charge during lunch?"
The answering smile on her pleasantly soft, sagging middle-aged features was patient. It said if you belonged here, you wouldn't have to ask that question. "Yes, I am. What can I—"
Molly already had her ID out. "I'm trying to help the family of Peg Ryan," she said, and saw the thaw. Just as she'd hoped. The other abiding impression she carried of the club was how they'd treated her Uncle Henry, who, as a widower with a weakness for scotch and a dearth of surviving friends, had all but lived there. He hadn't been a client or a member, but family.
The hostess looked around to make sure everything was running smoothly, patted once at her tightly permed brown hair, and gestured toward a table in the corner where she could still watch her desk.
"The Shitkickers," she said with a smile, like a mother talking about the neighborhood kids. Her name tag said Helen. Molly bet she was a great mother, probably a neat grandma, too. "Sure. Unbelievable, when you think of it. All gone like that."
This time Molly's heart almost stopped. "All?"
Helen had been stirring her coffee, the spoon clinking like little wind chimes. Molly's question brought her to a stop. "You said you knew about them."
"I know about them through Peg. She didn't mention individuals. How many were there?"
"Oh, it varied. Mr. VanAck started it, kind of as a joke. A celebration after he'd won a big case. It kind of stuck. Peter VanAck, Harry McGivers, Pearl Johnson, Ms. Ryan. And Mr. Goldman. That was the core group, I guess."
Molly fought to pull up a first name. "Goldman. Aaron?"
Helen nodded. "It was just a tension reliever, ya know? They never did business."
"Did you ever hear what they did talk about?"
"Cases. Judges, other lawyers. I don't know, investing, that kind of thing. The normal kind of conversation for a place like this. They always had Theresa serve them, but she's not here today. Do you want me to ask her when she comes in tomorrow?"
"Yes, please. That would be helpful. I appreciate the fact that you have to protect your members, but anything you or Theresa could tell us might make a difference in the investigations."
Helen's eyes flickered. She looked down at her coffee a minute, as if reading it for answers. "I got the feeling they enjoyed... the good life."
The good life. What kind of code was that? Helen looked up, an almost pleading look in her eyes. Molly, knowing perfectly well what it could do to an employee at a club like this one, where secrets had to be sacrosanct, if she knew something that might jeopardize a reputation or two.
Then Molly remembered the cocaine she'd found in Peg Ryan's room, and a lot made sense. "Did you ever see any... illegal activity?"
Helen's eyes gave her away. "No. Not here. Never. I just think that some of them had the capacity to push some limits."
Some of them. Well, that made sense.
"Their suicides," Molly said as gently as she knew how. "Were you surprised?"
Helen sighed before she answered. "I'm not surprised by anything anymore."
Well, that was the difference between them, then. Molly was. She was surprised that nobody else had thought to ask this nice woman a simple question. Why five friends who had eaten lunch every first Tuesday of the month for the last eighteen months would now all be dead, allegedly by their own hands.
Molly stayed for a bit longer and asked a few more questions, but Helen had no more to give. So she exchanged phone numbers and promises to call and headed back outside, where a smiling, energetic young man in a green vest swung her old battered car around and slid her into it as if it were a Maserati and she were a princess. That was also something she'd never quite minded at the club. Just a little mercenary at heart, she decided, driving away.
* * *
Molly tried phoning Frank to let him know what was going on, but Frank was at some fund-raiser or another. Just the up-and-coming social butterfly, she decided. She tried to call Rhett back, but he was canvassing a neighborhood. She thought about heading back into the office to sit down with the other four files, but remembered that Winnie had found her way back there. No, tonight was not the night to screw around with Winnie.
Which left her with exciting news and nobody to take it to.
Molly was driving west on Market when it hit her. There was somebody she could share this with. Somebody who probably needed it.
It had been a long time since Molly had given in to instinct. Unforgivably, she gave in to it now. The sun was sliding below the high-rises to the west, and she was going to have to be in to the hospital by eleven to pick up a late swing shift. She was driving toward an area of town where a lone white woman in a little red sports car shouldn't go. She didn't have any news that would change the direction of any current investigation except her own. But she did have somebody out there who wanted to hear it, so she turned the car around and headed toward the river.
Since rush hour downtown was basically over, Molly cruised the streets in peace for a half hour or so, just on the chance she might catch Joe still working his area. She hit the places the men tended to congregate, by Saint Patrick's on North Ninth and along Washington Avenue near the Salvation Army shelter. She saw plenty of the ER's repeat customers, including The Diver, who seemed to be quite steady and clear-eyed as he slouched against the shelter wall watching traffic go by. She did not see Joe.
Molly checked with a couple of guys she recognized. One, Tehran, an emaciated black guy with milky blind eyes and an equally emaciated mutt for his seeing-eye dog, said he thought Joe was usually back home by now.
Home. The caves.
Situated in an area rich in limestone, St. Louis boasted an elaborate network of caves. Not just on the outskirts of the metropolitan area, like Meramec Caverns, which advertised the famous hiding place of Jesse James on barn roofs across the Midwest. Directly beneath the downtown area. Spread out beneath old houses and newer subdivisions.
Once used for everything from sewers to storehouses for the many breweries that had sprung up in the area, most of the caves were now closed off or filled in. Only a handful of people knew how to get into the ones that were still accessible downtown. Even fewer knew about the caves down by the riverfront that held some of the luckier homeless population.
Molly knew. She'd found out from one of her regulars, who was waiting for a vacancy. Perfect setup, he'd told her. Constant temperatures, protection from the elements, no worry about gang-bangers showing up to collect the rent or police toeing you off the warm spots. So well hidden only a few homeless guys knew where they were, so well disguised that they were considered as prime a property value as an estate in Ladue. They currently boasted a population of five, with a waiting list.
Molly pulled her car off into the vacant lot north of Laclede's Landing and locked it. She wished she'd stopped to get her jeans and T-shirt, camouflage for this neck of the woods, but she hadn't wanted to get here when it was any darker. In this neighborhood, the gardens consisted of thistle and skunkweed, and the paintings were done with spray cans. Traffic trundled overhead, and deserted railroad tracks sported the latest in cigarette butts, newspapers, and an old tire or two. There weren't any aluminum cans or bottles. Nothing remained that could be recycled for money.
A little farther along, the river gleamed with a mauve reflection of the evening sky. Lights flickered from the riverfront and a steady column of black smoke rose from one of the many tire fires across the river.
Molly opened her trunk and pulled out her tennis shoes and the camouflage jacket she kept there for chilly nights outside. Cams were good because they didn't get you into any trouble when you were on the street in one of the 'hoods investigating a gang shooting. Cams were never the wrong color to a fourteen-year-old with an AK-47 and something to prove.
Cams were also her introduction to the men in the caves.
Molly also pocketed her stun gun and pepper gas, just in case. She had had a bellyful of guns, so she refused to carry one. She did not refuse to protect herself, however.
A dog started barking over by the trees. Molly could smell Sterno and old grease, the thick musk of wet trash, and the fishy smell of the river. Even so, it seemed unnaturally peaceful here, a place set apart from the rest of the city.
Behind the cottonwoods, the guy had said. The cottonwoods that seemed to just stand there in front of the overpass and next to the chainlink fence around the yard of one of the industrial plants.
Molly negotiated her way across the wasteland by the water and stood right in front of the trees. "Joe Ryan," she called gently, eyes swiveling from trees to underpass, beyond which the shadows had begun to assume shapes with feet.
Molly's hackles rose. She slipped a hand into her jacket pocket and thumbed the safety off her stun gun. She shouldn't have come down here. Not alone. Not even her.
"Joe, it's me," she said. "The Cap."
It took a second, but there was a rustling in the underbrush before her. A fresh smell, unwashed human. A fresh surge of fear. An even more unsettling shiver of dread.
"Cap?" His voice was quiet, tentative, more nervous than hers.
"Really," she said, forcing a smile to settle him. It takes a lot of energy when you have to spend your time differentiating the real voices from the phantoms. In a place like this, Molly had a feeling the work was harder than ever.