Ill-Fame (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 2) (10 page)

“You went to these extremes for a girl?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I’m sure she would be most impressed.”

“You misunderstand, Madame. This is a girl that isn’t supposed to be here.”

“I look after every young woman under me, detective. I’d never let harm come to any of them.”

“This is a special situation. She was forced into this profession, under the most revolting of circumstances. The man who kidnapped her, Emil Dander, was a vicious animal, whom I unfortunately knew all too well. I don’t know how she found herself working for you, but I’m here to find that out.”

Madame Clifford eyed him coolly, but he thought he caught a glint of concern.

Time to press.

“Do you know a Maisy Anderson? Is she here?”

“Detective, no one here works by that name.”

“Yes, of course I understand that. She goes by something different, I’m sure. I believe she is connected to Jiggs Kilbane, if that stimulates your memory.”

“And why would you be looking for her?”

“Her grandfather, a retired sheriff from Bemidji, came to claim her body from Dander’s brothel. As it turns out, it wasn’t her. The old man was hell-bent on finding her and taking her home. Jiggs Kilbane ended his search. He had the sheriff killed while he was sitting in his chair, cleaning his gun.”

“I’m acquainted with Mr. Kilbane. He is a well-known businessman in Saint Paul. I am aware of his temper, but not of any capacity to commit murder.”

“Listen, please, Miss Clifford.” His knowledge of etiquette screamed at him not to do it, but he was determined to get through to her, and put a hand on each of her shoulders. She flinched, but stood her ground. He fixed his stare, and continued. “If she is here, and has anything to do with Jiggs Kilbane, you need to tell me. I am her champion, madam, of last resort.”

“Because of this sheriff?” she asked.

He knew it.
She’s here.

“Yes, because of him. And because I’ve dealt with Kilbane before. I know what he’s capable of.”

She nodded, surrendering to the detective. “Follow me,” she finally said.

Queen fastened his mitts on the lapels of Martin Baum’s greasy suit, and hoisted him to his feet. He hadn’t seen this bastard since the election, and wanted nothing to do with him now. How he was involved in this, Queen couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Does this chucklehead have any reason to be in your personal residence?” he asked Madame Clifford.

“No, no, of course, not. I’m never seen this man in my life.”

“Then you have some spilling to do, Baum,” he said, and gave the man a hard slap to his jowly cheek.

Baum tried to speak between halting sobs. “D-d-damn you, Queen. Damn your interference.”

“And what am I interfering in?”

Madame Clifford spoke. “The door to the tunnel is open. I’m sure it has something to do with that.”

Queen set Baum down, and examined the entrance. His lantern lit the first few feet of a corridor, braced by wooden beams.

“Where does it go?”

“To the Minnesota Club, Mr. Queen.”

“From your
home
?”

“My house stands almost against the bluff. Follow this passage, and it will take you up through the rock and into the basement of Saint Paul’s premiere gentleman’s club.”

The detective was impressed. The city’s privileged patricians would be blackmailed if spotted coming through the front door of her establishment for a paid roll in the hay. It made perfect sense to have a discreet, back-door method of coming and going. Ingenious, is what it was. He turned back to Baum. They had a tainted history together, and Queen thought a change in tactics might improve his chance at information. So he lowered his voice, and did his best impression of someone who cared.

“I’m sorry for striking you, Baum. I’m looking for a young woman, and I think you know more than you’re letting on. I want to help her, so tell me what happened.”

“I’ll never tell you anything,” he snapped. “STAY AWAY FROM MAISY!”

That was too easy, Queen thought, with satisfaction and slight distaste. Baum knew who she was, which didn’t necessarily surprise him. Martin Baum had always traveled in dark circles, hiding behind his jolly exterior to avoid suspicion. Getting him fired from the force had been one of his first goals when Doc had taken office.

He saw something clenched in Baum’s fat hand, and yanked it away. Baum yowled, but Queen ignored him. It was a necklace, but not of a style he’d ever seen before. The chain was a leather strap, and the pendant that dangled from the end was a small silver turtle. It wasn’t flashy enough for twinkle-footed Jiggs Kilbane, either.

“Whose is this?” he demanded.

Baum tightened his mouth and stared defiantly at Queen. He wasn’t going to talk, the detective knew.

“I’ve seen it before,” Madame Clifford said. “It’s from the man who works for Jiggs Kilbane.”

“Do you think she is in danger?” he asked her.

“I didn’t before, but I do now,” she said. “His guard, whom he called Henri. That necklace you hold belongs to him, I believe.” She went to the entrance and reached for what looked to be a switch, punching the buttons three or four times. “The tunnel is wired with electric lights, but they’re not working.”

Queen wanted to ask her about her relationship with Kilbane, and how Maisy had come to work here, but time was too precious. They already had a head start, and he aimed to go after her. She seemed to anticipate his impulse, and took a kerosene lamp off the wall. She lit it with a match, and handed it to him. He quickly wrapped up the turtle necklace and shoved it into his pocket, pushing it into the middle of his bill roll.

“Go quickly,” she said. “I should never have let them take her.”

He nodded, took the lamp, and ran into the tunnel.

CHAPTER 12

Queen wasn’t supremely tall, and at five-foot-nine above average in height, but he still had to bend his head slightly at points as he moved through the low-ceilinged passage. The dirt floor was uneven, and he could smell the stink of mold in the wooden beams. The lamp had plenty of fuel, which gave him a boost of confidence. But if someone was waiting for him ahead, they’d see him coming. He thought he could handle himself, though. As long as they weren’t a good shot.

Suddenly he didn’t feel so good after all, thinking about a bullet whizzing from the darkness and blasting into his chest.
Just put one foot firmly in front of the next
, he told himself.
Use the God-given brain that got you to the position of chief of detectives to finish your duty.

His right knee started burning after only a few moments of sprinting, so he slowed to a walk. He knew he’d better take it gently, as a big climb, in some form, lay ahead. The only sounds were of the rocks that kicked up under his feet and his own breath as he sallied forth. He tried to imagine where he might be, in relation with the city above. He knew the Minnesota Club bordered Rice Park on Washington Street. Streetcars were rumbling over his head, probably, at that very moment.

The tunnel started to steepen, and the pain in his knee continued. This has to be a tunnel for young men, he decided. Randy young men, who are willing to endure the brisk exercise and mildewy stink for a quick trip to heaven. Beer bottles and cigar stubs littered the floor as he toiled up the grade. He thought about Jiggs Kilbane to spur him forward, and the more he thought, the angrier he got. He wanted his hands on the neck of that rotten Mick, for Edna Pease, for Dix Anderson, and for Maisy.

He reached a series of short staircases, each followed by a slight slope, until he knew he had to be near the top. The tunnel finally leveled out, and there was the door.

He’d made it entirely through, and hadn’t encountered Jiggs, his man, or Maisy. As no celebratory glass of champagne appeared from thin air, he took a moment to catch his breath and ponder the situation instead. They’re hightailing it, he decided. He wondered if Maisy was fighting them, or going willingly. He thought about Madame Clifford again, and wished he’d learned more about the situation. She definitely knew much more than she’d revealed to him. Damn, he felt like a fool for passing that opportunity by. But every moment lost meant Kilbane was that much farther along.

The door was unlocked, and he slipped through after a pull on the handle. He noticed the furnace immediately, and realized his clothes might work to his advantage now. He was in the basement of one of Saint Paul’s most elite club houses, a place where Kilbane would feel as snug as a bug in a rug.

“Where did you come from?” came a voice. He turned to meet the eye of a sleepy-looking janitor, washing a mop in a grimy sink.

“I saw three people come down,” Queen lied. “Two men and one woman. I was curious so I followed them.”

The man scratched his head thoughtfully. “Curious you say? I s’pose it was rather curious. I seen them, but it was one man, not two. He had the girl under his arm, I think. And they was going up, not down.”

“Did the man have orange hair?”

“Not that I saw. It was short, I’d say, and white. And the girl was a real beauty. A delight on the eyes.”

“How long ago did you see them?”

“Twenty minutes at least. The man was running.”

So there were two, not three. Christ. And the man was carrying a full-grown woman at full throttle through an uphill tunnel that had winded Queen after five minutes. What was he dealing with?

“Queer query coming from you, chum. Were they your pals?” the janitor asked.

Queen ignored his question, took two dollars from his pocket and handed them to the man. “Can you get me out of here?”

“Hot-diggity and hells bells. Come this way,” the janitor exclaimed with a surprised look. “You’re mighty gen’rous for a coal-man.”

They’d wound their way through the club house, past the bar, and through the dining hall before reaching the Washington Street entrance. Queen kept his eyes peeled, but every room was empty, and even the staff, it seemed, had disappeared. This was a segregated club, and a woman and a man together would have been considered the height of impropriety by the membership, so he expected that they’d probably scuttled through quickly, even while it was quiet. The janitor held the front door open for him, and Queen walked out into the fresh air.

“Where’s your wagon?” the janitor asked him.

“Around the corner,” said Queen. He looked down the sidewalk both ways, and then at the park in front of him. An elaborate fountain bubbled with water, and men wearing summery straw boaters sauntered by, but there was no sign of a man dragging a woman against her will.

He didn’t know where to go, or what to do.

There were two options now, as far as he could make of it. Either find the man he’d been pursuing or go straight to the source, Kilbane himself. Could they be heading back to Kilbane’s gambling house on University? If he committed to storming Kilbane’s headquarters, he’d really be setting himself up for trouble. And he didn’t want a repeat of the disaster that happened on his last trip to that unwelcoming joint.

Think, goddamn it, think. Where else could I be, if I were Jiggs Kilbane, on a Sunday morning?

And as if answered by God, he saw the twin spires of the Assumption Church rise over a line of trees.

He felt less guilty taking a bicycle from a jackass, so when the scorcher came flying down the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians, Queen simply reached out and grabbed him by his collar and shook him off his ride. After mumbling an insincere apology and throwing a handful of dollars onto the stunned dandy, he got on the bicycle and began to pedal. The spires looked like stacks of boxes crowned by pointed hats and were easy to follow, and the giant clocks on their sides displayed the time of eleven forty-five.

While he wasn’t a Catholic, he was familiar with the second Sunday morning mass, and it would be ending soon. Even a killer like Kilbane wouldn’t dare carry a weapon into a House of the Lord, and it was the perfect place to confront him. He still hadn’t thought through what he would say, but his rage was about to explode at the thought of that grinning ape acting holier than thou, especially after what he’d done.

The bicycle was top-notch, and he pedaled to the church in a matter of minutes. The doors were still shut, and the street quiet, and he was glad that he’d made it in time to put on a show. When he reached the church’s front lawn, he tossed the bicycle onto the grass and went to the side entrance. He opened it slightly, and the drone of organ music filled his ears. When was the last time he’d been to church, he suddenly wondered? Years, probably.

And then he remembered. It had been just before his first major investigation on the police force. A fire had devastated a tenement building off Nicollet Avenue, and he’d walked through the burned interior of one of the apartments. He’d seen the charred bodies of an entire family, including six children, huddled in the corners, blackened like meat that had fallen into a campfire. After seeing that, he’d suddenly lost his taste for church. And once he began to gamble, drink, and stretch his own morals for admittedly personal gain, there was no turning back.

He had no problem with the upstanding, law-abiding folk who prayed in pews, but he hated the goddamn hypocrites. So when he easily spotted Kilbane, wearing a pink and orange striped suit, standing in line for communion, he didn’t hesitate.

Queen prowled through the vaulted arch of the church’s transept, past the front pew and to the aisle. His filthy clothing drew bewildered stares from the well-attired congregation, but he couldn’t have cared less. He saw Kilbane snicker, but as Queen came closer his expression turned to recognition, and then fear.

Fear. The detective smiled and strode up to the gangster to stand eye-to-eye with him. Whispers washed through the onlookers like a wave, and even the priest put down his wafer in mid-delivery and watched, dumbfounded.

In a loud voice, Queen began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am a police detective in disguise.” He pulled out his badge and waved it in the air. “This is Jiggs Kilbane, for those of you who don’t know. He is a cold-blooded snake of the worst kind. He ran a low-grade joint in Minneapolis, where he enslaved young, vulnerable women and forced them to do unspeakable things to fill his accounts with ill-gotten chink. He’s got sporting houses in Saint Paul where he does the same evil business now!”