Ill-Fame (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 2) (16 page)

Queen rubbed his forehead, trying to erase a headache that had been building all afternoon. He had so much work to do. And Trilly was first on his list.

“I’m getting out, but only temporarily. Miss Flick still needs to be found.”

“Colonel Ames wants you in front of him as soon as you’re released. He said he’s relying on you to figure out who’s behind the note.”

“Then you need to find her, Chris, because Jiggs Kilbane wants me dead. Can you do that for me?”

“Where do I look?”

“He’s got a casino on University Avenue....”

“I know it.”

“And a suite at the Ryan Hotel.”

“Which one?”

“Just pay the bellhop, for Christ’s sake. You know how to turn over the trash bin and shake it out.”

“What do I do when I find her?”

“Put her in a Minneapolis hotel, near City Hall. And put a guard on her. Do it personally if you have to. She’s my only goddamn way out of this.”

“I won’t let you down, Chief of Detectives,” he said with a salute.

“And don’t drink until you find her. I don’t want to find you all jaggy when I see you next.”

Norbeck smiled wistfully and licked his lips. “I’ll ignore every bottle of bug-juice that crosses my field o’ vision, Harm.”

CHAPTER 20

She’d taken him by the hand, and led him to the spiral staircase inside the cave, but Dick was lost in thought, it seemed, and missing a step. His face was dark and despondent, and while it troubled her, she was still far more concerned about getting out of the cave before the police arrived.

The staircase opened to a heavy metal door, hidden in a thick grove of trees at the top of the bluff. Henri must have assumed they were coming the same way, because he’d left it wide open. An early evening breeze cooled her face as she pulled herself out. Dick followed, and she stopped and confronted him when they were finally clear of the passageway.

“Snap to,” she demanded.

“I’m trying.” He rubbed his eyes and gave her his attention.

“There are a couple of things you need to know before I take another step with you. First,” she said, brushing off her dirty dress, which smelled of cigarette smoke, “my name is not Nellie Boyce. It is Maisy Anderson. And before you question why, every sport in every house of ill-fame goes by a name other than her own.”

He flinched, slightly, in understanding.

“Secondly, the man that shot your dad is an old family friend. The man I had always thought of as my dearest Uncle Martin met me on my first day in Minneapolis. He was supposed to take me to college, but instead left me with a gang of men who abducted me. That is part of the reason why I considered killing him. The other part, like I said before, is because I didn’t want you to do it instead.”

“So where does this leave us?” Moonlight asked, averting her gaze. She took his face and moved his chin up until he locked eyes with hers.

“You have to shake off your father’s death,” she said, hands placed firmly on her hips. “It’s over, and, I’m sorry to say, was a long time coming. We’re going to go, now, to where your father lived, collect whatever money we can, and then shut down whatever notorious business he had brewing. Then, I’m going to find my friend, Trilly Flick.”

He nodded, slowly, in numb acceptance.

Finally, you’re going to take me to this famous Detective Queen, who you and Uncle Martin and your father kept mentioning. He seems to have been with my grandfather during his last moments on earth, and I want to know what really happened.” She was still out of breath from the walk up the stairs, and all of this talking made it worse. Once she regained her composure, she continued. “Do you have a problem with my plan, Dick?”

“Where does this leave you and me?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she asked back, although she already knew the answer.

“The last time I left you said you wanted nothing to do with me. The situation has changed now. You don’t have to fear my father anymore.” His old charm suddenly reappeared, as he lit his lopsided grin and a loose lock of his oiled hair dropped into his eye.

She sighed, and tried to hold back her delight while keeping her shell of toughness intact. “Let’s just make it through today,” she said. “And I understand if you feel queer about what all’s just happened between you and him. You don’t have to put on a brave face for me.”

Moonlight pulled a cigarette from his pocket case and put it in his mouth. She’d seen him only moments ago, debating with shaking hand over whether he could kill his own father, but now he was the very figure of coolness.

“For the record, my dear. I’m glad my dear old Dad got beefed. We can be together now. It’s all worked out.” He sucked the smoke down to ash, and flicked the butt into the grass.

It’s going to take him some time for this to settle, she realized. But she would help him, for however long it took.

She had no one else.

It was all he could do not to bawl like a baby as he watched his darling Maisy disappear with Kilbane’s demon-spawn son into the darkness of the cavern’s rear crevices.

He looked at his pudgy, filthy fingers, wrapped tightly around the pistol’s grip. He looked at Jiggs Kilbane’s motionless body, doused in blood, a maniacal smile staring up at the ceiling through crimson-stained teeth.

Then he stared at Henri, the man who had placed the gun in his hand. Henri looked back with compassion in his eyes.

“Do you need some liquid courage,
mon ami
?” he asked.

What Baum really needed was his ears to quit ringing, and the dizziness and pain in his head to cease. And a drink could help considerably, he guessed.

He stumbled to the bar and watched as Henri poured a shot glass to the rim.

“Drink quickly, Mr. Baum.”

Baum didn’t have to be told that. His hand shook as he tippled the fire-water down his gullet and the warm burn brought incredible relief. He put the glass down and his shoulders dropped, as though a set of strings had been snipped.

“You must continue to protect Maisy,” Henri said. “Confess to the police that you pulled the trigger.”

“W-what will happen to me?”

Henri’s expression turned grave. “You’ll likely be tried and convicted of murder. And then, hanged by the neck.”

“But only you, and them,” Baum pointed to the back of the cave, “saw me shoot him! If everyone keeps quiet...”

“Look around you,” Henri cut in. “These men died as a result of your rash decision to toss dynamite inside of a cave.” He took a sip from his own glass, and wiped his lower lip delicately with his sleeve. “I will, however, hire a top-shelf attorney to defend you. Anonymously, of course. This, I can do, to give you a fighting chance.”

Baum looked down at the floor, devoid of desire for this depressing conversation.

“I know you love her,” Henri continued. “While it might seem disconcerting that she’s with the son of her enemy, let me reassure you that he’s a young man of sound mind. He will not follow his father’s path.”

“Does he love her?” Baum asked, dejectedly.

“I believe he does, yes.” Henri gave him a heartening smile. “I know, underneath your suffering, that you are an honorable man. You’ve been dealt a raw deal by men in power. And I will make sure you’re a martyr for our cause.”

“What cause? What do you mean?”

“I mean that your name will be spoken far and wide with reverence, and you’ll be elevated in our struggle, far beyond your death.” Henri straightened his sash. “I must go now. A full force of uniformed ruffians will be here soon. Take care of yourself, Mr. Baum.”

What kind of “cause” was he babbling about, Baum wondered? He watched Henri slip into the shadows, and then looked again at the gun in his hand.

There was only one man in power that Baum wanted dead, and he was still out there, footloose and fancy-free, while Baum was about to go down for a mass of murders. Well to hell with that, he thought. To hell with that crafty holier-than-thou piece of shit.

And to hell with Harmon Queen.

He grabbed the whiskey bottle Henri had left on the bar, took a fat swig, and surveyed the room. Five bodies, he counted, not including Kilbane’s, dead on the floor.

He spotted a large-waisted figure at the end of the bar, and recognized him as the one who’d been leering at Maisy before everything had gone to piss.

Baum pushed the body over, looking for the cause of the man’s demise. Not a mark on him, he realized with satisfaction. His heart had probably exploded from fear. Baum slipped off his own shoes, took off his jacket and trousers, and proceeded to do the same for the man. They were close in size, he could see, and after a few moments of struggle they had switched clothes.

His new suit was flash. It was made of expensive linen, with a silk handkerchief and silver buttons polished to perfection. There was a bulge in the inside pocket, and he reached in to pull out a leather wallet, thick with twenty dollar bills.

His admiration of his new duds was suddenly interrupted when he heard voices outside the open door. Baum moved quickly. He grabbed the pistol that had shot Jiggs Kilbane and pushed it into the porcine man’s palm.

I’ve got a temporary lease on life,
he thought. It’ll be hours, if not a day or two even, before the police realize that this man was not really Martin Baum. The instigator of this disaster, this multiple murderer, would still be on the loose. It would throw the city into panic, and make headlines across every newspaper in the state.

But he had some time before that happened. Time to exact his revenge on that son-of-a-bitch Queen.

He darted to the back of the cave, just as he heard the policemen cry out their discovery.

When Maisy and Moonlight reached the University Avenue building Kilbane used as his headquarters, the lights in the downstairs storefront were already on, in anticipation of evening activity. A slot machine sat like a squat, shining iron god in the front window, under a sign proclaiming the store the exclusive local distributor for the Mills Novelty Company. Moonlight led the way to the man behind the counter, past more slot machines, arcade games and vending contraptions. Evidently they were familiar with each other, as the man took off his hat and put it over his heart. He was tall, pale, and endowed with some of the largest ears Maisy had ever seen. She tried not to stare, and decided that if she were ever to wear a man’s hat, a pair of ears like those would prevent it nicely from falling over her eyes.

“Sorry to hear ’bout your pops, kid. I got the call ten minutes ago.”

Maisy was flabbergasted at how quickly the news had traveled during their thirty-minute cab ride. Why had the police found it necessary to call the manager of Kilbane’s casino so soon with the news? How was that possible? Moonlight, however, either didn’t think it strange, or didn’t think about it at all. He seemed to be all business, and she’d never seen him like this before.

“Where’s the money from this weekend’s take, Diddles?” he asked.

“It was collected by your pops this morning.”

“Why? Where did he bring it?”

“He doesn’t like the weekend take sittin’ around on Sunday,” Diddles replied. “Mr. Kilbane’s done it this way for years. Where he takes it, I never asked. Probably because I like bein’ alive.” He laughed a little at this.

“I’ve never paid attention before,” Moonlight muttered.

“No offense, Moonlight, but I ain’t never seen you here in any business capacity. I know you’ve been busy with your football and your girls, but you’ve been here maybe once or twice in the last four years? And only to play roulette. Never to see your pops.”

“Are you blind, Diddles? Don’t you realize your boss was completely bughouse?”

“Sure, his trolley was off a little, but him bein’ unpredictable made him interesting. And he wasn’t never bad to me.”

“I can be unpredictable too,” Moonlight said, and suddenly leapt over the counter. He slammed the cash register open with his fist and pocketed the cash.

“We need that to make change, Moonlight! What if someone wants to come in and buy a Little Wonder gum ball machine?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t have plenty of money upstairs, where the real action is,” Moonlight snarled. “And until I get my affairs straightened out, don’t question me, Diddles.”

Maisy tried to set the comment about Moonlight’s “girls” to the back of her mind. While they were both adulterous, she’d had no choice in the matter. She had been forced by circumstance to bed men for money. And honestly she didn’t believe in her heart, because of her difficult place, that she was disloyal to Dick. She allowed herself no emotional connection to the queue of flesh-hungry men lined outside her door.

Dick, however, always had the freedom to choose. The freedom to be steadfast and true, and yet he still wasn’t. Yes, he was a college boy, and full of vigor, and that vigor led to impulsiveness with other women, she knew. But why couldn’t he stay faithful? She had freely given him what he wanted. Why couldn’t that be enough?

And that led to an even more perplexing question. Why did she still love him so maddeningly, even with his infidelities?

But she stashed those thoughts into the attic of her mind. Dick was acting differently, rashly, and this was her current concern and priority. He was confused, she understood, and obviously affected by his father’s death. He’d also never bothered or obsessed over money like this before. While she’d given him the idea to clean out Kilbane’s cash, she still hadn’t expected that he’d embrace it with such ferocity. His good-natured, easy-going charm had captured her heart once, probably because she’d had so much darkness in her life to deal with. But he was different now, and she hoped he hadn’t changed for good
.

“Come on,” he said, taking her by her sleeve and pulling her to the exit. “My father’s suite is in the Ryan Hotel. We can get baths and fresh sets of clothes there.”

“Dick,” she said, when they reached the sidewalk. He continued to drag her, but she planted her feet firmly. “Dick, stop.”