Authors: Michael Mayo
This hall was narrower than the one on the second floor. The lights were dimmer, the rooms smaller. I could still hear the band on the first floor.
Mrs. Conway was giving orders and stopped when she saw me. “What are you doing with little Ethan?”
“Do you know what's happening downstairs?” I asked.
“Miss Flora is having an impromptu party. When she and Miss Mandelina were younger, this kind of thing happened constantly. The guests will be wanting refreshments, and we will provide.”
I thought about Mrs. Pennyweight and realized that I could never explain Chink and Spats to Mrs. Conway, either. So I just said, “There are too many strangers here. Let's keep the kid in the kitchen, where he'll be safe. I'll help with the eats.”
Downstairs Mrs. Conway put the boy in a highchair with some of his special grub, and told me to slice bread and cheese. Connie Nix worked with crackers and potted meats; Mears was assigned sardines and cream cheese.
I brought the bread to Connie and kept my voice low. “We may have trouble. Couple of guys are here that shouldn't be here. If anything happens that you don't like, take Ethan to the reading room. I'll put the rifle there.”
She nodded. I pushed the largest cart to the dumbwaiter and followed Mears upstairs, where we rolled the carts to the ballroom.
The band was really jumping. Flora was in the middle of a mob of dancers, shimmying wildly with Sammy Spats. Dozens of revelers descended on the carts like hungry pigeons. A side table was filled with bottles and glasses, and the general level of merriment was getting crazy. It took me a while to spot Chink, sharing a pile of cocaine with Cameron and Teddy back in a corner. Mrs. Pennyweight was not around. No one noticed me.
I went straight upstairs to Mrs. Pennyweight's room for the Winchester. I checked the load and took it down to the reading room. Back to the kitchen, the two women were still working on food. I gave Connie the high sign. The nasty feeling in my stomach was growing worse. Nothing good could happen with Chink and Spats around. Mr. Mears returned with two carts. The women loaded them up with more food. Ethan ate more of his food, smiled, and pounded on the highchair.
The noise upstairs gradually lessened, and the band packed it in around six in the morning. Mrs. Pennyweight came down to collect Ethan then. Connie carried him upstairs for her.
“You see,” Mrs. Pennyweight said, “there was nothing to worry about.”
“Has everyone gone, then?”
“I think so,” she said, and I followed her up to the first floor.
Party litter spread out into the hall. It would be hell to clean up. I went through the rooms, checking locks on the exterior doors and turning off lights. The library and reading room were undisturbed. There was no sign of Spats or Chink anywhere. The Pierce-Arrow and a couple of other cars remained by the front door. I could still smell exhaust in the cold air. Standing there, I felt tired, and I was ready to be home at the Chelsea.
Back inside, I locked the front doors and climbed the stairs, leaning heavily on my stick. But even as done-in as I was, I was still uneasy and keyed-up. In bed, I couldn't make my mind slow down. Those crazy ideas you get when you're not quite asleep whirled around until they settled on Mandelina Pennyweight, out at Cloninger's nuthouse. What the hell was going on? Even if she wanted to be there, why the tombstone? And what did Chink and Spats have to do with anything? Their showing up couldn't be a coincidence. Not that it mattered, assuming they were gone.
I woke at twilight with the same strong sense of things gone badly wrong, even with Spence due back within hours. I put on the leg brace and dressed carefullyâthe gray suit with the chalk stripe so faint you couldn't see it unless you got close enough to touch. After packing my Gladstone, I loaded up notepad and pen, knucks, money clip, and pistol, then checked the room for anything I might have missed. It was clean.
The mess had been cleared downstairs, too. Mrs. Conway was finishing the dishes from the party. The radio was on. She turned from the sink to me. “Have you heard? The kidnappers made contact with the Lindberghs. The baby is all right!”
And there it was also in the
Times
: “Baby safe, say messages.” I saw no need to state the obvious. What the hell else would the guy claim? But you didn't want to anger the cook when she's about to make your breakfast.
After eating, I went up to library, walked in, and saw that I'd been right. Things had gone badly wrong. There was Chink Sherman with his feet up on Spence's desk. He put down the newspaper he was reading and said, “Can you believe the balls on this fucking guy that took the Lindbergh kid? If he pulls it off, he's gonna make a mint.”
Before I could answer, I heard a noise behind me and somebody slammed into my back, knocking me to my knees. I got my arms around my head to protect myself from the worst of the beating as a knee was planted in my back and wide fists did their work. I heard labored breathing, and knew it had to be the big asshole Titus. I thought, dammit, this is where I came in, with some big lug beating the hell out of me.
TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1932
VALLEY GREEN, NEW JERSEY
As it turned out, Titus was more excited than Hourigan had been, and not nearly as experienced. Most of his punches landed on my shoulders and arms.
Chink yelled out, “Shit, what the fuck's the matter with this guy?”
Titus paid no attention and kept pounding on me.
Chink said, “Jesus fuck, Spats, take care of this.”
Titus grunted, “I'm gonna kill this little motherfucker with my bare hands.” He was working pretty hard at it, and I couldn't reach either my gun or the knucks.
I heard movement and then a sharp crack. The weight on my back fell away. I rolled over and struggled to my feet. Sammy Spats Spatola stood over Titus, happily pistol-whipping the kid with a nickel-plated automatic.
Unlike the asshole, Spats knew what he was doing. Within seconds, Titus was flat on his back, out cold. His already-swollen face had split open again and he was bleeding from the ears.
“Hey, Quinn. Sorry about the kid. What'd you do to piss him off?”
“Enough.” My ribs felt sore but really not so bad. When it came to beating on a little guy, Titus was energetic but inept.
Chink laughed with a high, tight little giggle. He had a sharply pointed chin and eyes that turned down at the outer corners. I thought they looked opposite of the way a Chinaman's eyes were supposed to look, but everybody called him Chink anyway. For that matter, I'd never seen Sammy Spatola wearing spats, either. Go figure.
Chink fired up a cigarette and said, “Did Spencer cut you in on the deal? That'll do, Spats, enough already.”
“More or less,” I lied. “I'm just keeping an eye on things while he's gone. Is this guy working with you?” I hooked a thumb in Titus's direction.
“Yeah, actually he's doing the same thing, keeping an eye on things for us.”
“Of course,” said Spats, stepping away from the unconscious college boy. “We have legitimate business interests to look after.” He sounded like he was repeating something he'd heard Chink say.
Right then, the pieces started falling into place. It looked like Chink and Spence were in business together. If Chink was involved, the business was drugs. Chink was here to meet Spence, because Spence was bringing the drugs in his shiny airplane.
Mrs. Pennyweight came in, leaning on her cane and looking disapprovingly at the bleeding boy on the floor. “See that he's taken care of,” she said with a sniff to no one in particular. Then, to me, “Walter called from Philadelphia. He should be here within the hour. I told him you'd meet him at the airport. Oliver is bringing the car around.”
She left without acknowledging Chink or Spats in any way.
Chink said, “Spats, see that he's taken care of.” And they both laughed.
I went upstairs to get my coat, and caught Mrs. Pennyweight in the hall. When I asked if she knew what she was doing, I got the same look of cool unconcern that she'd shown last night when Chink and company first showed up. She said, “You meet Walter. I'll look after my grandson,” and walked away. That was the end of the conversation.
Outside in front of the house, I saw a Model A four-door and a Model A truck with a canvas top over the bed. Two thick-necked thugs sat in the car and two more were inside the truck. Irish muscle by the look of them, passing bottles back and forth. OK, so these were the guys who'd been circling the place. When Oh Boy brought the Duesenberg around, I could see his surprise and worry. He held the back door open for Chink as he muttered “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy” under his breath.
The Model A's followed us out. Chink asked for a drink. I found scotch, a seltzer bottle, and ice in the lead-lined box, and mixed a glass for each of us. Mine was mostly soda water. This was turning into one of those situations where it was a good idea to be the most sober guy involved. You run a speak, you learn that pretty damn quick.
Chink said, “I didn't know you were working my side of the street.”
“I'm not. I've still got my place. Spence asked me to help out.”
Chink drank, trying to look cagey. “Sure, sure, if you say so. But if you was to throw in with Walter on our little enterprise, make sure you don't move in on my customers.”
“I run a speak, Chink. I ain't interested in your business. ”
They'd plowed the snow off the runway at the little airport. Dr. Cloninger's white ambulance pulled up next to us right after we got there.
The tall hangar was closed. Lights were on in one of the smaller buildings, and I could see people moving around inside. Finally, the double row of lamps along the runway came on, and guys in Pennyweight Petroleum coveralls trotted out to slide open the hangar doors. By then, Chink had downed three drinks, and I was still nursing my first.
As I sat there in the backseat of the Duesy, watching Chink drink and waiting for Spence, I thought about everything that had happened over the past few days. I realized that I'd made a basic mistake right at the beginning. I thought that Spence had become a country squire. I assumed the squire was in charge. That was wrong. Mrs. Pennyweight was calling the shots. She probably still controlled her dead husband's fortune, or whatever was left of it after the crash. Spence had put the deal together with Chink and Dr. Cloninger, but they were all following her orders. She thought she was in charge and Chink would do what she wanted him to do. Chink didn't see it that way. That's why he sent his Micks to pull off the business with the butcher's blood and the headless doll. At that point in the deal, Mrs. Pennyweight and Spence had Chink's money and his drugs. He wanted her to know he was keeping an eye on her. And chances were that she hadn't even counted on Sammy Spats at all. Now she and her daughter and her grandson were alone with him. Hell. This could get nasty.
I didn't realize that the plane had arrived until Dr. Cloninger got out and pointed down the runway. I could see two small lights and heard the engines as the plane emerged from the twilight. It became a dark smudge between the lights, and then a recognizable airplane as it floated down. The big machine rolled all the way to the far end before it turned, then came back toward us, the engines' noise filling the air.
When the three propellers finally stopped, one of the guys in coveralls hustled over and put a stepstool down by the door and pulled it open. Spence jumped down right away. He saw the Duesenberg and raised a hand in a “stay there” gesture.
Chink cursed and sat back.
Spence was wearing slacks and a leather jacket. He slapped at the sleeves and dust clouded around him. He looked like he hadn't washed since he left. He was followed by the pilots in zippered one-piece flight suits. Cloninger joined them and they spent several minutes huddled over a clipboard. Chink spent the whole time fidgeting and muttering to himself. I made another drink but it didn't calm him. The man smoked five cigarettes before the pilots left with the guys in the Pennyweight Petroleum coveralls. As soon as they were gone, Chink jumped out of the car and went straight into the plane.
Up close, Spence was tired and dusty. There was a dark stain on the collar of his khaki shirt that looked like blood, too much for a shaving nick. He turned away from the pale doctor and smiled weakly. “Christ, it's good to see you, Jimmy. For a while, I thought we weren't going to make it.” His voice was loud and abrupt. He shook his head. “Can't hear a goddamn thing. Six days next to those engines. But it doesn't matter now. Everything worked out.” He gestured toward the open door.
It was dark inside the airplane. Chink tried to use a cigarette lighter to check the cargo. I could see that most of the seats had been removed. Six wooden crates, each a different size, were strapped to the floor. Stenciled on one side was:
MEDICAL APPARATUS
SHIP TO:
ERNST CLONINGER
CLONINGER SANATORIUM
VALLEY GREEN, NEW JERSEY
USA
Chink tested one of the straps and said, “Let me see the invoice. How's it packed? I'm ready to take my share right now.”
Cloninger snapped back, “No, that was
not
our agreement. I must make the alterations in my laboratory. I promise to double your profits when I'm finished.”
“So you say, but I've got fucking customers ready to buy tonight. I have to move this shit right away. I'll take my share now.” Chink leaned out of the plane and waved to his thick-necked thugs. As they approached, it was clear that the four men were related, brothers or cousins with the same pasty complexions and stumpy bow-legged walk, weaving and unbalanced by drink.
“But it's not properly packaged.”
“I don't fucking care.”
“Shut up, both of you!” Spence yelled. “We can't do this here. Chink, if you want your share tonight, we'll make the split at the sanatorium. Nobody will bother us there.”