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My cheek stung and one side of my lip would be the size of a Frankfurter by the time I got back downtown. I had a score to settle with Caras now, not that I ever expected to have a chance to do so, or, hopefully, be fool enough to try. All the nerve I’d expended walking into that café had gotten me absolutely nothing. It might even have made things worse if it brought any of Caras’ lackeys sniffing around The Pompeii before I got in there tonight.
I gritted my teeth and mentally cursed Tabby Warren. The few words we’d exchanged on the phone confirmed there was some sort of hidey-hole in her building that I’d missed Saturday. Why couldn’t the wretched woman simply have told me how to find it? Just because she’d found some socialite’s missing earring or something of that magnitude twenty years ago didn’t mean she was a detective, and it definitely didn’t mean she belonged where she might encounter men who would knock her teeth out — or worse. I needed to get in without her. If the window washer had finished, I’d take my chances going in now, tap walls again, keep my eyes peeled for something I’d missed.
But when I approached The Pompeii, the window washer still was plying his squeegee. He also was casting sulky looks at two painters who were deftly refreshing the building’s bright colors. A single look sufficed to tell me they weren’t the pair I’d met in Eve Tremain’s kitchen. Their movements marked them as experienced at the work they were doing. Nonetheless, I began to wonder whether all of them had been put into place to make certain no one unwanted got inside.
I was starving and, I realized, somewhat shaky. The latter might have something to do with my recent encounter with Caras, though. Making sure neither his emissaries nor anyone else was tagging along, I went to the Arcade. I got a fresh ham sandwich and an orangeade and a couple of apple fritters and sat on a bench to think.
The window washer had been in place before I talked to Tabby Warren. Maybe he and the painters all had been hired by the real estate firm to spruce the building up for new occupants.
Or maybe they’d been hired by whoever gave Walt Benning a wad of cash to skip out on his business along with debts that could get his kneecaps broken.
“I hoped I might run into you here.” Matt Jenkins, my photographer pal from the Daily News, dropped onto the bench beside me. “Holy Hannah, how’d you get that fat lip?”
My hand rose involuntarily to the souvenir of Nico Caras.
“Being polite.”
“Hah.” He repositioned the camera equipment around his neck and let out a breath as though weary. “I stopped by your office a couple of times. You doing okay?”
“Yeah. How about you and Ione?”
His wife wrote stories for magazines from Cincinnati to New York and Chicago. The three of us had spent a lot of evenings together. Jenkins scrubbed his fringe of red-gold curls and fought a yawn.
“I kind of hated leaving her alone. I went in when I heard the news last night and haven’t been home since. She wasn’t herself when I left. Quiet and wandering around the apartment. I think she’s worrying I’ll have to put on a uniform, which I guess I will. I don’t mind. Newsroom’s crazy today, wire machines ringing almost constantly.”
“Want an apple fritter?”
“Thanks.”
Our very conversation sounded different. Hollow. The bombs that had fallen last night in Hawaii had reshaped everything.
“Did you know they have their own newspaper?” Jenkins asked. He sounded positively besotted.
“The wire services?”
“The Army. Stars and Stripes.”
I glanced over. His eyes were shining.
“Got to go.” He hopped up. “Thanks for the donut.”
He loped off to take pictures.
I got back to detecting.
***
Killing time was a skill that eluded me. I bought a copy of the afternoon edition and sat at my desk reading items which had been updated since I read the same paper at breakfast. I called to check on Seamus and hear his familiar voice, but a stranger answered his phone.
“They have Seamus back riding patrol. He said if you called, tell you not to worry.” The man I was talking to had retired a year and a half ago. He and other retirees had been called back to handle booking and office chores, and thus free every man who was able for street duty.
I typed up what I’d learned and what I suspected about the disappearance of Gil Tremain and folded the carbon copy into an envelope. When I finished, I addressed it to a post office box I kept. The short walk to mail it gave me a chance to stretch my legs. If something went wrong tonight and I wasn’t around to tell them, it would give the cops someplace to start.
My adventures in the warehouse that morning had left me with a jagged nail which attention from my emery board hadn’t completely solved. I was making another attempt when the door to my office flew open. Two men who worked for Caras came in, splitting left and right as one of them closed it.
“Don’t try for a gun,” his pal warned. He tossed something onto my desk.
I raised my brows in question. It was the envelope of photos Caras had kept.
“Nobody working for Mr. Caras knows your boy Tremain. He don’t owe money.”
“What about the other two?”
He stared at me from a face that was shaped like a dustpan.
“What do I look like, a broad to be beatin’ my gums when I’d already learned what I was supposed to?”
“Okay. Tell Mr. Caras thanks.”
He nodded and turned to leave while the other one watched to make sure I didn’t turn hostile. All at once the one who spoken whirled back.
“Nobody remembers seeing the dame in the pictures. The guy who ain’t Tremain’s pretty regular at a poker game. Those two don’t owe anything either.” He leveled a finger. “Ain’t no question you’ve got maximum moxie, toots, but there’s such a thing as having too much. Don’t bother Mr. Caras again, or you’ll leave feet first.”
***
By nine o’clock it had been dark for hours. I got up from a long nap on top of my bed and washed my face to wake myself to full alertness. Then I changed into clothes I kept for creeping through alleys at night or heading into places I wasn’t supposed to be.
When I’d pulled on men’s trousers, an undershirt and a sweater, I twisted my hair up as tightly as possible and hid it under a knitted hat that also held it in place. Like the short pea coat holding my Smith & Wesson and extra cartridges, the other items in my ensemble were black.
Then I had nothing to do except sit and fidget. Out in the hall, two of the girls were squabbling about who was guilty of getting something sticky on the bottom of the iron we shared. Finally it was time to set out.
A bit of zig-zagging ensured I wasn’t followed. The police were out in force again tonight. They must be exhausted. I thought about letting someone know what I was about to do in case I got into a fix, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d find Tremain or even a trace of him in The Pompeii. Besides, the police had enough on their hands.
Parking my car, I replayed my zig-zag game on foot. Shortly before ten I stood half a block away surveying the former speakeasy. Nico’s boys were watching the front of the building. I couldn’t see them, but that’s how they’d known about my visit with the real estate agent. The question was, were members of their merry band also watching the back?
With no idea what to do about it if they were, I went a block south and came up the walkway where the alley dead ended. For perhaps five minutes I stood and watched and listened without catching any hint of activity. Then, with .38 in hand, I eased forward, shifting my weight from foot to foot and sticking close to the wall of the former speakeasy.
Not a sound broke the silence; no snuffle of a stray dog hunting food; no creak of wood or scrape of metal. I slid into the doorway at the back of The Pompeii. Pressing my ear to the door, I listened for sounds inside. I drew in quiet breaths to check for cigarette smoke or aftershave. Reassured, I shifted the gun to my left hand and took out my crochet hook.
Behind me I felt a stir of movement. As I started to spin someone spoke.
“You’re later than I expected.”