PROLOGUE

I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.

—Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, 1939

New York City

April 1, 1947

“I NEED YOUR help, Mr. Shepard,” the woman said. “You are Jack Shepard, aren’t you?”

Jack would have pointed to a nameplate, but his desk didn’t have one. There was a phone that jangled several times a day, and scuffed filing cabinets he opened and closed on a regular basis, a beat-up desk, a couple of chairs, an electric fan that didn’t work and a flyswatter that did.

Because his name was already painted on the door, right above the words PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, a desk plate made about as much sense as a polo pony on skid row.

“Sure, I’m Shepard,” Jack said, swinging his long legs off the desk.

French perfume followed the dame in like a lovestruck floral arrangement, the cloying bouquet bringing an intentional whiff of money.

Her pearls looked genuine, her tailored togs the latest style. The pair of stuffed foxes draped over her shoulders might have testified to her social standing—if their dead eyes could do more than stare. But mostly Jack knew the dame was flush from her uptown expression, the one your average Alvin gets in too-tight shoes. Lips pinched, nose held high, she spoke his name like she’d just eaten a bad oyster.

Opening conversation had to take a back seat to the Third Avenue El, now playing a rumba on their eardrums. Waiting out the racket, they eyed each other like an exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, each wondering who was on the wrong side of the glass.

Finally, the glass cracked, and Jack saw the flicker of nervousness cross the matron’s proud face. She wasn’t an old woman, but she wasn’t young, either, her wrinkles betraying hard years. Reaching down, he freed the bottle from his bottom drawer.

“You like it neat?” he asked, pouring. He slid the glass her way. She scowled at the shot of rye as if a dead fly were floating in it.

Shrugging his wide shoulders, he poured one for himself and sat back. “Okay, I give. What’s a dame like you want with a guy like me?”

“My chauffeur, Williams, recommended you.”

“Name don’t ring a bell.”

“I’m surprised. He told me you’re both members of the same private gentlemen’s club.”

“Gentlemen’s club?” Sure, he thought, and the Bowery Boys are taking tea at Oxford.

“Oh yes. I forgot. Williams said I should mention a Mr. Benedict.”

Jack covered his smirk with a sip from his glass. Roscoe Benedict—alias Bennie the Bookie—had a lot of suckers in his “club,” and all of them played the horsies.

“How can I help?”

With that question, some of the hot air left her skirts. “Honestly, I’m not sure . . .” Frowning, she settled herself in the chair opposite his desk. “The truth is, Mr. Shepard, I have no experience with private dicks. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

“Among other things. Why don’t you tell me your problem?”

“Yes. The problem. Well, you see . . .” She tried to go on, but her voice went shaky, her lower lip quivered, and her eyes filled with tears.

Jack reached into his breast pocket for a handkerchief, but she waved him off, pulling her own lace-edged hankie from her purse.

That’s when the Grand Hoover broke. Not crocodile drops, either. Jack let her go, until he feared drowning. If this went on much longer, he’d have to consult Noah on building an indoor ark.

“Please, ma’am, slow the waterworks. If I’m going to help, you’ve got to stop bawling and tell me what ails you.”

Jack’s firm voice seemed to help. The matron nodded, swiping at her wet cheeks and eyes. The disdain in her expression was wiped with it, leaving a shaky, broken look. That’s when she reached for that glass of rye, drinking the shot like a sailor on shore leave. One loud gulp and down the hatch. Still gripping the glass, she leaned forward.

“Oh, Mr. Shepard. I’m a victim of a horrible crime.”

“Go on.” He brought his glass back to his lips, but went still when the dame blurted—

“Someone kidnapped my baby!”

Jack set down his drink. “Ma’am, that sounds like a job for proper authority, not a gumshoe for hire.”

“I talked to the police. They refused to help. Not even after I told them who the kidnapper was!”

“You’re telling me you know the identity of your baby-snatcher?”

“Henri Leroi, my soon-to-be ex-husband. When you bring my baby back, I’m sailing us to my sister’s home in London, where that horrible man can never bother us again.”

Jack rubbed his square jaw. He could use the work. His bank account was flatter than a pancake under a bulldozer. But custody battles were no cakewalk.

This matron looked a little long in the tooth to have an infant, but for all Jack knew, her “baby” could be fifteen—or adopted.

“Look, Mrs. Leroi—”

“Mrs. Armitage, if you please. I’ve gone back to my former name. Captain Armitage, my late husband, died at Anzio.”

Another war-widow. Jack felt for her. He’d seen far too many men gasp their last breath Over There.

“So, this Mr. Leroi is—?”

“My second husband and former hairdresser. You know Leroi’s Trés Jolie Casa de Beauty on Lexington, don’t you?”

“Not by personal experience.”

“Henri owns it. When I was his customer, he was always so kind. Then the Captain died, and . . . well, I admit, I was lonely, and too easily taken in by Henri’s Continental charm and impeccable manners.”

“Continental charm, eh?” Jack smelled a rat. “Did your baby come along while you were married to your first husband?”

“Oh no, the Captain wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. He thought of it as my silly hobby . . .”

Jack shifted. He wouldn’t have used those particular words, but he knew the Captain’s meaning.

Long ago, inner demons assured Jack that a wife and kiddies were not for him. As a husband, he was certain he’d make a woman miserable, probably screw up the offspring, too. But on moonless nights, Jack’s pillow knew his dreams: a curvy redhead for a partner, smart and feisty but decent, too, the kind of dame he could trust. She’d have a backbone but be soft where it counted, like the sweet idea of home. There’d be a rough-and-tumble boy with half a brain and plenty of gumption. And a pretty little house in some quiet little town . . . these were what heaven was made of.

Jack never said this out loud, of course, barely admitted it to himself. To the client across from him, he merely said—

“So, ma’am, let me get this straight. Henri Leroi is your baby’s—”

“We adopted her together. From a distressed family in Europe. Her name is Arianna . . .” Mrs. Armitage gestured toward Jack’s bottle. He slid it over, and she downed a second shot.

Jack felt a twinge of sympathy for a little girl who was obviously a war orphan. But that didn’t change the misgivings he had about jumping into the middle of a custody brawl.

“Why did Mr. Leroi kidnap Arianna?”

“He intends to sell her, Mr. Shepard. Can you imagine such a thing?”

After four years fighting through the same bloody mess as Captain Armitage, Jack could imagine plenty of things too terrible to share with this poor grieving woman. He downed the rest of his rye instead.

“And how old is Arianna, Mrs. Armitage?”

“Three.”

Jack’s temper went from simmer to boil. The flesh trade was shocking enough, but to sell a toddler as if she were some sack of potatoes? That made him burn.

Meanwhile, the matron rummaged through her handbag for a thick envelope and handed it over. “Here you are.”

“What’s this?”

“A copy of Arianna’s papers.”

Jack studied the documents and scratched his head. “I don’t get it.”

“I simply want to assure you that recovering my baby is a worthy case. You can see that from her lineage, can’t you? It’s all right there in the pedigree.”

“But this pedigree is for a Pekingese.”

“So?”

“You mean to tell me your ‘baby’ is a plain old dog?!”

“Mr. Shepard! How can you be so insensitive? There is nothing ‘plain’ about my Arianna. She’s best of breed in her category, and one of the top show canines in the world!”