Speaking of brutal and violent, if not greedy, we saw one of the things Sam believed in, to wit, Mr. Lou Prophet, sitting on the Gumm-Majesty front porch when Sam parked his automobile at the curb. Sam and I both exited the car as Mr. Prophet rose and limped toward us. His left arm, out of its sling, waved at us. The hand attached to same held a quirley. I despaired of the man.
“What’s up, Lou?” asked Sam, sounding worried.
“Not much.” He turned to me. “Your pa’s taking a nap, Miss Daisy, and I didn’t want to wake him, but I wanted you to know the lady from your church who screams all the time called and said she’s bringing a radio to your class tomorrow.”
“Miss Betsy Powell?” I glanced at Sam, who glanced back.
“If that’s the name of the lady who screams all the time, that’s her. She said she’d call the other lady—the tall, skinny one—and tell her she doesn’t have to bring a Victrola and records, because the radio will be easier.”
I felt my nose wrinkle. It was one thing for me to think, in my innermost heart, that Lucille Spinks Zollinger was a trifle long, lean and rabbity, but I didn’t think Mr. Lou Prophet should call her tall and skinny, even if she was. Rather than complain, which never did any good anyway, I only said, “Thank you, Mr. Prophet.”
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Majesty.” Sarcasm, thy name was Lou Prophet. At that moment, anyhow.
“You know you’d be better off with your arm in the sling than with your hand holding one of those precious coffin nails of yours,” I said, equally sarcastic.
“What the hell. I’ve lived long enough already.”
Before I could agree or retaliate, Sam rushed to say, “Thanks, Lou.”
“Welcome.”
“Say, Lou, I want you to come with Daisy and me tomorrow when we go to church for the ladies’ exercise class. I want you to be a look-out. According to what Cullen O’Hara’s brother told us today, we might be dealing with some really bad men.”
“What’s that got to do with the class?” asked a clearly skeptical Mr. Prophet.
This time, it was I who spoke, “The lady who screams all the time might be stepping out with one of the villains who took Vi.”
Mr. Prophet drew his head back on his wrinkled neck, making himself look vaguely like a desert tortoise. “Yeah? Well, I reckon she’s stupid enough. She does seem to find ‘em, don’t she?”
“Yes.” I said and sighed. “She does.”
“Now, now, boys and girls,” said Sam. “We don’t know for certain Miss Powell is keeping company with Costello. One of the Costellos.”
“There’s more than one of ‘em?” asked Mr. Prophet.
“Evidently,” said Sam.
“Huh,” I said, reminding myself of both Sam and Mr. Prophet. And Harold, come to think about it.
“Well, I think the screaming lady is a fool, but I still can’t figure out why they took Mrs. Gumm,” said Mr. Prophet glumly. “That other lady, Mrs. Rattle, is in there now, preparing dinner for the family.”
“How wonderful!” I said. “Thanks for hiring her, Sam. She’s such a nice person.”
“Nice, is she?” said a grumpy Lou Prophet. “She’s got her claws out, tryin’ to snatch herself another man, is what she is.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You mean Mrs. Rattle was flirting with you?”
“Ya don’t have to sound so surprised, Miss Daisy,” Mr. Prophet said, plainly offended. “I may be old and one-legged, but I still got me some gumption.”
“You just told me you think you’ve lived long enough,” I reminded him.
“Mebbe, but I still like me some fun.”
“Well, there you go. It sounds as if Mrs. Rattle wants to have fun with you.”
“Hell, I don’t have to look that far for a lady companion.”
“No, I suppose you don’t,” I agreed. I also knew Li Ahn, the Chinese woman down the street who lived with and worked for Mrs. Mainwaring, appreciated Mr. Prophet a lot. She’d told me so.
“All right, you two,” said Sam, grinning. “Draw in your claws. I’ve got to go to the station and look up some of these names O’Hara gave us.”
“Can I come with you?” asked Mr. Prophet, sounding plaintive.
“I’d rather you stay here. We don’t know if the people who took Vi plan to target any other members of the family. Can’t imagine why they would, but I can’t imagine why they took Vi, either,” said Sam.
My juju took that opportunity to send a shaft of heat through me. Stupid juju. However, the message it just sent couldn’t be clearer if it tried, so I passed along to the men.
“They took her because Costello’s boss needed a cook,” I said.
Both Sam and Mr. Prophet gawped at me for a couple of heartbeats.
“You think that’s really the reason? Honestly?” asked Sam. “I know you blame yourself for someone kidnapping Vi, but just needing a cook is kind of a…strange reason to kidnap a woman.”
“She’s the best cook in Pasadena,” I reminded the men.
Shaking his head, Sam said, “I guess I’ve heard of stupider reasons to break laws.”
“Hell, I’ve broken the law for stupider reasons than that. Your auntie can cook, Miss Daisy.”
“And Miss Betsy Powell told me her latest love’s employer was looking for a cook. What if her latest beau’s employer is the Italian man? Lucky somebody.”
“Lucky Luciano.” Sam contemplated me for a second, his brow wrinkled. “If Lucky Luciano asked one of his minions to do something for him, I expect the minion would comply if he valued his life. But we don’t know the Costellos work for him.”
Thinking about the rather painful hint my juju just gave me, I said, “I’ll bet they do.”
The tone of my voice must have startled Sam and Mr. Prophet, because they both squinted at me strangely.
Mr. Prophet said, “Who’s the polecat the Costellos work for again?”
“According to Daisy here, Lucky Luciano,” said Sam. “Salvatore Luciano. They call him Charlie sometimes. He was nicknamed Lucky because he survived an attack on his life.”
“Only because a policeman found him and took him to the hospital instead of leaving him wherever he was to die, which was what he should have done. And he probably should have held a pillow over his face to make sure he was dead.”
“Holy Moses, Miss Daisy, ain’t you got some ringtail in you!” Mr. Prophet grinned when he pronounced this verdict.
Staring, I said, “I have some what in me?”
“Ringtail. Gumption. Fire.”
Skeptical, I said, “Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome.” Turning to Sam, Mr. Prophet asked, “Do I have to go back in the house, or c’n I keep watch here on the porch?”
“Afraid of Mrs. Rattle, are you?” I asked, thinking his uneasiness about being near our temporary cook rather funny.
“Ain’t afeard o’ her. Just don’t want her fussin’ over me.”
“Feel free to wait on the porch if you want to, Lou. I’ll be back after I’ve checked out a few things at the station.”
“Do you think people at the station will know if Luciano is here in Pasadena?” I asked.
“Don’t know. I hope so. Police stations across the country try to keep track of people like him and report to other police stations if he shows up in their districts.”
I finally asked a question that had been bothering me ever since I first heard Mr. Luciano’s name. “Why don’t they just arrest him if he’s so bad?”
With a sigh, Sam said, “In order to arrest someone, you have to catch him committing a crime.”
“But you seem to know he’s committing crimes. If you know he’s committing crimes, why can’t you arrest him?”
“All right,” said Sam, taking over the role of teacher, “Luciano started a protection racket when he was maybe ten years old. Now he’s—”
I interrupted him. I know, how rude, huh? But I wanted to know these things. “What’s a protection racket?”
Lou Prophet chuckled. He would.
“Okay, say if you’re a school kid and somebody comes up to you and says, ‘Gimme your lunch, or I’ll punch you.’ If the kid with the lunch doesn’t give the kid without a lunch his lunch, the other kid socks him in the face and breaks his nose.”
“But what about the teachers? Can’t they stop bullies like that?”
“Only if they see them. If the kid tattles, the bad kid and some of his bullies will lie to the teachers and then beat the first kid even more badly.”
“Oh.” This still made no sense to me. “But you’re talking about kids. What about adults? Does Luciano still run a…whatever it is?”
“Yes. A big protection racket and more.”
“Who does he threaten?” I really wanted to know.
“Oh, cripes, in New York City—and probably Chicago, since it’s full of gangs, too—members of the gang will go to, say, a person who owns a restaurant. They’ll tell the owner he—the owner, I mean—has to pay the gang a certain amount of money every month to protect his restaurant or face the consequences.”
“Which are?”
“So far, to my knowledge, consequences have included anything from murdering the owner’s family to blowing up the restaurant to burning down a laundry on the corner. If the owner of the laundry didn’t pay up.”
My mouth opened and stayed open for a second. “Are you serious?” I couldn’t quite feature people doing such things to other people, and the rest of the people standing for it. “What about the police?”
“Mobs own people, too. I know for a fact certain politicians are under the thumb of gangsters. Policemen, too, as much as I hate to admit it. If Luciano’s here, he’s probably working to get in with the studios and rake in moving-picture money.”
“My goodness.” Sam opened his mouth, and I snapped, “And don’t tell me goodness has nothing to do with it! I thought higher authorities were called higher authorities to stop people like that from doing those things!”
“To be fair, some of them try. Often to their own peril. Now that Luciano’s the head of a larger organization, other people will be doing his murdering, bombing and burning for him. If those people value their lives, they won’t squeal on him, if they even know where the orders originated, which, chances are, they don’t. They’ll get word from someone else, who got it from someone else, who got it from someone else, who got it from Luciano.”
I shook my head. “It’s too complicated to me. Guess I’d make a lousy gangster.”
“Thank God for small favors,” said Sam, sounding as if he meant his words sincerely, which might have annoyed me if I weren’t thinking so hard about gangs and gangsters.
“I won’t let nobody in the house,” said Mr. Prophet when Sam kissed my cheek and turned to head back to his Hudson.
“Thanks, Lou. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.” He stopped walking and turned to face me again. “Say, Daisy, did you say Mrs. Bissel wanted you to conduct a séance?”
“Um…Yes, she did. Why? What would a séance accomplish?”
“Not sure yet, but I just thought of something that might benefit from you conducting a séance.”
Golly, Sam never wanted me to do anything along spiritualist-medium lines. I wasn’t sure what to think about this latest whim, if whim it was. Sam wasn’t whimsical as a rule.
Before Sam could enter his Hudson and chug off down Marengo Avenue, Harold’s bright yellow Kissel Gold Bug squealed to a halt right behind Sam’s car, and Harold, clambering over the door instead of opening it, hollered, “Detective! Wait!”
“Cripes,” said Mr. Prophet, narrowing his eyes at Harold and his new car.
Sam, I noticed, had paused beside the driver’s side door of his Hudson and waited as Harold hurried up to him.
“Cripes,” Mr. Prophet repeated in a voice reflecting disapproval. “That car.”
I hadn’t yet decided if I especially liked Harold’s newest automobile, but Mr. Prophet’s not-altogether-ringing endorsement of the change in motorcars didn’t surprise me. Personally, I think I prefer bright red automobiles to bright yellow ones, although I have nothing against yellow as a color.
Mr. Prophet and I headed to the street so we could hear what Harold was in such an all-fired hurry to tell Sam.
“What is it?” asked Sam of Harold, who was panting by the time he reached Sam’s Hudson.
“Featherstone remembered something! I tried telephoning, but a lady answered the ’phone and said you were out, but you were expected home soon, so I rushed over here.”
“Mrs. Rattle,” I said.
Harold turned and squinted at me. “What? What rattled?” He glanced back at his new machine and gave it a worried frown.
“Mrs. Rattle. She’s cooking for us until Vi gets back. She’s the one who answered the ’phone.”
Shaking his head, Harold muttered something I didn’t catch, then said, “Featherstone told me the man Cullen O’Hara spoke of most often was a fellow named Costello. That’s the policeman who took off with your dimwitted nephew, isn’t it?”
Frank Pagano had earned himself quite a rotten reputation in Pasadena since he’d arrived here the first time a year or so earlier. For good reason. Bad reason. Well, you know what I mean.
“Yes,” said Sam grimly. “It is. Why didn’t Featherstone tell me this when I interviewed him?”
With a shrug, Harold said, “He said he didn’t remember until today. I think he was telling the truth. Featherstone isn’t given to exaggeration or telling tales.”
“That’s for sure,” I muttered. “How’s his knee?”
“Hurting,” said Harold. “But what with the mater and Algie out of town, at least he’ll get to rest it.”
“What’s Featherstone doing for meals?” I asked, suddenly worried Mrs. Pinkerton’s staff would starve to death without Vi there to feed them. “In fact, what’s everyone doing for meals at your mother’s house?”
“I sent Roy up there to help out until further notice,” Harold told me. “He’s almost as good a cook as your aunt.”
“Well, she taught him, so he should be,” I said, missing Vi terribly in that moment.
“Yes,” said Harold, still panting a little. “Anyhow, since I couldn’t get you on the wire, I figured I’d just drive by and make sure you heard about O’Hara knowing Costello.”
“Yes. Thanks, Kincaid,” said Sam. “I think we’re on the right track.”
“Now, if you can tie what’s his name to the Costellos and O’Hara, you’ll know with whom you’re dealing,” I told my fiancé.
“Right,” said Sam. “Might be able to do that this afternoon. I’ve gotta get going.”
“Who’s what’s his name?” asked Harold.
With a crooked grin, Sam said, “Salvatore Luciano.”
“Luciano?” said Harold, plainly startled. “You mean Lucky Luciano?”
“He’s the one,” Sam told him.’
“Shoot. He’s been hanging around the studio recently. I don’t like seeing him there, because I know he’s one of those gawd-awful New York gangsters. But he’s wheedling his way in little by little.”
“How?” I asked. It just galled me that he was evil and everybody knew it, yet they allowed him into their businesses. Even the police seemed aware of his criminality. Certainly, not all the police were crooks. I hoped.
“Muscle,” Sam said. “And charm. And money.” Then he got into his Hudson and tootled down the street.
“Whatever that means,” I said grumpily.