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Hate and Revenge. Each moves the world more than any other emotion. You risk getting short changed with love every time.
~Lou Tanner, P.I., Notes for female Pemberton Graduates, 1935
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THE GRIP OF THE DERRINGER felt good. Too good.
A little, polite knock followed.
“Miss Tanner?”
His voice was smooth, with enough baritone in it to make my shoulders feel all tingly. Not to mention, weak. When it comes to beautiful men, all my smarts go hiking.
I never knew if I was disappointing or otherwise surprising a client when they encounter me for the first time. I stood up on my sore feet, hiding my gun in the same moment, and indicated the client chair to him. “That’s me. How can I help you?”
He thanked me and acted as if seeing a woman detective wasn’t such a big deal. Notable. He took off his crisp, new Homburg hat and ran his fingers through his hair.
What a looker.
I shouldn’t think such things about a potential client, but I was a human, last time I checked, and I appreciate a fine-looking man.
Swells like this fellow inhabited my underutilized youth, especially after Daddy got money. This man — he was no common Swell — had everything it would take to make any of those rich, entitled boys jealous. I could imagine him strolling down Market and turning heads as often as Jean Harlow or James Cagney might.
Rich man’s confidence in every step, he strolled up to me and handed me his card. Heavy, textured paper, in cream, with clean, modern lettering. I drew my thumb across the raised detail. I had cards too, but not quite the quality of the one in my fingers. This man had dough to spend.
Elliott Noel Lockwood, President
Yerba Buena Import Company
San Francisco and Long Beach
“Mr. Lockwood, please be seated.” I indicated the comfy, client chair.
He didn’t take a seat at first, instead poking around his hat. He was trying not to make eye contact. It was that, or the hatband inside his Homburg was coming loose, which I doubted. Interesting.
I put him at around forty years old, six feet tall, lean in the body, with long, slender fingers. Dark blue eyes that, when they deigned to look at me, were like holes in the ocean floor — equal parts allure and unknown, and maybe just as deadly. Shiny black hair dappled with grey and white at the temples only. A straight, narrow, wicked jaw, with thin well-formed lips, and a strong nose. A few smile lines lingered near those lips, reminding me that some men’s lips just needed to be kissed. A touch of five-o’clock shadow dared to darken his chin and begged my fingers to discover how rough it was.
There were, however, dark patches under his eyes. Those peepers didn’t look so bright and clear. He wasn’t sleeping well. Something was stealing those nighttime winks and I’d bet a nickel he was about to tell me why.
He dressed the way you’d expect a company president to dress. Brown suit cut to perfection. Rust colored tie, with dark socks and handkerchief square. Dark brown Homburg, the fifty-dollars-on-Park-Avenue kind, now sprinkled with rain water — maybe the rain knew better than to make him look sloppy. His overcoat, of top-quality wool, he kept slung over his arm. The epitome of well-heeled, masculine charm.
“Thank you for seeing me without an appointment. And, rather late.” He looked back at the empty outer office. “I didn’t mean to intrude. No one was there to check in with. Your lights were on and I probably shouldn’t ...”
I couldn’t help thinking, and you were cruising around the third floor of an office building, at this hour, hoping to find me in? You had some astounding luck.
“Please don’t be concerned, Mr. Lockwood,” I said, falling into my old Mid-Atlantic voice; the one I use when I want to impress and to build trust. “Your timing is fine. Would you like to hang up your coat?”
He shook his head and held onto his overcoat like a child’s safety blanket.
I decided to start things light — make him relax. “And, there isn’t anyone to check in with. I’m looking for a secretary who's just the right fit. The cat doesn’t belong here and has lousy handwriting anyway.”
A grudging grin appeared and disappeared from his face. “Lack of thumbs,” a nice match to my humor. “What do you call him?”
“’Not My Cat.’ ‘Fuzzy Freeloader,’ on occasion.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he looked over at Not My Cat, whose ears swiveled and twitched while nothing else moved.
“May I ask what it is you do at your company? Import and Export are a bit vague. I’d like to know more.”
Lockwood puffed up a bit. “Raw and finished metal for later machining. Recently, we’ve started working with large scale mechanisms, such as those in your average automaton. They are getting more popular by the day. It’s a bit risky but has enormous payoff potential.”
“Running on those big batteries we’re all hearing about?”
“Yes,” he added. “Clockwork winding mechanisms are a thing of the past. Batteries and self-winding are the wave of the future.”
I liked the sound of his pride in his work. A client should be given a chance to brag about their daily lives, but now I needed to get down to business.
“Now, Mr. Lockwood, you’re here with specific questions and you are interested in straight answers. I’m happy to oblige.” This was a man who didn’t waste time or resources. “Would you like tell me why you’re here and tell me about whatever it is keeping you up at night?”
Lockwood didn’t strike me as someone who impressed easily. He took in my gender and insight with little to no reaction. He wasn't even surprised by the feline, who stood up on cue, stretched, and curled down on the other side of his body.
The delicious Mr. Lockwood wasn’t looking me in the eyes yet. Very disconcerting and telling. I like to watch people’s eyes as they provide uncensored reactions. A man's eyes — you can read chapters on him before he ever says a word. Not looking me in the eyes was a sign he knew this too and was afraid of what I might learn.
Then, all of a sudden, he was staring straight into my soul.
A bit of the storm outside threw a bolt at me and it rode up and down my spine like a getaway car at a robbery. Such a good-looking masculine face yet with such desperate eyes.
“This is very embarrassing for me. I hope you’ll appreciate that. What I need — what I’d like — I’d like to hire you to find someone for me, Miss Tanner.”
“Who?”
“My daughter — stepdaughter.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a nice photograph.
If only I had a dime for every father looking for his wayward daughter. Or wife. Being an uppity female was a fad these days. I guess it comes with giving us gals the vote; we were turning into a rowdy gender. Maybe we’ll shock all and sundry and run for President next.
The girl in the carefully-staged photograph was in her early twenties, if that old. And she was a beauty. The kind of beauty who learns fast that she can wrap men around her little finger. There was a frightening sense of intensity and manipulation in the gaze she gave the photographer. And, she had a look of something familiar about her.
“Her name is Francis Coventry. Frannie. She’s ...” He hesitated, looking for the right word. “Missing.”
“Run off,” I asked.
“Oh, she does it all the time. No, she’s missing. Her mother and I don’t know where she is. She isn’t at any of her usual clubs or with friends we have contact with.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“A while ago. Let’s say, a long time.”
“And you want me to find her. What then?”
“Talk to her,” he looked at me again, eyes making his sincerity apparent.
“About?”
“Whatever women like to talk about. Maybe tell her she has someone in her family who’s worried. Or, we know she’s making some wrong choices. She’s never listened to me, and I prefer she doesn’t listen to her mother. That’s half the problem.”
Ah, he was divorced or would be soon.
I set the photograph down on my desk. “And that’s why you came to see a woman P.I?”
“Yes. It's an obvious choice if one is looking for discretion.”
I laughed a little. So did he.
“I own a home in the City but I’m staying at the Stanford Hotel, for the moment. I can’t send some fellow after her. He’d scare her.”
“And?” Come on, out with it.
He gathered his words again. I was about to offer him a wheelbarrow to carry them in when he blurted out, “and she might do something ... regrettable.”
“Because he’s a ‘he’ and she is good at manipulating that angle?”
Mr. Lockwood didn’t answer in words. He lowered his head a bit and stared at the floor. When he looked up at me, he appeared like a man stuck in a hole and out of rope. “Frannie came into my life when I met her mother. That was only six years ago. Needless to say, I didn’t influence her upbringing. But when I married the family, I married into the responsibilities coming with family. What I thought was the start of an exciting marriage turned into an exercise in wrangling two wild women, including the one who isn’t quite a woman yet. Her mother and I filed for divorce.”
“But, you are still looking after Frannie? How old is she?”
“According to her birth record, twenty. Maturity wise, fifteen.” He nodded with some inner thought. “She lives at home still, with her mother.”
So, Mommy had possession of the house and Step-Daddy lived in a hotel. The Stepdaughter was wild and likely ungrateful. There was a recipe for resentment. “Do you like Frannie?”
“Why do you ask?” His clipped voice cut through our discussion.
“I like to understand the relationships in the situation.” Pemberton’s manual didn’t cover this particular mode of interrogation. I learned it from my mother. “Do you like her?” A bad notion was planting itself in my fertile bean. Were he and Frannie having an affair, causing the divorce? It wasn’t unheard of, though I sure hoped it wasn’t the case for Mr. Lockwood. I may be vaguely attracted to him, but, as a professional, I couldn’t write off any unpleasant ideas if they might lead to the truth. Did he want me to find her so he could renew or attempt a relationship with the attractive stepdaughter?
For a moment, he frowned and really rolled my question around in his head. “No. She’s pretty much her mother, Irenie. Pleasant until they get what they want. Or don't. Her mother's real name is Irene Margaret Coventry, but she goes by Irenie.”
I considered what it was Frannie wanted and didn’t like the options.
“Unfortunately, Frannie’s not of age yet, and her mother keeps egging her on with the bad behavior. So, I am trying to do one last good thing for her. Maybe I’m hopeful she’ll make some better choices in friends, in life — in everything.”
I watched him take the photograph to look at it. His expression wasn’t one of a shamed-filled, secret lover or a man caught with his pants down. It was disappointment. After a moment, he pushed the image back to me. “Miss Tanner, I've never regretted decisions in my life, except for two. Bringing Irenie Coventry into my life is number two.”
I didn’t ask about regretful decision number one. If he wanted to tell me, he’d say something. To play my cards right, I needed to keep an open option to ask him. After all, regrets often overlap out of habit. “I need this photograph. And a list of places she frequents, names of family, friends, and acquaintances. Anything you can give me.”
He nodded again and pulled another piece of paper from his jacket. “I gathered you would. This is the best list I can come up with. Some of her friends ... well, let’s just say I'm connected to their social circles.”
That much I could believe. Lockwood moved in the upper-to-mid middle-class circles of bridge clubs and restaurants, political hopefuls, and successful people holding out against the economic climate.
Some of those names were men of a certain caliber. I recognized a couple from the news section of D&S Detective Magazine. Dopers, Hatchet Men, and Mob Bosses. The rest, by the look of their names, appeared to be the swell crowd. All manners and no brains was my experience.
I was suddenly reminded of the fact I wasn't wearing my shoes. I pushed my feet further under my desk and scooched the chair closer.
“Are you wanting me to bring her home, one way or another?”
He was off to thinking-land again, as if he hadn’t really considered all the possibilities. Ten-to-one odds said he was doing this as a favor — perhaps for her mother?
“I don’t think so. I certainly don’t want her forced to come home. She’d always resent it and never forgive me. I can’t explain why that’s important, I don’t know why myself, but it is. I only want to know she’s okay and to tell her mother, putting an end to this whole mess.”
“Washing your hands of it?”
“That’s part of it. And, maybe, I’d like for her to have a smart woman tell her a few facts about life she hasn’t heard before?”
Smart woman, sure. But how did he know?
“Well, Mr. Lockwood, Babysitting, Counseling, or Detecting, any of the above, I charge twenty-five dollars a day, plus reasonable expenses.”
“In advance,” he asked, taking out his wallet too quickly.
“One hundred dollars on retainer, non-refundable, for the first four days. That covers everything immediate and allow me to tap resources. Later I’ll send a detailed invoice for you —”
“If you ever find an assistant? Ever thought of hiring a young fellow?”
He got me to smile with that one. “It’s only a simple invoice, with all the breakdown, nice and neat. I can do my own typing for now.”
Like a well-bred man, he stood up and offered me his hand. It was warm from gripping his hands together, under his coat. He had been anxious about our meeting, but now I could sense his relief.
No shoes on, I didn’t step out from behind my desk.
There was that spine-tingle again as my fingers touched his.
“I can reach you at your office?” I pointed at his card with my chin, while handing him mine.
“It’s the best way, but I wrote my hotel number on the back, too. Just in case.” He handed me five crisp twenties, fresh from the bank. He came prepped and organized, but I expected it from the president of a company. He turned to leave, started to put on his overcoat, and stopped. Without looking at me, perhaps out of shame, he added, “Please be careful. Some of my stepdaughter’s friends are not the nicest people.” He finished putting his coat on and did me the favor of glaring at me. “If things become dangerous, I can always hire —”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand, and a nonplussed dismissal. “You needn’t be concerned. I’ve dealt with far worse than those on your list,” I over stated. Sure, I had a run in with a couple of crazy, kraut scientists last year – thank you Agent Mason — but I hadn’t looked his list over and maybe I was too quick to answer, to keep him from thinking he might need to hire a man.
And, based on experience, he was lying to me, either purposely or by omission. I wondered who would be more of a problem — the handsome stepfather too worried about appearances or the gorgeous stepdaughter looking trouble.
Finally, he mumbled, while putting his hat on. “It’s not worth getting killed over.”