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That guy had a face like it was married to a pair of brass knuckles.
~Lou Tanner, P.I., Notes for female Pemberton Graduates, 1935
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WILLKIE VALENTINI HAD more than one gin-joint, but his home base was at the 500 Grants Club, at Grant and Green. The play on the name, being on the five-hundred block of Green at Grant, and the fact that five-hundred Fifty Dollar bills with U.S. Grant’s face on them was a cool twenty-five thousand. According to D&S Detective Magazine, it was a reference to what Valentini made the first year it was open. It wouldn’t surprise me if the gangster gave them a full interview for the publicity.
The exterior evoked a sense of old California, with a Victorian façade and painted-lady colors. It ate up the better portion of the northwest corner of the block. Only one half tamed and developed. But the lower half was still wild. I’d heard about an argument with the City fathers who had other ideas about what should be done with the vacant half. Nowadays, no one at City Hall had the tax revenues to contest ownership or to develop the empty property. Valentini likely enjoyed leaving it scrappy — just to spit at the politicians.
Tonight, search lights focused on the club’s entrance and the place surrounded with cops. A line of shields was in a row between the gangster’s hold out and the police. A blimp had been maneuvered into place and it blared a recorded message and blasted a bright light down onto the entrance to the 500 Grants.
Police work like that; isn’t my cup of tea. They make ‘Bots to clean up the streets and to help with industry. But they never created a ‘Bot that took on the dangers of police work — not according to every cop I ever met. And if any of those boys were bragging and were now down there. Well, they might be designing a new Cop ‘Bot at this very moment.
The recorded message blared again, only partially comprehensible.
I stood on the sidewalk like a sap. Nothing to do. I kept back, sure of the rod in my purse and comforting myself in the knowledge I had it.
Guns drawn. Bull horn out. At any minute, the crowd of civilians I around me expected Chicago Typewriters, aka Tommy Guns, to cut loose and the whole place to go up in dust. Somerset signaled for the blimp recording to stop.
Before he started his demands via bullhorn, the front door opened, and out sauntered the man himself. Willkie Valentini.
A little thick but still fit. He wore a tuxedo. Over one arm, he’d draped his coat. A hat covered his dark hair.
He was sauntering, and another fellow, not so well dressed, was keeping behind him. Lawyer?
“Put your hands up,” Somerset shouted into the bullhorn. Ridiculous. Jones was ten feet away. This was all for show.
“Officer Somerton. What’s the problem, officer?”
Nothing quite makes a nasty point nastier than getting someone’s name and title wrong, especially when you know damn well who they are after all the years they put into chasing you.
Somerset lowered the bullhorn and stomped up to the alleged gangster. I couldn’t quite make out the rest of their conversations, but the body language said enough.
Valentini wasn’t worried. He wasn’t bothered. He was even dressed and ready to go downtown.
The other man — definitely a lawyer. Somerset, yeah, he was plain obsessed. In all that light, the tension in his movements and the red burning up his cheeks was visible. While Valentini stood solid and still, Somerset was wild and animated.
Across the street, Rollins wanted my attention. He signaled me, pointed to his badge then back to me, and then waved for me to come over. All this semaphore was confusing to a couple of the shield-bearing cops.
Whipping out my P.I. Badge, I shoved my way past the crowd, and dodged a car coming down Green too fast.
I trotted across, waving my badge like a white flag, hoping none of the regular cops would be aggressive in trying to stop me. After some side-eye glances, Rollins ushered me into the take-down’s inner sanctum.
“You’re not up with him, Bennie?”
“I like not getting shot, Sweetheart. This is a situation waiting to go bad.”
I turned my back on the whole Valentini-Somerset standoff and leaned closer to Rollins. “Where is she?”
He indicated with his chin, down into the undeveloped half of the lot. The slope was deep from the sidewalk to the lot. Weeds sprang up everywhere that hadn’t been trampled down by kids playing or indigents camping. Plenty of garbage, food and newspapers. It was a complete reversal of the 500 Grants Club, with its swept and maintained façade.
Lying on the dirt, face up, and partially covered by a tarpaulin of some sort, was what Rollins said was Frannie Coventry. With all the lights focused on Valentini, the body wasn’t as obvious. Neither was the Medical Examiner and two uniforms crouching next to her.
Rollins grabbed me by the arm, making sure he had my attention. “Listen, Lou, go down there and, I dunno, find as much as you can.”
“You’re letting me near the body?”
“No.” He bit his bottom lip. “I’m telling you to go detect. That’s what you are, sweetheart, a detective. If I could afford to hire you, I would. I can’t, so I’m hoping you’ll do me a favor.”
Weren't you the cop here?
Never argue when you're handed special favors or treatment, Uncle Joe always advised. Maybe we were both hoping it wasn’t Frannie. That this wasn’t about to shatter a family. But, there was a dead woman, and I’d bet my automobile that someone’s world was about to be destroyed, even if it wasn’t Frannie’s.
“Officer. Ain't you tired of pestering me? You got nothin’. I’m only a —”
“A racketeer,” Somerset filled in. “I’m here to arrest you for murder?”
Valentini’s voice drowned in sarcasm. “Who am I supposed to have killed this time? Huh? Who are you blaming me for?”
Somerset leaned in, said something, and pointed to the vacant lot.
“He hasn't been told, has he,” I asked, pushing back against the panic rushing up my chest.
“Ah, Christ. Just get down there,” Rollins said, as he shook his head and gave me a shove.
Valentini dropped his overcoat, pushed past the lawyer, past Somerset, and ran to the lot. Every cop kept his heater on the gangster despite no threat from the gangster. Valentini didn’t care. He made a bee-line to where Somerset said Frannie’s body had been found.
I arrived first and I didn’t like what I found.
No one likes seeing a dead body, but this was different. My every thought telescoped into the crime scene. My fingers were cold, when I noticed them at all. The painful thumping in my head was my pulse.
I met her. Damn it. I knew her.
In the lot, they’d started to light up the place and to collect evidence. I held up my hand to shield my eyes from the strobes and the light beaming down from the blimp.
I got closer. The damage was unstomachable. The woman had been strangled, easily deduced by the abraded bruise around her neck. A hat was lying about five feet away. A grey fedora. I was seeing a bad case of déjà vu,
I got closer. A scarf was by her side. I’d put money on it being the murder weapon. A patterned scarf with roses and leaves. I recognized that scarf.
I got closer still.
It was the dame who stole my hack.
Resisting the urge to toss my Woolworth’s lunch, I kept moving around, looking, seeing, and doing what Uncle Joe did with greater ease in these circumstances. Rollins was watching me. It was his job to watch me.
It was the dame I’d cursed for leaving me alone, in the rain, with a man who had been following her. Had he killed her? I looked at her neck, ignoring the odd stare from the Examiner.
Valentini hammered his way through the barricade of policemen and blundered into the crime scene.
I doubt any of us expected what came next. As I kept looking for anything that might be of value, ignoring Somerset who was annoyed, the lawyer who was astonished, and any number of uniforms who had lost track of what was happening, the tough guy extraordinaire knelt in the mud and cried out in agony, cradling the body of a woman in his arms. Rollins gave me such a look of shock.
Valentini pulled a rod out of his jacket and pointed it at the Examiner, then the rest of us. “Don’t you goons touch her! Don’t touch her!”
God almighty, his face had tears all the way down to his jaw.
The uniforms responded by drawing whatever heat that wasn’t already drawn. Rollins was right, this was about to be a bloodbath, with Rollins, an Examiner, and me as collateral.
Call me stupid, but don’t call me stupidly useless. I held out my hands to stop all the rod waving. Looking to Rollins, I said, “Let me talk to him. I can calm this down.” I have no idea where that came from. I’m no negotiator, but I did have an interest in staying alive.
Rollins glared, softened, and once he got a long look at the nervous heat about to shoot, waved me forward. Guess he didn’t feel like being accidentally blown apart any more than I did.
With my hands up by my shoulders, and the okay from Rollins, I took the last few steps toward Valentini. “I’m not a cop. I’m not the police.”
“I don’t care!” Valentini turned his heater on me.
The look of a muzzle pointed at your face was enough to start a news-reel rendition of your life — mostly your own mistakes. “Well, I do. And I need to learn who this woman is. Who she really is!”
“Frannie! It’s Frannie. Goddamn it, don’t you goons know what you’re doing?” He didn’t shout that at me as much as the confused police line, some of whom had the brains to lower their weapons.
“Look, Mr. Valentini.” I glanced back to Rollins who was holding his breath. Somerset was above with the other cops, and he was giving me a look of death. To hell with him. “Mr. Valentini? Willkie. I’m not a cop, I’m a private investigator, and I believe I met this ...” I chose my words carefully, “This lady two nights ago. Over by Bayview. I remember the scarf, the hat and — she was wearing a beautiful ring.” My brain finally returned from vacation, because I finally had a clear idea of where I was going. “The kind of ring a man gives to his greatest love.” I swear, the whole City held its breath. “You gave her that, didn’t you?”
Valentini didn’t speak at first. A moment later, not looking at me directly, he nodded. His voice was lower, broken. “I gave it to her. I did.”
Slowly, he raised her hand to show me. Damn. It was the woman who took my hack. No doubt about that. The ring was lovely. She was lovely, even in death. And she matched the photograph Lockwood gave me. It was Frannie. Deep inside, I felt heartbroken. I hoped ...
So, I turn into a sap when a dame gets killed. I get seriously protective. A Mamma Bear, if you like. Too many of us are killed by lovers or men who don’t take “no” for an answer. Most of us are blamed for becoming victims. Every one of us wonders if the next man we pass will be the one who kills us.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, in a soft, soothing, please-don’t-shoot-me voice. “Your gift is exquisite.”
“I asked her to marry me. Where was she when you met her?” he whispered.
“Bayview"
"She had no reason to be in Bayview.”
He wasn’t wrong. Were it not for my little errand for Agent Mason, I had no reason to be in Bayview either. “Mr. Valentini, I will tell the police about the details of when she and I almost shared a cab. That helps them find the real ...”
Willkie drew up and shouted at the police, “These goons? They can’t find piss in their own toilets.”
“But I can.” It was the only thing I thought of to say. No, I wasn't that old. No, I wasn't a veteran cop. I was P.I., and in that moment, I was enough.
“What? How?”
“As I said,” I carefully, calmly stated, “I am a private investigator. And as odd as that may be, as a woman PI, I take my job very seriously. I’m good at what I do,” though not for all that long, and I stumbled on my words while telling my brain to shut up, “and I gave the police everything about what happened when I met Frannie. I didn’t realize who she was at the time. But I do now. And I want to find out more.”
His eyes glazed over, like a man lost in the remnants of a dream. “We’re gettin' married. She loves me,” he babbled.
Oh my God. Married?
“May I ask you, Mr. Valentini,” I kept talking very softly, “to put down your gun?”
“Let them shoot me.”
“I’d like it if they didn’t. They might hit me and your colleague, and then what use are we in finding out what happened? Please? I’m on the level.”
Any sort of confidence between me and Valentini was too much for Somerset to bear. “Come on, Valentini. I’m arresting you for the murder of Francis Coventry.”
To his credit, the shyster put his hand on Valentini’s heater and effectively disarmed the whole situation. “I’ll go with you, Willkie. They got nothing on you. Nothing.”
Valentini didn’t give him more than the minimum attention — he was too busy silently pleading with me — an unforgettable look.
I admit, I was in shock too. None of this made sense. Francis Coventry was the woman who took my cab, but why was Frannie over near Bayview that evening? Who was the man following her?
Was Valentini putting on a performance for Somerset? Was he faking? It sure wasn’t the performance I’d expect from a powerful underworld kingpin, reacting to Frannie’s death the way he did. If other gangster’s reactions were the norm, tears were not their first response to arrest.
I got out of the way when they led Valentini off in cuffs, and I assumed it wasn’t the first time. But the big-time crook, Mr. Bad Guy, gangster, he’d crumbled into a pool of tears at seeing Frannie’s body. No faking at all. Now of course, he’d wiped his face and set it in a fearsome expression. The gangster was back. The bridegroom gone into the dark.
The Examiner rolled Frannie onto her side. Nothing but mud. I saw the ring again. It was beautiful — unique and special. Valentini said he’d given it to her. Marriage? Did Bad Boys marry and live happily ever after?
I started thinking about how long Frannie had been in the lot. I remember the last time I saw her alive was four p.m. two nights before. The instructions she’d given the cabbie were in this general vicinity. Giving the cab a half hour to drive over here, that meant she was dead for close to 48 hours. I needed to narrow that down.
The side of the 500 Grants that faced the lot had only two windows. A creepy Bruno occupied one of them and glared down at us, then shut the curtains. I got a clean look at him.
Think. Yeah, I’d seen his face before. Line up photos D&S Detective Magazine had in their news section. Skates Berk. A guy with a memorable face, memorable moniker, and memorable temper. If I read the article right, he was Valentini’s right-hand man.
Maybe that mug of his only had one expression, but he didn’t strike me as all that choked-up about the body in the lot. I only caught him for a second. Maybe that was enough.
Rollins crouched down next to Frannie.
I showed the photograph to Rollins and told them what Valentini said. I promised I would.
“Geez, Lou, talk about being in the right place at the wrong time,” Rollins sputtered out around a cigarette.
“What happens now,” I asked.
The Examiner signaled for a stretcher to come down and started shaking out a sheet to cover Frannie.
Rollins shook his head. “Milt may have gotten his man at last. Still, if what you say is true, then he wouldn’t want to kill her. Maybe he did it in the moment, like a crime of passion.”
The Examiner stood up. “I don’t think so. I should have more details later on, but this doesn’t look like a robbery gone wrong. This was deliberate and yet messy. But —”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rollins held up a hand, “you gotta’ do your job first.”
“When did it happen,” I queried, wondering if he’d answer me. He didn’t know me from Eve.
“About five to nine p.m. I’m told we got some kids who played here until five.”
“Today? Well, the space isn’t that big, so after five seems like a good assumption.”
He nodded.
“Have you checked with the local indigents?”
“You think some bum saw something,” Rollins said incredulously.
I pointed around the lot. “Cheap wine bottles and beer bottles. Trash. Some bedding over there. An open lot is a magnet for folks who don’t have a place to sleep.”
“You think some bum killed her and left that rock on her hand?” Rollins was being obtuse, either that or too shaken up himself. Just ‘cause you were a cop doesn’t mean you see everything in your career. The corpse of a beauty like Frannie would shake anyone up, I was shook too.
“No, I think one of our indigents might have seen the murder or can help narrow down the timing. As you said, whoever did it, left valuables on her. If it was someone committing robbery, they would have taken that rock. And the silk scarf. And the hat. Plenty of time to snatch up her purse,” I pointed toward a small, crocheted bag with a Bakelite handle and a satin bow, “and run. Everything is still here. This wasn’t a robbery. First glance,” I said, knowing that I had somehow captivated my audience of professional cops, “I’d put money on a passion killing.”
“By Valentini’s men?”
I waggled my head. No. I stepped back, taking a better look around. “Why would they kill someone who meant so much to their boss?”
I stared down at drag marks and heavily disturbed gouges in the dirt. Not many of them, though. She hadn’t struggled much, so maybe it was someone very strong. I looked up the hill to the sidewalk. No drag marks. Did she come down into the lot willingly?
“On his orders,” Rollins asked, following my gaze wherever it landed. “He may have set her up during a fight or because he was jealous of some other mug flirting with her. Just because he ordered her killing doesn’t mean he was happy that he did. All that blubbering might have been regret.”
The logic wasn’t bad, though it assumed quite a bit. “This isn’t looking good for Valentini. Pretty good news for Somerset. But I’m saying out loud, none of this makes sense to put over on Valentini. But then, when does murder ever make sense?”
“So you say,” Rollins grinned. “I think a chat with some of the locals is in order.”
Good. He listened. My appreciation for Bennie Rollins was increasing.
The Examiner was coming past me when I stopped him. “Professional opinion, she died between 5 and 9. Got it. But, what’s your personal guess?”
“Personal? As in, a guess I can’t back up yet? Gut or intuition?”
“Experienced gut or intuition,” I added, flattering him a little. Though, it was true, he had some significant experience in the job, in the big city.
“Seven to eight p.m. But you realize I can’t officially narrow it down further until I take a long look at the body. Call that estimate my unofficial hunch.”
“Would you put money on it?”
“I would.” He followed the stretcher up the hill, talking about the case as if it was nothing new. Probably wasn’t for him.
Somerset waited on the sidewalk at the top of the hill. “Get that woman out of here,” he shouted to the officers. To me, he snarled, “I don’t care if you’ve got a license, there ain't no such thing as a female detective. Go home, little girl. You’re lucky I’m not arresting you for interfering with an active investigation. If I see your face or hear your name again, I’ll lock you up. You don’t belong here; you never have.”
I recognize a declaration of war when I hear one. And I was happy to pick up the gauntlet flung at my feet. Of all the rules and laws that apply to my profession, I hadn’t broken any of them. Arrest me for doing my legal job; I was ready. I have plenty of lawyers with a beef, only a nickel call away, all of whom wanted to go around or two in court with law-breaking or overly aggressive cops.
But, what job needed to be done? Whose need would be served? Frannie Coventry had been found. That was it. That was all I was hired to do.
Based on the comments of the uniforms and Examiner, they’d already convicted Valentini of being her killer and convicted Frannie of asking for it.
I hated that. I hated the assumption with all my soul. Frannie made bad decisions, but that didn’t make her death unworthy of the effort to find the truth. Nobody in their right mind wants to be murdered. Strangulation was an ugly way to go.
Well, hell. Between my confusion over Valentini’s behavior, Somerset’s blatant disregard for my earned license, and the end of my first case being a disaster with the missing person found dead, I was pissed.
And now I had to tell Lockwood. Everything.
Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d tell me everything.
I couldn’t help thinking this wasn’t over. I didn’t want the case to be over, but deep inside, reason told me it was because of too many reasons, good and bad.