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You can always find men like that. Just look for the guy who doesn’t know that the Spring Thaw has already happened.
~Lou Tanner, P.I., Notes for female Pemberton Graduates, 1935
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OUTSIDE, IT WAS DULL, wet, and dirty. People rushed by, keeping their heads down and hands in pockets or under arms. In this secretive shadow world, a series of bright swashes of light told you where to go for the action.
Once you passed through the Gates of Heaven, the club’s arched doorway, you were in a new world of artifice and fantasy.
The Shanghai Emporium was one of the better nightclubs in Chinatown. It looked like everything you expected from an exotic, themed joint. I was pretty sure the pagoda decorations, paper lanterns, and red-painted woodwork weren’t representative of the real Shanghai, let alone China, but for club-goers, accuracy was unimportant.
Sure, I was working, but I needed to fit in. I’d pulled a blue, boat-neck gown with a draped back, and long sleeves that covered most of my wound dressing, out of my unpacked steamer trunk. My sling matched the deep, dark color. Fearing I might take a tumble or need to be ready to run, I chose low heel pumps. Mrs. McCarthy helped me put my hair up. It was classy but practical. The matching coat with feathers sat on my shoulders and I’d figured out how to tie a scarf over my head to protect my hair from the spitting fog and rain.
The glare and rage of music were overwhelming at first. It was hot inside — smoky and wild.
The chinoiserie doors of the Shanghai opened to a short flight of stairs down to the main dance floor. Across the back of the startlingly large room was the bandstand filled with two rows of white tuxedoed musicians. The band was heavy on clarinets and brass. The leader was bouncing on heels in rhythm with the rag-time piece they were piping. An oriental woman, in a sleek, silver lame gown waited by the microphone stand.
Behind the band was a modernized rendition of a moon-bridge cut into the wall. Every detail screamed out that this was China. And yet it wasn’t.
Red lanterns sat on each table. Waiters in short-waisted coats ducked and dodged past each other in a chaotic dance to serve tray after tray of brightly decorated cocktails. Some of the drinks were in fancy glasses, some in plain.
A pall of smoke hung over the tables aligned around the perimeter of the hardwood floor. Well-dressed couples and teams of friends sat at round tables covered in red satin cloths. Many a cigarette was lit for a lady as part of a tacit flirtation. Heads leaned too close. Hands were doing things unseen behind the protection of the tables. Diamonds, real or faux, glistened from the central floor, where dancers intertwined provocatively.
A cigarette girl walked in front of me, her short skirt showing off her selling assets regardless of what awaited in the box held waist-level by a pair of thin suspenders.
I handed my coat to the Hat Check ‘Ton. Someone had offensively painted slanted eyes onto the metal creature. It took my coat, swiveled at the midsection to hand it off to another ‘Ton, then swiveled back to me. A ticket jerked through a slot in its hand, from a roll kept deep in its arm, and I took it.
Despite the faux-Chinese paint job, I found myself thinking that this was my idea of a ‘Ton: helpful and small.
A man in full tuxedo walked up to me as I strolled down the steps. He was squeezing his eyes into narrow lines and smiling with all teeth. “You welcome,” he said in a dramatic, over-the-top Asian accident. “Come, sit here. You likee a drink? Wong is your server tonight. You number one guest. I get you drink.”
“Gene?” I looked at him again. With the eye squeezing and funny talk, I wasn’t sure I recognized who he was at first.
Eugene Wong stood up straighter. “Lou?” His eyes opened up, the smile became natural, and his normal voice welcomed me. “Haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?”
“Alive. Say, what’s with the ‘likee a drink’ business?”
“Oh, you follow usual trail.” He leaned in while pointing at some tables away from the wild crowd for me to pick from. “Rich people want a certain experience when they come in here. They don’t come here for the real Chinatown. They’re here to be amused by the exotic.” He conducted me to a nice table for two and pulled the chair out for me. “Hey, what’s with the arm?”
“I got shot.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“Geez, I think I may stick to medical school. Less dangerous. Whatcha’ drinking, Lou?”
“Bourbon. Neat. Thanks.”
“Coming up.” He was about to place my order, when a large, middle-aged woman waved him over by shouting, as if Gene couldn’t understand her without the volume up. He smiled at me, winked, put on his fake-face, and headed over.
With a cigarette in my hand, I stopped to think about it; I was lucky in so many ways. I didn’t have to play such a fake character to earn tips to pay my way through school. And yet, many was a time I had to be the sweet, demure daughter at company functions, where I think my Mom was shopping for a husband for me. She meant well but I wouldn’t have been happy married off to some social climber’s son. Unless the guy was different, special, it would never work. All the same, I had my college paid for and cash flow for a little while. I’d lucked out. My future was all mine for the earning, but yes, I’d lucked out with a gentle childhood. Mostly.
A nice glass of amber liquid arrived in front of me, and the band launched into something jivy. The canary up on stage sang along with the well-known tune, in Chinese. It was interesting. She made it work. Lovely voice.
A lighter descended to my cigarette. Elliott Lockwood, in a black suit with black tie leaned over.
“What are you doing here?” I said, feeling a bit territorial. Lockwood dressed himself very well, but not as one might expect for a nightclub on Saturday evening.
“I’m having a little talk with Willkie Valentini.”
Cold washed over my whole body. “No, you’re not,” I snapped. “Sit down.”
He narrowed those beautiful blue eyes at me. “I have to. Someone has to.”
“And, I am.”
Watching me with suspicion, he sat down. “You’re not on this case anymore.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, putting my unlit cigarette down. “I’ve been hired by the most foolish client of all — me.”
Putting away his lighter, he scowled. “This isn’t your problem anymore.”
“You made it my problem.”
“I shouldn’t have. Really, I mean it. You shouldn’t keep on a closed case.”
“You worried now? That horse is out of the corral.”
He took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m worried. I never should have hired a woman to do a man’s job. You aren’t strong enough for the job. It was a mistake.”
On the balcony to the left of us, Valentini, the man I thought was a lawyer from the other night, and two other Brunos, stepped out. Lockwood and I eyed the scene intently. The gangster didn’t puff up, check his suit, or act otherwise blustery.
Lockwood glared at him at first, then at me.
“I can handle this.” I put my hand on his shoulder.
“You can’t. You’re just a girl.”
I took a long, slow drink of bourbon, not once taking my eyes off him. In that time, he went from trying to look angry and stern, to concern that he’d hurt my feelings. Good hearted wimp. Yup, he’s looking away. His fallback position.
“Now that you got that lie out of your system, I’m telling you it won’t work for you to go talk to Valentini.”
“I meant it.”
“Yeah, right. Sorry, but I’m the detective here and I can read you like a book. You’re not talking to a notorious gangster who may be in deep mourning and jittery. He doesn’t know you. He does remember me. Let me give you another prediction. You’ve got a roscoe on you.”
“A what?”
I really tried not to roll my eyes. “A roscoe, also known in polite society as a gun. Or do I quote Mae West about that bulge in your coat?”
Sheepishly, Lockwood squirmed in his seat and tried to make his gun less apparent.
“Shanghai’s owner is getting lax if they let a guy come in here packing heat. Of course, you don’t look like some sort of gunsel. And I don’t think you are. Want to tell me your whole, doomed plan?”
He folded his arms, almost childishly. “You’re the detective.”
As if I hadn’t predicted he’d say that. Right. “Okay, Mr. Lockwood. You came here to make him confess. You planned to show yourself to Valentini, then pull your gun on him and either shoot him or make him promise to go to the police with a confession.”
His mouth opened slightly.
“Mr. Lockwood, I don’t have the first idea of how to run an import/export company, certainly not one that survives in these troubled times. Pretty much a miracle, if you ask me. But, as much as I don’t comprehend how to do your job, you don’t appreciate how to do mine.”
He shut his mouth.
The song changed to Cheek to Cheek, one of my favorites. I took that as a sign from heaven that I had some extranormal approval. I held out my cigarette again, and he lit it with some reluctance. I drew in the nicotine and exhaled away from him. No need to be rude. “See the skinny guy next to Valentini.”
Lockwood did.
“That’s Skates Berk. He got that nickname from his habit of skating past every charge the police have leveled at him. That includes running some dirty business behind the scenes of a series of clubs his boss owns.”
“This one?”
“Gold star to you Mr. Lockwood. Yes. This one. There are rooms out back for gambling, prostitution, and until the last few years, illegal liquor sales. I point him out because Skates is also one of Valentini’s closest friends, if you can call that friendship. He will cut you down in seconds if he thinks you’re after his source of income. You’ll come out of it looking like bloody Swiss cheese, before you even make the top step. Get the picture?”
The light wasn’t great, but I was still sure I saw Lockwood pale a bit. He certainly had a dry mouth all of a sudden. He waved for Gene, who dropped the fake-for-the-tourists-face and delivered his scotch.
“The other guy? Wide as he is big? You might never even make it to Skates before that guy pulls your arms out of your sockets.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read. I read a lot. Not knowing the players gets one into trouble. These guys mean business.”
“So do I.”
“Why?”
It took Lockwood two minutes and two swallows of his scotch before he answered. I had time. I waited.
“Lou, he killed Frannie. What kind of man am I if I don’t do something? The police let him go. Frannie is an afterthought to them, as if she never existed.”
“They let him go, Elliott, because he didn’t kill her. He loved her. I can find you proof, but he genuinely loved her. My women’s intuition is screaming at me along with the facts. He didn’t do it. So, if I let you go up there, you're killed and I'm blamed for not stopping you. Somerset, you’ve met him, well, he’s looking for any excuse to lock me up.”
Well, that got his attention.
I knocked back the last of my bourbon. “Stay here.” Then, I added, for the sake of his manhood, “I would like to use you as a backup.” I was scrambling for anything to keep him in his seat. “Knowing you’re here can help me.”
“What are you, what’s the term, ‘packing heat?’”
“In this dress? Nothing. They’d take away any heater if I had one, so what’s the point? Just stay in sight range. At least you’re here. Don’t jump to any conclusions. And for the love of God, don’t wave that heater around.”
Gene walked up when I stood. I ordered another scotch and bourbon for us, then whispered in his ear. I thought Gene might pass out, but good man, he nodded and headed over to the base of the steps to the balcony.
I was hot on his heels.
Every man, including Valentini, stared down at me. My arm hurt. My ears rang, from being too close to the trumpet section. My heart was trying to climb up to my teeth and my stomach was right behind.
Who did I think I was? These guys kill people for just looking at them funny. Who was still around that would mourn me if they knocked me off? Very few.
Gene marched down the stairs with a look on his face that said, “Are you out of your mind?” Damn, if I didn’t think I was.
In this light, Skates’s face looked more worn out and pock-marked than the gopher-riddled Kaiser Sports Field near Golden Gate Park. His mouth was a lipless line turned downward. The Big Guy squared off his shoulders and sized me up, concluding I wasn’t a challenge and huffing a bit in disgust. He started rubbing his arm. I had a funny feeling about where my third bullet, the one I shot at the Seal Rock Club, went. I was at the point of mentally wagering that Big Guy sprayed Proctor and me with Tommy Gun fuel. Couldn’t prove it – yet. I smirked a little and Big Guy snarled in my direction.
Nothing to do about it except hope he hurt as much as I did.
Valentini was not so quick to judgement. I hoped that expression said he remembered me.
Before I reached the top step, Skates stepped in front of me. “We’re busy, honey. Nobody up here wants your business.” Skates’s mouth turned up then back down. His eyes were small and his face long.
“Sure you do. You just don’t recognize what business I’m offering. Might not be what you think.”
“You’re in the business of getting hurt, that’s what.”
I believed him
I didn’t move.