A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4) (2 page)

The woman screamed, then cried out, “My poor husband, shot dead in his vain attempt to rescue me. Oh, what evil have I wrought?”

Catherine likewise screamed, and promptly lost what little of her composure remained.

“I had better take her home,” Charlie said. “You should come too, Mother.”

Aunt Nell declined, insisting she was still keen on seeing the remainder of the show. Charlie gathered up the quivering Catherine and they departed post-haste.

I had no doubt that the shooting was staged and considered it confirmed when I recognized the scantily clad woman as my cousin Carlotta, partly from her facial features and partly from her distinctive voice, but primarily from her utter lack of talent. Though she has many positive qualities that endear her to her kin, there’s no denying she’s a third-rate vaudevillian who normally knew enough to steer clear of any part that demanded more than her feeble gifts could deliver.

Emmie had gone over to examine the corpse. “My god, he’s really dead!”

I muttered an “Oh, dear,” and then greeted Carlotta.

“Hello, Harry. What did you think?”

“Oh, very persuasive. If I hadn’t recognized you, I’d have rushed after the fiend who did in your late husband.”

“You always were gallant, Harry. Even as a little boy.”

It’s simple enough to jot down something Carlotta said, yet impossible to convey how she said it. Her voice has a tendency to change pitch mid-word. The two short sentences above involved such a variety of tones that you’d have thought they were delivered by a choral quartette—each voice allocated certain syllables, but none entrusted with three together. A more accurate rendition would be: “YOU always
were
galLANT, Harry. EVen
as a
LITTLE boy.” Keeping in mind that Carlotta’s
low
notes are delivered in a contralto, her normal ones in a soprano, and her HIGH notes in an ear-piercing attack that invariably frightens children. Since it would be difficult for everyone concerned were I to render all her dialogue as accurately, I’ll limit myself to occasional reminders.

“He really is dead, Harry,” Emmie insisted.

“Oh, dear,” I repeated.

Aunt Nell went over and dipped her fingers in what looked to be ketchup pooled on the corpse’s chest. “It’s still warm,” she said.

Then Carlotta took a dip. This time her scream was thoroughly convincing. “Oh my gawd, Jimmy. He’s really dead!”

Curious now, I verified it for myself. Then Emmie leaned down, gave me a peck on the cheek, and whispered, “Happy anniversary, Harry.”

Even as accustomed as I was to living under Emmie’s regime, I was momentarily nonplussed at finding myself kneeling over a dead man in a faux opium den, with my half-naked cousin standing beside me and my wife whispering joyful tidings in my ear. But I soon recovered, and, trying to be helpful, suggested Jimmy send his driver out to fetch the police.

“I’ll find a policeman,” he replied. “He must pick up the midnight tour. That’s always the most popular. And this will be a very compelling show—a dead body, the police… a magnificent show!”

The second he and the driver went off, the other Chinamen vanished like phantoms in the night. The only ones now in the room were myself, Carlotta, Aunt Nell, and Emmie—plus the dead man, whose pockets she was exploring.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked. “It might be best to wait for the police.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But I am after all the one who paid to have him shot.”

“You paid to have him shot?” Aunt Nell asked.

“Well, not him specifically.”

Aunt Nell looked at me for an explanation.

“Welcome to Emmie-land.”

“I can’t find anything with his name,” its chief inhabitant announced. “But he’s carrying quite a bit of money. Three hundred and thirty dollars.”

“Well, make sure you leave it there,” I told her. “Society at large generally frowns on the mugging of corpses.”

Carlotta, who’d been sincerely shaken since the discovery that the man had indeed been shot, informed us he was an actor named Ernie Joy.

“I thought the victim was going to be played by one of the Chinamen,” Emmie said.

“Yeah, me too. I don’t know why Ernie was here.”

“Do you know him?”

“Sure, I know him. He’s a big act. You must’ve seen him.”

“How is it exactly you paid to have the man shot, Emmie?” I asked.

“Well, it was for you, Harry. Remember on our anniversary I told you your present would be a surprise to come later?”

“I assumed you’d just forgotten to buy something.”

“Oh, no. I wanted to get you something exciting. I hate to say it, Harry, but you’ve become rather listless lately.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, you have. And in thinking about it I realized you’re always least listless when we’ve gotten involved with some crime, preferably a murder. So I’ve spent the last several weeks trying to get you interested in various murders that came up in the newspaper. But you were always indifferent. Even the case of the man found shot dead in a locked room, with no gun to be found.”

“Emmie, the killer shot him and left the room, locking the door after himself. And the dead man’s son had threatened to kill him four times in the prior week. There was no mystery about it. But how’s any of that explain your connection to the shooting of Mr. Joy?”

“Well, last week I ran into Carlotta. She told me how she’d been performing for Mr. Yuan’s tours. Then it dawned on me—instead of finding a corpse to interest you, I could arrange to have one laid at your feet. So I spoke with Mr. Yuan and, for a price, he was more than happy to comply.”

“Where’d you get the gun?” I asked.

“From Carlotta. It was just a prop gun. Someone must have switched it with a real gun.”

“And the intended victim?”

“That fellow who joined the tour in the fan tan room. He was really Mr. Yuan’s driver.”

“And the killer?”

“A Chinese farmer. All the opium addicts are played by farmers, I’m not sure why.”

“THEY work
cheap
, THAT’S why,” Carlotta added.

“Perhaps we should look for the gun,” I suggested.

We made a thorough search of the room, but found nothing. The obvious conclusion was that the killer had taken the gun with him.

“So where’s the prop gun?” I asked.

Carlotta began feeling around her bunk.

“I can’t find it. I put the gun near the edge here. Lou—he’s the one who plays the killer—takes it from there, shoots, and then he’s supposed to drop it.”

“Why doesn’t he just carry the gun away?”

“Because I need it for my act. It doesn’t leave my sight.”

“Did Lou take the gun from your bunk tonight?”

“Sure.”

“So you must have put a real gun where the prop gun was supposed to be.”

“Where would I get a real gun?”

Carlotta went into a little room off to the side that she used to change. When she’d finished, I searched the room just in case the prop gun had gotten left in there. It hadn’t. About a minute later, Jimmy returned with a beat cop and showed him the corpse.

“If this is another prank of yours, you’ll be on the next boat back to China.”

“Singapore,” Jimmy corrected. “It’s no prank this time.”

The cop looked us over suspiciously and then knelt down by the late Ernie Joy.

“Looks like you got a real one. I’ll go call it in.”

When he’d left, I asked Jimmy what he’d meant about pranks.

“When Mrs. Reese came up with the marvelous idea to include a murder, I thought it would seem more authentic to have a policeman appear soon after the shot was fired. Regrettably, Officer Conroy didn’t appreciate the opportunity I was presenting him.”

“Have you been having a murder for each tour?” Emmie asked indignantly.

“Sure, why not?” Carlotta answered.

“I was paying an extra fifty dollars for mine!” Emmie said.

“Yes,” Jimmy agreed. “But see, you have a real murder. It’s much better.”

“He’s right, Emmie,” Carlotta added. “Yours was a lot more believable. Jimmy’s driver would just fall like a sack of potatoes. Say, Harry, what did you think of my scream? I know the first one wasn’t any good. But that last one was a real pip, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes. Blood curdling.”

“I need to remember it. A good property scream comes in handy.”

There’d been a marked change in Carlotta’s speech over the past couple years. Deterioration, her mother would call it—a strict woman who took matters of grammar, and most everything else, rather seriously. I remember having to forgo cake one afternoon after misusing a gerund. Until she entered show business, Carlotta had spoken impeccable English. But five years in theatrical boarding houses had taken a toll.

“I expect a full refund, Mr. Yuan,” Emmie insisted. “In the meantime, perhaps we should agree on a story for the police. After all, the truth might give the appearance that we were involved in the murder.”

“Not Aunt Nell and myself,” I pointed out. “We’d better stick to the truth. I think that will be fantastic enough without any of your embellishing.”

“I wasn’t thinking of embellishing, but simplifying.”

This was an absurd notion. Emmie is genetically incapable of simplifying anything. If she comes home from the butcher without the intended pork roast, her explanation will require ten minutes and encompass a dozen characters. And an innocuous incident involving one of the neighbors sounds like grand opera by the time she’s done with it.

I asked Jimmy if he’d taken pains to set up legally.

“I pay Officer Conroy five dollars every Saturday.”

“Very generous. What about his captain?”

“I don’t know his captain.”

“Something tells me you’ll be meeting him in the near future. I hope you have your bankroll with you.”

“We’ll need to keep Ernie Joy’s identity a secret,” Emmie announced.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, for one thing it will look very bad for Carlotta. A man she knows stands in the wrong spot and is shot by a gun she provided. And that, in turn, would reflect badly on Mr. Yuan, as manager of the show.”

“Yes, better the police not know about that,” Yuan agreed.

“All right,” I said. “But they’ll figure out who he was in a day or so.”

A minute later, Officer Conroy returned with a sergeant named Eckel. He was a typical precinct sergeant, a big, middle-aged fellow with the old-style policeman’s moustache. He began questioning Jimmy in that sharp way precinct sergeants do when they come across some criminal enterprise operating in their dominion without their having profited from it.

“Who gave you a permit to operate an entertainment here?” he asked Yuan.

“Permit? This is no entertainment, Sergeant. I merely provide a glimpse of Chinatown life for educational purposes.”

“Yeah? Why do it down here on the West Side?”

“You see, no one can operate a proper tour in Chinatown just now. On account of the tong war.”

“What tong war?”

“The Chop Sing Tong tried to steal sight-seers from the Hip Sing Tong.”

“They’re fighting over the tourist trade?” I asked.

“Yes. A very brutal court battle. First the Hip Sings sued the Chop Sings, then of course the Chop Sings counter-sued.”

“So you thought you’d set up here in the second precinct and corner the market?” Eckel asked.

“Sergeant,” Emmie interjected. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in the dead man?”

“Who are you?”

“She’s my wife,” I said.

“And who are you?”

“Harry Reese. We were on the 10:30 tour. It seems part of Yuan’s show involved staging a murder. Tonight, instead of firing blanks, the gun fired a real bullet.”

It was then that Sergeant Eckel noticed Carlotta. “Who’s the baggage?”

“I’m a professional,” she told him.

“I don’t doubt it.” Then he turned back to Jimmy. “Who fired the gun?”

“Lou Ling,” Yuan replied.

“Where’s he now?”

“Part of the act is that he makes his escape through a trapdoor,” I said.

“He should be back for the midnight tour,” Yuan explained.

“What makes you think he’ll be back?”

“Oh, this was just an accident.”

The sergeant walked over to the trapdoor.

“Where’s this lead to?”

“Just out to the alley.”

“Conroy, check it out.”

The patrolman knelt down and opened the door.

“It’s too dark to see anything,” he said apprehensively.

Eckel gave him a kick of encouragement. “Get going.” Then he walked over to the corpse. “Who’s the dead man?”

“Just another fellow on the tour,” I told him.

“Part of the act is to shoot a tourist?”

“No,” Jimmy said. “Another of my people, Wah Lee, is the one who is supposed to be shot. But he was delayed, and the dead man unfortunately stood in the wrong place.”

Just then, Jimmy’s driver arrived to say that the midnight tour was waiting downstairs.

“There won’t be any more shows tonight,” Eckel announced. Then, nodding toward the driver, he asked, “Who’s this?”

“This is Wah Lee,” Jimmy told him.

“Where was he when the shot was fired?”

Yuan queried Lee in Chinese, then told Eckel, “He stopped to tie his shoe.”

“Oh, yeah? Why just then?”

There was now what seemed an extended dialogue between Jimmy and his driver. When it was over, Jimmy turned back to Eckel. “Because it was untied.”

“You’ll notice, Sergeant,” Emmie said, “the men are about the same height. The shooter probably just mistook the dead man for this fellow here.”

“Not seeing he wasn’t a Chinaman? Or the jacket?”

“He was standing half in shadow. I’m sure this was just an accident.”

“That will be for the captain to decide.”

A police surgeon arrived and began looking over Joy’s body. When he’d finished his examination he came over to the sergeant. “He’s dead. Shot once just south of the heart. Couldn’t find anything with a name.” He directed his men to remove the body and then he handed Eckel Joy’s effects, counting out one hundred and fifty dollars.

“But I…,” Emmie began to protest, but I gave her a little kick.

Officer Conroy returned. “Leads out to the alley, just like he said. No sign of a gun.”

Eckel turned to Jimmy. “All right, here’s where we stand. This may just be an accident, and you all innocent. Or it may have been murder, in which case this operation will be closed and all your goods and chattels confiscated. That will be up to the captain to decide in the morning.” Then he poked Jimmy in the chest. “You’re free to go tonight, but I suggest you make good use of the time. Call on your friends and take up a collection. Be at the Second Precinct at eight sharp. And you be there, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

With that he left us.

“I think they have you, Mr. Yuan,” I said.

“How much do you think I’ll need?”

“Oh, quite a bit, I imagine. This isn’t the Tenderloin. Opportunities for payoffs are few and far between, and the captain may harbor a certain resentment about it.”

“You could hire us to solve the case, Mr. Yuan,” Emmie said.

“You?”

“Yes, Harry’s a well-known insurance investigator. And I’m his able assistant. Surely you heard of the episode of the missing gold? Just last summer, on the steamship
L’Aquitaine
. Harry found the gold in just five days. Hire us and we’ll prove your innocence, and no doubt garner you a good deal of publicity besides.”