A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4) (3 page)

“But in the morning….”

“Just stall them,” Emmie advised. “Then you can get the proper permit in another precinct.”

“Yes, perhaps that would be less expensive.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed. “But certainly more dangerous. That sergeant meant business.”

“Don’t mind Harry, he’s prone to these bouts of caution. Think instead of the free advertising. Your tour will prove more popular than the real Chinatown.”

Though Emmie’s advice was typically suspect, it seemed to appeal to Jimmy’s venal nature. She took his equivocal response as approval.

“As it happens, both Harry and I are free to begin the investigation at once. Where would we find the man who fired the gun?”

“Lou Ling. He works at one of the farms over in Queens. He’s a cricket charmer.”

“A cricket charmer?” I asked.

“Yes. The best there is, I’m told.”

“The crickets give testimonials?”

“How would we find this farm?” Emmie interjected.

“You take the ferry to Hunter’s Point. Then catch the Steinway car. After about two miles, you’ll come to Astoria, where you’ll see the silk mill. It’s just down toward the river from there.”

“And Lou Ling works there?”

“I believe so. But perhaps it’s the other farm, up at Bowery Bay. I don’t remember which.”

Then he hurried off to tap his friends. An unpleasant task, but a sure way to get an accurate measure of their affection.

Finding ourselves alone in the warehouse, the four of us made our way through the poorly lit labyrinth. After several wrong turns, and a long detour through a corridor lined with barrels of what smelled like offal, we eventually arrived at the alley where we’d come in. Jimmy’s driver and the electric wagon were nowhere to be seen. And since we weren’t likely to find a cab in that neighborhood at one in the morning, we started walking toward Park Row and the all-night cars.

“SAY, HarRY. COULD
you
put
me
UP FOR the
night
?” Carlotta asked. “I’ve been staying at a friend’s place and she’s already pretty bothered by me coming in late. And now I can’t find the key. If I wake her up again, she’ll murder me.”

“We’re pretty full right now. You’ll need to take the maid’s room.”

“With her in it?”

“No, the position’s vacant.”

“All right, just so I don’t have to clean anything.”

Even in her present informal state, with her chestnut mane flopping out of a carelessly pinned knot, it was hard to imagine Carlotta doing any sort of drudgery. She carried her stout buxom frame in an almost laughably regal manner. Which, when combined with her singular voice, provided a sound basis for a career in light comedy.

“Could someone have put a real bullet in the prop gun?” Emmie asked her.

“No, only blanks. You can’t be too careful with that crowd.”

“How do you think the gun got switched?” I asked.

“Can’t say. It was definitely the prop gun when we did the show last night. Then I took it home and it never left my trunk, ’til I brought it tonight.”

“Didn’t you realize it was the wrong man standing there?”

“It was dark.”

“Yes, but it looked to me like he whispered something to you.”

“Oh, all right. I knew it was Ernie. But I figured he was just playing the part tonight. Definitely an improvement. Jimmy’s driver is no actor.”

“Of course, Ernie had the benefit of actually being shot. What did he say to you?”

“He just said, ‘What are you doing here, Coochie?’”

“Coochie? Do you coochie, Carlotta?”

“Never mind that. Don’t tell me you two don’t have pet names.”

“Maybe so. But we have the good taste not to reveal them.”

We caught a Flatbush Avenue car to Prospect Park and then walked the half block to our building through the deserted plaza. Suddenly, out of the darkness, a rough-looking thug came upon us. I made ready to defend the three ladies, or, at the very least, facilitate the handing over of their valuables. But this was no desperado effecting an ambush. It was my old friend Seaman Thibaut Francher, formerly of the steamship
L’Aquitaine
, and more recently part owner of a Red Hook saloon, La Musardine Miellée. A rat hole sort of place that chiefly provisioned passing French sailors.

Thibaut is not the sort of character you can just drop into the stew with a cursory comment, so you’ll need to excuse a short digression. He was a short, squat Frenchman, with a round face and dark, oily hair. He knew no English, so we had communicated through a combination of my rudimentary French and his expertly executed pantomime. His talent at this art was his most notable characteristic. His unquenchable thirst being a close second.

He had been on watch when the gold was stolen aboard
L’Aquitaine
. And I used his notorious incompetence to lure the thieves into relocating the treasure they’d hidden. On the concluding day of our voyage, I uncovered the gold. Then, as they so often have since I married Emmie, things took an unexpected turn. There was a sort of mutiny by the three fellows who’d been helping me—Thibaut being one of the three. Eventually, I negotiated my way out of that predicament and was able to turn over the gold to the authorities—less the three bars the mutineers had won through hard bargaining and compelling threats on my life.

When we landed in New York, I helped them dispose of their loot, and was amply rewarded for it. That was a year before the present account.

Thibaut and Emmie, who spoke French much better than I, had a little conversation.

“Poor Thibaut’s been put out by his friends,” she announced. “Apparently the business hasn’t been going well. I told him he could sleep on the sofa.”

Up in the apartment, we found a note from Charlie. He and his wife had left for an early-morning train back to Buffalo. No one was terribly surprised. And even Aunt Nell seemed relieved to be rid of the daughter-in-law she’d taken to calling “the swooner.” As an added benefit, their exit alleviated our housing shortage. We could now put Carlotta in the third bedroom and Thibaut in the maid’s room. I went with him through the kitchen to show him the way. As soon as he opened the door, a shrill voice screamed from the darkness.

“
Not now, Harry!
”

Thibaut jumped back, and the others soon joined us.

“Who was that?” Aunt Nell asked.

“The damn parrot. It’s in the maid’s room,” I informed her.

I went in and carried out the cage.

“
Ohhhh, Harrr-eeey
,” the bird goaded.

Carlotta giggled. “He pick that up from you, Emmie?”

“One of our guests thought it would be amusing to make people think so.”

I put it in a closet and muffled its protests with Emmie’s winter coat. Then, at long last, we all went to bed.

For me, the respite was a short one. At eight I was woken by a steady drip of ice water on an exposed knee.

“There had better be a fire, Emmie.”

“Oh, there is a fire, Harry. A murder is being neglected. And only we can put things right.”

“Have you been reading dime novels again?”

“Are you suggesting I imagined what happened last night?”

“Well, it did have all the markings of one of your imaginings.”

“Yes, I suppose it did. It’s marvelous, really.”

Emmie thought a great deal of her imaginings. In written form they were amusing enough. But living them was another matter. Over the previous twenty-odd months I’d made dozens of visits to Emmie-land. Some lasted just hours, some days. Given the prize plum of an opening she’d been handed the night before, I expected this stay would be an extended one.

As it happened, my work had gone from slow to dead a month or so before. So I couldn’t claim any pressing engagements elsewhere. Besides, it’s generally a good idea to keep an eye on Emmie whenever she involves herself in police matters. She frequently becomes impatient in a way policemen find annoying.

I emerged from my bath to find her making some sort of intricate chart on a large pad of paper mounted on an easel.

“Planning our lines of attack?”

“Before we can do that, we need to ascertain the facts. Now, since we have a murder where the dead man and his killer
appear
to be unknown to each other, the first thing we need to do is determine all the various connections among the parties involved.”

“Are you sure what we have isn’t an accidental killing brought about by the coincidental incompetence of Carlotta and the fellow who has trouble lacing his shoes?”

“You’re forgetting the additional coincidences.”

“Which are?”

“First, that Ernie Joy, a man who resided in New York, would join a tour of Chinatown, alone, and seemingly on the spur of the moment. And when we were taken to a place nowhere near Chinatown, instead of protesting, he was the one most anxious to proceed. No, Mr. Joy was not out slumming. He had some purpose in mind.”

“Well, I admit his behavior was a little odd. What other coincidences do you have in store?”

“Second, Carlotta knew Ernie Joy.”

“Yes, but they did seem genuinely surprised to see each other.”

“I’m not saying they were complicit in the crime. No doubt they were mere pawns for the mind that engineered the intrigue. Mr. X, we might call him.”

“What intrigue?”

“The carefully planned intrigue that brought Ernie Joy, a loaded gun, and a willing shooter to that particular place, at that particular time. What makes it so diabolical is that the killer was an unwitting tool. Yes, there can be no doubt that Mr. X is a criminal genius. And most likely unknown to all the others involved.”

“Kind of a Professor Moriarty?”

“Yes, exactly. Our work will not be easy, Harry.”

“No, and I have a feeling it won’t be very rewarding. The odds of Jimmy Yuan having anything left after that precinct captain bleeds him are extremely long.”

“Oh, who cares about money?”

“The landlord seems to have developed an affection for it. Not to mention the butcher, the grocer, the laundry….”

“Would we be any wealthier hanging about here?”

“No, but we’d at least be better rested when opportunity finally arrives.”

“Opportunity? We’ve been handed a golden opportunity. Even if Mr. Yuan pays us nothing, think of the exposure. Remember how right I was about the case of the missing gold on
L’Aquitaine
. It was the publicity that allowed you to set up in business.”

“Partly. Mostly it was my share of the booty.”

“Oh, I feel certain Mr. X must have wealth far beyond that trifle of gold.”

“And you expect him to share it with us?”

“Harry, couldn’t you show some imagination for once?”

“I’ve always thought it best to leave that to you,” I admitted. “Were there any more coincidental connections?”

“Yes, there is one more. Your connection to Carlotta.”

“And your connection to her by marriage. But there’s another you don’t know about.”

“Don’t you think you should tell me?”

“When I was in college I was on the debating team for a period.”

“I find that rather hard to believe. What do you know of rhetoric?”

“A lot more since marrying you. My tenure on the team was brief. But I remember meeting Jimmy Yuan on an opposing team. Maybe Syracuse.”

“He didn’t seem to remember you.”

“It may surprise you to learn, Emmie, but among upstate college men, a fellow from China stands out a bit more than a fellow from Utica.”

“Singapore. Still, your point is a valid one.”

“So now that we have the web of connections, what’s next?”

“We only have the visible connections. Now we need to find the invisible. I suggest we first visit Ernie Joy’s boarding house.”

“How do you know where he was living?”

“From a receipt I found in his pocket.”

“I thought you said there was nothing with his name on it.”

“Did I?”

A few minutes later, Emmie and I took a car across the bridge and then the L up to 14
th
Street. Joy had lived at a house just a couple blocks from the station. A girl answered the door and Emmie opened the conversation.

“Hello. I’m Ernie Joy’s cousin.”

“He ain’t here. Didn’t come home last night. But you come on in.”

She led us to a dining room where a fellow and two women were sitting with coffee.

“This here’s Mr. Joy’s cousin,” she told the middle-aged woman at the head of the table.

“I’m Mrs. de Shine,” she said. “I’m afraid Ernie seems to be out.”

“I’m Lucinda Ormsbee,” Emmie told her. “And this is my husband, Oliver. I take it you haven’t heard the news.”

“What news is that, dear?”

“Poor Ernie was killed last night. Shot dead,” Emmie announced. Then she dabbed her cheeks with a handkerchief in the manner of a tent-show tragedienne.

“Ernie, shot dead?” the younger woman squealed. Mrs. de Shine went over to her.

“Where’d this happen?” the fellow asked.

“At an opium den, I’m afraid,” Emmie confessed. The handkerchief made another trip north.

“You two better sit down,” our hostess advised. She poured us some coffee.

“An
opium
den
?” The fellow seemed disbelieving.

“Well, not a real opium den,” I told him. There didn’t seem any point in exaggerating the faults of the dead. “A fellow named Jimmy Yuan has been running a make-believe Chinatown at a West Side warehouse. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?”

“Ernie’s been headlining at Proctor’s 23
rd
Street for the last two weeks,” he informed us.

“Was he there last night?”

“Sure he was there,” the squeaky one said.

“When did he leave the theatre?” Emmie asked.

“Just after his turn.”

“What time was that?”

“Just before ten, didn’t even bother to change.”

“Maybe he was meeting someone,” Emmie suggested.

“The White Rats,” the girl whispered.

“White Rats?” Emmie asked. “Who are they?”