Come Hell or Highball (31 page)

Hisakawa stared at me. “You do not understand what ‘recipe' means?”

“What it means?”

“When Miss Clara says pork and beans recipe, she means—” Hisakawa glanced over his shoulder, and then leaned in closer. “—she means
bootleg
.”

My tongue went dry. “Bootleg? You were fired over bootleg? Doing a spot of illegal trafficking, perhaps?”

“Of course not,” Hisakawa said. “I was fired unfairly, but not because I was a bootlegger. It is true, I did procure cases of Canadian whiskey for Miss Clara from time to time. She was good to me, and not so crazy as they say.”

“Where did you get the bootleg?” Berta asked.

“I have connections. But I did not take a profit. Procuring whiskey was a courtesy to Miss Clara, something any good and loyal servant would do.”

“Okay. And what about Arbuckle? What did he have to do with this?”

“Why should I tell you? I merely wish to carry out my duties in this household, and leave that unfortunate business in the past.”

“If you don't speak up, Mr. Hisakawa,” I said, “innocent people might end up in the poke. Or worse.”

“Mr. Hisakawa,” Berta said, “I quite understand your dilemma. I have been a domestic servant myself for many, many years, and I know how servants are often unwittingly pulled into their masters'—and mistresses'—” She gave me a sidelong glance. “—absurd predicaments. Yet, this case is of the most pressing importance. We shall not tell a soul what you know about Arbuckle and the bootleg. Not a soul.”

Hisakawa was ashen. “Fitzpatrick has ways of making people tell. I have heard tales.”

“Please,” I said. “I'm begging you.”

He studied me. Pity glimmered. “Very well. I shall tell you, and then you will go.”

Berta and I bobbed our heads in agreement.

“One day about two weeks ago,” Hisakawa whispered, “I procured a new crate of Canadian whiskey for Miss Clara. Because she is a feeble, elderly lady, it was my custom to crowbar new cases open for her, in her private sitting room. No other servants could be trusted with such a task. Well, at that time, two weeks ago, I crowbarred the crate open, but instead of bottles of whiskey in the crate, there were cans. Cans of Auntie Arbuckle's Pork and Beans, with Miss Clara's own face staring back from the labels. I cautioned Miss Clara, but she was upset. She went to Mr. Arbuckle to demand an explanation. I was given notice later that day.”

I frowned. “But I don't quite see what—”

“Oh,
there
you are, Hisakawa,” a lady's voice warbled from the far end of the kitchen. “I forgot to tell Cook that I wish new potatoes for dinner tonight. Not whipped, since Mr. Van Goor cannot abide the cream that—Oh dear. Who's this?” Daphne St. Aubin's voice trailed off. She was a rangy dowager, draperied to the nines in maroon silk. “Who are these women, Hisakawa?”

“Madam,” Hisakawa said loudly, “I do not know who allowed these women into the house. They are selling subscriptions of some kind. I shall see them out.”

Mrs. St. Aubin peered at me hard. A little
too
hard.

Hisakawa herded Berta and me out of the kitchen. He slammed the door. The bolt thunked home.

*   *   *

“I think Mrs. St. Aubin recognized me,” I said to Berta as we swung through the garden gate into the alley.

“We have bigger fish to fry than that, Mrs. Woodby. For heaven's sake. Why must your mind incessantly wander to the outskirts of the matter? I understand that you have had a lovers' quarrel with Mr. Oliver, but you must focus!”

“All right,” I said, “then explain to me why Hisakawa had his trousers in a twist over seeing a crate of Auntie Arbuckle's Pork and Beans.”

We hurried down the alley.

“I would have thought, Mrs. Woodby, that you would be a bit quicker on the uptake. Do you not see? If Hisakawa opened a crate that he expected to be Canadian whiskey, and found instead cans of Auntie Arbuckle's Pork and Beans, then the crates were mixed up somewhere along the way.”

It sank in slowly. Then comprehension—and fear—flumed through me. “Arbuckle was smuggling
bootleg
.” I stopped in my tracks. “Hiding bottles of booze in crates labeled pork and beans.”

“Precisely.” Berta had stopped, too. She was breathing hard. “What is more, Hisakawa mentioned Mr. Fitzpatrick.”

“Do you suppose Arbuckle and Fitzpatrick were in business together?”

“That does seem to be the logical conclusion.”

“The crates must've been mixed up at a place where there were shipments of bootleg
and
shipments of pork and beans,” I said. “But where? If only Mr. Hisakawa had told us where he procured those crates of whiskey.”

“One possibility of the location springs to mind.”

“Oh. Right.” Neither of us needed to say it aloud:
the factory in the film
. I said, “I'd bet you anything that Ruby and Vera Potter, when they were filming that reel at the factory, saw something that made them realize it was a bootleg operation. I'd bet it was either Ruby or Vera who was blackmailing Arbuckle.”

“We must go to that factory,” Berta said. “With the camera. We shall photograph evidence of the illicit operation and turn over the pictures to the newspapers.”

“No! Are you off your rocker? We've got to notify the police. This is a federal crime we're talking about. And two murders, and gangsters, and—”

“Would you rather hand all of the hard-won fruits of our sleuthing to the police and let them solve the crimes?” Berta said. “After which you, with nothing to show for yourself, can go to live with your mother and father and go about after Miss Lillian, picking up her soiled handkerchiefs and Chisholm's health bread crumbs? Or would you prefer to join me in cracking this case ourselves, taking it to the newspapers, and receiving enough fame and adulation to open a proper detective agency and live as financially independent ladies?”

I stared at Berta. “Okay,” I finally said. “Okay. The only wrinkle is, how the heck will we find the factory?”

“It appeared to be in Brooklyn, you said, near the river. So, we shall hire a taxi, and motor past every riverside factory in Brooklyn until we find it.”

 

34

We Pony Expressed it back to Washington Square, and stopped by a newsstand to purchase a city map. My old map was in the Duesy, and the Duesy was in the clink.

Back at the love nest, I had gathered up the Brownie and checked its spool of film before I thought of Cedric. I looked around the sitting room. No Cedric. I whistled down the hallway.

No scamper of tiny paws. I went to the kitchen.

Cedric's pouf was empty.

I dashed to Alfie's bedroom. Berta was fixing her bun. “Is Cedric in here?” I asked.

“Why, no. I thought he was in the kitchen.”

“He's not.” My insides wrenched. I checked the bathroom and the foyer, and then went and looked in the kitchen again.

Only then did I see the note.

It looked straight out of a Thad Parker novel: mismatched letters snipped from newspapers and glued crookedly to a sheet of typing paper, at once carnivalesque and sinister:

t
His
IS
yOUr
l
aSt
Cha
Nce:
StoP
MED
dlinG
oR
You'Re
A
Go
NE
r
2

I tasted bile. My hands shook. I read and reread the note, but it wasn't soaking in.

Then Berta was at my side, reading over my shoulder. She clutched her locket. “Poor little mite.”

Eleven years ago, when the RMS
Titanic
slid to her icy grave, only three shipboard dogs survived. Two were Pomeranians. Perhaps this fact only suggests that first-class dogs, like first-class passengers, have better survival odds when lifeboats are in short supply. But I liked to think that those two Pomeranians on the
Titanic
survived because of the breed's particular verve.

And I needed to believe that Cedric could weather a kidnapping in style.

The telephone rang.

Berta went to answer it. I didn't pay attention as she spoke in low tones with someone. All I could think of was Cedric. How I'd neglected him during the past few days. How I'd foisted those horrid Spratt's Puppy Biscuits upon him.

Berta appeared in the kitchen doorway. “That was Eloise Wright, telephoning from Dune House. She said that she procured this telephone number from Mr. Luciano, and she wished to know if you would care to join Mrs. Arbuckle and her this weekend at Dune House. I told her you were indisposed.”

Who cared about Society Matron soirees at a time like this?

I managed to speak. “You don't think Cedric's really a goner, do you?”

“No.
No
. Who would do such a thing? No, surely he is safe and sound somewhere.…”

I wadded up the note and I blotted the picture of Cedric from my mind. I latched on to a single idea. “We'll find the bootleg warehouse,” I said. “We'll get those photographs and pinpoint the murderer. We'll find Cedric. We
will
.”

Except … there was a tiny glitch in that plan.

I dug into my handbag, rummaging past the Brownie, and found my coin purse. I snapped it open. Empty. I'd spent all my money, down to my last cent. “Have you enough money for a cab ride to Brooklyn?” I asked Berta.

Her lips made a small
O
. “No. No, indeed I do not.”

“What about bus fare?”

“I am very sorry, Mrs. Woodby. I am utterly, as you so succinctly put it once, on the nut.”

“But we have to get there. It's the only way to find Cedric!”

“Mrs. Woodby,” Berta said slowly, “it occurs to me that Mr. Oliver has a motorcar.”

*   *   *

We rushed the six blocks to Ralph's. I thumped my fist on his door.

Ralph cracked it. We'd woken him. His ginger hair was tufted like a guinea pig's, his eyes were bleary, and he was shirtless. “Here for your film reel?” he said. “It's still in my safe. I'll—”

“No, Mr. Oliver,” I said, breathless. “Would you, um, show me the key to your motorcar?”

“
Show
it to you? Are you kidding me?”

“It's a—it's about a clue. About Ruby Simpkin's Model T. It's
ever
so important.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“Hurry,” I said.

“Fine, fine.” He scratched the back of his head and padded away. In a moment, he was back, a small brass key dangling from his fingers on a narrow leather strap. “See?”

“Come closer,” I said.

He came closer. The key was stamped with the cursive word
Ford
.

I snatched the key and stampeded down the stairs. Berta huffed and puffed at my heels.

The Model T's engine would be cold, but there was no time to crank it. We slammed ourselves in, I started it up, and we peeled away from the curb.

Ralph leaned out a window. “Hey!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”

Berta poked her head out the passenger window, holding her hat with one hand. “To the factory in Brooklyn!”

I gunned the Model T around the corner. “Why did you tell him?” I said. “I don't want to see Mr. Oliver again. Ever.”

Berta settled into the seat. “You might change your mind.”

*   *   *

I nosed the motorcar through the traffic and over the Brooklyn Bridge while Berta inspected the city map.

“Oh my,” Berta murmured, her nose buried in the map. “Oh my, my, my.”

“What?” I sped around a delivery van.
“What?”

“Do you recall that Mrs. Wright had an address jotted on a sheet of paper on her desk, when we visited her Girdle Queen office on Tuesday?”

“Yes. Seventeen Wharfside. But what's that got to do with—? Oh! Don't tell me that—”

“Indeed, Mrs. Woodby. Wharfside is a road abutting the river. In Brooklyn. Go left after the bridge. And, if you do not mind me saying so, let her rip.”

We zigged and zagged and found Wharfside, a desolate dirt street lined with swaybacked wooden buildings. The midday sun bounced off broken machinery. Across the river, Manhattan was a sparkling mirage.

I slowed the Model T to a chug. “These buildings don't look like the factory on the film. It was all white and gleaming, and had a big sign that said ‘Auntie Arbuckle's Pork and Beans.'” The only sign that wasn't too faded to read said
HENRY & SONS
. “Maybe the address on Eloise's desk has nothing to do with the factory we're looking for.”

“The pork and beans sign may have been erected only for the film,” Berta said, “and then removed. After all, the place we are searching for is being used for criminal purposes. It might not be a real factory.”

We drove along. We didn't see a soul, except for a bunch of seagulls squawking on abandoned sheds.

“Wait.” I slammed on the brakes. “There it is. Third building on the left.”

Berta had guessed correctly: The pork and beans sign was not there. But I recognized the pale concrete walls, the eerie lack of windows, and the ramp leading to the truck-sized wooden door.

“You are certain?” Berta asked.

“Yes. That's the ramp in the film.” My breath caught. “Someone's over there.”

“Oh dear,” Berta murmured. “It is Jimmy.”

“Jimmy the Ant?”

“He does
so
dislike that name. Mr. Fitzpatrick insists upon it, as he feels it gives Jimmy the proper air of menace. But Jimmy prefers to be—”

“Could we talk about this some other time?” I reversed the Model T and drove around a bend. I parked in a weedy lot. “What are we going to do?”