The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (46 page)

“You’re not dressed for weather such as this,” Anderson said. “Those clothes are sore on my eyes.”

“Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black,” the man chided.

“Are you one of them dandified rump roasts that cad about town dressed in fine get-ups and make asses of themselves on Saturday night?”

“Do I look like that to you, old man?” His derby had slipped down over one eye and he glared at the sheriff with the other. “You’d best stop with the jests, and think for a moment about your situation.”

“What am I to think about, if you don’t tell me anything? If I don’t have anything to think about, I just let my mind wander, and consider what’s in front of me at the moment. At this moment it’s you, with your gasbag mouth and your gay cat clothes. Why don’t you just vamoose, boy, and leave me be?”

The pistol in the man’s hand shook, and he peered over it, in fiery rage. “My name is Jack Peach, granddad, and I work for Jiggs Kilbane. You know who he is?”

“Afraid not.”

“Well, here is a name you might have heard of. Martin Baum?”

Anderson’s toes began to tap, faster than before.

“I would have been satisfied to give you a quick end, old man, but I don’t feel sorry for you anymore, insulting my suit, so instead I’m thinking to give you something else instead.”

“How do you know Martin Baum?”

“Well, that’s his formal name, yes. He also goes by
Uncle
Martin. By a certain young lady.”

Panic rippled through the sheriff’s body. He suddenly didn’t want to hear the rest. The man scoffed at the sheriff’s stunned expression.

“You’ve been looking in all the wrong places. She’s much too pretty to be knocking about low-case joints. Only the best resorts for Maisy Anderson.”

“W-w-where?” Anderson sputtered. “Where?”

“Right under that crooked old beaker of yours. In Minneapolis, all along. She’s holed up in a tip-top resort. It’s the cheese, old man. Hot stuff, so don’t you worry. She’s got men lined up to grind her, night and day. She yowls away like the two-bit whore she really is.”

Anderson’s head went down into his thick hands, the pieces of his gun clattering to the floor. His head swelled with sudden dizziness, and he fought control of his senses. She is a prostitute. He’d known it all along, but to hear it, now, confirmed, hurt worse than he ever expected it would. Every ounce of pain was being squeezed out of his heart.

“I, for one, don’t think she deserves the goose feather pillows and perfumed sheets, but my boss, Mr. Kilbane, thinks she’s prettier than the Gibson Girl.”

Anderson lifted his head slowly, and met the man’s eyes. “Tell me where.”

“That would be a good question for your friend Baum. You’ve been wondering all this time who stole your little girl away, haven’t you?”

“Th-th-that’s impossible.”

“Impossible?” scoffed Peach. “God’s own truth. Martin Baum was waiting for her at the railway station. He promised to escort her to college, but sold her into a different kind of education instead.”

Anderson wouldn’t hear another word. He glowered with a hatred that blasted from his soul, come up like the devil to kill the man standing in front of him.

Unfortunately, though, the man he wanted dead had
him
dead to rights. Peach’s British Bulldog, steady again, was pointed at his head. One of Anderson’s pistols was pulled apart and scattered around his feet. His other thumb-buster was still holstered on his left hip, but the way he was sitting the gun’s grip was bent up at the back of his chair. Even if he went for his six-gun, it wouldn’t be smooth, and the man would draw a bead and bed him down.

But he had no choice. It was for Maisy.

Anderson’s left hand dropped to the gun on his hip. He closed his eyes, knowing that in this first exchange of bullets he would be the second fastest, but if the man missed, he would shoot him dead with his eyes closed.

The old sheriff had actually managed to unshuck the pistol halfway out of the holster. He was surprised he had been that fast, and then the bullet slammed against his forehead.

The sheriff’s eyelids fluttered for a moment and then stopped. Jack Peach had made his jack, and the lights were doused.

Neither of them knew what to think when the shot rang from outside. Both stood up together and started toward the door, but it opened on its own before they reached it.

Jack Peach stepped in, as handsome and toff as you please, his hat cocked jauntily and a fresh cigar in his fingers, his gun pointed at them.

“Hello, Queen. We’re back to last names.”

“Where did that shot come from, Jack? Was that you?”

“It was, and I’m sorry to say I had to put old rusty guts out of his misery. He’s been through enough, hasn’t he?”

“You killed him?” Queen’s heart almost leapt into his throat. The double-dealing bastard. He four-flushed me. Tricked me into trusting him and got us out here alone so he could knock us off one by one. The detective took a step back, bumping into the armchair behind him, his head exploding with anger over how he could have been so stupid as to trust this two-faced swell in front of him.

It seemed as if Peach could read his thoughts. “I’m here because of you,” he told Queen. “It’s much cleaner to kill you here than on a busy Saint Paul street. I got lucky and found grand dad, too.” He turned his head to Cahill and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s the way the world works, pal. No hard feelings.”

Cahill’s face collapsed, devastated. Peach saw his expression and gave him a patronizing pat on the shoulder, taking care to keep the gun aimed in Queen’s direction.

“Don’t look so black, chum,” he said. “Anyone else creeping around here?”

Queen searched the fringes of his vision for a weapon, any kind of weapon. Peach wasn’t going to sit down for a bottle of fizz with them before using that gun. He was methodical and efficient, and Queen knew the end was coming soon for them all, unless he could think of something fast.

The stickpin. It was still in his coat pocket.

“There are more detectives on their way, Jack.” Queen said. He took a step back, trying to draw Peach away from the room, as he hadn’t yet noticed Petey curled up under a blanket by the far fireplace, deep in sleep. “Your best choice might just be to burn the breeze and get as far away from the Twin Cities as you can go. You’ve just committed murder.”

“I know, I know,” Peach said. “I’ve been doing a lot of that recently, it seems. Dander and Higgins? That was my work. I also take responsibility for Ellie Van Allen, and her unfortunate tumble.”

“Ellie Van Allen?”

“The
real
name of the murdered whore who has led to this most unfortunate situation in front of us. Kilbane thinks I don’t know her history, but I know much more than I let on. She was the granddaughter of the Pennsylvania Van Allens, the family that owns Columbia Steel. A naughty, naughty girl she was. She came willingly at first, and enjoyed being Mr. Kilbane’s girl and escaping her tight-fisted grandfather’s grasp. But eventually she caused just too much trouble, and he sent her to Minneapolis and Dander to pummel her back into place. She didn’t like it much, and who could blame her? Having to live under Dander’s whip had to have been unbearable. She threatened to leave and go back to her family.
That
couldn’t happen, of course. I didn’t pull the trigger myself, but Kilbane wanted it done, so I gave Dander the order.” Peach leaned against the door as he continued, one knee pulled up casually, foot resting on the door’s frame. “And I was there to make sure it happened.”

“I’ll bet you were on the corner smoking a cigar too, with a big old cloud of smoke circling your head.”

The mouthy little boy at the crime scene had seen Peach, not Cahill after all. He checked Tom for his reaction, but the kid just clutched his smashed hand, still reeling from the sheriff’s death. And here stood Jack Peach, admitting everything, because they would all be dead in a matter of minutes. Even slumbering little Petey, who had been through too much already, would continue sleeping for eternity, once this dude in the flash suit put a bullet into his brain.

Slowly, Queen reached into his pocket, and grasped the stickpin in his fingers.

“Go ahead, Queen. Take whatever you have in there out for me to see. Let’s have a little fun. You aren’t a very good gambler, though, let me remind you.” He chuckled, dropped his cigar on the carpet, and stamped it out.

Queen’s legs pushed against the chair behind him, and he stepped to the side of it and then back, toward the library. He hoped Peach would move forward out of instinct, as the aggressor, and he was right. Peach closed in, still waiving his little British Bulldog pistol, and then Tom was no longer next to him, but behind.

“Walking with a bit of a limp, eh, Queen? Somebody hurt you? That burned corpse out there, perhaps? You think I was wrong to kill the old man, but you set someone on fire.”

“Tom, paste him!” Queen shouted. Peach stared at Queen for a half second, stunned, and then whirled around to face Cahill, who faltered back, equally surprised.

Queen ripped the stickpin out of his pocket and lunged at Jack Peach, almost tripping over the carpet in his rush to get to him. He plunged the pin into Peach’s arm, and Peach let go of his gun. Queen felt the pistol land on the carpet next to his foot.

The gangster gave a soft grunt and glanced at where the stickpin stuck inside him like a needle in a pincushion. His eyes blinked mild concern, as though the hole in his suit disturbed him more than the hole in his arm. Then he gave a wry little smile and brought his fist up with a fast, brutal uppercut to Queen’s chin. Queen staggered back and Peach moved forward, giving the detective a vicious kick to his already injured knee. Queen’s leg collapsed under him and he fell onto Peach. He grabbed ahold of the gangster’s lapels for support and then dragged him into the library. They wrestled for the upper hand, knocking books from shelves and breaking pictures with their heads as they bounced like billiard balls from one wall to another. As they tussled, Queen took every chance he could to slap and tug at the pin, adding to a spreading patch of blood on Peach’s coat.

Queen knew, though, that Peach could sense he was tiring fast. Peach wore an expression of mild amusement as he flung the detective across the room and into a corner lamp, sending bits of colored glass onto the floor. Queen tried to rise and Peach shoved him back again, hard into the wall this time. The gangster was maintaining his strength, while Queen’s was draining quickly, but the detective still managed to stand. He lifted his arms and his hands formed shaky fists, which made Peach chuckle.

“I told you before that you’re too damn old,” Peach said and moved towards him with a snake’s speed. Queen balled his hand but Peach was already behind him, his forearm tight around the detective’s neck in an iron lock. The gangster grabbed a glass paperweight from the desk and slammed it into Queen’s side, and the detective squeezed his eyes shut to contain the pain that exploded through his kidney. Finally, with a great heave, Peach pushed Queen, face down, onto the massive desk, sending an inkwell and an ashtray crashing to the floor.

“I’ve got you now,” Peach laughed, face bright red from the exertion. “First a streetcar chase, and now this. You’ve really given me something to remember you by.”

He held Queen down with an open paw around the detective’s neck, and with the other hand extracted the stickpin from his arm. He examined it with a quick grin.

“I don’t know if this’ll sting or not, but since you insisted on prolonging this, I guess it’s about what you deserve.”

Queen managed to twist his head enough to see Peach raise the stickpin, ready to bring it down hard into his back. He also saw Tom Cahill come up from behind, Peach’s Bulldog pistol in his good hand.

“Shoot, Tom, shoot!” he shouted.

“I can’t see without my glasses!” Cahill screamed back.

“Shoot!” Queen screamed so loud his voice caught in his throat, and the word ended in a whisper.

Jack Peach was never, ever one to lose his head, even in life and death situations. But now, for the briefest of moments, Queen saw with satisfaction, Peach’s face showed fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. Then a single shot cracked, and Queen felt Peach’s full weight fall on him, pinning him to the desk.

With his one good hand, Tom pushed Peach’s corpse off him. It hit the floor with a hard thud. Cahill was holding back tears. While once, not long ago, Queen might have berated the naive, confused kid for showing weakness; he didn’t blame him now, not in the slightest.

“What the goddamn deuce just happened?” Queen asked, and he wondered it with all of his heart.