Ill-Fame (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 2) (27 page)

“This wasn’t your idea, no matter how hard you might try to convince me.” Queen took a cigarette out of his case. “Fred, do you want one?”

“I’m obliged, but no.”

Queen lit his smoke and pulled a drag. The kid was a jumble of emotions, he knew, and didn’t have the fortitude to assassinate the mayor in cold blood. Between the stress of a recently deceased father, final examinations and his romantic pursuits, the lad was ripe for being taken advantage of. All he needed to do was to calm Moonlight down and explain the folly of using this ridiculous radical discourse anymore. Frasier had the real criminal, Seaver Loftus, already behind bars, and that is what mattered. If he could prove that Loftus influenced the kid somehow, a conspiracy charge could permanently seal the actor’s fate.

Perhaps Queen could even twist things about a bit, and convince the mayor and the colonel that the threat had begun and ended with Seaver Loftus. Moonlight had a larger-than-life personality on campus, and who wouldn’t believe that this was anything more than an ill-conceived prank? The star back of the Golden Gophers, firing a gun in the air through a football, in silly celebration of his graduation.

“Kid,” he said. “Tell me the goddamn truth, and I think I can make it all go away.”

And then his plan suddenly went to hell. Without warning the door flew open and Maisy rushed in, followed closely by a flustered-looking Norbeck.

“Oh Dick!” she cried when she saw him. “What have you done?”

Moonlight’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw her, and then they narrowed in rage when he looked back to Queen.

Maisy gave a little gasp at his transformation, and Queen’s heart wedged in his throat for the confrontation he knew was about to come.

“I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Queen,” Moonlight snarled. “I was never going to kill anyone but you.”

Maisy stopped dead in her tracks and absorbed Dick’s words. Just minutes ago she’d wanted to rush into his arms, to apologize for raising a pistol at him, to plead for forgiveness for doubting his intent. In those moments after he’d been rushed off stage, she’d instantly regretted her decision to raise a weapon against the man who loved her more than life itself. There was more to the story, she told herself, as she’d battled the shaken crowd for the stage staircase, and then frantically tried each backstage door to find where Queen might had taken him. It’d been a mix-up, she was certain. There had to be an explanation for his brash and stupid action.

And now, she’d heard it.

She looked in horror at Detective Queen, who’d been so kind to her in the last day. Not only had he carefully and calmly answered all of her questions about her grandfather, but he’d also put up with her impetuous, headlong personality with the highest patience.

Queen looked back at her, and she was startled to see something more than mere compassion looking back, and it struck her harder than the back of Emil Dander’s hand. Did Detective Queen have romantic feelings towards her? Had Dick found out? And if so, how could it have happened without her knowing any of it?

“Dick,” she whispered, her face flushed and her eyes about to burst. “What do you mean?”

Her beau rattled the cuffs behind his back, and gave a groan. “Henri and I were friends, or so I’d thought. On the few occasions I’d visit for family dinner, my father would inevitably get sloshed and berate me in front of anyone within earshot. Henri must have sensed my frustration and anger. One day he pulled me aside, and said that he’d have him killed for me.”

“That’s a tall tale,” Norbeck exclaimed, and gave a low whistle.

“I in turn,” Moonlight continued with a sniffle, “only had to write a letter to Mayor Ames. Henri dictated, but it would be in my handwriting.”

“Did the contents of that letter not arouse your suspicion?” Maisy asked, her nerves trembling at his revelation.

“Small price to pay, my dear, to have ol’ Dad taken care of. You know how much I hated him. And so did you! It was for both of us in the end.”

“But you knew that Henri planned to assassinate the mayor!”

“He said it was only a jest. Meant to put a bit of fear in the old man. Nothing more. But he was the one that took my dad’s green, I’m sure of it, so I’ve got no reason to protect him.”

She gave a glance to Queen, to see his reaction to all of this. The detective looked back, his face grave, and he shook his head.

“He meant for you to go down for this, or he wouldn’t have asked you to do it. We can still get you out of this, Moonlight,” he said. “Half of the people in the city have pointed a gun at me at one time or another, and I don’t hold it against them. Why don’t we let...”

“Screw!” Moonlight shouted with a feverish eye, quivering like a caged terrier ready to row before a dog fight. “You’ve handled me roughly, Queen. You’d like to make off with my woman? Is that it? I’d pound you into the floor if these cuffs weren’t around my wrists. You’re too damn fresh!”

More posturing over me, Maisy thought, and it made her sick to her stomach. This was a culmination of two years, she abruptly realized, as nothing more than an object of attention. She was a pretty little curio, high on a cabinet shelf, and these men all fancied her and then fought over her like a piece of steak in a poor house. Dander, Uncle Martin, Jiggs Kilbane. Even Detective Queen and Dick. They all desired her, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever given them a real reason to. It was all so out of hand and insane. It was like she was a billiard ball on a pool hall table, getting knocked about without any say on her own fate.

“I don’t know what I’ve done, kid, to make you think this,” Queen said, his face slightly pale. “But a simple misunderstanding is an outrageous reason to kill someone.”

“It was more than that,” Moonlight croaked. “Maisy’s uncle came and found me last night. He told me what you were really made of. He said you raped girls as a pastime, and that y-y-you’d do it to her. Like a mad, randy dog, he said!”

“He’s alive? Is this a joke? Baum is a damn liar. I would never hurt the hair on a woman’s head.”

“It’s no joke, Queen. He swore on his own daughter’s grave that it was true.”

“He doesn’t have a daughter,” spoke up Maisy. These were ludicrous accusations, and Dick was a fool to have ever believed a slippery sentence from Uncle Martin’s mouth. She felt no emotion, either, at the thought of the fat old fraud still wandering the earth. She was exhausted, she suddenly realized, from all of this blind love, and wanted nothing more than to walk out of the room and not see any of them again. The loss of her grandfather, whom she hadn’t even properly grieved yet, would be her priority now.

“Where is the bastard?” Queen snarled. “Where is he?”

“Long gone,” said Moonlight. “On a train, far away from Minneapolis.”

So it was at that moment that Maisy chose to exit. She turned to the door, not caring what happened in the room next. All she could think about was the feeling of absolute liberation in her decision.

“Maisy!” cried Moonlight, desperation in his voice.

“Miss Anderson,” Queen said, taking a step towards her. She saw a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“Good bye,” Maisy said, without turning around. And with a good, hard slam she shut the door.

A smile slipped across her lips, as she anticipated the possibilities.

EPILOGUE

Queen sat in a café, across a nicked-up table from Freddy Bonge, sipping cups of lukewarm, coffee-tainted water. It was a scorching hot day, and the fan whirled lazily above them. Bonge mopped his brow with a table napkin, taking in the story.

“So where is Baum?” he finally asked, picking up his pencil and touching it to a page in his notebook.

“As far as I know, he’s on the other side of the country.”

“How about Kilbane’s money? The ten thousand big ones?”

“I don’t know,” Queen lied. The detective, in fact, did know. He had snatched the satchel of cush from Seaver Loftus just before the charlatan’s arrest. Queen had meant it for Maisy, but after she’d stormed out of the Armory he’d let her be.

So, the fat stacks of tin were his for the moment. Stashed away in a safe little spot in the wall behind a radiator in the kitchen. Ready to use on a rainy day.

And he’d lied to Bonge about something else too. Well, not exactly
lied
. Instead he’d chosen to give the reporter only a bare skeleton of the real story, leaving out the drama of Moonlight, which he’d managed to officially wash away with the dishwater.

Both the colonel and the mayor agreed after hearing the yarn in its entirety that it would be better for everyone to keep the kid out of jail. They’d decided together that passing Moonlight’s miscue off as a prank would avoid making the Minneapolis Police Department look incompetent, or God forbid, the administration look like an assembly of weak-kneed ninnies.

Of course there had been thousands of witnesses to Moonlight’s misguided monkeyshines, but Doc Ames had tweaked the story of the gun in the football to make it appear that he’d been part of the jest all along; feigning fear when the pistol fired, but having a good ol’ laugh over the “harmless” high jinks afterwards.

And there certainly would be no more invitation for Moonlight to join the ranks. Queen couldn’t have that after their sour conversation backstage at the Armory. He didn’t trust the kid as far as he could throw him, but, admittedly, he still liked him enough to want him to make a successful future. Hopefully that future would be in another state, far away from his father’s tainted legacy, but he guessed that he’d see him again soon, in some way, shape or twisted form.

“So,” Bonge said, leaning back in his chair. “You’ve painted a lovely picture. A rabid Irish thug in cahoots with a broken-down thespian. Add to that the malcontented drunkard Baum and you’ve got quite the hurly-burly on your hands. Anything else? Anything you’re keeping close to your sleeve?”

“Like what?”

“A motive, Queen. What business would a drowned old pooch like Baum have cavorting with Saint Paul criminals? What dragged him off of his flea-infested mattress?”

The detective took a sip of his coffee.
I know what this damn snoop is up to,
he thought.
But I won’t have Maisy squeezed through a wringer so the
Tribune
can peddle copies.

“I haven’t the slightest guess, Bonge. Why don’t you find him and ask him yourself?”

The reporter grinned his toothy grin and pushed a newspaper across the table.

“Page twelve of the
The Bemidji Pioneer
. Not a rag you see in Minneapolis often, but I’ve managed to get my mitts on a copy. You’ll find it interesting, I’m certain, and perhaps it’ll jar loose your memory. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make a call,” Bonge stood and stretched his rubbery little arms high into the air, giving a lazy yawn. “Are you picking up the check, Detective? We word-slingers, whilst able to wax eloquent over innumerable subjects with wondrous ease, get paid in nothin’ but bananas.”

“I get it,” Queen replied. “If Shakespeare had a trained monkey, it’d be you.”

“Correct,” Bonge chuckled. He scooped up his notebook and hat and scurried out of the café.

The reporter’s prying questions left an acrid taste in Queen’s mouth. But their deal was finished, now, and he could turn back to managing the Minneapolis rackets. He downed the last of his coffee, pulled out a coin, and laid it on the table. After a moment of hesitation, his curiosity aroused, he opened the paper to page twelve.

Immediately, his attention turned to a column under the headline “Town Notes”. His eyes darted through the humdrum village news until they finally rested on a name he recognized.

Miss Maisy Anderson came up from Minneapolis Saturday. She is the granddaughter of former sheriff, D. Anderson, and here to settle his estate.

Queen felt a fleeting glimmer of regret at her mention. And all of the questions he’d been torturing himself with over the last few days rose back to the surface. What had he done to make her turn her back on him? How could she have ever deduced his true feelings, when he’d tried his damnedest to hide them from his own self? Christ, she is so lovely, he thought, as he closed the paper, folded it up, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Such a smart young woman, one who had pulled herself from the muck with immeasurable tenacity. He thought that he even might love her, but a growl from his throat tore that ill-conceived idea into bits.

He would be a father to her, not a lover. That was his role, and it was what she deserved. If she needed him, he would come.

Even if it meant killing Martin Baum. Or putting Moonlight Darling behind bars. Or suffering the company of Trilly Flick. Whatever it took.

He wouldn’t let her step off another train platform and into the arms of hell again.

But until the time when he was needed, he had his own work to do. And before he fell headfirst back into the city’s machinations, he needed a proper christening. With a dry mouth and high expectations he took another coin from his pocket, and added it to the first.

“Waiter,” he shouted, his fingers beckoning in impatient unison.

“What can I get, you sir?”

“Whiskey,” he said, before the question even ended. “Double overalls from the top shelf and a Gluek to chase.”

“Two shots and a beer,” the waiter repeated.

His oath to Karoline was about to be smashed to pieces, but she was long gone and he was sure he didn’t care. Back to making the goddamn green, he thought with a grimace. And a ready, open spigot of liquid fortitude would make it go down so much sweeter.

HISTORICAL NOTES

I was very excited, I must admit, to introduce Frank Frasier to
The Big Mitt
fold. Frasier was a real-life superhero, and the man police chief John O’Connor counted on to chase down high-profile criminals and keep his city safe. Frasier had the wonderful reputation of being able to make his arrests with nothing but his commanding presence. In June of 1901, he was still at the very beginning of his detective career, but later that summer, when Vice President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Minnesota State Fairgrounds to deliver his “speak softly and carry a big stick” speech, Frasier was hand-picked by Roosevelt as the Rough Rider’s personal escort and bodyguard. I thought Frasier would be a great counterpart to Queen, as their investigatory styles and ethics are on opposite ends of the law-enforcement spectrum.