The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (23 page)

I did my best to keep Lauren and Veronica from scooting off my knees, but both vanished and I was left saying, “Huh?”

“The Chinese, dammit. See where they go.”

I chased the brains around in my skull, wondering what he meant, and was still chasing when someone shouted, “Fire!”

That someone was the Old Man. He was a ghostly bear blundering about in the darkness, yanking dreamers from their bunks and creating pandemonium.

Watch the Chinese,
he'd said.
See where they go.

Slipping to the floor, I joined the befuddled mob and spotted one of the employees swimming against the tide. I moved to intercept him, but at the rendezvous point found nothing but bare wall.

I was scratching my head when the bald gent squirted from his hall office and danced past me. I felt a breeze at my back, turned, and watched his shirttails disappear into a gap in the wall. I followed the shirttails. They led me down a narrow tunnel.

Three crooked passageways and two flights of stairs later, I emerged into the basement of a Chinese laundry.

So this was what the Old Man wanted me to find. An escape route.

I was grateful, but not nearly grateful enough to worry what had become of him.

As it happened, he was fine. I found him camped on my doorstep Thursday morning when I left for work. A purple mouse clung to his face beneath his right eye, but he appeared otherwise unscathed. The bad news—or good, depending where you sat—was that he'd been spotted as the false-alarmer and was no longer welcome at Hung Lo's.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop him from following me to the office and regaling Abernathy with more of his mystery-writing claptrap.

Abernathy escaped him long enough to say, “We'll need extra guns for Saturday's party. See what Seattle and Spokane can send us.”

Borrowing men from other Continental branches made sense, since I was one of only three operatives on Portland's regular roster.

When I told the Old Man he practically salivated. “That's my meat,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

Another night of pretend opium smoking—this time solo—went by before I found out what that meant. The occasion was a Friday-morning powwow in the Old Man's hotel room, attended by four men twice my age.

“Mike, Alec, and Rufus,” the Old Man said, shooting the first three with his finger. He nodded at the fourth. “And we'll call him Bob.”

I didn't like that so much. “Don't they have real names?”

“Sure,” the Old Man said. “But names are overrated.”

He then pronounced mine, producing a round of sniggers, but whether his pals considered it his joke or my father's I couldn't tell.

There was a lot of talk about people I didn't know, places I'd never been, and cases I'd never heard of. I smiled when they laughed and frowned when they swore, trying to be one of the gang, but I might as well have been wearing short pants and a beanie. The only one who addressed me directly was Mike, and that was to offer me bubblegum.

I learned things, though, including that all four belonged to the San Francisco branch, and had ridden the red-eye up the coast. All knew the Old Man well enough to kid him, but only to a point. Beyond that they treated him with the deference due a powder keg.

At last the Old Man explained the job, saying that Abernathy was too damn cozy with Nick Zartell, that we were putting both men under the lens, and that they may or may not be cooking up something involving opium. The Old Man wanted all the dirt that could be had on all concerned, and he wanted it ten minutes ago. One way or another, he said, we'd be participating in a raid on Hung Lo's Hop House, but how we'd play it was yet to be determined.

When Alec asked the source of the dirt on Abernathy, the old Judas nodded my way, and if the heat in those men's eyes had been real I'd be nothing but a soot stain on the woodwork. To his credit, the Old Man then launched into a barnburner of a speech starting with
Rally 'round the flag,
building up to
Win one for the gipper,
and bringing it home with a taste of
Give me liberty or give me death.
And it worked, after a fashion. By the time he finished, three of the four were able to look me in the eye without spitting. Clearly, they hated corruption in the ranks only slightly more than the rat who squealed about it.

The number of women who'd visited my apartment could be counted on one hand—with three fingers change—and the last had promised to return when hell got frosty. So when I keyed myself into the dark living room and smelled perfume, I knew something was up.

I had a fistful of .38 when I snapped on the lights and said, “Show yourself or eat lead.”

“My God, Petey. Have you been reading Mickey Spillane again?”

A middle-aged woman with sharp features and a sharper figure emerged from my bedroom. She wore a red dress decorated with poker hands and a hat that belonged in a birdcage.

I put the gun away, saying, “Why the long face, Ma? No skin magazines under my mattress?”

“You needn't be nasty,” she said. “I was worried about you.”

“And lizards have wings. Did Zartell send you?”

She peered at the sofa, brushed off an invisible speck, and perched on the edge. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

I shrugged out of my overcoat, mixed up her favorite—gin and bitters—and filled her hand with the glass.

“Now give. What do you want?”

“You know how I feel about Nick,” she began.

“Sure,” I said. “Same way you feel about dung beetles.”

She smiled and sipped her gin. “It's more complicated than that.”

“Don't I know it.”

“I'm sorry for that, Petey. I'm sorry for a lot of things, but I can't undo them.”

“You were saying what brought you.”

“You've been spending time at Hung Lo's. Don't ask me how I know—I have my sources. And men from San Francisco have been nosing around the Boom. I know what you're up to, Petey, and I want it to stop.”

I mulled that a moment. She'd always had her sources. Barmaids, strippers, hookers, women from every class of lowlife who worked on the periphery of the rackets. To their bosses they were just part of the scenery, but their eyes and ears let my mother put the squeeze on men of all stripes. What I hadn't known was that she had contacts in the Chinese community too.

I said, “What am I up to?”

“You're going after Nick. God knows why, but I won't have it. You're both too important to me.”

“You're telling me Nick's involved with Hung Lo? I thought they were enemies.” I knew better than to expect information from her, but it cost nothing to try.

“I'm telling you, Petey, I don't want you going up against him. Promise me you won't.”

I tried to see around all the angles. Had Zartell sent her to find out how much I knew? Was she really worried about me—or
him
? Or was I somehow a threat to her own operation? The possibilities waltzed me around until I was dizzy.

I said, “No promises.”

She stood, clamped hands on my lapels, and shook me. “Promise me you won't hurt him, and won't give him cause to hurt you. You're both lousy, and I don't really have either of you, but you're all I've got. Can't you understand that?”

I could, sadly, but I wasn't telling her that.

“No promises,” I said. “But I'll tell you this. Zartell's not the target. As long as he doesn't interfere he'll come out smelling no worse than he smells already.”

“Is that what your fat little overseer told you?”

That stopped me. She knew about him too?

“I suppose you think you can trust him. Others have thought that, and most of them are dead.” Her eyes glistened. For a moment I thought she might cry. “You're a bastard. Just like your father. Just like Nick. And just like every other man I ever met. To hell with all of you.”

And while I stood there empty of words, she left.

Next morning I told Abernathy the auxiliary had arrived. He bought the story that Seattle and Spokane had no operatives to spare, but was half inclined to take the train fare from Frisco out of my salary. His chief concern was that I'd lined up a newshound to accompany our raid. Once we pried the lid off Hung Lo's, he wanted publicity and plenty of it.

“Not to worry,” I told him. “I have just the guy.” And I did. A high school pal of mine was now a cub reporter for the
Oregonian,
and I hoped to hand him a pip of a story. It just wouldn't be the story Abernathy expected.

“We pop the cork Saturday at midnight,” he said. “Just in time for the respectable element to get the news with their Sunday funnies.”

I spent the rest of the day trying to guess the Old Man's intentions and finished up dumber than when I began. That night at Hung Lo's I was hard-pressed not to inhale.

On Saturday afternoon the Old Man called another chinfest at his hotel. The attendees were Mike, Alec, Rufus, Bob, and me.

“We got the lay on this Zartell bird,” Mike said. “He's a tough nut, but his number-two man looks ripe for shelling.”

“That would be Jablonsky,” I said.

Mike looked at me like I'd puddled on the carpet.

“Name's Jablonsky,” he said. “From what we could pick up, all his brains are in his biceps. Guy's got ambition, though. Told one of his floozies he plans to wrangle his own racket someday.”

The Old Man said, “Know where we can lay hands on him?”

They did.

Thus it was that at eight-thirty that night I slouched behind the wheel of my Studebaker in a convenient shadow behind the Boom Boom Room. The Old Man filled the seat beside me. He'd declined all invitations to explain his plan.

“Watch,” he said, “and grow wise.”

At 8:52 Jablonsky banged out of the Boom's back door and craned his neck as if expecting to see something. The only thing to see was an old panel truck near the door.

When he peered into the truck's cab, Mike and Rufus stepped out of the shadows with guns in their fists. Jablonsky's hands rose and he allowed himself to be prodded into the back of the truck.

I said, “How'd they know he was coming out?”

“We forged a note from a skirt he's been chasing. Said she was waiting to slip him some sugar.”

“That's lesson one,” I said. “What's next?”

My education resumed in a dark hotel room, one that did not belong to any of our party. Mike and Rufus had Jablonsky on a sofa in the adjoining room, and stood shooting words at him.

The Old Man and I watched through a partially open doorway.

“It's a frame,” Jablonsky whined. “A lousy, stinking frame.”

Mike said, “You know that, and maybe we do too. But the grand jury won't. And because counterfeiting is a federal rap, Zartell's pet prosecutors and judges can't help you.”

“Bull. No one would think I'm dumb enough to walk around with stacks of funny money in my pockets.”

Rufus smiled benignly. “You're right. No one could think you're dumb. Not you, the guy who got three years in stir for parking a getaway car in his own driveway.”

Jablonsky's sneer was something to look at. “Since when do feds dish out the third degree in a fleabag hotel?”

“See?” Mike said. “You're not all dumb. We got a proposition for you.”

Jablonsky's eyes grew sharp. “I can't stop you from talking.”

And he didn't.

The proposition, as delivered by Mike, was that if he ratted out Zartell, they'd send the racketeer up for a long stretch and leave Jablonsky free to take over the operation. The alternative was far less enticing.

“We know he has something going in Chinatown tonight,” Rufus said. “Something with the head dick at the Continental agency. We want the whole lay.”

“And for that you'll give me Zartell's rackets? Hell, you should have said so.”

Jablonsky gave them the whole lay.

Zartell, it seemed, had been horning in on the smuggling end of the opium business. Being a greedy soul, he had a yen for the retail end as well, and wanted Hung Lo's hop house empire. Hung Lo was too well protected for Zartell to show in a takeover, but if an outside outfit like Continental Investigations happened to send him to prison, no one could blame Zartell for filling the void.

When Jablonsky ran out of details, Mike said, “Sit tight while I call Mr. Hoover.”

He slipped into the adjoining room, closed the door, and looked proud as a bird with a worm.

The Old Man wiggled a finger at me. “You've learned enough for one day. Go hold Abernathy's hand while he gets ready for the raid.”

I consulted my watch. Nine-forty-seven. I had plenty of time before reclaiming my bunk at Hung Lo's.

I said as much.

The Old Man's flat stare lay heavy on me. “Did that sound like a suggestion?”

I kept hearing my mother's words.
I suppose you think you can trust him.

“Tell me this,” I said. “That stuff about taking Zartell down was just for Jablonsky's benefit, right? Just a way to get the goods on Abernathy.”

The Old Man looked at me so hard I thought his eyeballs would crack. Finally he said, “Go.”

I went. But all the way to the office, I wondered what I wasn't supposed to know.

Abernathy was in a snit because his reinforcements were out doing God-knows-what instead of hanging around waiting for pearls of wisdom to drop from his lips. I assured him they'd arrive soon, and he assured me my job depended on it. I was pretty sure he was right.

My two fellow Portland ops were on hand, pretending to look interested as they cleaned their guns and counted their ammunition. Though I'd worked with them half a year, I knew neither man well, and neither showed any inclination to remedy that.