The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (19 page)

“The breech block is pulled back. You don’t have a round in your chamber, idiot,” Queen said matter-of-factly, and wrapping his hand around the neck of the bottle, flung it forward. Its jagged bottom hit Pock squarely in the face. The bottle hung for a moment, glass embedded just over his left eye and a good portion of his forehead, and then fell, exposing deep red gashes. The little rat shrieked and whirled around, dropping the rifle and clutching the wound.

“NORBECK!” Queen shouted at the top of his lungs. “NORBECK!”

Attempting to see through the blood streaming from his forehead into his eyes, Pock rubbed them furiously, all the while twisting and turning and howling. He stumbled and tripped on a broken dress hoop, fell, and stumbled back up, disoriented and bewildered. Queen heard the shack’s door slam shut as he pulled himself as close to standing as his trapped foot would permit. In the corner of his eye he saw Norbeck, and to his surprise, Hayward, close behind, running towards him.

Perhaps Pock could sense their approach too, because he let out a yowl and began cantering, off-balance, into the heart of the garbage, toward the ominous Mississippi. He pitched back and forth as he ran, once crashing to the ground after slipping on either ice or trash. He sprang back up as if possessed by a demon, whirled around blindly, and started running again.

Norbeck was panting when he reached Queen. “Holy hell,” he said quietly as he watched Pock, still clutching his bleeding forehead with one hand, flailing the other wildly in the air. “He’s going straight in.”

“You want to stop him?” Queen asked grimly. “Go ahead.”

“Nobody could,” Norbeck murmured, his grin wide and toothy, mesmerized by the show unfolding before him. Adry came huffing up behind him, opening his mouth to speak, when he saw Norbeck’s stare. He followed it to Pock, now caterwauling in a pitch so high it threatened to summon every dog in earshot.

“Jesus, both of you, help me get this goddamn thing off my foot,” Queen sputtered. They snapped to attention and ran to his side.

“On the count of three,” said Queen. “One. Two. Three!” The wheel groaned forward as they strained and shoved, and Queen pulled himself free. He turned his ankle and felt some mild pain, but knew he was lucky it wasn’t sprained or broken.

“Would you look at that moon-calf,” Norbeck said admiringly, already in rapt engrossment again at Pock’s exertions. “Who’d a thunk a little gore could put someone off his trolley? What a sight!”

Closer and closer to the ice’s edge Pock staggered, bumping, slipping, tripping and spinning his way past the dump’s boundary and onto dangerous footing. The opposite bluff, high and imposing, looked to Queen almost like a monster’s gaping mouth, welcoming Pock in anticipation of a feast.

He was standing now on the brink of the ice, a step or two away from the rolling black waters. Queen wondered what was happening in his head to cause him to act in such delirious fashion.

“Christ,” whispered Adry. “Why isn’t it breaking?”

“He can’t be more than ninety-five pounds. Any normal-sized man would already be catfish food,” Queen said.

Then, suddenly, Pock stopped cold in his tracks, streaks of frozen blood clinging to his cheek. His eyes grew large as the situation clarified, and he wagged his head, as if to shake out the clouds that had suffocated his brain. As he slowly turned, a look of terror began to register on his face. The ice was cracking around his feet. He looked at Queen, Norbeck and Adry, almost pleadingly, and then leapt forward, with the intent to save himself, but instead slipped and sprawled on his belly. A gigantic fissure ripped with a loud snap directly in front of his head, and he grabbed the edge of the ice as it separated from its host. For a moment he lay suspended, and the ice floated serenely into the current. Pock wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either. He just stared at Queen with a dumbfounded expression as he glided away from shore.

Then the slab of ice Pock clung to began to slant back. He clawed for a handhold but the ice was too slippery. As the floe tipped backwards, Pock slid like a shot into the Mississippi, caught in the undertow. They watched for a few moments, Queen half-expecting him to surface like a bedraggled rat, but no one surfaced. Pock was gone.

“The case is closed,” Queen told Norbeck, as they plodded up the hill to the buggy in their sandpaper-wrapped shoes. “The little weasel denied it, but one of those girls saw him shoot her.”

“Was it the sweetie face? She sure is a looker,” Norbeck replied, with a wistful glance in her direction. The girls walked a few paces behind, huddled under blankets and clinging to each other. “Doesn’t she look like this?” He pulled a bent cigarette card out of his pocket, and showed the picture to Queen. “Maisy was a bird, but I’ll be damned if this young flower in our care isn’t truly heaven-sent.”

“You carry around garbage like this?” Queen questioned disapprovingly. “I never took you for a cigarette fiend or a sparrow-catcher either. What a lucky woman your wife is.”

“Ol’ Johnson, from Third Station, gave it to me. Before he got fired, that is. He had a stack of them in his desk that he looked at while he ate his roast beef sandwich. Every day the same goddamn sandwich.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” Queen said, looking back casually at the girls. Adry had confirmed their names as the same ones Dander had given him. The one who’d bashed him with the board was Trilly Flick, and when he told her of Pock’s demise she’d cursed the man’s name with words he’d rarely heard come from a woman’s mouth. After she emptied out her emotions he’d felt a twinge of comfort to see her soften a little. As she’d gathered her sparse belongings for their departure from the flats, she smiled at him for the first time. It was sweet and beautiful and intoxicating. It gave him a slight thrill to think that he had come to her rescue and given her a taste of the vengeance she seemed to desire. Whatever terrors she suffered under Pock’s hand he could only guess, but from the look of gratitude she’d given Queen, it had not only closed the door on the matter, but slammed it shut and locked it tight.

The other girl, Edna Pease, still hadn’t said anything. She wore a look of permanent dread stamped on her face, as if the sky was about to burst into flame and set her on fire. Queen had tried to talk to her, but Trilly pulled her away, almost obsessively protective of her friend.

Adry had been overjoyed to see them go, as the morning’s climax had filled him with a level of panic that overwhelmed any carnal happiness he’d now be missing. He even whistled a tune as he directed their departure from his hovel. When he stuffed the girls’ hands with money, Queen didn’t protest in the slightest, and even momentarily felt an urge to force Adry to hand over every penny he possessed for their troubles, and a little to him too. The girls were already out the door, however, and he didn’t want to prolong the situation any more. There would soon be more than enough of the long green to be made, and shaking down the pitiful Adry Hayward didn’t seem so heroic at that moment.

Queen had arranged a place for them to stay and he knew they’d be well taken care of until he could figure out a more permanent home. He planned to find legitimate work for both of them, and it pleased him a little to think he’d see more of Trilly in the future. A short buggy ride to meet his friend, followed by a trip to the girls’ new quarters, would tie up this last loose end. Then he could move on to running the detective squad and getting things ship-shape for Colonel Ames. He was ready to deal with Sheriff Anderson as well, grateful he could hand him some consolation about his granddaughter’s death with the news that her killer was dead.

Dander and Higgins were another story. They had a court hearing scheduled soon, Norbeck had told him as they climbed the hill, and were likely headed to Stillwater once convicted. He hoped they got nice long sentences and found breaking rock in ankle chains a charming change of pace from kidnapping and raping girls. And if he ever found himself with business in the prison, he might make another visit and introduce their faces to the butt of his gun.

They reached the top of the hill, and Queen saw the buggy sitting right where they had left it. Good old Ollie, he thought. The horse whinnied in anticipation as it saw the group, and stamped its feet nervously.

“Come out of there! You’d better not be sleeping!” Norbeck called out loudly. “I’ve had enough of the flats to last the rest of my life. Christ, my legs are sore,” he added as an afterthought.

“Where are you, kid?” Queen shouted. The buggy’s windows were glazed with frost. Maybe he had nodded off, and steamed up the windows with his breath. He reached for the door’s handle and pulled it open, ready to jerk the kid awake so they could get going.

Empty. Where in God’s name did he go? Queen glanced at the seat, and then saw something on the floor. It was dark and round, and he carefully picked it up, but it was mushy to the touch. Why is there a warm piece of chocolate candy on the floor, he wondered? It couldn’t have been here very long or it’d be frozen into a chunk of ice. If somebody had stepped on this the livery owner would have charged to have it cleaned. Kids and their candy.

“You got to see this, Harm,” he heard Norbeck exclaim from the other side of the buggy. There was trepidation in his voice, so he limped around to see the focus of Norbeck’s concern. He stopped cold when he saw drops of blood on the patch of trampled snow just slightly beneath the rig. “Look there,” Norbeck said, pointing to footprints coming from the woods near the road they’d just walked up. “Somebody came up here from those trees. Right here, and then up to the road. I don’t see Ollie’s prints, though. The windows are fogged up so it couldn’t have been too long ago.” He scratched his head, and wore a concerned expression. “I teased him and all, Harm, but I liked him too.”

“Ollie!” Queen yelled, as he looked down the avenue. The Washington Bridge was bare, and he could see clearly to the other side. Not a figure in sight. The other direction, towards the city, looked quiet as well.

Edna gasped at the name, and Trilly looked wildly at Queen. “Did you say Ollie?” she cried, and rushed up next to him to see the blood and footprints for herself. “Is it the same Ollie we know?”

Queen nodded solemnly and tried to keep balance as she lunged at him, grabbing his lapel and falling to the ground. “God, no! He found him!”

“Who found whom?” Queen demanded, pulling her back up. “Do you think someone took him?”

She bit her lovely lip, and nodded. “And if you don’t get him soon, Detective Queen,” she blurted, eyes welling with tears, “he’s as good as dead.”

Queen grasped each girl’s hand as they stepped over the red-dotted snow and into the buggy’s compartment. “What’s this man’s name?” he asked.

“Don’t know his name. Never seen him,” Trilly replied, rubbing her eyes and leaning closer to him after settling in. Her exhaustion was gaining advantage over her emotions. Despite his seriousness, Queen couldn’t contain a shiver as he felt her near him. She placed her hand on her neck, and he found himself stealing glances at her delicate fingers, then back to her soft, ethereal face. So opposite now to the fiery soul who had tried to smash his back into pieces just an hour before. She was like a pendulum, swinging from extreme to extreme, and he couldn’t help but feel arousal in each wide motion.

I need to focus on the task at hand, Queen reminded himself. Enough of these fantasies.

“Why would you think Ollie’s in danger?” he asked.

“The blood. The tracks. Plus, this man from his past that scared him crazy, but he wouldn’t say more’n that. Just told me he was very bad, and lived far away.”

“And why was Ollie so afraid? He never mentioned anything to me about running from anyone.”

“He always clammed up when I asked him more about it,” Trilly said. “Ollie told me the reason he took the job with Emil was ‘cause he felt safe workin’ for him. He figured if the man ever came back, he’d have Emil and Higgins and Pock between himself and him.”

Trilly’s lower lip trembled and Queen found himself gazing at it, to the point he realized he was only half listening to what she said. He silently chastised himself for his weakness, and at the same time wanted to comfort her, tell her Ollie would be okay. But there were too many questions about what might have happened to him for him to say it honestly. Speechless, he just looked at her with sympathy, and gently shut the door.

CHAPTER 7

N
ORBECK HAD DECIDED TO CATCH A
streetcar back to headquarters, having pressing business with another case, so the buggy ride to the outskirts of south Minneapolis was quiet. Both girls fell back in their seats and went to sleep almost immediately after Queen snapped the reins. The soothing jostle of the rig’s movement cooled Queen’s nerve, although he was still preoccupied and perturbed over Ollie’s disappearance.