The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) (25 page)

The chauffeur at the tiller hopped down to the icy pavement. He wore a smart looking cap, and placed his goggles above the brim before trotting to the other side. He held up his gloved hand and helped the other, an elderly gentlemen in a black top hat and a trim white beard, alight to the sidewalk. The man radiated pomposity, and as he marched to the entrance the chauffeur rushed in front, pressing past Anderson to get the door.

“This should be good,” Bonge said with a sly grin. They followed behind, and entered a well decorated but not especially comfortable waiting room, with some hard-backed armchairs and benches lining the walls. The bearded man had already greeted two other cigar-smoking gentlemen standing in the corner, and they immediately engaged in an animated discussion. A thickset man with glasses scowled behind a desk, and Anderson presumed he was the mayor’s secretary. Above him was a grandly painted battlescape, Union soldiers gallantly holding back a horde of charging Rebels. The man stood up, eyes narrow with suspicion.

“And how may I help you, sir?” The words were curt, as though he had no interest in what he was asking.

“I’m looking for Detective Queen. He’s expecting me,” Anderson replied.

“This is the mayor’s office, sir, not a place for police matters. Please leave and go in through the opposite side.”

“This man, Mr. Bonge,” Anderson said, pointing to the reporter, “told me the rooms were connected, and I’d have access to the police offices. He works for the
Tribune
, and seems to be in the know.” Bonge was already feverishly writing in his notebook, and looked up with a gleeful gleam in his eye when his name was mentioned.

“Mr. Brown,” Bonge said, licking his pencil tip, “I’d like you to meet Sheriff Dix Anderson. He’s a real-life old-time lawman, probably fresh from Indian country. Tell me, Sheriff, what do you think of the big city?”

“Christ,” Anderson groaned.

Secretary Tom Brown was furious. “No press, no press! I’m going straight to your editor, Bonge. These stunts are wearing thin. You need to schedule interviews here. I don’t like surprises.”

Bonge cleared his throat, and tried to look serious. “Apologies, sir. But I think it would be swell if you’d introduce Mayor Ames to Sheriff Anderson. Two larger-than-life, past-their-prime figures, exchanging wise words from lifetimes of hard-fought experience. Mayor Ames in the political arena, and Sheriff Anderson, with two fists and twelve bullets! Our readers would cry with joy!”

The men in the corner were now attentive, and the white-bearded gentleman from the automobile especially. The thick gold watch hanging from his suit pocket swung as he stepped forward. He cleared the mucus from his throat, eyeing Anderson evenly.

“You, sir, are a damned spectacle, parading around in public like a fool.” The men with him nodded their haughty approval. Anderson turned to face him. Men like this were not the kind he chose to socialize with. Under other circumstances, he might ignore the comments, but today he felt emotional. The flood of memories of Maisy and Martha, and the crushing, ceaseless heartache had shortened his fuse.

“Sir, I don’t take kindly to pompous jack-asses who don’t mind their own business,” Anderson said tersely. “Choose not to look at me, if it offends you. I don’t care.” He straightened up to his full height, a good head above the man who mocked him. It hurt his back to do so.

“I would suggest you depart these premises and find a suitable place for a shower-bath,” the bearded man said, eyes bitter and flashing. “I will venture a guess that you are not a married man; otherwise you wouldn’t keep yourself in this condition. Or if you are, perhaps your wife may need some basic hygiene lessons to help guide you to cleanliness.”

A ripple of laughter. Bonge giggled like a schoolgirl as he wrote, mumbling under his breath about Minneapolis flour magnates. Anderson suspected he was speaking to someone with some status. At this point it mattered little to him. He had no patience for anyone who insulted his wife.

“Sir, this is a place of order and law,” Anderson said. His glare was damningly hot. “You are fortunate that I respect the institution of law. I’ll give you the opportunity to take your words back, like the gentleman you believe you are. We’ll then both go on our ways.”

“Now, now!” Secretary Brown was at his side, a hand on his arm. “Please depart this office at once. Take your meeting with Detective Queen from the police entrance, or I will call officers in to escort you out immediately.”

“I would advise you to listen,” spat the bearded gentleman. “Be fortunate you aren’t being escorted to the tramp room, dressed the way you are.”

Anderson flexed his hand. A good slap would defend his honor without shattering this buffoon’s teeth, he decided. He pulled his hand back, and the man’s eyes showed a momentary fear. And then he felt another hand grab his wrist and pull his arm behind his back. The grip was immensely strong and the movement was swift.

“Thank you, Mr. Cahill, for averting this,” Secretary Brown said. “Please take him out.”

“He’s here because his granddaughter is dead,” Cahill said. His spectacles were steamed and he was peering over them. “I’ll take him through to the assembly room where he can have his questions answered. Please open it for me.”

Brown sighed and complied. Anderson felt himself being gently pushed from behind. “Please go, sir. This is for the best.”

The restraint was powerful and Anderson knew he had little choice. The door slammed behind them. His arm was released immediately.

“I apologize for that, sir,” Cahill said. Anderson turned to meet the voice, and was surprised that someone so short, with a face like a cherub, could possess such iron arms.

“You probably did the right thing, son.” He uttered his words with reluctant appreciation, rubbing his arm. “I’m not used to being manhandled like that, but your judgment was correct.”

“Thank you, sir. Do you happen to know who that was?”

“Someone important?”

“Yes, sir. It was John Pillsbury.”

“Well, that explains his doughy face.”

Cahill’s face melted from anxiety to a big grin. “It does at that, sir.”

The pencil whipped across the paper with almost a mind of its own, as Queen furiously scribbled out numbers. An average haul of $200 per sucker, he estimated, at two or three per night, multiplied by as many mitt joints as they could set up. Plenty of money would need to get paid to all the players in the con, but plenty more would be left over. He leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. Even the stale air in his dingy little detectives’ office tasted sweet today. It was shared amongst the police force’s dozen detectives, each with his own desk. He’d made sure he was alone this morning, as he expected a special guest who required some privacy.

The mitt games would allow him money to pay back Kilbane and get Jack Peach off his back. Peach was an enormous concern to him. While he hadn’t seen him for a few days, their conversation still echoed in his head. Jiggs Kilbane wanted a meeting with Fred Ames, and Peach insisted that only this would satisfy his debt. The thing of it, though, was that Queen wasn’t so sure he had Colonel Ames’s ear yet. At least, not to the point where he could suggest this meeting. Secondly, he was sure, despite their truce, that the calculating rascal would gladly get rid of him if he thought he could get along without him. Why would Queen want to set up a powwow with the two people in the world least likely to be on his Christmas card list? Putting them together might make it worse for him if his name came up. Queen still believed that green, lots of green, could adequately resolve his debt with Kilbane. Why should it be anything else, anyway? He owed Kilbane money, and would pay him back with money, regardless of what Peach threatened him with.

Still, he grimaced as he thought of Peach, and his way of showing up at Queen’s most vulnerable moments. The guy had a sinister reputation and little in the way of weaknesses, as far as Queen could see. He was one of the few men he’d ever met whom he considered an equal. It was hard for him to articulate, exactly, why he thought that. Peach just had a way about him. Slicked-up, well-spoken without being pretentious, and chock full of charisma and guile. What made Queen especially wary, though, was Peach’s reputation, like his, for figuring out the angle. Rarely did adversaries find themselves one step ahead of Queen, but Peach was like a ghost, fluttering just out of reach, taunting him to no end.

Peach’s boss, Jiggs Kilbane, had none of his enforcer’s finesse. He was volatile, short-tempered, and from what Queen had heard, came from a low family in New York’s Five Points slum. Kilbane had run with the Irish Whyos gang as a youngster, and risen through the ranks, rubbing shoulders with notorious gangsters like Paul Kelly and Monk Eastman. For reasons Queen didn’t fully know—although he’d picked up plenty of rumors about a massive falling out—Kilbane was now comfortably situated on the Mississippi river’s east side, preferring to be the biggest toad in the puddle than a bit player in one of New York’s sprawling gangland empires.

And Queen understood full well that crossing Kilbane had unfortunate consequences. Last year he’d investigated the murder of an Irish immigrant, found filled with slugs in a tenement basement. They’d caught the killer, but clues had pointed to Kilbane as the mastermind. The dead Irishman had been running numbers and withholding information on the profits, specifically the cut due Jiggs Kilbane. Solid evidence, however, had been in short supply, barely enough to present to his counterparts in the Saint Paul Police Department. They’d laughed Queen off as bughouse. His relationship with the Saint Paul cops hadn’t improved much since then.

Queen needed to focus on the present. He had to figure out how the Big Mitt game could operate most profitably. His alliance with Colonel Ames was precarious at best, but while he felt uneasy, he understood perfectly well the area of gray where they were working, and the bigger picture. Murders were disturbing and distracting to the public. The city needed to feel secure so business could go on. He felt the satisfaction of Pock’s punishment, and even without a trial he’d sleep well tonight. No question about that, although he knew in the back of his mind that he was justifying his own actions. Emil Dander was a rotten apple, and whether or not he’d given the orders to kill Maisy, he was directly responsible for her being in that terrible position; clinging to a fence with hardly any clothes on a bitter winter’s night, taking a bullet that sent her plummeting into the snow. For now, having Dander in Stillwater prison would be enough. For now.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “What is it?”

Cahill’s glasses almost fell off as he stuck his head in. “There is someone to see you, sir.”

“Who?”

“Sheriff Dix Anderson of Bemidji.”

Queen sighed. He had already heard that Anderson had skipped the formalities of a return telegram, and come directly to Minneapolis, uninvited. He wasn’t looking forward to their meeting, but there was no way around it. “Come in here for a moment.”

Cahill slipped through the door and gave Queen a weak salute.

“I’m not your superior, number one. And number two, that was a miserable excuse for a salute if I’ve ever seen one.”

“S-sorry,” was all that stumbled out of Cahill’s mouth.

“Tell him twenty minutes.” He put the paper with his figures in a drawer and locked it. From another drawer, he pulled a file at random, removed the papers and spread them over his desk like a poker hand. He’d prepared himself to lie to the old man. It had been a difficult decision, how to explain Maisy’s passing to the sheriff. After considering it for a spell, he realized that Anderson wouldn’t be satisfied simply with Pock’s death. He’d want revenge on Dander as well, and that would make things messy in regards to Queen’s new arrangement with the colonel. An accidental New Year’s Eve shooting with Maisy in the wrong place at the wrong time was the story he’d decided on, with Colonel Ames’s blessing. He felt bad being dishonest to a grieving grandfather, but he really couldn’t see a better way to get this all behind him.

Cahill’s voice filled the hallway, high-pitched protestations to a voice that was deep but gentle. The door opened and a lanky elderly man stepped into the light, filling the doorway’s height. Cahill stood behind him, wringing his hands.

“I told him, sir, twenty minutes.”

“That’s fine, Detective Cahill,” Queen said. He stood up somberly. “Please come in, Mr. Anderson.”

The sheriff took off his broad hat, placed it on the desk, and eased himself into the chair. Queen was sure he heard a crack from the man’s back. He was struck by the sheriff’s appearance. He looked like he had just stepped off the cover of a frontier dime novel.

“Looks like you’ve come prepared for battle,” Queen said, eyeing the bulge of pistol handles jutting out of his long coat.

“Not at all,” Anderson said, his low voice warm and calm. “With your permission?” he asked Queen. Queen nodded, and Anderson’s long thin fingers pushed back his coat. Deftly, he pulled the pistols from their holsters. Their ivory handles gleamed as the old lawman placed them on Queen’s desk.

“Quite a pair of guns,” Queen said.

“They were a gift from Bat Masterson. We worked together once or twice before, and I helped him out of a pickle in Cheyenne. Normally I don’t go for the flashy stuff, but they’ve been with me for a while.”

Don’t go for flashy? The whole get-up was pure looniness, but Queen wasn’t offended so much as amused. Something dug out of a dusty box from a different time, when law enforcement was black and white. The old man beneath the strange duds is a fish out of water here. Best to get him out of Minneapolis as quickly as possible.