The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion (29 page)

We found our way backstage, and I showed the photo around.

“Yeah, I know Princess,” one of the performers finally said. The woman was stunningly tall and very well built, wearing what looked like nothing but a robe, and smoking a cigarette. Her face was heavily made up, probably to hide her age. From a dim distance she looked maybe twenty-nine; in stronger light, she was closer to forty.

“Princess?” I repeated.

“That’s what she called herself. Her real name’s Mable.”

The woman confirmed everything. Mable Conway had a little boy. She lied to him, telling him she was a teacher, didn’t want him to know what she was really doing.

“Mable was a legit dancer back in the day.” The woman took a long drag, blew out a white plume. “Couldn’t make it out of the chorus line, you know? A real looker so she did leg shows, then waited tables, then ended up here.”

“Did you know her boyfriend, Frankie?”

“Sure. Frankie and her were cozy and all that mush. He’s the one got her out of this hole. Got her some job working a legit show again. Don’t know much about it. Just that some rich guy on Long Island’s producing.”

I glanced at Jack.
“See,”
I whispered. “Long Island again.”

Jack nodded. “Keep going, doll.”

“Got any idea where we can find Frankie?” I asked.

“Why?” the woman asked. “He disappear or somethin’?”

I nodded. “He disappeared two weeks ago, along with Mable.”

“He probably skipped town,” the woman said. She paused and frowned at me at Jack. “You’re not working for Curly, are you?”

“No,” Jack said abruptly.

“Curly who?” I asked, but Jack was already pulling me toward the stage door. “Thanks,” he called to the stripper and two seconds later, we were out in the alley.

“What’s the big idea?” I demanded, straightening my little blue suit.

“Every yegg in this neighborhood knows who Curly is, baby. You don’t need a lead on him. I’ll take you.”

Then we were off again, hurrying down the block.

 

CURLY THE BOOKIE took illegal bets in a run-down apartment on Ninth Avenue. Jack was an occasional client, so he got us in easily. We climbed three flights of a narrow staircase and Jack knocked a certain way. A bolt slid aside in the door like a speakeasy. Eyes peered through then the door opened and a muscle-bound guy with a crew cut and an anchor tattoo greeted Jack with a handshake.

The men exchanged words about some big boxing match. Then Jack grabbed my gloved hand and pulled me along like a little coal car behind a massive steam engine.

The apartment was shotgun style, with one room leading into another. Each was full of smoke—cigarette and cigar. A radio was playing loudly somewhere, the announcer calling a horse race. A dozen men were sitting around on easy chairs, reading papers and drinking. A half dozen more sat around a table playing cards, also drinking. We plowed through room after room until we came to a closed door. Jack knocked three times.

“Come!”

Curly the Bookie didn’t have any curls. He didn’t have any hair, either. In an irony that didn’t get past the Three Stooges, “Curly’s” head was shaved clean as a billiard ball. He had a bulky, half-muscular body, as if he’d been a boxer once and had gone a little to pot—but only a little. The man’s bulldog face and ham-sized biceps didn’t look worth challenging in the ring or out.

He greeted Jack with a stern but not unfriendly, “Howya doin’, Shep?” The men exchanged some views on a race-horse and more on the same boxing match Jack had discussed with the muscle-bound doorman.

“. . . but I’m not here to lose my money today, Curly,” Jack said all of a sudden. “Got a girl partner here today wants to ask you a few questions. That okay?”

I tensed. Curly’s bulldog face didn’t move but his black eyes narrowed on me from behind his desk. “Depends on the questions.”

Jack stepped back and pressed me forward. “You’re on, baby.”

“Crap,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?” Curly said.

“I was wondering, Mr. . . . uh, Curly, if you know a man named Frankie Papps?”

“Why?”

“I, uh, need to find him for a little boy who wants to locate his mother. Frankie was the woman’s boyfriend. And she’s disappeared. Can you help me find Frankie?”

Curly took a long time looking me over. He took a long drag on the stub of a cigar. “Frankie places bets here,” he finally said. “Does it once a week, like clockwork. He ain’t been here in two.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“He mentioned his boss owed him a big cut of back pay and he was sick of waitin’ for it. He was going out there to collect so he could place a nice big bet on Graziano vs. Zale at Yankee. Frankie don’t show soon, he’s gonna miss the book.”

“You said he was going ‘out there’—where is that? Long Island?”

Curly nodded. “Said his girlfriend worked for this rich guy, too, and they were both going to get their cut, quit while they were ahead.”

“What does that mean? What were they doing for this man?”

“From what Frankie told me, they were running some kind of elaborate scam. There were whales involved, a big payoff.”

I glanced at Jack. “Whales?” I whispered.

“Rich people were being scammed, baby.
Very
rich people.”

“So that’s it,” Curly said. “That’s all I know.”

We were clearly dismissed and Jack led me out again, back through the shotgun rooms. We were almost to the door when someone stopped him.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite slugger. What brings you here, Jack? A bet or a case?”

“I’m done talking to you about cases, Brennan. Unless you want another shiner?”

My ears pricked at the name. “Timothy Brennan?” I leaned my head around Jack’s wide shoulders and my jaw dropped. The famous late author of crime novels (in my time) was standing in front of us, now very much alive—much younger than I remembered, too, and about a hundred pounds leaner. But then, the man wouldn’t be keeling over at my in-store appearance for another sixty years.

“Who’s the cutie?” Tim Brennan winked at me. “Introduce me, Shepard. Don’t be a cad.”

“This is Penelope. She’s helping me out today.”

“Charmed.” Brennan winked again, but this time it was more of a leer. “And what exactly are you helping our Mr. Shepard with, Red?”

“The case of a missing mother.” I sniffed.

Beneath a boyish shock of hair, Brennan’s eyes lit up. “Really? Sounds like great copy.”

“Don’t tell him a thing,” Jack warned.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I guess we’re off to Great Neck then.”

“Great Neck?” Brennan echoed as we began to move past him. “You two investigating the deaths in that fire?”

“What fire?” Jack asked.

Brennan slapped a newspaper into Jack’s hand. “Read all about it, buddy. Eight dead in mansion land. Rich guy’s place burned to the ground. Could be arson. And if it is, it’s eight counts of homicide.”

“I’ll read it,” Jack said, then hustled me out of the bookie’s lair.

When we hit the street, I asked Jack how we were getting to Long Island. The weather was looking pretty lousy by now; clouds were smothering the sun. The daylight was dying.

“Close your eyes, baby. We don’t have much time left.”

“We’re not done, are we? I still haven’t solved the case!”

“Close your eyes.”

I did and all of a sudden the balmy September weather felt much colder. The hard street under my pumps turned soft, as if I were now standing on damp earth. A chilly wind blew and I smelled the acrid scent of charred wood. I opened my eyes and gasped.

I was no longer in Manhattan. I was standing in front of the Long Island mansion that had burned to the ground. The stone foundation was left, but the structure itself was a smoldering wreck. I glanced around, looking for Jack, and noticed the wrought-iron fencing around the property.

“Oh, my God.”

The design in the fence was wholly unique—a series of pentagrams, each with a fleur-de-lis at its center.

Jack walked up to me, took off his double-breasted coat, and draped it around my shoulders. For a moment, he hugged me close from behind, and then he turned me in his arms.

“The officials on the scene are still assessing the damage,” he said quietly and pointed to two men in suits and three in uniform. “They pulled eight bodies out of here. The way they found six of the bodies, they suspect they may have been drunk or drugged. The last two were found in the basement tied to chairs—a man and a woman.”

The weather was getting colder, the evening darker. A low mist began rising off the damp grass. I shivered. “Was the woman who died in the fire—was she J. J. Conway’s mother?”

Jack nodded. “She was. Her body was identified within the week.”

He handed me a newspaper, the same paper Brennan had given him, the same newspaper J. J. had been peddling earlier. There was a small photo with the article about the fire. It showed the owner of the home that burned to the ground.

He was a fat man in a three-piece banker’s suit with dark hair brushed off his forehead. He was the man in Miss Todd’s portrait. He was the ghost in Miss Todd’s mansion.

The caption gave me a name: GIDEON WEXLER.

“But I still don’t understand, Jack. What does it mean? Who is this man? And what’s his connection to Miss Todd’s place?”

I looked up, but Jack’s solid form wasn’t near me anymore. He was just a silhouette, at the edge of the grounds, fading into the fog.

“Keep digging, baby,” his voice called from the rising mist. “The case is in your time now . . .”

“Wait, Jack, don’t leave me! I need you! Jack!”

 

“PEN? PENELOPE!”

My eyelids lifted. Sadie was sitting on the edge of my bed. “What century is it?” I asked, feeling disoriented.

My aunt smiled. “It’s the twenty-first, dear. And the day is Sunday and the time is nearly five. Do you feel up to working in the shop?”

“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “No problem.”

“Good. I’ll see you downstairs in a little bit then.” Aunt Sadie smiled, stroked Bookmark, and got up to leave. Sensing a snack in the offing, Bookmark jumped off the bed to follow her.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling groggy. Part of my mind was still stuck in the past—Gideon Wexler was the name of the man in the portrait. But that name didn’t mean anything to me. And it made no sense. Who was Miss Todd to this man? A relative? A friend? A lover? And what did it matter, anyway?

I called silently to Jack, but he was gone. Once again, reliving his past memories had exhausted him.

“An envelope came for you, by the way.” Aunt Sadie called from the doorway. “I left it on the dresser.”

“An envelope?”

“Yes, Dilbert found it earlier, stuffed in our door’s mail slot.”

“But this is Sunday. We don’t get mail on Sunday. And we’re open. Why didn’t the person who delivered it just come inside?”

“Yes, it’s a little mysterious, isn’t it?”

I could tell my aunt was curious, if not a little worried. I threw off my bedcovers and went to the dresser. The envelope was white and plain with MRS. MCCLURE typed on the front—no address, no stamp, no other markings. I opened it, unfolded the paper inside. There was only one sentence typed: nine black words on a field of white.

“What is it, dear?” Aunt Sadie could see something was wrong from my expression. She moved back into the room, took the paper from me and blanched at the simple message:

BRAKES AREN’T THE ONLY THINGS THAT CAN GET CUT.

CHAPTER 21

She looked a little pale and strained, but she looked like a girl who could function under a strain.

—The Big Sleep
, Raymond Chandler, 1939

 

 

 

“A LITTLE MELODRAMATIC, isn’t it?” I pointed to the burning candle in Fiona Finch’s hand.

She shrugged. “No electricity. That’s the way they wanted it.”

“Who’s they?”

“RIPS—they’re the ones conducting tonight’s séance.”

“RIPs?” I repeated. “Rest in—”

Fiona cut me off. “It stands for Rhode Island Paranormal Society. Rachel explained it all to me after checking in this evening.”

It was close to midnight and I was standing with Fiona in the foyer of Chez Finch. Despite the threatening note, I was determined to attend this séance.

Of course, I’d already notified Eddie Franzetti about the threat. He’d raced over to the shop as soon as I’d called, impounding the letter as evidence. I doubted he would get any useful fingerprints. He said the state forensic lab could analyze the paper and ink, but I didn’t put much faith in that getting us anywhere, either.

Aunt Sadie and Dilbert insisted on staying with me until we closed the store. I agreed, but I wasn’t going to cancel my plans for the night. One stupid note wasn’t going to stop me—if anything, it made me more determined than ever to keep digging into this case. My one concession was asking Eddie to have a patrol car include the Finch Inn on its watch as long as Seymour was staying there.

“RIPS?” I repeated to Fiona.

She nodded her head. “The group’s been around since the 1920s and the current membership takes this all quite seriously.” She gestured toward the archway that led into the restaurant’s large dining room—completely dark now except for a single taper burning on the room’s largest round table. Two human silhouettes were standing near the wall of windows overlooking Quindicott Pond.

“Are you going to this thing?” I asked her.

“Not me. But you can fill me in after the séance is over. I have some other things to discuss with you, as well—”

Girlish laughter echoed loudly through the darkened dining room, followed by a very familiar guffaw: my mailman.

“Sounds like Seymour’s getting along pretty well with someone in there.”