A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4) Read online

  “Looked more like annoyance to me.”

  “Oh, no. Definitely fear. Just like at the boarding house. I imagine the White Rats are ruthless assassins.”

  “And Ernie Joy was killed for revealing the secret handshake?”

  “More likely, Mr. Joy was working as a secret government agent to expose the ring.”

  “Is it a sartorial quirk of secret government agents to go about in loud plaids? And if the White Rats killed him, where’s that leave Mr. X?”

  “Oh, Mr. X is alive and well.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hear that. What’s the next order of business?”

  “We go question our own Mrs. Joy.”

  “If you’re referring to Carlotta, I suggest we stop by a drug store for some cotton before having any lengthy discourse.”

  She laughed at my suggestion, but when I informed her it was normal procedure among Carlotta’s own family, she agreed.

  We arrived home to find our guests at the table finishing what looked to have been a very full breakfast. They’d brought the damned parrot back out and Thibaut had taken to teaching it French. He paced back and forth in imitation of the bird, then squawked, “Ne mords pas si fort, Har-ree!”

  “What did he say?” Aunt Nell asked.

  “Don’t BITE so hard, HarRY!” Carlotta told her.

  The three of them shared a laugh, too engrossed to notice our entry.

  “Oh, I rarely make that complaint,” Emmie divulged.

  They spun about. Then all four of them had another laugh. I returned the bird to the closet and this time locked the door. I gave Thibaut a stern look, but he responded with his customary impish smile. It was always difficult to stay angry at Thibaut. Ten minutes after he and his fellow mutineers threatened me with a watery grave, all was forgiven.

  In contrition, he offered to prepare omelets for Emmie and me and left for the kitchen humming a ditty.

  “Thibaut’s an excellent cook, Emmie,” Aunt Nell told her. “You should ask him to stay on.”

  “I’m afraid we couldn’t afford to keep him in wine,” I said.

  She went off to attend to some part of her toilette and Emmie turned her attention to Carlotta.

  “I hope it isn’t too sensitive a subject, dear, but were you married to Ernie Joy?”

  “Who wasn’t? But it was only for a month. Last spring.”

  “We heard he’d developed a habit of tricking young girls into thinking he’d married them,” I said.

  “Oh, maybe sometimes. I knew what it was about. I ain’t no young girl.”

  “Then why did you go along with it?” Emmie asked.

  “Look, there’re two kinds of actors. Some aren’t much different from other people. They save their money, go to church on Sunday, maybe even raise a family on the road. Then there are people like Ernie and me. We put all that stuff off ’til later. Now’s for having fun. My act broke up and I was out of work, and you can guess what that means. For a month I was Mrs. Joy, while Ernie did the western circuit. And Ernie lived high, when he had it. We both had a good time. When we got back here, it was done.”

  “You started a new act?”

  “I got a legit part in the third company of Lady of Lyons. Loins of the Lady we called it. They canceled us in Louisville. I had to leg my way back in the chorus of Billy Watson’s Burlesquers.”

  “So you didn’t harbor any hard feelings toward Ernie. But what about his other wives?” Emmie asked.

  “Who knows? There are some real hot-heads out there.”

  “We heard about one who shot her husband on stage last night,” I mentioned.

  “Yeah, I saw in the paper. Good old Desirée. I bet I know where she shot him, too.”

  “The Orpheum, I believe,” Emmie told her.

  “The Orpheum. That’s a good one, Emmie. I’ll have to remember that. When I was with Billy, I had to kick a Philadelphia stagehand in the Orpheum. I bet he’s still feeling it.”

  “What about Ernie’s real wives?” I asked. “Do you think he was paying them alimony?”

  “When he was flush he’d send them something, but he probably owed them more.”

  “Was his life insured?”

  “He told me he didn’t see the point. Why would he want to make himself worth more dead than alive?”

  “Sound reasoning,” I said. Emmie caught me looking her way.

  Before she could offer a retort, Thibaut emerged from the kitchen with our omelets, and then, through gesture alone, inquired solicitously of Carlotta if she wanted another. Carlotta responded likewise, opening her mouth wide and making like a hungry baby bird. Apparently they’d already developed a rapport, and this mode of communication was its foundation. And playful flirtation its only function, as Carlotta spoke French as well as Emmie.

  “What can you tell us about the White Rats?” Emmie asked her.

  “The White Rats? They’re the vaudeville union. They won that big strike last year. You remember.”

  “What strike?”

  “The strike against United Booking. You see, the way it works in vaud, to get into the big time, you have to go through the agents in United Booking. Which is really run by the same people who own the theatres, Keith and Albee, and all them. They had a sweet setup where the act had to pay a fee to United Booking. So instead of paying you $50 a week, they were only paying you $45, cuz they got $5 back.”

  “So the Rats won?” I asked.

  “Yeah, they won that round. They’re still trying to get rid of cancellation clauses, and how they can change your tour when you’re out on the road. You think you’re going from Buffalo to Rochester, but they send you to Boston and you lose a day’s work.”

  “Why’s it such a secret then?” Emmie asked.

  “Cuz the circuit will blackball anyone caught in it. They learned from the last time.”

  “Was Ernie a member?”

  “Ernie? I doubt it.”

  “What do you make of this?” Emmie handed her the note she’d found. “It was in Ernie’s room.”

  “Who’s Erbe?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us that. What about the W.R.?”

  “Search me. That what got you thinking Ernie was a White Rat?”

  “Yes, partly. Someone at his boarding house mentioned them, too.”

  “Ernie only had time for two things, vaud and women. The last one I saw him with was a real swell. He didn’t even introduce me, crossed the street just to avoid it.”

  “Another actress?”

  “I doubt it, she seemed above work.”

  Thibaut rejoined us and when we’d all finished eating, both he and Carlotta went off to their respective rooms.

  5

  The most confounding characteristic of Emmie’s notions is their perishability. No sooner does she construct some outlandish scenario than she abandons it. And so it was that afternoon when I attempted to chide her about her theory that the White Rats were a gang of ruthless assassins.

  “Assassins? What are you talking about, Harry?”

  “Never mind. I must have dreamt it. Who’s the suspect of the hour?”

  “What about Carlotta?”

  “You think she wanted to kill Ernie?”

  “Perhaps she was more upset with him than she’s let on. She could have quite easily invited him there.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But she was as surprised as the rest of us that he was dead.”

  “That could just have been a carefully rehearsed pose.”

  “Only if Carlotta had the talent to pull it off,” I pointed out. “I have another theory. What if one of the other Chinamen had some grievance with the fellow who was supposed to have played the victim?”

  “The man who stopped to tie his shoe?”

  “Yes. Maybe they had their eye on the same girl.”

  “Or better yet, there was an ancient feud between their families.”

  “Ancient feud?”

  “Yes. Dating back to the fifth century, when
a wicked and depraved landowner absconded with the beautiful young wife of the village blacksmith. He took her to his mountaintop retreat, where her cries for help couldn’t be heard.”

  “Then she escaped, running across the moors. At which point he sent his pack of giant canines after her. I noticed The Hound of the Baskervilles on your night stand, Emmie.”

  “It needn’t follow that line exactly.”

  “There is a much simpler explanation. The gun was there as the result of accident.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  “Carlotta may have picked up the wrong gun someplace and not realized it. And Lou Ling probably wouldn’t have noticed until he’d fired it.”

  “But if she hasn’t been working, where else would she have been using it?”

  I couldn’t answer that.

  “Harry, suppose someone else knew about Carlotta’s job there. Someone who wanted Ernie killed. That person could have switched guns and then sent a message to Ernie summoning him to meet Carlotta.”

  “Who do you have in mind?”

  “Remember Carlotta said she’d been staying with a friend? What if this friend was also someone Ernie had toyed with?”

  “As a species, the jilted lover usually prefers something more direct, like a butcher knife to the kidneys. But I suppose that’s possible,” I admitted.

  “It’s more than possible.”

  “By the way, whatever happened to Mr. X?”

  “I’ve put him on the back burner for now.”

  “Yes, let’s keep him on a slow simmer. And in the meantime?”

  “We see if we can locate Lou Ling at the Chinese farm in Astoria.”

  “How will we know him when we do? All I saw was his back, and it was plenty dark.”

  “It certainly won’t be easy. Especially not knowing the language.”

  Aunt Nell came out and joined us and Emmie told her about our mission to Astoria.

  “I think I’d like to come along, too. I’ve never seen a Chinese farm.”

  Then a few minutes later Thibaut appeared and poured himself some coffee.

  “Thibaut!” Emmie said excitedly.

  As she and Aunt Nell helped him clean up the spilt coffee, she conversed with him in French. Her proposal was greeted with enthusiasm.

  “Thibaut’s consented to accompany us as an interpreter,” she announced.

  “Thibaut knows Chinese?” I asked.

  “No, but he’s a master of pantomime. That will have to do.”

  Just as we were preparing to leave, Carlotta appeared in full show-girl regalia.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked.

  “To the SLAVE marKET. With Jimmy’s PLACE closed down, I NEED to find a JOB. WISH me LUCK!”

  Her final words were delivered as she headed out the door and were instantly answered by the howling of an infant in one of the neighboring apartments. A little later the four of us made our way to a car stop.

  The transport network of New York is one of the most efficient in all the world—provided one’s objective lies in lower Manhattan. But should you want to get from Prospect Park, Brooklyn, to Astoria, Queens, you must gird yourself for a long journey of ever-increasing dreariness. The trip involved three car routes and took up a good part of the afternoon. Emmie had Thibaut sit beside her so she could instruct him as to what she had in mind. Meanwhile, Aunt Nell and I took a seat a few rows back.

  I suppose it’s time I offer a fuller picture of Emmie’s aunt. At the time of the story, she must have been in her early to mid-forties. But even sitting as close as I was just then, she looked no more than thirty-five. If anything, younger than when we’d first met two years before. She wore her jet-black hair in a casual but carefully fashioned coiffure. Her attire was similarly stylish, yet never ostentatious. The fragrance she wore seemed hers alone, and she used just barely enough of it. And in conversation she was always charming, no matter what the topic.

  I know it sounds as if I’m waxing on a bit here. The infatuation may have been partly due to the fact that she compared so favorably to the Williamsburg riverfront, and her scent to that of the factories that lined it. But I suspect it mainly came down to the fact that in all the qualities I’ve enumerated, she was so unlike Emmie—who rarely endeavored to please anyone but herself.

  “Is it true a man was killed in my room, Harry?”

  “Oh, yes. Electrocuted.”

  “Emmie told me she still wonders if you were behind it. That you may have killed him in a jealous rage.”

  “I wasn’t even in town. The parrot chewed on the light cord, the poor fellow didn’t notice, and, well, that was that. Haven’t you learned not to pay too much attention to what Emmie says?”

  “I don’t remember her being quite so….”

  “Batty? Oh, she was plenty batty when we met back in Buffalo. Did she ever tell you how she suspected your late husband had been killed by the owner of a Canal Street concert saloon and his body refrigerated in the Erie Canal?”

  “She does have an inventive imagination.”

  “Yes, and sees little need to draw distinctions between it and reality.”

  “What about that man who was killed in your apartment being the valet to one of her college classmates?”

  “Well, that part was true.”

  “And didn’t you name the parrot Telemachus? And charge him with protecting Emmie’s virtue? That sounds like jealousy.”

  “The parrot’s name was Polly when I brought it home. The rest is all Emmie’s pipe dream.”

  “Aren’t you ever jealous?”

  “My usual state is bewilderment. Besides, what have I to be jealous about?”

  “Well, it’s not just a question of that. Maybe she needs the affirmation. That would explain her inventing the story of your naming the parrot.”

  Her theory seemed rather dubious. Emmie had never evinced concern for anyone’s affirmation. I just muttered some acknowledgement and nodded. Luckily, we’d arrived at Hunter’s Point, where we boarded the Steinway Avenue car. For this, the last leg of the journey, I sat next to Emmie. I thought it might be more fruitful to examine her rather than her psychology.

  “Is Thibaut clear on what’s required of him?” I asked.

  “Well, it was expecting too much to think he’d be able to convey specific questions. But I do think I’ve come up with a way to make good use of his talents.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Um, no, I don’t think I would.”

  She then pretended to take an interest in the passing scenery, which was difficult given that this part of Queens consisted mainly of grimy factories and squalid tenements. I’m sure Long Island City has its partisans, but if there’s an uglier bit of real estate anywhere, I haven’t seen it.

  “How perfectly quaint,” she said, as we passed a dilapidated windmill sitting on a rise above the road.

  That’s when I knew we were headed for trouble. Emmie’s interest in things quaint was incalculably small.

  About a mile or two further we disembarked at the Astoria Silk Works, the landmark Jimmy Yuan had mentioned. As we walked down past the mill toward the river, the street evolved into a rural lane. There was a little farm off to the right and another to the left with what I at first thought was an extended grape arbor. But on closer inspection, I saw that this hanging garden bore narrow green fruits that looked something like cucumbers. A fellow in a broad, mushroom-shaped hat was tending the trellis of simple boughs set in a series of arches. He nodded in a friendly way when we approached. Then just kept nodding, no matter how many times we repeated the name Lou Ling.

  “Perhaps he’s Lou Ling,” I said.

  So I tried a few other names I thought to be Chinese. He just kept nodding. Then another Chinaman joined us and nodded just as politely.

  “I anticipated something of this sort,” Emmie said.

  She gave instructions to Thibaut and he got down on all fours, rubbed his shins together, and chirped with abandon.r />
  “He’s fantastic,” Aunt Nell pronounced.

  “Lou Ling,” Emmie shouted, while pointing to Thibaut.

  The Chinamen very quickly caught on, and they too started chirping. That drew the German farmer from across the way, soon followed by his wife and their brood of five children. The show was a good one and we were all thoroughly entertained for a good long while. At least until a fellow elsewhere on the plantation began giving an excited alarm in Chinese. Having just noticed that Emmie had slipped away, I had a pretty good idea what it was about.

  The whole lot of us went off in the direction of the commotion. We found Emmie outside what passed for the farmhouse. It looked like the sort of thing young boys build as hideouts—odds and ends of lumber, old boxes, stray bits of tarpaper, etc. A fellow with a hoe was keeping her at bay.

  “What did you get yourself into?” I asked.

  “I simply wanted to see if there was any evidence of a cricket ranch here.”

  She reluctantly agreed it was unlikely the fellow wielding the hoe would appreciate her reasoning, and so we made our exit toward Steinway Avenue. I saw a car stopping and suggested we catch it.

  “It’s going the wrong way,” Emmie insisted. “We still have to visit the farm at Bowery Bay.”

  My motion to return home failed on a vote of three to one, so we took a car up to Steinway. By the time we reached there, it was close to six and the vote in favor of stopping for refreshment was three to one. This time Emmie being the dissenter.

  Steinway itself was a small, sparsely populated neighborhood not far from the piano factory. The choices for dining were limited to two German saloons. We went into the more reputable-looking of them and had an enjoyable meal of lager, dark bread, and three kinds of sausage.

  “Emmie, you never told us if you found anything at the farm,” Aunt Nell said.

  Emmie reached into her bag and placed a dried gourd on the table.

  “You thought that gourd significant?” I asked.

  “Look at it.”

  I picked it up and found there was an opening at the narrow end covered by a little grilled lid fashioned from tiny slats of wood.

  “It’s no doubt a cricket cage,” Emmie told us.

  “How can you be sure of that?”