Crossings (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 2) Read online

  That night, Emmie again tried to induce me to allow her in on the Huber case. But she wasted her efforts. The next morning, as we were dressing for Easter Mass, I brought up her previous work on my behalf.

  “Emmie, am I right in thinking that when the people upstairs were speaking ill of me, they were just repeating rumors you had initiated?”

  “The Lowerys? I only said they suspected you had some sort of illicit employment.”

  “Yes. But did that suspicion arise only after you had planted that idea in Dorothy’s mind?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t like that. I just alluded to your work, in a general sort of way. And I did tell her about Mr. Schuler, back in Buffalo, and Robert Mason, and your friend Danny Sullivan being stabbed to death and thrown into the canal.”

  I felt a little bad for soiling old Lowery’s name without cause, but it would do him good to learn never to repeat rumors. We arrived at St. Patrick’s to find that they had restricted attendance for Easter Mass. But Emmie told the usher that her mother was the sister of a Monseigneur, and we were her escorts. She flustered him enough that he let us in. Even I had to admit the show was well worth her transgression. If you’re going to sit through a long, Latin Mass, go to a place that doesn’t simply pull out all the stops, but throws in a whole orchestra besides.

  Later, while dinner was being cleared, I made my exit with barely a word. I was sure Emmie hadn’t had time to follow me, but I waited a bit outside just to make sure. Although it was raining, as it had been since the night before, I had determined to take a circuitous route to my meeting with Demming. I went up to Myrtle and caught a train that crossed the river. Somehow Emmie made the same train.

  At the bridge, I made as if to get off, but then sat back down. She did the same. At Park Row, I waded into the crowd at the L station, left by another stairway, and trotted uptown a few blocks, then over to the river and down to the Roosevelt Street ferry. There was no sign of her at the landing, or on the boat. This time I made sure by walking through the women’s cabin and closely eyeing anyone that might have been Emmie in disguise. A little too closely, as it happened. One of the young ladies shouted for a policeman.

  5

  Demming had instructed me to meet him at the Carleton House, just a couple blocks below the ferry landing in Williamsburg. I made it there by five, and Demming showed up a little later. He pointed to the trophies and boating accoutrements about the place and said the Carleton House was the home base of the Seawanhaka Boat Club. I hadn’t even realized I’d mentioned Huber’s membership in the club. When the bartender came around for our order, we chatted some with him and I told him I had known William Huber from college.

  “He was in quite a bit,” he said. “He was what they call a social member. Meaning he didn’t get on the water much.”

  I imagined John Huber had already talked to people here, but thought maybe I’d check back when there was more of a crowd. From there, we walked up Kent Street. It was still raining steadily, but that didn’t seem to bother Demming. He pointed out Minden’s Hotel.

  “I was at one of Minden’s places, the Le Roy, just the other night. But I didn’t see any gambling.”

  “Well, you just didn’t see it,” he smiled. “Minden knows how to play the game. He has at least half a dozen places, all in different precincts—a couple in Manhattan, one out in Queens, and the rest here in Brooklyn.”

  “I heard this place was raided last year,” I said. “Are you sure it’s still operating?”

  “That raid was Willoughby Street flexing their muscles. They wanted to send a message.”

  “So, Minden kowtows to Willoughby and he’s back in business?” I asked.

  “Yes, Minden and the police chief. Then all was forgiven. They even gave back the faro bank and the roulette wheel they’d seized, thank goodness. But now, rather than merely walking up stairs to the game rooms, you need to use a separate entrance. When you visit, be sure to check out that roulette wheel. A true work of art.”

  He showed me a couple more places on Broadway and then we went up the six blocks to Grand Street. There was another ferry landing here and another set of places catering to visitors from the other side. Then we caught a Metropolitan Avenue car and went out to Maspeth, just across the borough line in Queens. There were three poolrooms in six blocks, one owned by Minden. At the time, there wasn’t much else in that part of Queens and I left with the impression that poolrooms were the principal industry of Maspeth. We took a car back to Kent Street and then another to Greenpoint. On the ride, I asked him about Emmie. At first, he denied having met her before. Then, when it was obvious I wasn’t convinced, he offered an equivocation.

  “Harry, I can assure you I know nothing about Mrs. Reese that should cause you consternation. And, I would add, you should be thankful you have a wife who can never be accused of being dull.”

  “There are times I crave a little dullness,” I said. “I know Emmie seems amusing in small doses, but you have no idea what it’s like day after day.”

  “Oh, I do, Harry,” he smiled. “In her youth, Mrs. Demming was more than a match for young Emmie. Though I don’t mean to sound boastful.”

  In Greenpoint, there were four poolrooms within three blocks of the ferry landing, including the one I’d been to on Friday. The others I would never have spotted, but Demming pointed to the telegraph lines running to them. Not many cigar stores have a legitimate need for a Western Union wire. There was also one hotel, and Demming said he thought this might be a “resort,” his term for a place with a roulette wheel and faro bank.

  It had been raining continuously and by then we were both pretty thoroughly drenched. We took a car back down to Broadway and Demming said he needed to meet someone across the river. We said our good-byes and he told me to call on him if I needed any more help. On the ride home from Williamsburg, I took out a blank notebook and started writing the names of fictitious women, giving each a playful description, as well as an address or telephone number. I knew that sometime that night Emmie would make a search for my notebook, trying to find out where I’d been, and I thought I’d give her something to read.

  It was half past eight when I arrived home. Emmie’s mother didn’t seem to mind that I’d skipped out on her last evening with us. But Emmie had determined the full treatment was in order, whereby she pretends not to notice my existence. She was sure she’d be able to wear me down one way or another, but I had an ace in the hole.

  The next morning, I left the apartment before she was dressed and visited the janitor at the Margaret. The apartment Emmie coveted was still open, and he gave me the address of the agent. Then I visited our Mr. Ahearn. I told him I wanted to get out of the lease by the first and didn’t want any trouble about it. He hesitated. So then I suggested that the cops were on to me and I wasn’t sure how the neighbors would feel about a police raid. That brought him around.

  Back upstairs, I had breakfast with Emmie and Mother, then left the house at a leisurely pace. Once I was certain I had Emmie in tow, I took a car up to the agent’s office on Fulton Street. He called the Bureau to check on my employment, and then my bank. When I told him my wife was a friend of Mrs. Holt, who lived in the Margaret, he said that was reference enough. We agreed to terms and signed the lease.

  It took me a bit to spot Emmie outside. She was hiding in a little florist’s kiosk. I bought some flowers, which I presented to her along with our new lease.

  “You know I can’t deny you anything, dear,” I said. As I began walking toward the Fulton ferry, I turned and added, “Better start packing—we need to be out of the old place in three weeks.”

  She looked at me dumbly. I relished moments like this. It was so rare I was able to turn the tables. The move was bound to occupy all her time for the next few weeks and I was sure she would have to give up following me around. You might be thinking to yourself, “How did he turn the tables on Emmie? Didn’t she want to move to the Margaret all along?” And you’d be right, of course. But you m
ust concede this: I did it on my own terms. And it was definitely the lesser of two evils. Besides, I was well used to living beyond my means. There was, however, one thing that troubled me. When the agent called our bank, he very clearly wrote down the figure “572.” If we had a balance of five hundred and seventy-two dollars, it was certainly news to me.

  After arriving at the Bureau I made out an only modestly fictionalized expense report, then decided my next step should be to check on Barclay’s bucket shop. I phoned Ratigan at Newcome’s and asked him how I’d get a list of names of the shop’s other proprietors and investors. Maybe Farrell’s or Huber’s name would come up. Ratigan said he could get it, but it might take a few days. I also asked for an explanation of how exactly the shops worked and he told me to come by and he could give me some articles.

  Newcome’s offices were in the World Building, up on Park Row. At the time, this was one of the premier addresses in the city. Like all of New York’s tallest buildings, it was near the Manhattan end of the bridge, in the neighborhood of City Hall. I walked up and spent the rest of the morning reading about bucket shops. In a nutshell, a bucket shop reduced investments to mere bets. Most of the shops presented themselves as stock brokers, but never actually handled real securities. Their clients were primarily people of modest means hoping to become the next Jay Gould. In an old-time bucket shop, you could “buy” a share of steel for a margin of as little as a dollar. Say steel was selling at $90. The bucket shop would take your dollar and mark the sale at some price slightly above $90, maybe 90¼. That 25 cents was their commission. If the stock fell to 89¼, you were wiped out immediately. If it went up to 92, you could sell, but again paying a ¼ point commission, so you’d receive $1.50, a fifty percent profit on your one-dollar bet.

  Ratigan told me the bucket shops had been pretty well cleared out of New York. The legitimate brokers insisted on it. But they still popped up from time to time. He remembered Barclay’s venture. As Tibbitts had said, it was geared toward women who were bored with going to vaudeville matinees and had outgrown playing the numbers at policy shops. Barclay’s establishment did very well for a while, but eventually it collapsed.

  “That’s how they all end,” he said. “You see, the bucket shop’s business is really just a gamble itself. It’s essentially a bet that the price movements of the securities are random. Or at least that their customers are too foolish to detect patterns. All it takes is a big bull market, when even fools can bet correctly, and they’re wiped out.”

  I asked him to look into Haight & Jensen and see if Huber was a client, then took a car across the bridge and arrived home just in time for lunch. Afterwards, we escorted Emmie’s mother to Grand Central for her 2 o’clock train. Once she had boarded, Emmie and I hopped on the downtown L. As we approached the Cooper Union, I pointed out Emmie’s hair was coming undone. While she was occupied with that, I gave her a peck and left the train quickly enough that she couldn’t follow. I walked down to the Houston Street ferry landing, bought a bag of peanuts, and got on the boat going to Grand Street in Williamsburg.

  As was my habit when the weather was pleasant, I made my way past the carriages and wagons in the center of the boat to the bow. I liked feeling the wind off the water. When we were about halfway across, I felt someone going after the peanuts in my jacket pocket. I was sure it was Emmie, triumphantly announcing her presence, so I jumped about quickly to grab her arm. Instead I found the muzzle of an equally surprised horse. We agreed to split the peanuts.

  I stopped in two different poolrooms that afternoon. Demming had suggested I not bring up Huber until I became more of a regular customer. So I just put down my bets and made small talk with the other dupes. When the last race at Bennings had come over the wire, I walked down to the Carleton Hotel and put in another appearance in the barroom. There was a different fellow behind the bar and I told him the story of having gone to school with Huber.

  “He was in here, you know. That very evening.”

  “Huber was here the night he killed himself?” I asked.

  “Yeah, well, early. Came in about five o’clock.”

  “By himself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he seem upset?”

  “Seemed so to me. Sat in a corner by himself. That wasn’t like him. Left here in bad shape.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I couldn’t say for sure. Not much past six. I told a cop about it, but he didn’t seem interested.”

  He couldn’t tell me anything else about that evening, so I just exchanged some small talk with him and some others before heading home. Emmie had placed the flowers I’d given her on the table and prepared a lovely dinner. She thanked me for conceding on the move to the Margaret.

  “Not at all, Emmie. I just hope you’ll be able to get all the packing done in time.”

  “That’s no problem, Harry. I’ll enjoy it.”

  The suspicion that my strategy of the morning had more or less backfired spoiled my mood some, but I still felt certain there was little chance I couldn’t keep Emmie from following me. The next morning, Tuesday, I saw no sign of her. It occurred to me she was counting on me going to the Bureau and would follow me from there. As it was, my plan was to visit Sovereign Mutual that morning. Perkins had explained to me how the claims on Farrell and Barclay had caught his notice. But I wondered if there were others, maybe the year before. Perkins took me around to the Claims Department and introduced me to the manager, a fellow named Sanford Osborne.

  “We’ve looked through the claims,” Osborne pointed out. “There was nothing else that stood out.”

  “Well, I’m not even sure what it is I’m looking for.”

  He didn’t hide the fact that he saw my going through his files as an affront. Of course, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. But he was right about it. If anything, my search just reinforced how unusual the cases of Farrell and Barclay were. Huber had written about three dozen policies through Sovereign and the only other claims were on accident policies. And as had been mentioned to me earlier, every other policy holder lived in Brooklyn. There was something else common to the Farrell and Barclay policies. The same company doctor, Edward Dibble, had seen them both. There was nothing remarkable about that, but I made sure I got his telephone number and address before I left for the Bureau.

  There was a message from Ratigan waiting for me and I phoned him back. He began with this summation, “Farrell was a slob.” Then he basically documented the fact. He was a mediocre drummer, often drunk, and he was a philanderer, but with no regular woman on the side. He did visit poolrooms on the road and in New York, but not often. The discrepancy between his employer’s and Mrs. Farrell’s accounts of when he was on the road the Newcome’s people attributed solely to Mrs. Farrell’s feeble memory. There was nothing to indicate he’d ever even been to Brooklyn, but Ratigan pointed out it was difficult to prove otherwise. The facts on Barclay were pretty much what Tibbitts had told me. He was a sort of high-class confidence man who had been trying to gain legitimacy. Ratigan had noted the connection to Sovereign Mutual, so I went ahead and told him the whole story.

  Next, I phoned Dr. Dibble. He was tied up most of the day, but said I could drop by his office at six o’clock. After lunch, I went back over to the first place in Greenpoint I had visited the previous Friday. Now I was a recognized sucker, so everyone was a little chummier. About halfway through the Bennings card, I went off to another Greenpoint poolroom. Here I was stopped at the door. I told the fellow the place had been recommended by some friends. I mentioned Huber’s name, but that meant nothing to him. Then I tried Demming’s alias, Larabee. Open sesame.

  This place was just like all the others I’d visited, a telegraph operator in the corner, yelling out results at they came in, a man at the blackboard writing them down, and sometimes writing new odds. A cashier at a little table where you made your bet and collected your winnings. The only reason to visit one place over another seemed to be the same as for a s
aloon: you liked the company.

  Unless, of course, you were in a line like Huber’s and wanted to meet as many potential customers as possible. Spending an afternoon going from poolroom to poolroom, a man adept at small talk could make a lot of acquaintances. It could be Huber wasn’t hooked on gambling, but just saw it in the same way he saw going to the Elks Lodge.

  I actually finished ahead that afternoon—fifty dollars all together. It made me realize that I could end the week with a positive expense ledger if I wasn’t careful. I caught the 23rd Street ferry to Manhattan and walked over to Dr. Dibble’s office on Lexington. His nurse had me wait a bit, but then showed me into his little office. He was an older, pudgy fellow, with a red face. If you stuck a white beard on him, he’d make a good St. Nicholas. I had already explained the reason for my visit on the telephone, so I got to the point.

  “I take it your work for Sovereign is just something you do on the side?” I asked.

  “Yes. Many doctors do some work of this type to supplement their practice. They give me a name and then I make arrangements to meet the man at a mutually convenient time and place. Usually in the evenings at their own homes.”

  “And that’s what happened with Farrell and Barclay?”

  “I don’t remember the details of how the appointments were made, but here are the notes of my visits.”

  He handed me a notebook opened to a page where there was an entry for Barclay, and a few pages later one for Farrell. The dates matched what I had. The rest was in doctor’s hieroglyphs. I handed it back.

  “So I take it they were both healthy?”

  “Yes, Barclay certainly. Farrell was a little older, and certainly not a stellar physical specimen, but he checked out all right.”

  “Did you see any evidence that either was a heavy drinker?”

  “Nothing alarming, but from his general condition I would guess Farrell drank more than he ought to have.”

  “Were their wives there when you visited?”