The Twisted Turbine

Chapter One – The Book Seller's Daughter

Summary: It's the Jazz Age and someone's trying to use an artifact to kill the president. Former GI Pete Lattimer takes the case and soon finds himself caught up in a web of lies, deception and things not being entirely what they seem. Hitting the ground running, Pete, his sometimes-nemesis-sometimes-friend, and young reporter M. Bering are off to save the president.

Notes: 1920s AU set in New York City. In the true spirit of a period piece, the language and the times have to be respected, let's not flame me for use of slang and expressions considered derogatory in the present day. We cool? Cool.

Story talks about PTSD, the effects of it, Trench Warfare, chain smoking, alcoholism, and well, it was the 20s, errybody had issues and it was all glamor and glory and hidden lives. Also lesbian sexual tension abounds.

Beta'ed (and egged on) by spockette, this is all her fault.

It smells like death. It always smells like death, of rot and of mildew. It always rains in this god-awful country; the sun hasn't come out in weeks. Pete grips his gun tightly to his chest and concentrates on his cigarette, the only thing keeping him tethered to the now. In and out the smoke comes from his lungs. Like gas, but a good kind of burn, not the kind that kills.

Not that anyone would care if he died. He has no one to write home to, no one to talk to as his French is only just passing and the Brits don't like him because they think he's a cowboy just there for the glory.

He's not.

This is his homeland. His family's from France, just two generations back. He still has cousins that are fighting in this war, for their families that are in hiding. He supposes that he's lucky that he didn't have to be here, but it was the right thing to do. His dad would have done it, had trying to save all of those girls not taken his life some six years ago.

It's cold.

He shivers and steps over the rotting corpse of a fella he barely got a chance to know before he got sent up and over, shot, dead, dragged back to safety. They won't send his maimed body home. He'd been green too, just barely out of training. They'd taught him how to stab with a bayonet and how to quickly load his rifle. They didn't teach him that he'd die because of how the war was fought.

They didn't teach anyone that.

Pete's gas mask rests around his neck and he tugs it down, trying to breathe. The air is stale; it smells like death, like mildew and mold. Like the root cellar in his grandmother's house, in Winooski, Vermont. Pete doesn't like the smell.

The one person who does talk to him shouldn't be there either. They're stuck like this, until the war is over or they die. Pete doesn't think that the war will ever end, so he's prepared to die fighting it.

It is all he has to live for now.

Up and over, the command goes, and Pete struggles up over the barbed wire and mud and slime. His comrades fall around him, great men, dedicated men. He doesn't die though; he's too good at pretending to be dead and shouting in German and the enemy to confuse them. He can't hear anything over the Maschinengewehr 08, its rapid fire rounds tat-tat-tat-tating until they are all that Pete can hear.

A hand pulls him to his knees and the mud stained face of his closest friend come into view, brown eyes harsh and angry. "Stay down," comes the harsh command in the King's English, "Play dead."

Peter Lattimer woke up in a cold sweat, his hands fisted around his damp sheets and the fifty cent pillow that he'd bought with his first paycheck out of the Sears catalogue. He knew he should not have bought the thing; he'd tear it up before this night was over.

The clock on the wall read five fifteen in the morning and Pete kicked at the sheets, groaning loudly. The wrought iron of his bedframe creaked ominously as Pete sat up, and stared moodily out of the window, rubbing at the back of his head. A word came to mind, one his father used on such nights, when sleep eluded even the heaviest of sleepers. He didn't say it, because he wasn't his father and French sounded odd enough on his lips already.

The gun he'd taken off a German soldier during his final battle rested on the bedside table, and Pete eyed it for a long moment. It was a sin, he knew that, but he thought about it every time he woke up at the crack of dawn. The morning was when it hurt the most, by the time the day wore on Pete was able to put his mind on other things, and not remember the war, the trenches, and the death.

His sleep shirt was bunched around his waist and he scratched idly at his hip. He wanted to go back to sleep, the heat of the day had barely set in yet and he could get another two hours before the alarm went off.

He closed his eyes, and the trench swam back into his field of vision. He could hear the gun tat-tat-tatting and Pete's eyes shot back open. Sleep was not an option this morning, it seemed.

His rented room was small, filled with things that he'd managed to keep with him after the war. There was a map of Europe tacked up on the wall, pins stuck into places where he'd been. A precious photograph of his mother and father was nestled carefully to the right of the small pile of clean handkerchiefs on top of the bureau that his landlady, Miriam Donovan, had left there that morning with the rest of the wash. His battered wristwatch that had survived the war with him (and was in desperate need of a new strap) lay beside it, along with his cufflinks and tie pin.

He felt so out of place, in this small room in Brooklyn. This was not where he belonged; he didn't know how to be a civilian.

x

The newspaper was sitting on the breakfast table and Pete was grateful that he could read the latest from The Star's ace reporter, M. Bering. No one really knew who the fellow was, but he could get a story out of nothing and always managed to keep Pete, who never much cared for books without pictures, interested. Mrs. Donovan bustled about in the kitchen, and Pete smiled at her. He was more than willing to pay a little extra on his rent every month in order to ensure that he could have a hot meal in the morning.

"You shouldn't read that shite," She intoned, spooning oatmeal into a bowl and dipping her fingers deep into the jar of raisins that Pete had bought her at Christmas time last year. She sprinkled a few onto them and set the bowl in front of Pete, who took it with a muttered thank you. His landlady had a foul mouth, but she was a fantastic cook, even something as boring as oatmeal tasted fantastic when she cooked it. "All those rags ever talk about is death and dying. Why not celebrate the living, I ask you?"

Mrs. Donovan did have a point, but given how often she prayed for entrance to heaven when she died and how often Pete thought about suicide, he did not think that either of them were in the market to truly be discussing the living. "I think the stories that this reporter, Bering, gets are pretty nifty, to be honest." He skimmed the article. It was a report on how Babe Ruth (Pete's personal hero) was nothing more than a mean drunk. Perhaps a bit of slander, but Pete couldn't stand alcohol after the war and wanted no part in the culture of crime that had cropped up since the temperance movement had succeeded in getting it banned.

He kept trying for the Bureau of Prohibition, but they'd never let him in with the nightmares. They asked questions about his experience during the war, if he ever relived it.

Every day, he'd say.

And then they'd tell him that they were sorry, but he did not meet the requirements.

"Have you seen my niece?" Mrs. Donovan asked, another bowl of oatmeal in her hands, steam curling around it and frizzing the older woman's lined face.

Pete shrugged and turned the page in the paper, spoon halfway into his mouth. He'd missed the baseball game on the radio last night; the Yankees had beat the Dodgers, excellent. His free hand moved around the newspaper easily, finding the book of matches he'd left on the table the night before and plucking one out easily. He struck it on the table, and lit the cigarette he'd tucked behind his ear earlier.

They were the only things that helped now. They kept the thoughts and the shakes at bay, made him seem human again. He took a long drag, tilting his head and blowing the smoke up and over the top of the newspaper as Mrs. Donovan bustled about in the kitchen, getting breakfast ready for her niece and herself.

Pete didn't know what the story was with Mrs. Donovan's young charge, but Pete loved the girl all the same. She was smart as a whip and probably deserved better than the lot of life that unfortunate genetics had thrown her. Being Catholic, Irish and poor was really not how one best utilize a mind like Claudia Donovan's. Pete was trying to put her in touch with a fly boy he knew, so that she could work on planes and not end up in a factory somewhere worked to the bone while her mind went to seed.

No, Claudia Donovan deserved more. Pete stubbed out his cigarette, drew another one from the pack in his jacket pocket and lit it with the same precision. He'd have to buy more on his way into the office.

"Claudia!" Mrs. Donovan bellowed. She was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, apron all askew. She still dressed more conservatively, her dress ending at her ankles, her sleeves long despite the heat of the day already. She'd suffer in silence, instead of following the more relaxed trend of the day, like her niece and wearing trousers.

Granted, trousers were not exactly kosher for a young girl of Claudia's age to be wearing, but they were far more practical than a dress for the work that Claudia did on a day to day basis. Pete wasn't one to judge, one of the few people he still spoke to on a regular basis liked to blur the lines between the masculine and the feminine on a regular basis.

(Granted, the bird was also batty, but Pete wasn't keeping score.)

The red haired head of Claudia Donovan was the only part of her that did not come scurrying into the room as she hung around it, shouting after someone outside. "Don't you leave me holding the bag, Todd, I'll kill you!"

"Come off it, Claudia, you were the one who broke the carbonator," came the retort and Pete could just make out through the haze of his cigarette his young housemate making a rude gesture at her friend just outside.

The boy made a rude noise and Claudia stuck her tongue out at his retreating form, her hair had grease in it, a black streak just at the front. Her haircut was the only thing, Pete realized, that was even remotely feminine about her, cropped short as was the trend of the day.

"Howdy," Claudia said, accepting the oatmeal that her aunt shoved into her hands with the accented command of 'eat'. "You're up early."

Pete shrugged, cigarette between two fingers as he folded up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. "I'm going to probably see Steven today, if all goes as plan."

"Gravy," Claudia muttered around a mouthful of oatmeal, pulling a napkin across the table towards herself as her aunt glared at her. She swallowed, eyes narrowing. "What's the case you're on now about?"

"Between 'em at the moment," Pete stubbed out his cigarette and crossed the room to the hat rack, selecting the hat that was his from the rack and pulling it down low over his eyes. It was straw, as it was the summer and the heat would be unbearable with his normal woolen fedora, but he still hated how lightweight the damned thing was. It felt like it was going to blow off his head at any moment. "Here's hoping some doll comes in and need some help with her sugar daddy stepping out on her."

Claudia flashed him a thumbs up and went back to her breakfast. Pete tipped his hat to Mrs. Donovan and walked out into the hot New York summer.

x

Pete was on his third cigarette and the radio was playing Duke Ellington quietly in the background as he works his way through his notes on several cases that he had to put on hold dude to various reasons. Money dried up, there wasn't anything left for Pete to investigate, whatever the case may be, he kept his notes filed away, in case they'd every came back. Most of his clients were crazy old birds who were worried that their devoted husbands are stepping out on them for reasons other than gin joints, and Pete couldn't really blame them, making alcohol illegal had changed this town, he liked to think for the better.

Jazz, however, Pete adored jazz, and swore up and down that he'd listen to the Negro music for as long as he could get away with it and it still be proper, and even then some. They played instruments in ways that Pete had never imagined before, his foot is tapping along and he's still be humming the melodies under his breath for hours after the broadcast was over.

There was a sharp rap at the door and Pete's pen jerked across the file that he was labeling. He frowned, closed it and set last Thursday's newspaper on top of it, declaring Jack Dempsey again a winner – this time in a decision over Jimmy Darcy. "Coming," he called, straightening his tie and adjusting his suspenders. It was too hot in his office to wear his jacket, and Pete was torn between wanting to appear professional and still retain his ability to breathe in his already stuffy office.

He elected to be seen in his shirtsleeves, and stepped forward to answer the door just as it was pushed open and a dark-haired woman stuck her head around the door. "Is anyone-Oh!" she started upon seeing Pete's hand outstretched for the door handle and stepped back, allowing him to pull the door open completely.

"Are you Mister Lattimer, the detective?" The woman asked, her eyes narrowed and cautious. Pete could see her eyes taking in his shirtsleeves and suspenders, just as evenly as he took in her dress and sensibly low shoes. She was dressed well, modestly for a woman her age, skirt ending just below the knee and wearing stockings despite the heat. Her hair was long, curly like a Jew's but she didn't look particularly Jewish. Pete didn't rule it out, but he resolved to not ask any particularly leading questions until he knew more about this woman.

Pete nodded, offering her his hand and stepping away from the door. She took it and Pete inclined his head, "Peter Lattimer, what can I do for you Miss…"

The woman's painted red lips quirked up into a smile and she shook her head ruefully. "They said you were a charmer, but tell me something, Mister Lattimer, are you an honest man?"

He supposed he was and said as much, settling her into a chair and offering her a lit match for her cigarette, produced from somewhere in her clothing and placed neatly into a holder from her pocketbook. She took a long drag and exhaled. "I am in need of your assistance then."

"Could I get your name first, doll?" Pete leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head. "I mean, if you want to play that game, we can, but I'm not much for guessing games."

She laughed then, light and airy, and reached forward, taking the newspaper off of Pete's ruined file folder and pulling out the business section. She turned to an article that Pete had only mildly glanced at, because it was by that writer Bering, and tapped her finger on the byline. "That's me." She looked up then, daring him to say anything at all. "Myka Bering, I write for The Star."

"Pretty exotic name there," Pete says, not really believing her. He'd always assumed that anyone who could write that well would be a man, would be educated and well-read and decidedly not the attractive dame sitting across the desk from him.

She smiled then, producing a small reporter's notebook from her purse and the stub of a pencil. Pete's eyes widened when he saw that it was covered in shorthand that he couldn't read. "My father owns a bookstore," Myka Bering said, licking her finger and flipping back several pages, eyes concentrating on her notes. "He's a bit eccentric."

"But you've got a total bore for a middle name then," Pete replied, not bothering to mention that he did not have a middle name, only his baptismal name – John – which he hated as it reminded him too much of so many faced he'd seen go during the war.

"Actually it's Ophelia."

Oh, the jokes, Pete thought, leaning forward, his face serious. "Do you really write for The Star?"

She gave him a hard look, painted lips pulling downwards and into a hard frown. "Did you want to see my credentials and a record of my pay, Mister Lattimer? If I am to hire you, I will not be paying you to investigate me."

He held up his hands in surrender, "No offense meant Ms. Bering – it is Miss right?"

"Yes, I am unattached as of this moment," Her tone was distracted, but she'd found the page and was mouthing words to herself as she read. "I thought that a husband and children would only be to my detriment, as my career is going so well, even if it's not technically under my name." She gave a quiet sigh, "They do let me write, though – an improvement to what it was like before."

Oh yes, Pete had to agree with her there, they'd just finished making women's suffrage legal and everywhere that Pete went, men were up in arms about it. Pete understood their reasoning, but he thought it silly at the same time. Women were subject to the laws of the land, why should they not have a say in how they played out?

That stance had not won him many friends among his peers, but the ladies loved him for it.

"I'd imagine," Pete agreed. He pulled his own note pad across the desk and eyed the inky blotch that was still on his file folder for a long moment before picking up his pen. "So, Miss Bering, what's this about then?"

He did not think that this was going to be your average case.

And so Myka Bering spun her tale and Pete began to realize just why she was The Star's ace reporter. She could paint vivid pictures with her words as she recounted a night where she was out at a very illegal speakeasy meeting a contact for some follow-up questions about a story (also about something very illegal – apparently sensationalism and illegal things sold newspapers, who knew?). She had overheard a conversation between two men at the bar, talking about a plot to kill President Harding. She hadn't thought much of it, but she had seen the same man at the same speakeasy a few days later, again discussing this plot – logistically this time.

"Why didn't you go to the police?" Pete asked when she finished telling her story. It was all so fantastic, using some sort of mystical device to kill the president from afar. From what Ms. Bering was saying, they thought they could be clear on the other side of Washington and still get away with it.

It was really too hot for this sort of thing.

But the idea of that device rang true to an incident that Pete had almost blocked from his memory of the war. Three dreadful hours where he sat in a trench hoping and praying that the gas would go away and that his friend would still be alive, that the intel would be intact, that they'd all be okay.

"I was at an illegal establishment, Mister Lattimer, I do have a reputation to uphold," Myka Bering pointed out.

"Coulda just said you were there to have a good time, bull likes that in a girl." Truth be told, Myka Bering could probably bat her eyelashes at any cop this side of Boston and she'd have them eating out of the palm of her hand. It had only been half an hour and Pete was already ready to eat out of the palm of her hand, should she be willing.

She gave him a scandalized look, hand raising up to hold her hat in place as she turned, bending and producing another cigarette from her pocketbook. Pete offered her the matches; she lit one expertly off the side of the desk and took a long pull. "I refuse to use my wiles on anything other than those who interest me, Mister Lattimer. Most of the bull in this town are not nearly attractive enough for that."

"I'll say," Pete agreed. He tugged at his tie. "Should I agree to take this case, we have to go see a friend of mine first."

"Oh?" Myka Bering asks, shoving her notepad and pencil back into her handbook, cigarette dangling between her lips. She'd already tucked the holder away and was smoking it like a man, sucking in smoke sans filter, the air cloudy between them. "Why is that?"

"Because I think I've heard of the device you heard of before, and you wanted a good man? This is the most dishonest person I know – keeps me honest just being around the fellow."

x

Saying the most dishonest person that Pete knew was rather a stretch, he thought as he offered Ms. Bering his arm and together they walked through the busy streets of Manhattan to the subway. He helped her onto the Broadway Line out towards Staten Island as was gentlemanly, but he got the sense that she did not enjoy the societal dictum that said that she would need to accept it; being an emancipated, new woman and all. They were headed deep into the heart of the Italian district. It was short enough to walk, but long enough that people might talk, seeing Pete and Ms. Bering out together.

He wasn't used to having a shadow, constantly watching him. He liked to work alone for a reason – and most of his clients respected his rather unorthodox way of doing things. He knew it was rare for a private dick to work without a partner, and rarer still for someone such as himself to not already be in some form of law enforcement.

He couldn't pass the test, they wouldn't let him in.

So Pete would read and wisecrack and do his job and always wonder if he wasn't destined to do something more fun, more interesting than look into cheating husbands and illegal gambling.

They got off at Canal Street, Pete ducking around several Chinamen who were carrying what looked to be fifteen chickens down and onto the train. Ms. Bering watched them with interest for a few moments, bending and offering one of the men his hat when it fell off. She muttered something to him in what sounded like his own language and he intoned a quick 'thank you' in accented English.

Pete was even more impressed with this woman as the minutes he spent in her presence ticked on. She was clearly smart, and had mentioned as they were leaving that she'd gone to school in Massachusetts, Holyoke to be precise. Pete would have pegged her for a Smith girl, honestly, but she'd wrinkled her nose and said her first choice had been Vassar but her father could not afford it.

The woman had had more schooling than him; she'd hopefully get on well with his friend.

They walked up several fights of stairs to a nondescript door, Ms. Bering trailing a bit behind, eyes cautious. Smart girl.

Pete knocked on the door, pulling off his hat hurriedly as he did so, not wanting to offend delicate English sensibilities.

Ha – as if the woman had any to begin with.

When no one answered, he knocked again, this time adding a call of, "I know you're in there, open up." That usually worked when she didn't want to talk, she always opened the door for Pete. Also she owed Pete five dollars so she'd better be in there.

He turned and flashed Ms. Bering a weak smile over his shoulder, watching as she lit another cigarette and took a long drag. The woman smoked almost as much as he did, he wondered if she too was being chanced by demons that couldn't be described.

"What?" The door was flung open and Pete grinned sheepishly down at the smaller form of one of his closest friends. Old army buddy, both of them shouldn't have even been there. There was a long story, a long history in general between them, and Pete liked to keep the past buried. "Oh, hello Peter," The dark haired form of the once well-renowned author HG Wells inclined itself at Pete before swiveling to give Myka Bering a most improper once-over. "And Peter's friend."

Ms. Bering gave her a small smile and wave, coyly hiding behind her cigarette and the haze of smoke around her head. That's interesting. Have to follow up on that later.

"May we?" Pete asked, gesturing to the door. This wasn't a conversation to be had in the hallway of an office building.

The office of HG Wells was littered with papers, a battered sofa in the corner had a blanket folded neatly at one end, which indicated to Pete that HG was currently in between jobs. Good, he didn't like the competition and HG Wells was very good at doing Pete's job.

There was a tangled mess of wires and gears sitting at a work bench and a cup of tea steaming on the author's formal desk, despite the heat of the day.

HG shifted some papers around and freed up some space on the desk. "What can I do for you Lattimer?" she asked, eyes as hard and full of concentration. Pete knew HG too well, though, they'd been through the war together, they'd come back to New York together. The grouchiness was probably a lack of sex or drink, not directly related to their presence in her life. "It's not every day you bring dames with you."

"She's a reporter, actually," Pete clarified. Dame somehow seemed a little derogatory when it came to referring to Ms. Bering. The woman was obviously far too smart and far too educated to be treated with anything less than the respect deserving of a lady. "Has a story that I think you need to hear."

As the reporter told her story, Pete paced around the room, trying not to flash back to that time. To sitting there with his gas mask on, hoping and praying that his best friend would come back. He knew that she was dead, that she shouldn't have been there to begin with – but they needed bodies and she was good at pretending to be a boy. Her hair had grown long again these days, and Pete was grateful for the distinction – HG Wells had confused him mightily before he'd discovered her secret.

That had been an awkward few days, and Pete was forever grateful to learn that no, he wasn't a fag – just attracted to a woman who had no interest in him at all.

Well, they had necked a few times, but that was long ago when they both thought they would die at any moment.

War… Pete shook his head. Made you do things.

HG had been asked to carry some sensitive information about a new energy source that the French had discovered across the line to where some Brits had moved into a section of the German trench just across the fifteen yard stretch of No-Man's Land. There'd been a shelling, and someone had thrown a canister of gas, leaving HG trapped in the middle hunkered in a hole with the only other soul foolhardy enough to venture out across the space between the trenches.

He had been a German commander, caught without a gas mask. HG had saved his life, he'd shot her in the shoulder and stolen her intel; and in doing so, gotten HG accused of treason and nearly court martialed.

That was why she was here, not in London where she belonged. An expatriate like in Hemingway's' book, hiding in plain sight because going home was not an option.

The power source that Ms. Bering had described sounded exactly like the one that the French had found, that the Germans had took from HG. If this was the case, then Pete could get HG's help on this, and Ms. Bering could rest easy knowing no one was going to kill President Harding.

"I do see your point," HG said, leaning against her desk, vest buttoned but her shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal pale arms and a wrist watch that always looked out of place on her. They were both over thirty, Pete decided, they should probably start acting like adults. "Should I agree to help you, Ms. Bering, Peter, what's in it for me?"

"Well, I do intend to write about it," Ms. Bering pointed out, hand never ceasing motion as she took notes in her strange little short hand. "There might be some glory involved."

Pete clapped HG on the shoulder, grinning at her. "And you can clear your name, get outta this dump, go home if you want."

"Alright then," HG turned and picked up her tea, smirking at Pete as he looked horrified. It was too hot for tea, Pete was sweating profusely and HG looked completely unfazed – as did Ms. Bering (must be a woman thing). "Count me in."