8

CHAPTER 3

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Monday, August 10

1925

(2 DAYS AGO)

Christopher Chance sat at his desk, one finger stroking his mustache as he stared at the pile of unpaid bills. He owed for everything from the telephone subscription - his private line a terrible but necessary expense - to the long-suffering mechanic down the street who replaced the shot-to-hell radiator on his Tin Lizzie after the last investigation went awry. He was behind in his rent. Widow Gustav, with three unmarried daughters, tended to indulge her bachelor boarders, but a wise man never tried his landlady's patience too long.

The numerals neatly inked in the open bankbook beside the stack of bills wouldn't cover the half of his debts.

He could go back to Pinkerton's, he supposed. He'd been one of their best agents, and they paid a handsome wage. He still kept in touch with their Minneapolis office, trading tidbits of information for access to their Rogues Gallery and occasional glances through their files.

With the advent last year of the Department of Justice's new Bureau of Investigation, Pinkerton's position as an unofficial national police agency was rapidly slipping away. Christopher's heart wasn't in the type of assignments - union busting and…what was the term? Industrial espionage - Alan Pinkerton II was steering the business toward. Those who could afford Pinkerton's fees for private protection weren't the people he had vowed to help.

The problem was, the people he wanted to help could seldom afford the nominal fees Twin C Detective Service charged, even when he accepted barter in lieu of cold hard cash. Since opening his own office, he remained solvent by bounty hunting. Lately, pickings had been slim.

Although Chief of Police John O'Connor had retired in 1920, the system he devised to free St. Paul's streets from criminal depredations remained very much in place. O'Connor's present successor, 'Dapper Dan' Hogan, ruled the operation with a kid-gloved iron hand.

As long as bank robbers, extortionists, rum-runners, even kidnappers broke no laws in St. Paul, they were safe from arrest. From extradition. And from bounty hunters. Minneapolis authorities were somewhat less reluctant to lock up criminals, but even across the river, more than one yegg or grifter he'd brought in 'escaped' before the reward money was tendered. Christopher had to venture far afield to track down criminals without incurring the wrath of police and politicians making a tidy profit from hoodlums living free as a breeze in sanctuary towns like St. Paul.

When the telephone bell jangled its shrill summons, he jumped like he'd taken a jolt from that crazy inventor Tesla's energy coil he'd been reading about.

Holding the candlestick telephone's receiver close to his ear with one hand and grasping the stand with the other, he answered, "Hello - Twin C Detective Service."

"Is that you, Christopher?" came a distant voice he recognized despite the tinny quality. Nina Clifford. One of St. Paul's most prominent madams.

"It's meself, Mrs. Clifford. What can I do for you?"

"I wonder if you could stop by my office right away? I have someone in desperate need of your services." She paused. "Payment in advance, of course."

No telling what sort of trouble her customer had gotten into. Had the wife caught him leaving Nina's establishment? Was he mixed up in bootlegging? He hoped not. Cases involving local suppliers could be a real bitch to resolve. Just the same, even if clients were lined up twice around the block, Christopher would drop everything to meet with Mrs. Clifford. She had bank-rolled his business and referred clients to him at every opportunity. He owed the woman a lifetime of favors.

"Althea Macklin, this is Christopher Chance, the man I was telling you about" Nina Clifford said. "Christopher Chance, meet Althea Macklin."

The woman studied him with a penetrating intensity that seemed to count the hairs on his head and estimate the size of his, umm, shoe. Chances were, she'd know within 50¢ how little money reposed in his wallet. Christopher ordered his mouth to close itself. It felt like his jaw had bounced on the floor when she folded back her veil.

She was beautiful. No, she was beyond beautiful, or would have been if her eyes weren't puffy and red from crying and her skin the color of chalk. She was young enough to have bobbed her silver-blonde hair, but retained the elegant Gibson Girl style that required thick, luxurious tresses to attain. He pictured himself removing the ebony combs holding it in place and running his fingers through it as it tumbled to her waist….

She held out a gloved hand as fine-boned as a sparrow. His fingers felt thick and clumsy as they closed around hers.

"How do you do, Mr. Chance. I hope you can help. My husband intends to kill me."

She was dressed in mourning from black hat to calf-high frock to sheer black hose that couldn't have excited him more if they were those racy fishnet stockings some of the Dime-a-Dance dollies wore. And her clod of a husband, lucky enough to have won an exquisite creature like this for his wife, wanted to murder her? The man was a lunatic.

… … … … ...

"We sat up very late that night, my sister and I," Althea Macklin said. "We were trying to decide what to do about Humphrey - my husband. We separated almost five years ago. He's complained about paying my maintenance stipend every month since it was assessed. Forty dollars a month. Says it's too much, the stingy mope. He has more money than he could spend in three lifetimes."

Etta, one of Nina's house-maids, bustled in carrying a tea tray. Althea's hand shook as she lifted a cup to her lips and sipped.

"I even found work waitressing in a tea room. It didn't pay enough to keep a roof over my head. I had to move back in with Momma and Pops. That is, until Nina hired me and sent me to stenographer school. I can type eighty words a minute and take shorthand at a hundred. I'd just got my own place, close enough to church I can walk."

Christopher released a breath he'd forgotten he was holding. Althea wasn't one of Nina's girls. If she were, he knew he'd spend every last penny in his dismal bank account for a single night with her. He tried to picture her seated before a typewriter, delicate fingers flying over the keys. An image of those same fingers rolling down her hose kept getting in the way.

"It got too late for me to go home alone. Momma and Pops were already asleep and my brothers hadn't come in yet. My sister and I went upstairs. I still had some things in my old room across the hall from hers, but we both got into my sister's bed like we did when we were kids, just talking up a storm.

"After a while we were finally dozing off when I heard noises downstairs. I said to Willa - "

Althea's voice failed and she began sobbing. Nina took over the story.

"She heard someone come upstairs. The risers creak so it's easy to hear when someone goes up or down. Althea thought it was one of her brothers and called out. When the man opened their door and said 'Who's Mrs. Macklin,' Willa pipes up and says, 'Me. Get out or I'll scream the house down.'"

"She was always so fearless," Althea said. "Nothing ever daunted her, she got mad instead of frightened. But then he - He pointed his gun and - "

"The bastard shot Willa point blank," Nina said. "She didn't have a chance."

Christopher could visualize the horror, the screams, the blood. He pictured Althea, too frightened, too stunned to move, wishing with all her heart she had spoken before her sister did. He could imagine all too well the guilt she must feel, as much or more than her grief.

He hated to ask questions that would seem both callous and intrusive, but he needed information. The trigger-man wasn't her husband since he didn't recognize Althea. It had to be a hired gun. If the man were smart, he'd be long gone, headed for Kansas City or Cicero, or any of a dozen other sanctuary towns. Still, knowing the killer's identity would make finding him and proving who hired him easier.

"Did you get a look at him? Any idea who he was?"

Althea had regained her composure. "He wore a bandana tied around his face and a hat, a fedora, pulled down low. I know Humphrey put him up to it. Paid him. Humphrey wouldn't risk dirtying his hands, or disgracing the family name doing the job himself. Besides, he's a terrible shot. The gun he keeps in his desk at the bank isn't even loaded."

That was why her name sounded familiar. The Macklins owned one of the largest banks in Minneapolis.

"Is there a reason he might want you dead - besides the maintenance stipend?"

"About half a million. I found out he's had my life insured for $250,000. Double indemnity for 'accidental' death."

Christopher whistled. "Those are some pretty strong motives, I'm thinkin'."

"It's just the tip of the iceberg. He came to see me the last time my maintenance was due. Asked me again for a divorce. Of course I refused, as I have from the very first. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. They should include 'or woman'. He only married me because I refused to grant him liberties without a ring on my finger. Now he's got another dolly on his string holding out for marriage and he can't because of me."

"She's Catholic," Nina said, as if Christopher, being a lapsed one himself and a detective to boot, couldn't figure it out. "That means 'til death do us part."

"And he won't quit," Althea said, "until one of us is."

"Did you report this? Dapper Dan doesn't stand for these shenanigans."

Althea withdrew a long, bejeweled cigarette holder from her handbag. Christopher watched her insert a cigarette, produce a cloisonné lighter, and apply the flame. While women had smoked in public since Teddy Roosevelt's hellion daughter Alice had brazenly set the trend, he still found himself fascinated by the lighting-up process. Especially when the woman was as lovely as this one.

She exhaled a perfect smoke-ring. The mental images of what a woman's lips and tongue agile enough to accomplish that could do to a man's body brought blood coursing to his groin.

"It would be a waste of time."

Oh, no, it wouldn't. Oh. She meant going to the police.

"The Macklins are connected all the way to the top," Althea said. "Not just through their bank. Humphrey's brother Simon is a deputy commissioner. Their goons could cut my throat at the top of Summit Hill and no one would lift a finger."

And that was why the gunman risked defying the O'Connor system. Humphrey could lay low and hire killer after killer with the system providing alibis and hide-outs until one of them succeeded.

What he needed was to turn Dan Hogan against Humphrey Macklin. Neutralize Humphrey and you neutralized the threat to Althea.

"You can't go back to your own place or your parents'," Christopher said. "Word will be out the killer got the wrong woman. Someone will try for you again."

He wished he had somewhere to hide her until she was out of danger. A house or hotel where he could keep her safe. Visit her with reports….

"She'll stay with me," Nina said. "There isn't a hoodlum in the state who'd dare make mischief here. The Macklins might be big fish in the twin cities, but I know secrets going all the way to Washington, D. C."

Christopher walked to the Model T he'd left parked outside Nina's. For once the temperamental flivver started on the first crank. He leaped to the driver's seat, made a U-turn, and headed for Wabasha Street.

Despite their shared Irish heritage, no love was lost between Christopher Chance and Dapper Dan Hogan.

Hogan, current godfather of the O'Connor system, was a self-styled peacemaker who possessed equal clout with local criminals and the police department. He held court from the Green Lantern Saloon, a combination eatery and beer joint. Beneath a sign in the front window reading DAPPER DAN THE HOTDOG MAN, frankfurters sizzled on a griddle. The Green Lantern was where visiting outlaws checked in, paid their bribe, and received instructions on where to stay while in St. Paul. It was the place to fence stolen property or launder securities and bonds. If your liquor shipment was hijacked, here was where you came to ransom it back.

It was no welcome refuge for Christopher. Some of the regulars knew him and word swiftly passed that a former Pinkerton and present-day bounty hunter had just stepped through the door.

Ignoring both the scowls and handful of customers suddenly remembering urgent business elsewhere, he strode to the bar and plunked down a nickel. "Beer," he said, knowing he wouldn't get the real stuff but the nasty but legal "near beer" served to quench hotdog eaters' thirst.

"Hogan in?"

"Who wants to know?"

The bartender knew perfectly well who he was.

"Meself," Christopher said. "And me sidekick, Mr. Colt."

He let his jacket fall open just enough to reveal what he carried in his shoulder holster.

Unimpressed, the bartender served the beer, then strolled to the pass-through at the end of the bar. He crossed to a closed door, gave a double rap, then opened it far enough to poke his head through. Moments later, leaving the door ajar, he sauntered back. Christopher waited patiently, elbow propped on the bar.

"G'won in. But make it snappy. He's got better things to do than palaver with has-been Pinks."

… … … … ...

"A girl was murdered a few nights ago in your so-called safe city," Christopher said.

"Hooker?" Dan Hogan queried with a lift of one shoulder that said "so what?" He flicked ash from a fat Cuban cigar.

"A lass barely sixteen, and from a respectable family."

"Ah, yes. Heard about that. House burglary, wasn't it? Damn shame."

Christopher pointed a finger at Hogan's nose. "House burglary my arse. If that's what your goons told you, they lied through their teeth. Humphrey Macklin hired someone to bump off his wife. The bastard killed the wife's little sister by mistake. I want the trigger-man - alive - and then I'm getting Macklin."

"That's a mighty tall order."

"You're gonna help me fill it."

"Am I now?" Hogan said, but something had changed in his face. "You have any proof Macklin was involved? Even if you do, what makes you think he'll spend a single day behind bars? Don't you know who the Macklins are?"

"I know Humphrey broke the code. The same code pick-pockets get run out of town for breaking."

"Happens, sometimes."

"Do you know why Macklin wants his wife dead?"

Hogan leaned back in his chair and spread his arms in a what-can-I-do? gesture. "Not my problem. She's probably a cold fish now she's got her hooks into a family with money. Word is she won't divorce him. Been bleedin' him for years."

Christopher throttled down a furious reply. He needed Hogan's help, or at least his non-interference.

"If you call forty dollars a month bleeding. He gets half a million if something 'happens' to her. Never mind she's done nothing but try to live by her beliefs. Her sister - the one they buried - never did anything to harm Macklin."

"That may be true, but the shooter's likely half-way to Seattle - "

"Have someone in Seattle send him back."

Hogan examined the ash that had reformed on his cigar. After a moment he said, "I can possibly do that."

"And put the word out no one else comes after Althea Macklin or what's left of her family - regardless of the pay-off."

Hogan laughed. "You're not lackin' the balls, are ya? You're askin' a hell of a lot. What do I get in return?"

For the first time since entering the Green Lantern, Christopher smiled. "Nina Clifford's gratitude."

Hogan winced. He ground out the cigar in an ashtray, then gave Christopher a level stare. "I'll put the word out. Not that someone won't try for her anyhow if the price is right. You'd better hire some protection."

"Hire the fox to guard the hen-house? Don't make me laugh."

"There's a lad I could lend you. Knows a bit about demolition, electrical gadgets, that sort of thing. Has a keen eye and ear, and a zipped lip. Knows which side his bread is buttered on. You might find him useful."

Spy, Christopher thought, but decided against dismissing Hogan's gesture outright. He produced a business card and placed it on Hogan's desk.

"Tell him to get in touch. And I'll be waitin' to have a wee chat with the trigger-man."