“I haven’t seen such acting since the great Bernhardt herself,” came a voice from behind us.
Both Linda and I whirled around, my hand going to my shoulder holster and Linda’s into her handbag. She pulled out the little revolver she’d been so eager to flash around on the docks yesterday.
“And I thought you Americans were supposed to be easygoing,” said H.M.S. James Thompson, looking about as ruffled as the boat would at having two handguns drawn on her. He took a puff off his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and grinding it out with his heel.
“You’ve met Douglas Murphy and you think Americans are easygoing? Hell’s bells, Thompson, I’d never heard you limeys were stupid.” I shoved my Bledsoe back into its holster and gave him the stink eye. Linda was doing the same next to me. Thompson sneaking up on us had made her a little twitchy.
“What are you doing here?”
“There is a charming little Irish pub at the other end of the alley that serves the best shepherd’s pie I’ve had beyond fair Britannia’s shores. Of course,” he continued, smiling ruefully, “I’d prefer to frequent an English establishment, but one can’t be choosy so far from home.”
I waved off his babble. “No, no. What are you doing in this part of town? We’re miles from the G-men and the docks.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the alley wall. He looked faintly amused. “This may be your city, Mr. Maynard, but that is my warehouse.”
“Jesus – what?”
“Brooks Musical. I own it. I bought it last month and so far have turned a tidy profit in pianos, small organs, and saxophones. Accordions have proven surprisingly popular, but I think that will change in the new year.”
I was sorry I’d put the Bledsoe away. Every time I turned around since Bruiser called me yesterday morning, I’d found a surprise staring me in the face. This was one of the less pleasant ones, though none them had been exactly enjoyable. There weren’t any dead bodies or bullets flying, but I didn’t like the guy. I trusted him, but I didn’t like him. And now he owned Brooks Musical. Either it was a blessing or a curse, but I couldn’t figure out if this was going to help me out any more than a Mickey Finn too many on a Friday night date.
“Now what,” Thompson was saying, pointing at the window Linda and I had been looking through, “are we going to do about your friend? I’m assuming he is some person known to you.”
On the other side of the window, Broadway was bent over holding his nose while the first stevedore was rolling up his shirtsleeves and his buddy stood off to the side sipping appreciatively from Broadway’s bottle of shine.
“Yeah, he’s with us. Didn’t count on your goons beating up a drunk, though.”
“Poor Danny!” Linda said. Turning on Thompson, she shot her mouth off with the same fire that was known to get me to polish my shoes and toss my empties into the dumpster.
“You ought to employ a better kind of guy. It takes a real jerk to beat up someone as blotto as that.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss St. James, but one is caused to remark that perhaps a lady should associate with a better sort of --” He flicked his eyes toward me and the big baboon nearly laughed – “gentleman. Perhaps one who is in fact ‘blotto’ when he appears to be and doesn’t break into warehouses.”
“Now see here,“ Linda started, waving her index finger like some hopped-up schoolmarm.
“Poor Danny, my foot,” I broke in, watching the scuffle through the window. “He’s got a jaw like a brick wall. And I haven’t seen footwork like that since Bruiser fought that little guy with the gold teeth last spring. Whaddaya know.”
“Lemme see.” Linda pushed me aside to peer through the window. A few seconds later she winced. “The big guy just went down.”
Thompson, looking over her head, murmured, “Perhaps I ought to employ a better sort of flunky.”
Just then, the bottle of shine came rocketing toward the window. Thompson pulled Linda down and I followed them, but we all got covered in broken glass and then moonshine when the bottle shattered against the alley wall.
Rolling over to my back, I stared at the slice of gray sky at the top of the alley and wondered at the situation. Hell of a thing, watching a semi-retired tap-dancer beat the tar out of a pair of hired guns.
Next to me, Linda shoved Thompson off of her and pulled me to my feet. Together we ran around the corner of the warehouse to the front.
When we came through the street entrance, Danny was the only one standing, even if he was listing to one side like a car with a flat tire. He was holding his handkerchief to a cut on his cheekbone. His bottom lip was looking fat already, and he’d probably have a shiner the next day from the first shot to his nose. The two guys at his feet looked like they were in worse shape, though.
“You okay, Danny?” Linda asked.
“Yeah, I’ll live.” He sounded like he had sock stuffed up his nose. “That didn’t go down like I expected it to.”
“’S’all right. Turns out we know the guy who owns the place. Say, where’d you learn to fight like that?” I clapped him on the shoulder. He winced.
“I spent a lot of time in some pretty rough parts of town when I was a kid, Joe,” he answered.
Thompson appeared in the doorway, with a sour expression on his face and brushing glass off his coat. He looked around at the mess Broadway and the two thugs had made. Thompson kicked a chunk of packing crate and had his turn shooting us the stink eye.
“Well, now that you’ve destroyed my place of business, I suppose I ought to tell you whatever it is you came looking for,” he said. “You did, I assume, have a purpose for this mayhem?”
What a prick. It wasn’t like we ran over his dog or anything.
“We were hoping to find out something about David Strauss. Last time I checked, buying a fiddle or two wasn’t against the law. Sure, he treats his dames pretty bad, and he’s probably killed a couple people, but that ain’t nothing to involve the Feds in.”
“I see you are woefully uninformed,” Thompson replied. “However, I fail see why I should tell you anything.”
I toed one of the goons on the ground in the ribs. He moaned a little, but quieted back down.
“I might be able to find you some muscle that can stand up against a goddamn toe-twinkler,” I retorted. Glancing at Danny, I said, “No offense.”
“None taken, Joe,” he said easily.
“Or I could inform every thief in the city that Brooks Musical is currently short its only two guards,” I continued. “Your choice.”
Thompson stifled something that sounded like a curse.
“Very well,” he said.
At our feet, the smaller of the two goons was waking up.
“Ah, Mr. Higgins! I see you have decided to re-join the land of the living,” Thompson cried. “You and Mr. Showalter clear up the evidence of your fracas, and then go home. Your services will no longer be required.”
“But, boss –“ Higgins protested.
“No impertinence. I was obviously mistaken in employing you as a guard, as you were too intent on stealing liquor from a seemingly drunk man to attend to your duties. It might as well have been candy from a baby.” Thompson turned back to Linda, Danny and me. “I trust you are satisfied with this turn of events, Miss St. James?”
Linda, like a champ, said with a straight face, “I suppose it will have to do, Mr. Thompson.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“Indeed. You three follow me to my office, if you please.”
“If it’s all the same to you folks,” Danny said, “I’m going to head back to the shop and finish packing or take a rest or something. It got a steak in the fridge, and it’s calling my name.”
“Here, take the Model A,” I said, tossing him the keys. “I’ll pick it up when we’re done here.”
“Thanks, Joe. Nice seeing you again, Linda.” He nodded his farewell before limping through the door.
Thompson’s office was up a flight of stairs at the back of the warehouse. He took his seat behind the desk and waved Linda and me to chairs in front of it. The office wasn’t quite as lush as that of Strauss, Sr., but it was an improvement over my own. It was obvious, at least, that Thompson didn’t have to drip dry his socks and underwear over his garbage can.
“Just the three of us then,” he said in way of an opener. “How cozy.”
“Look, Thompson. Let’s cut the bullshit. Just tell us what we want to know and then we’ll get out your hair.”
“You Americans are so direct. No respect for the quieter aspects of business,” he murmured. Evidently he was feeling better after firing Higgins and Showalter.
“We’re not here for tea and sympathy,” Linda said.
“Hmm, no, I don’t suppose you would be. I haven’t had a decent cup of tea since I’ve been here. What can I tell you then?”
“What exactly are David Strauss and his father wanted for?” I asked. “I mean, they have the usual mob connections that anybody in the nightclub business around here has, and there are those unusual deaths, but the local fuzz take care of that. The Feds being here is kind of weird. And you being here is even weirder.”
Thompson laughed a little at that.
“It might be easier to make a list of what crimes the Strauss family hasn’t committed,” he said. “For example, as far as I am aware, they haven’t sold any white women into slavery or smuggled any non-indigenous wildlife into Australia. The international community takes a very dim view of such things.”
“White slavery or strange animals down under?”
“Ha-ha, very amusing, Mr. Maynard,” Thompson chortled. “Now, I’m afraid that I can’t tell you precisely why I am here, though I trust it will be clear by the time we’re done talking. Why don’t you take a look in that crate over there and tell me what you see.”
Thompson gestured in the direction of a shipping crate pushed against the wall to the right of his desk and under the only window. It had labels all over it in writing I hadn’t seen before in my life. It looked like the squiggles my kid brother used to make before he started school. Poor sap, his handwriting hadn’t improved much, but it was still more readable than the stuff scrawled across the case.
I got up to open it up and take a gander at whatever was in it. I couldn’t get the boards to budge, though. It was nailed tight.
“Hey, Linda, grab me that crowbar over there and give me hand.”
It took both of us to get the first slat of the crate up, and I was sweating a little by the time were done, but the rest of them came easy enough. Inside, there was a lot of wood shavings and sawdust. I scrabbled around in that, knocking some out of the crate and onto the floor.
“Have a care for the rug, if you please,” Thompson cautioned from his desk.
The slug – he hadn’t offered any help before. What did I care about his stupid carpet? It was the color of vomit, anyway. The sawdust belonged there.
My fingers hit something under the sawdust. It was cold and hard and smooth. I got a hold on it, and pulled it up into the light. In the large glass case that had emerged from the packing crate, there was a large musical instrument. It looked a lot like a guitar, but the neck pointed nearly straight back from belly of the thing.
“Oh, it’s beautiful,” Linda breathed next to my shoulder. She had a point. I didn’t care much for music, but I could appreciate a work of art when I saw one.
“It is, is it not, Miss St. James?” Thompson asked, joining us at the crate. He removed the glass case from my hands and held it reverently in front of him. “A 16th-century lute, if I’m not mistaken. The earlier ones usually have fewer courses, but this one has eight or ten, and so must be after the 15th century. The carving on the rose is a marvel not to be matched by modern luthiers.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Did Strauss steal this or something? Is it some country’s national treasure? Does it belong to your king?”
“Patience, Mr. Maynard,” Thompson responded. He set the glass case on his desk and flicked open the tiny hooks that held the back panel of glass in place. He took the lute out, and cradled it in his arms, one hand under the neck. He strummed his fingers across the strings. “It is so very beautiful that I very much regret what I am about to do.”
With a sudden twist of his hands, Thompson grabbed the lute with both hands by the neck and brought it down hard on the edge of the desk. The body cracked, and then broke open when he brought it down again. From the hole in the lute, little fabric bags fell out and landed on the carpet, giving out puffs of dust when they hit.
I picked up one of the bags from the floor and pulled at the string that tied it closed. It was filled with stuff that looked about the same as slightly gray powdered milk. I took a sniff – didn’t smell like powdered milk. Didn’t smell like much of anything. Figuring Linda could chew me out for it later, I took a pinch of it and put it on my tongue.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” I said, coughing. “That’s bitter.” I spit into the garbage can a couple times. “Got any water?”
Thompson tossed me a flask from the inside pocket of his sports coat. I took a swig out of it and found myself spitting into the garbage again.
“What hell is this stuff? It tastes like boiled grass.” I peered into the hole in the flask, trying to get an ID on whatever was in it.
“Cold tea, Mr. Maynard,” the limey bastard replied. “It is not my preference, but I understand it is quite popular in your southern states. It is also rather refreshing in the afternoon.”
“Forget all that,” Linda cut in. “What did you put in your mouth, Joe? I swear to God you’re no better than a dog sometimes.”
“Uncut heroin,” I said, after taking another tentative sip of the cold tea and swishing it around my mouth. It wasn’t bad when I wasn’t expecting whiskey.
“Heroin?” she repeated. “How does heroin get into something made in the 16th century?”
“Someone puts it there, of course,” Thompson said. He held up what was left of the lute and pointed to the medallion carved under the strings. “The suppliers in Burma slip the unfilled bags through the holes in the rose here, fill them up, and tie them off before letting them fall into the lute. We believe the heroin has its origins in China, but Burma does belong to the British, so it is of concern to our government.”
“There’s five grand of the stuff here easy,” I said, hefting the little cloth bag in my hand.
“I believe it’s actually closer to ten thousand American dollars, Mr. Maynard,” Thompson corrected. “And Herman and David Strauss have been distributing it in Adams City and beyond for quite some time now. This is, as I’m sure you know, illegal in your country, but shipping through several European countries as well as Great Britain has broken quite a few laws outside of your borders.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked. “To catch the bastards for that?”
“There’s also the matter of ten or so Renaissance and later musical instruments that have been destroyed to retrieve the illicit substance. These men may have been able to summon the funds to purchase these items, but as cultural artifacts they are priceless. It is a grave effrontery to Europe as a whole, not mention the academic community.” Thompson patted the busted lute on his desk like an old man patting his wife’s hand. “It is distasteful.”
“Er, yes.” What a nut bar. “So what happens now?”
Thompson settled back into the chair behind his desk. He rested one elbow on the armrest of his chair and leaned his head against his hand. He looked like goddamn Clark Gable, all weighed down with the injustice of the world. Even his mustache looked depressed.
“Now we wait for one of the family Strauss to make the next move.”