Kaleidoscope Page 2

  First bet he’d have won in a week if there had been any takers. Maple trees shaded one mansion after another on a gentle uphill drive. The river was far behind, now. When Jack turned he could just make out Mount Adams, far away to the east, overlooking the Ohio. Their climbing drive took Jack and his driver along an easy street of millionaires. Years ago men with money built up here to escape the heat, the fever. Some pretty fantastic digs, those guys put up. Two, three storey palaces on manicured grounds, fenced in and shaded with maples and elms. Long, gated drives. Pretty safe bet that behind one of those gates, in one of those palatial homes, was Fist Carlton’s boss.

  Word was that Oliver Bladehorn had run booze and broads in Chicago before relocating to Cincinnati. Jack had spent some time in Chicago. He had not profited from his sojourn in that city, but he had gained some wisdom. He learned, certainly, that it was much easier to deal off the bottom to any number of micks, wops, krauts, or niggers than it was to a single gangster. Jack had not turned a card with anybody moving whiskey since fleeing the windy city. And he was damn near certain that even in his blindest, drunkest excursions he had never gambled with Oliver Bladehorn.

  Jack gathered enough confidence to run his ungloved hand over the smooth finish of the Duesenberg’s mahogany dashboard.

  “Is that a radio? In the dash?”

  “Fuckin’ hick,” Fist growled.

  “We could hear the game? We could listen right here in the car?”

  “Not likely”

  “Gimme a break, Fist!”

  “Piss off Bladehorn, I’ll be breaking your fucking legs.”

  Jack felt the knot that had partially relaxed retie in the pit of his stomach.

  Oliver Bladehorn’s mansion rose smooth and modern on the cusp of older properties and architecture. A wrought-iron gate fashioned in the shape of an eagles wing, or maybe a vulture’s, was guarded. The Duesenberg passed through with barely a nod from a uniformed sentry to reach a private drive which glided toward a three-storey structure constructed in the art deco style that had become chic.

  The place looked like it had been poured from a mold. A bright white exterior. Couldn’t tell if it was made of cement, or just whitewashed. Lots of glass. No hard angles, at least not on the outside. It seemed of a much lighter construction than older, crenelated homes that Jack had seen, but that may have been a deceit wrought by design.

  They rumbled past a gaggle of women, forty or more, sipping tea on the broad lawn in their straight dresses and Mary Janes. Buttons’n bows. Resting from croquet, apparently. Mallets abandoned beside brightly striped balls.

  “What’s this? Your boss some kinda Free Thinker? Or does he just like petticoats?”

  “You’ll see what he likes,” Fist said, and actually smiled.

  They didn’t stop out front. Fist wheeled the Doosey around to the backside of Bladehorn’s modern residence and parked at the entrance to an enormous greenhouse.

  “Go ahead.”

  Fist dipped the lid of his hat toward a well-screened door.

  “He’s waitin’.”

  Jack entered the hothouse just ahead of Fist Carlton. The morning’s humidity was arid compared to the greenhouse’s interior. A startling variety of completely unfamiliar plant life bloomed and tangled and spored from potting tables and peat. And hanging on every vine, limb, and blossom were veritable curtains of bright-colored wings. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands of creatures pulsing gently on exotic orchids or thrashing on currents of saturated air, their hues electric against the greenhouse’s transparent lens.

  “Butterflies, Mr. Romaine.”

  Oliver Bladehorn sported a monocle and an apron over his pinstriped trousers.

  “Surely even you can recognize a simple insect.”

  Jack resisted a reply. Butterflies were not, at that moment, the insect with which he was concerned.

  Oliver Bladehorn was an odd combination of parts. A tonsure of hair was perfectly trimmed to laurel a well-waxed skull. He wore a suit and vest beneath his apron, even in this wet sauna, and yet Jack, who was already wet in his pits, could not detect a hint of perspiration on Mr. Bladehorn.

  The gangster’s face bulged from its bone-work like a rotting gourd. A drool of spittle seeped uncontrolled from a smile slit as though with a knife into that dying and desiccated countenance. Jack squirmed in spite of himself, wishing he could scratch under his arms, his balls. Bladehorn smiled wider.

  “Danaus Plexippus,” he had a refined voice.

  “I beg your pardon?” Jack returned clumsily.

  “And so you should, but I refer at present to the Monarch, Mr. Romaine. King of the butterflies. Danaus Plexippus. You see this one here?”

  Bladehorn fielded a Monarch on the fly.

  “The distinctive coloration? The russet wings set with these black veins? They are veins, you know. And then of course the black border, I especially like that, a black border with two rows of spots…” Bladehorn paused. “D’you know what they’re for? The spots?”

  “No, sir,” Jack confessed. “I don’t.”

  “Warns predators to expect an unsatisfactory encounter.” Bladehorn freed his captive king. “The Monarch is unpleasant to the taste, you see. So even when you catch him—you pay a price.”

  A smile spreading through the seep of spit.

  “I see,” Jack pumped his head.

  Where the hell was this heading?

  Bladehorn regarded the man before him critically, thoughtfully.

  “I have butterflies from all over the world, Mr. Romaine. The world—imagine. Men have died bringing me butterflies from Borneo and Madagascar. Died solely for my pleasure. At my…instruction. Beautiful creatures, the butterflies, I mean. They come from caterpillars, you know; contemplate if you can that transformation. Gives one hope that something beautiful, something worthwhile, can come from something mean and ugly. Perhaps even vile. You follow me, Mr. Romaine?”

  “Don’t believe I’m tracking quite yet, sir.”

  Bladehorn’s laugh was abrupt and shrill.

  “Why, I have high hopes for you, boy! I see in you the potential for royalty even though to all appearances I have before me only a worm.”

  Jack felt an added heat at his collar.

  “Don’t blush. It speaks to a lack of control.”

  “Go to hell,” Jack blurted, and dropped to his knees as Fist drove a mitt deep into his gut.

  Nothing quite like a punch below the sternum to get your attention. Your gut cramps, you want to shit and stars swim before your eyes in unfamiliar constellations.

  Trying to breathe. Failing.

  “He can break your neck, you know,” Bladehorn resumed his lecture unperturbed. “I have seen Mr. Carlton break bones like twigs with those talented hands. Is that what you want, Mr. Romaine? Speak up, son.”

  “…Nnnn…no.”

  “Good.” Bladehorn smiled. “Very good, in fact. Much better.”

  Jack pulled himself erect on a potting table. There was a trowel, there. A couple of pots. And a handgun. A revolver.

  A firearm just sitting there in the open?! Was it loaded?

  “Don’t be a sucker, Mr. Romaine,” Bladehorn swept the weapon into the table’s molded drawer.

  Jack’s arms retreated in a clutch about his stomach.

  “Whadda you…want with me? Mr. Bladehorn?”

  “I have an opportunity for you, sir, a transformational opportunity, which is to say—a job. You have trouble remaining employed, don’t you, Mr. Romaine? Staying on the payroll not one of your strengths, is it? And whatever pay you get, whatever your foreign mother-in-law can’t extract from your gin-sodden pockets, whatever doesn’t go to your whelp of a son, gets pissed away in booze or gambling.

  “You are a welch, a drunk, and a cheater at cards, Mr. Romaine. Your debts chase you like the hounds of hell, as do the men you’ve cheated. Some of them very dangerous men.”

  Bladehorn padded drool from his lips.

  “To a certain
extent I can sympathize. Many a man turns to drink after losing a loved one. And then with responsibilities, pressures, a man can make mistakes, can fold before a variety of temptations. I understand these things, I do. Makes life uncertain, at best, doesn’t it?”

  Jack was just beginning to be able to breathe.

  “Mind getting to the point?”

  Bladehorn frowned. “I was robbed. Property taken, family property. I want it returned.”

  “Why don’t you ask Bone Breaker here to fetch it for you?”

  “Cheek. Can be good. Even in an insect. Certainly, I could have Mr. Carlton, or any of my people, make the appropriate inquiries, but that would invite attention from authorities and competitors which at present I cannot afford. And then there is the question of privacy…

  “This is a family matter, Mr. Romaine, a private affair which I would much prefer to keep private. I do not want people close to me knowing details of my family or finances. I certainly do not want my own people to know I’ve been robbed. Nor my other—associates. It could be misconstrued, you see. As a weakness.”

  Bladehorn paused as if waiting for a riposte.

  Jack decided not to oblige.

  “I need an outsider for this task, Mr. Romaine. With luck you’ll be finished inside a day.”

  “You said something about pay.”

  “Naturally,” Bladehorn tightened the knot on his apron. “I will advance you five hundred now against another five if you recover my property.”

  A thousand dollars? One thousand?! Jack tried to keep his poker face. He could do a lot with a thousand green.

  “A grand, then. All right. For what?”

  Bladehorn selected a trowel from the potting table. “A woman will be released from the workhouse—a Miss Sally Price. Fist will provide a photograph and particulars. Miss Price was the fiancée of a man who was once my chauffeur. Name of Jerry Driggers.”

  “I knew Driggers, what happened to that guy?”

  “Shut yer trap and listen,” Fist rumbled.

  “I was married at the time,” Bladehorn continued. “My wife died at sea, you might recall, with our son. Little over a year ago. Made all the papers.”

  “Didn’t catch it.”

  “Ah. Well. My son was not destined for a long or healthy life and I married Claudia for her money. I was not aware until after my wife’s death that she had hidden substantial sums of cash and negotiable securities in an apartment across town.

  “I didn’t know. Driggers did. Fifty thousand dollars and another quarter million in certificates for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad stolen by my own driver from a safe beneath a bed which my wife while living never shared with me.”

  “Talk about cheek.”

  Bladehorn selected a pot of chrysanthemums. “Driggers planned to start his own bootleg operation. Before I could get to him, he was killed by some jackanapes on the river, some trivial dispute. Taking all knowledge of the cash and securities to a pauper’s grave.”

  “But you figure Sally knows?” Jack supplied.

  “About the theft, certainly. And probably how to locate the cash and stocks as well.”

  “What’s she in for?”

  “Skipping bail. Pity. If my people had gotten to her first, as we should have done…”

  Fist shrank inside his overcoat.

  “Say I find this Sally Price,” Jack went on. “For the sake of shits and grins let’s say that Sally actually does know where to find your property. That’s true, she’s got a fortune waiting. What makes you think she’ll talk?”

  Bladehorn smiled icily.

  “Pick her up. Bring her to me. She’ll talk.”

  Jack squirmed.

  “Not the kinda job I usually do.”

  Bladehorn troweled damp soil into his pot of flowers.

  “How much do you owe, Mr. Romaine?”

  “Me? Owe?”

  “You have markers out all over Cincinnati, of course,” Bladehorn dropped his trowel. “But I believe more serious transgressions lie elsewhere. Chicago, perhaps? Where to my certain knowledge you owe a half-dozen businessmen upwards of a thousand dollars each.

  “One of those gentlemen is an acquaintance of mine. Mr. Capone? Alphonso Capone? Notorious of late for his Valentine benedictions? Now, I realize that you are small fry, Mr. Romaine, and Mr. Capone has a large organization to run. Nevertheless. You owe. You’re late. And I can tell you candidly that if you elect to refuse my offer someone will soon come to collect.”

  Jack tried a smile of his own. “A thousand bucks, or two thousand, won’t pay off six large.”

  “It will get you out of town,” Bladehorn returned blandly. “You can migrate, can’t you, Jack? South for the winter. To Mexico, perhaps. Or one of the islands. Just like a butterfly.”

  Jack was looking at a short list of options.

  “Awright,” he gave it up. “I pick up the woman. Get her to you. That’s it?”

  “Entirely,” Bladehorn reassured. “But in fairness I should warn that you may have some competition.”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “Fellow used to work for me,” Bladehorn replied offhandedly. “Arno Becker. Very unusual man. Very…disturbed.”

  “Uh huh. And this guy—he know about your property?”

  “About the property, I am sure. Perhaps even about Miss Price. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s there tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Jack’s poker face crumbled to putty.

  “At the workhouse, of course. Her prison. Didn’t I mention? Miss Price’s release is scheduled Tuesday at seven in the morning. Seven sharp. That information is supposed to be confidential, of course. But if I have it—”

  “Gotcha.” Jack felt as though he’d taken another punch in the stomach. “And what exactly do you mean by ‘disturbed’?”

  Water slid warm and bubbly down legs shaved smooth and hard as marble. Arno Becker was relaxing in a newly-drawn tub. He placed the razor on a wide windowsill and took in the view. It was a pleasant morning. The window looked down to an open market of the sort favored by residents of Over the Rhine. Their familiar accents wafted up to Becker along with the smell of beer and sauerkraut and freshly-baked bread. It seemed an irritant to interrupt his bath with its attendant pleasantries just to answer the door.

  Arno Becker rose from the tub dripping water, the narcissistic product of blonde parents or their gods. The knock at the door sounded again and impatiently, but Arno remained unhurried in his naked perambulation across the hall, through a sitting room, past a coffee table, a drawer littered with forget-me-nots and a rocking chair seeped in blood.

  A woman slumped in the rocker. An old woman, frail. Her wrists were bound with wire to the arms of the rocker. There were mutilations at regular intervals on her arms, her torso, her face. Her throat gaped open, blood soaking her cheap shift, and even in death her eyes held the terror of one who knows that her end will not come without ordeal.

  She had just warmed the tub for a bath.

  A fist pounded now on the door.

  “EMMA!”

  That Kraut accent. Low German. Jewish.

  “Gott damn, frau! Kommen sie!”

  “Ich komme, ich komme,” Arno warbled a falsetto reply and opened the door.

  An old man, bent and stunted with arthritis and ague panted in the hall outside his lofty rooms. A wrapper of sausage in one hand. A wedge of cheese in the door-banger.

  “Mein Gott!”

  Becker gathered the old man to himself like a fluttering bird, sweeping the fallen sausage and cheese inside the apartment with one well-turned foot.

  “I have taken a liberty. As you see.”

  Directing the husband’s attention to his butchered wife.

  “I pay you!” the old geezer croaked. “God damn, I swear! I will!”

  “Shhhh, I don’t want another mess.”

  Arno clamped a pale hand over the fart’s sour old mouth.

  “I’ve just had a bath.”

  Chapte
r three

  “Cut Up Jackpots”—an exaggerated rendition of past events.

  A shroud of smoke hung nearly motionless in stale, late-afternoon air that had settled in the valley below the mansions high above the river. Not many suits or vests in this crowd. Most of the men in Jack’s neighborhood worked on the docks or in factories or the slaughterhouse. They came home in catalog clothes, heavy overalls and trousers, Buster Browns and brogans and slouch caps, toting tin lunchboxes, wending their way through tribes of barefooted children playing stickball or chasing hoops beneath webs of electric wires and washlines that stretched between rows and rows of tenement housing.

  Everywhere were posters and signs to entice the purchase of some good or service. Billboards beckoning from walls and rooftops to offer locals things they could not afford—refrigerators, electric razors—while reminding them of things they could not do without. Every home and sweatshop used Mr. Singer’s sewing machine. Look in any kitchen and you’d find a cylinder of Old Dutch Cleanser; “Cleanliness Brings Good Cheer!” the copy promised. Of course, since The Dutch Lady herself was permanently hooded and facing the corner it was hard to test that proposition.

  Jack’s coldwater flat sweltered with thousands of others in this Appalachian enclave of the city. The Salvation Army had taken over a church across the street, reminding him daily that God did not give his children more trials than they could bear. With that great comfort and assurances of well-cleaned cheer, Jack skirted lackluster women crowding stoops littered with garbage to find the stairs leading to his flat.

  In that one-room rental, an old woman bent over a steaming pot at a kerosene stove. With no separate kitchen in the flat, the stove and icebox looked out to a cot and pallet rolled up beside a broken couch. A sink doubled as tub for wash and bath. Aside from the bums lining up for a room across the street, the large pane window offered a view of the sun setting over the rooftops, that swollen fire filtered dark through coal-burned smoke. A skyline of tenements offered an uneven horizon.