Ill-Fame (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 2) (13 page)

Queen thought for a moment. Peder Ulland was the first person to come into his mind. Peder could get him an attorney, along with any other resource he required. The problem, though, was Karoline. If she knew he was locked in jail, she’d cancel her trip to Chicago out of worry. Admittedly, he liked the idea of Karoline staying in Minneapolis. Their relationship, however, was fragile at the moment. Once she found out his predicament, there would be no way, he feared, they would ever be together again, after she saw him through this ordeal. Would she even believe he wasn’t guilty, with the full weight of the law and John O’Connor thrown at his face?

He was wracked with self-doubt, and he didn’t want to take the chance. Better to choose the fastest way to find Trilly Flick and clear his name. It might even be done without Karoline ever knowing he’d sat in a damp jail cell. But he needed a person who would be willing to break the rules, like he was.

“Get me Chris Norbeck, at Minneapolis City Hall,” he said.

“What’s his rank?”

“Very rank,” Queen replied.

“Sounds like a daisy,” said Frasier. They shared a little laugh.

CHAPTER 16

“Is this where the goddamn party is?”

Jiggs Kilbane grinned as he staggered through the door, followed in by a line of men, some carrying sloshing bottles of booze. Maisy took in her breath at this unexpected group. She watched them enter rowdily, cursing and belching and laughing, and then felt herself shrink in her chair. With every hair on her head, she sensed potential violence. The fact that she was the only woman here had only heightened her fear.

“My faithful man,” Kilbane proclaimed to the group, motioning to Henri. “Get behind that bar and pour us some drinks. I’m in the mood to celebrate!”

Henri gave a slight bow, and met eyes with Maisy for a second before pulling out glasses and setting them on the counter. Jiggs was drunk by the looks of it, and in a jolly mood. She had to remain tough, she decided, so she pulled her courage together and strode towards Jiggs. She felt lascivious stares from some of the men, but ignored them. Putting back her shoulders, she stuck her nose slightly in the air, and delicately held out her hand. She was determined to look every inch the professional lady.

“Mr. Kilbane, a pleasure to see you again.”

His bloodshot eyes shrank into beads as he looked her up and down, until they settled on her outstretched hand. He snickered and turned to the man nearest him, a pale, porcine fellow who was coughing at his own cigar smoke.

“This is Miss Nellie Boyce, also known as Maisy Anderson, also known as the bane of my fucking existence!”

The man guffawed, and Maisy’s head suddenly whirled with confusion. Did he say that because he was drunk? Or had their arrangement suddenly changed?

“I don’t understand, Mr. Kilbane. When we last met...”

“Shut your gob, bitch,” said Kilbane. “You turned Harm Queen onto me, and our relationship has gone the way of the fucking dodo-bird.” He raised an eyebrow and let out a creaky burp. “Our business relationship, that is.”

She took a step back, grasping the back of a chair for support. This was a bad box she was suddenly in, she realized with ice-cold clarity.

“The good news, is, dearie, that Harm Queen ain’t ever gonna come bothering you again. He’s in jail for fucking murder, and that is the true joy of the day. A reason to celebrate!” He raised his hands to his intoxicated chums. “Drink all you want, boys! This place has a goddamn bowling alley too! And if you’re looking for female companionship, I’ve got that covered as well. It’ll be expensive, I warn you, but well worth the green.” The men around him gave an unruly cheer.

“Mr. Kilbane. I don’t know who Harm Queen is. I’ve never met the man.” She looked for a weapon of some kind through her peripheral vision while she forced a fixed gaze and a polite smile for the orange-haired killer in front of her. The knife she’d had tucked in her sleeve was gone, and she wasn’t sure how she’d defend herself. Her grandfather’s spirit coursed through her, though, forcing her to remain calm and level-headed. There had to be a way out. And if there wasn’t, she would put up a fight before she let them take her.

Her days of letting men crawl over her at will were over.

Kilbane pounded his hand on the bar. He threw his head back and guffawed.

“Don’t give me no sauce. You’re a goddamn piece of meat, and nothin’ more. You think you come from some noble fucking lineage? ’Cause your grand-dad was a
lawman
?”

He leered his hideous leer, and grabbed her face with his hand, squeezing it until the pain numbed her cheeks. “I had him killed. It was me. He was nothing but a troublesome snoop. Months from the grave, from what I’d heard. I just helped him with that last step in.” He leaned forward and put his tongue in her mouth, and she gagged at the slippery ribbon in her throat. With all of her strength, she shoved him away. He tottered, balanced himself with a hand on a table, and giggled.

“Tie her up and take her to the washroom, and leave her on the floor. Whatever suits your fucking fancy.”

“You got the first go?” the porcine man asked with a wheeze.

“Hell no,” he snickered. “I just finished with her friend at my suite at the Ryan. Ain’t no more wax on my candle, gents!”

She winced at the mention of Trilly, and then looked around, searching for a way out. There were men between her and the door and even though they were drunk, she didn’t think she’d make it past them. Then she felt Henri behind her pull her hands behind her back.

“I am sorry for this,” he whispered. “I’ll try to make this bearable.” He clasped a cuff to each of her wrists, but to her surprise, left them loose. And then she felt the prick of the knife as Henri slipped it back into her sleeve. Her heart burst in gratitude, and courage took hold.

She heard the lewd catcalls and whistles as Henri gently pushed her into the depths of the cave.

The first one to touch her, she told herself, was going to wish to God he never had. And then she would find Jiggs Kilbane, and finish him herself.

Baum’s fear intensified as he watched the parade of carriages pull up to the cave’s entrance. He’d hoped for a chance to kill Kilbane, but now his odds were lessening as each new rig appeared. He didn’t care about his own safety anymore. He was a washed up, unloved, miserable drunk, and the world wouldn’t miss him in the slightest once he left it. But he didn’t want to try at this last one thing and fail. If his only choices were Kilbane’s life or bust, then he was determined to go out with a try at redemption.

The brewery was quiet, and Baum didn’t know whether it was because it was Sunday, or if the place was out of business. He didn’t read the papers anymore, and his alcohol of choice was straight whiskey, but the windows looked dark when he peered in, and he thought it might be abandoned.

He rattled the door handle, and it was locked. Another carriage rolled past, but the occupants looked busy reveling inside. Nobody gave a damn about him, and while this normally left his soul in the depths of a bottle, he was relieved to be ignored now. He went over to the window, and closing his eyes, used his elbow to smash it in. Shards still clung to the frame, and he snapped them out until he’d made enough room to climb through. Some boxes sat in a semblance of a pile nearby, and he sweatily scooted them over until they formed a crude set of stairs. Once he managed to get his large body over the edge, and after he picked himself up from a fall that almost knocked the wind out of him, he gathered himself together to look around.

He was familiar enough with breweries to know that this was the malt warehouse. It was empty, except for a dozen fermenting tanks and the rich, lingering, biscuity smell of malt. Dust layered the floor. A staircase nearby led to what Baum assumed to be the cellar, where the barley went through its first process in its transformation to lager. To his right was a door, and he peered in. This was the malt kiln. A massive furnace centered on a tile floor would dry the sweet malt to make it ready for brewing. Farther back, he could see where the building’s interior met the cave. Brick-lined archways curved over natural sandstone ramps, where he assumed barrels could be easily rolled out of the cave’s cool storage and into racking rooms.

The afternoon sun still shone through the windows, giving Baum enough light to navigate. He licked his parched lips at the idea of a cold, frothy lager, and continued across the warehouse floor, past a door that led to what looked to be a cooling house. A gigantic ice machine, now quiet, was there to produce ice water to chill the refrigerator rooms. This had been quite an operation up until recently, he thought. There was a glut of breweries in the Twin Cities, though, all ready to fill any void left behind by this abandoned place.

Past that, he found a large office. This is what he had been looking for. Inside were four desks, strewn with loose sheets of paper. File cabinets with open drawers lined the walls. Baum searched through each, looking for a gun. When he had exhausted the file cabinets, he started through the desk drawers. Still nothing, except for a few pennies, which he pocketed, and some old candy, which he gobbled down.

He walked back out to the warehouse, and looked around. There was nothing here for him to use, he decided, with a despondent shake of his head. It was over. He could find a gun elsewhere, and come back later tonight, but the chance that Maisy still might be here, and unhurt, were remote. He walked back to the main door, and unlocked it.

As he was about to leave, he saw a large metal toolbox out of the corner of his eye, sitting against the wall, smothered with cobwebs.

Even a wrench or a hammer would be something, he thought. He went over and opened it up.

Blessed heaven above.

His heart leapt into his throat as he carefully took out six sticks of dynamite.

CHAPTER 17

Her hands were slick with sweat, and her chest was so tight she could barely draw air into her lungs. She jiggled the cuffs behind her back a little, finding comfort in the fact that they were still loose. But it didn’t quell the sickening, horrible anticipation of the foul acts she knew would soon be expected from her. Fear, desperation and resolution collided inside her head, as she tried to calculate her odds of escaping without being raped.

Henri knocked open the saloon doors with his shoulder and led her inside the washroom. He turned to the line of men following them.

“Wait, please, while I prepare her.”

“Prepare her? Ha! I can do that for myself!” cried the first man in line, drawing lecherous laughter from his cohorts behind him. “I’ll rip off her clothes and knock her through like a game of nine pins!”

“Wait,” Henri repeated. He looked at the man with a cold expression, the expression of someone not to be trifled with. The man’s smile disappeared and he gave a reluctant nod.

Henri took her around the washroom corner, and they were momentarily alone.

“I can’t fight them all off of me,” she whispered. “If Jiggs was first, I could kill him and the rest might run. As long as he’s here, though, I’m as good as dead if I go for his friends. He doesn’t need me now, and he’ll do me in without hesitation.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Henri said.

“But you work for him. What will he do to you, if you betray him? He’s a depraved lunatic. He’ll likely bury you next to me if you turn.”

“My dear.” Henri’s voice was calm. “Jiggs Kilbane means nothing to me. He is in my way.”

In his way?
Her mind couldn’t register what he was talking about. Kilbane was the most powerful criminal in Saint Paul, and Henri’s flippant words struck her with wonder. But she pushed that wonder aside. At this moment she didn’t care, as long as he could get her out of this suffocating cave in one whole piece.

Martin Baum picked up a smoking cigar stub from the gravel in front of the cave door, and put it in his mouth. He had shoved a stick of dynamite between each button of his shirt, giving him the look, he imagined with relish, of a Mexican bandito’s bandolier. They would be easy to hide, he thought, but also easy to access by reaching into his coat. His fat stomach actually allowed the dynamite to lie in place, and he silently congratulated himself on his creativity.

The door was unlocked, and when he opened it, the smell of must and tobacco smoke hit his nose, making him sneeze. No one paid him any mind, though, as he joggled his way in and scanned the interior. Ingenious, he thought. It was a saloon, built into the bluff. Revelers here could have the time of their lives, and the sandstone would absorb the hullaballoo. He looked towards the bar, and saw a man who held the attention of all the others. His carrot-colored hair stood straight up on his head, like the clowns he’d seen at the circus, and he wore a brassy suit checkered in blue and pink. He’d never seen Jiggs Kilbane before, but this had to be him.

He jumped at the sound of an echoing crack, and turned to see an arched entryway into a long bowling alley carved into the sandstone. Two lanes fit snugly inside, and he watched for a moment as a tipsy fellow tried in vain to send a ball down a straight line to meet his awaiting pins.

“I was goddamn robbed,” the man managed to gurgle out between swigs from a glass of beer.

This was as good a place to start as any, Baum decided.

The cigar in his mouth was still burning, and he withdrew one of the dynamite sticks from his lapel. The tipsy man walked over at him and gave a silly, drunken smile.

“Is that real, friend?”

Baum touched his cigar to the dynamite’s wick.

“Watch and see,” Baum said, and pitched the stick as hard as he could. He watched it skitter down the lane to the end of the bowling alley.
I’ll bet that’s a strike,
he thought, just as the blast turned the alley into smithereens.

Once, Maisy, remembered, when she and her grandparents had lived in North Dakota, they’d been caught in the midst of a spectacular thunderstorm. The kind that electrified the sky like an H.G. Wells invention gone awry, and with matching thunder that boomed so deafeningly that your hearing went numb for minutes.