Die on Your Feet Read online

  “Look Lola, I know you’re staring this commissioner in the face here, but think about this. Grace hasn’t anything tied to Gaming in Crescent City. Never has, never will. There’s nothing to extort, nothing they can touch.”

  “They meddled with her Guild credentials.”

  “A minor nuisance, really. Grace probably has more clout than this assistant deputy. She’s not unknown, you know.”

  “Don’t get smarmy.”

  “That, love, was being smart-mouthed.” He cleared his throat. “She’d be more amenable if you came along.”

  “Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

  “An impasse then.” He waited a beat. “Grace is as bloody-minded as you, Lola.”

  “I did my part. Consider your team warned.” Lola rang off again. She tore off Elaine’s impromptu turban and stalked around the bedroom. Finally, she pulled open the heavy draperies and stood at the window, squinting against the morning glare.

  Houses dotted the slopes of the foothills on the left, leading away to the southwest and the start of the mountains. The higher one went, the farther apart the homes became from one another, until one was left with the Beacon, the legendary home of the Wang family. It sat alone at the top, its full dimensions hidden from Lola’s vantage point by thick greenery. The Wangs were the founding family of Crescent City, grown from the stock of Wang Zhi-Min some two hundred years ago, diluted by generations of gwai blood. The current crop looked about as Chinese as Lola did, maybe even less so. Some had blonde hair. But they carried the name and that’s all that mattered.

  The foothills ran roughly westward all the way to the water. Crescent City hugged a ninety-mile long curve of land, stretching back from the harbor for another hundred miles until it tapered away, eastward into desert. Lola lived ten miles from that enticing shimmer of ocean. Between her apartment building and the water’s edge lay blocks upon blocks of houses and small commercial buildings. The docks were at the extreme northern end of the curved land. Private beachfront property started at the feet of the southern hills and ended about due west from Lola’s spot. From there, a series of small public beaches provided a bulwark between wealthy homeowners and the start of the commercial docks. These docks sat along the northern curve of the crescent. The marina lay on the other side of the southern foothills, obscured from view by the curve of the harbour. Innumerable pleasure craft and huge tankers dotted the ocean’s surface.

  “Time to get moving, Lola,” said Aubrey. “St. John will handle your mother’s problem. He’s good at it. You have your own troubles to tend to.”

  “Leave. I’m dressing.”

  “Hurry, then.”

  Lola dressed in a grey jacket, wide-legged slacks, and a pale blue blouse. A mannish hat topped off the outfit. She slid her feet into low heels and strode out of the bedroom, stroking the switchblade in her pocket.

  Elaine was just coming from the kitchen, carrying a pot of fresh coffee. The dining table had two places set. A covered platter, another with French croissants and Chinese rolls, some pots of jams and jellies, two grapefruit halves. Lola ignored them all in favor of a cup of scalding coffee.

  “Lighting the fire?” asked Elaine. She lifted the cover off the platter as she sat. Steam rose from scrambled eggs and golden hashed potatoes.

  “Sorry, dove. Can’t stay long.” Lola poured more coffee down her throat. “Why don’t you call Dominic? Shame to let all this go to waste.”

  “At least eat a croissant and some fruit,” Elaine said. She went back into the kitchen and used the telephone. “Dolly? Put me through to Maintenance. Hello, Maintenance? Yes, Miss Starke is having problems with her icebox again. Yes. Yes. Right away. Thanks.”

  Lola polished off the croissant and her coffee before Elaine returned. “Dee-lish, Elaine, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” came the reply. “Maybe next time, you’ll actually taste it.”

  “What can I say? I’m a busy woman. People to see, places to be.” The doorbell rang. “I’ll let him in. Eat before it gets cold.” She brushed at some stray crumbs on her way to the apartment door. She verified dark eyebrows and blond hair through the peephole before opening the door.

  “’Morning, Miss Starke.” Dominic’s broad grin took up his entire narrow face. A thin nose gave him a pinched appearance belied by the twinkle of good humour in his pale grey eyes.

  “’Morning, Dominic. Elaine started without you.”

  He shook his head in disapproval. “Such manners. You’d think our mother’d’ve taught her better.” His grin broadened, showing surprisingly white teeth.

  “Day and night, the two of you, huh?” Dominic ambled inside. Lola gestured. “You go on. I’m just getting ready to go.” He nodded his head with another amiable grin.

  Back in the bedroom, Lola tried a phone call over to Station Forty-four, but neither Luke nor Tsu were taking her call. The unnamed desk sergeant took down her name. He gave no indication it was of any importance. She packed a gat and lit a cigarette, then left the apartment.

  Traffic in Crescent City on a weekday morning was crammed. Lola looked at the drivers around her and saw boredom, irritation, apprehension. There was one woman, a sleek one, who had a small smile playing about her carmine lips. She caught Lola’s eye and her smile broadened into something intimate and knowing.

  Aubrey spoke up. “Some familiar faces back there.”

  Lola shrugged, tearing her gaze back to the traffic in front of her.

  “Copenhagen’s helpers. Didn’t seem the trusting sort, really.”

  Lola peered into the small rear view mirror, scanning vehicles. “The infamous black Buick again? Amateurs.” It sat three cars back, one lane over to the left. She could make out Thin’s misshapen cap.

  “Maybe they want you to make them,” Aubrey said.

  “You seem terribly nonchalant about this, considering your previous panic.”

  “They’re hardly a threat right now. It’s when you can’t see them that you’ve got to worry.”

  “Just a couple of strong boys to scare the little woman?”

  “Something like that, I suspect. They must’ve picked you up from the apartment. They know where you live, that sort of thing. They want to remind you you’re on Copenhagen’s dime now.”

  “Lucky for them I’m heading down to the Forty-four anyway.”

  “Plenty of time to lose them later,” agreed Aubrey.

  A fierce smile formed on Lola’s lips. A flash out the corner of my eye. The woman with the sleek black coiffure was waving, her eyes sparkling with amusement. As her dark blue Packard rolled ahead, the woman’s neck scarf trailed out her open window, a shocking wing of bright orange fabric.

  Thick and Thin parked in the visitors lot and leaned against their car, smoking. Lola waved from the station house steps. They stared. With a shrug, she went inside. The players were different but the scene remained unchanged, although there may have been fewer prostitutes and more drunks now. Reception this time was a redheaded giant named Bartholomew.

  He grinned with hostile anticipation as Lola approached. “A little early for you isn’t it, Starke? Don’t you need the sun up higher to warm your blood?”

  “Drinking fresh blood does the same trick, Freckles.” She smacked her lips.

  “Disgusting, Starke. You oughta be locked up.”

  “Now, is that any way to talk to a law-abiding citizen?”

  “Of course not, but to you? Yes.”

  “Lizards have rights too, Freckles.”

  “This is the real world, girlie. Lizard’s just another word for roadkill.” He bared yellow teeth.

  Lola smiled politely in reply. “I’ve got official business, Freckles.”

  His face nearly split with the enormity of his grin. “Luke is waiting for you. DS Shao called him in this morning. Brigh
t and early. He’s none too happy with you.” Bartholomew’s grin was full of malice.

  “Tsu?”

  Bartholomew shook his head. “Police business. None of your concern.” He snatched up the telephone and made his call. A sudden chill had Lola whirling around. A small woman stood beside her. In heels, she barely came up to Lola’s collarbone. Her dirty black hair looked faintly greasy and she stared with peculiar light grey eyes. Her nose twitched slightly. She wore a severe black suit jacket with padded shoulders. Against her right lapel, a large cameo brooch with a profile of a woman with squashed nose and thick lips.

  “How do you know him?” the short woman asked.

  “Whom?”

  “Your haunt.” Her tone was flat, matter-of-fact.

  Lola weighed her options, then said, “My mother’s best friend.”

  An eyebrow shot up. “Really. That’s a new one.”

  “Tellin’ me,” Lola replied. “Everything all right?”

  “Sure, sure, just making conversation. Anyone ever tell you you two look alike?”

  “No one who wasn’t blind,” replied Aubrey.

  The Catcher shrugged. “Just an opinion.” She nodded and departed, a tiny girl with a cowboy swagger.

  “Creep,” commented Aubrey.

  “Still, no point in harassing one,” Lola said. “Never can tell what’ll set them off.”

  “They harass honest Ghosts all the time,” continued Aubrey. “Hunting for something to justify their bloodlust.”

  “Well, until you or someone else other than a Catcher figures out how they do it, I suggest you play nice,” said Lola.

  She swiveled back to face Bartholomew and saw Luke coming down the stairs. He tapped a file folder against his thigh as he walked. He nodded to Bartholomew, who returned a lopsided grin.

  Lola greeted him politely.

  His sneer bloomed into fullness. “Pull all the strings you want, Starke. You’re still scum.”

  “You really know how to turn a girl’s head, Luke.”

  He spun around and walked past the stairwell, turned right at a corridor leading beneath the steps. Lola smiled at Bartholomew’s glare and followed the tall tense figure. Luke continued his march toward the detectives’ den at the rear of the building. Lola caught a glimpse of the bullpen, an open room about twenty by twenty, filled with desks, chairs, and an assortment of men in suits. Bulletin boards, filing cabinets, papers. Luke whipped past it all as a roar of laughter from the assembled suits began.

  Finally, he stopped and whirled around, gesturing Lola inside a room spacious as a broom closet. Three chairs of cheap metal hugged a rectangular table of similar workmanship. Lola expected a bare bulb to hang from the ceiling, but there was a proper fixture as well as a floor lamp. An ashtray rested in the middle of the table. She sat and started on a cigarette.

  Luke clicked the door closed behind him. He took up a chair opposite Lola, tossed the file onto the table. “Detective Superintendent Shao has authorized your access to all information on file pertinent to the case.”

  “What about riding along?”

  Luke ignored the question. He pulled out a pack and matches. “Move your lips if you have to, but read fast.”

  Lola skimmed the top page, an administrative summary sheet, then flipped through the rest of the file. It was well-organized and in chronological order, recent developments on top. Witness interviews, lists of names to be interviewed, documented raids, arrests. She flipped back to the bottom of the file, to the start of the case: a complaint filed by Assistant Deputy Commissioner AJ Copenhagen.

  “Tell me how it started.”

  Luke glared. “Read.”

  “If you talk, I’m out of here faster.” She flipped through a few sheets, checking their activity reports. “Did you interview her?”

  “Who?”

  “Copenhagen.” Lola looked up into his snarl. “Did you question her about her sources?”

  He slammed his hands onto the table. Lola startled but kept her expression bland. Luke leaned forward. “Stick with tailing sneaks and cheats, Starke. This isn’t part of the deal.”

  “That means no,” said Aubrey.

  After a moment, Lola shrugged and returned to the sheaf of papers. Luke settled back and lit another stick.

  They’d done a thorough job. Followed up on street rumours. Interviewed high and low. Caught three morning-after sites in a month. There’d been a possible lead with the Narcotics Division, but the informant had scrambled before anything had come of it. A brief one-pager four days later described the informant’s death.

  “How reliable was this Hamish McIntosh you found dead?”

  “More than most pipe smokers,” Luke answered.

  “You’re sure it wasn’t murder.”

  “Nothing’s sure in this business, Starke. But we figure Mac finally ran afoul of his habit. Happens sooner or later.” This last bit of wisdom was imparted with a shrug.

  “Tough coincidence,” Lola commented. Luke grunted in reply, eying her narrowly.

  Starting from the top, Lola flipped through the reports more slowly. Contrary to first impressions, Luke was as methodical on paper as was his partner. Leads had been tracked, but none had got very far. There was plenty to confirm the existence of illegal tournaments but no one could discover the ringleaders. Times and places were spread by word of mouth. One night, they’d even caught two teenagers, trying to run from a raid, but they were just a couple of rich kids, slumming it with the poorer elements. Their parents had charged in right quick, lawyers in tow, claiming police coercion before the door had even shut behind them. Lola could read between the lines. She imagined that Tsu and Luke really hadn’t had much to use to pressure those poor dumb kids with. Underage gambling was a simple misdemeanor, nothing a few hundred dollars wouldn’t settle. The lawyers made sure the kids had kept their traps shut. Lola thought it likely the parents had threatened an end to the kiddies’ allowances as well. Long story short: no one was talking to the cops.

  After a while, Lola sat back. Luke stubbed out his cigarette and reached out to gather the file. She lit another Egyptian. “So the kids are a bust, their families uncooperative. You can’t pin anyone else down as a participant. You haven’t stumbled onto a tourney in a week. Where do you go from here?”

  “None of your damned business,” barked Luke. “You’ve been given the file. You’ve read it. That’s all I was ordered to do. I don’t give a damn who hired you or why. This is our case.”

  A sudden knock on the door, then it swung open. Tsu, with two steaming mugs. He set them down, then returned to close the door. Gently, Lola accepted her coffee with a smile of thanks. The other, Tsu pushed toward his partner. Lola took a sip of the pale liquid. Luke guzzled.

  “Is that steam out of his ears?” asked Aubrey.

  “Catcher said she caught you on the way in. Thought your Ghost looked familiar.” Tsu’s tone was genial.

  Lola shrugged. “Aubrey was occasionally in the papers. Maybe a newsreel now and then.”

  “Really? What for?”

  “For being an actress’s best friend and assistant.”

  Aubrey sniffed. “And costume consultant.”

  Tsu looked genuinely intrigued. “Oh yeah? Which one?”

  Lola dragged on her cigarette. Aubrey sighed. “As if he doesn’t already know.”

  She answered as she exhaled. “Grace McCall.”

  The larger man’s eyebrows shot up in amazement. “That’s not just any starlet. She’s the real deal.” He turned to Luke. “You’re a big fan, aren’t you?”

  Luke nodded curtly. Tsu turned back to Lola. “Well, then...if you don’t mind me asking...why would he Haunt you?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” she shrugged.

  Luke sneered. “You must have so
me serious wires crossed, Starke. No one’s a shamus who doesn’t have to be. You obviously don’t need the dough, so you must just enjoy hanging around lowlife scum.”

  “My reasons aren’t your business. Your case is.” Lola addressed Tsu again. “What’s your take on that dead informant?”

  “Hamish?” A rolling shrug. “Nothing mysterious about it, Miss Starke. He overdid it. These things happen. I don’t know about your line of work, but we get bad breaks all the time in the cop business. You learn to move on.”

  “Your next one being?”

  He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “We’ve got a list of people to find. Friends of friends of acquaintances. Talk to them, see what threads we can pull up.”

  “And how does your DS Shao want me involved?”

  “He doesn’t,” said Luke.

  Lola kept her eyes on Tsu. The big man remained silent, weighing his options. His gaze flickered briefly to his partner, then returned to Lola. Finally, he said: “We don’t need a chaperone. Frankly, you’d be in the way.”

  Lola nodded.

  Tsu shuffled his frame inside his grey suit. “Let me put it to you bluntly. You’re here because you gamble with these people. You’re part of their set.”

  Lola was shaking her head before he’d even ended that sentence. “You’re mistaken. I don’t travel in these circles.”

  Tsu looked apologetic as he continued. “These are the rules.” He straightened up, cleared his throat, and pulled out a sheet of paper from the file. He slid it over. “New interviews will be held with these witnesses. You will act as liaison between the police department and members of your society network.”

  Luke leaned in with a smirk. “We ask the questions. You hand out the hankies and kiss the backsides.”

  Lola considered the names. “You already knew who my mother is, Tsu. Why the charade?”

  No apologies now. “There are a number of prominent studio people on that list.”

  “Get it straight, Starke,” added Luke, “we want your mother’s name to open doors. You’re secondary.”