The Lock and The Damned

By Dave Gehrke

It’s 1942 and Seamus Taggert, a morose former St. Paul police detective recently pensioned out due to injuries incurred during a bank robbery, is playing at being a private detective, trying to make ends meet on a half-pension and wishing there was something he could do to help the war effort when a strange woman shows up in his crummy office with a horse-choking roll of cash and a missing person's case. Oddly enough the missing person is none other than Quinn Delaney, the infamous former bootlegger Taggert vainly pursued during Prohibition and currently Number Two on Taggert’s “List of Guys I’m Going To Kill If I Ever Get The Chance”. What’s even better, there’s a bonus if Taggert finds Delaney within a week’s time!

But Quinn Delaney isn’t your ordinary missing person. He dodged the St. Paul cops and the FBI all throughout Prohibition and if he doesn’t want to be found, he isn’t going to make it easy. No longer on top of his game and without the resources of the police department behind him, Taggert reluctantly accepts the help of Janice Pemberton, a resourceful young reporter with a mysterious past and with wants and needs of her own. Her price; an in-depth interview and a feature story on the Hero Cop who single-handedly stopped a bank robbery.

Despite Pemberton’s assistance, Taggert soon finds himself butting heads with his former partner, the FBI, a team of Nazi saboteurs and Delaney himself who doesn’t want to be found because he’s walking a tightrope between the FBI and the Nazi saboteurs while trying to turn a profit off both.

So how far will Seamus Taggert, the pensioned-out and socially withdrawn Hero Cop, go to find Quinn Delaney? Will he risk his life for a wad of cash or a sense of patriotism? For the love of a woman? Or will he put everything on the line merely for revenge?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Gehrke
• Release date: Oct 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005444105

Dave Gehrke

I grew up reading comic books in my uncle’s toy and hobby store. I didn’t know how to read at first so I contented myself staring at the drawings while trying to figure out what the words meant. I believe the first word I learned was “Pow!”. “The” wasn’t far behind. Then my uncle started sending me home with a comic, often, purportedly so my parents could read them to me, but also because he grew tired of me being in the way of paying customers.I learned two things from that experience; how to manipulate my uncle, which came in handy as I grew older, and how to read at an early age, which served me well my entire life.Reading opened up a whole new world for me; a world of knowledge, entertainment and imagination, and that world lay just across the alley from me at the Dyckman Free Library. By the time I reached the second grade my family had named me “Professor”. By the eighth grade I’d demonstrated to Mrs. Dombrowski, the librarian, that had I not only graduated from the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew section, I was well on my way through the adult fiction section and could pass a comprehension quiz on any book I’d already managed to smuggle out of the adult section when she hadn’t been looking.In high school my standard answer to a question from any teacher wondering how I happened to know something esoteric or arcane was “I read that somewhere.” Which also brought a standard groan from my classmates.Writing is a natural evolution from prolific reading. And when I discovered I could wow both my classmates and instructors with my completed writing assignments, I decided at age sixteen that I would someday become a writer of books.Then life got in the way; graduation, marriage, kids, college (I’ve earned three degrees), various business pursuits, various stints at journalism, teaching, coaching, school administration and half a dozen hobbies. But I never forgot about becoming a novelist. So I studied people (future characters); their mannerisms, how they spoke, the way they conversed, what motivated them, how they reacted in various situations, how they expressed their hopes and their dreams, the way one wrinkled her nose when she laughed, the way another tended to begin the answer to any question with “basically”.And I gathered reams of notes; character descriptions, possible storylines, potential plots, locations, time periods, etc. And I continued to read, sometimes for entertainment, sometimes to study the different techniques used by my favorite authors in crafting their books.Then, when the drawers holding my writing notes were overflowing, when my kids were off having kids of their own and I retired to my own semi-isolated place in the countryside, I did what I’d always been meant to do; I started writing books.Life, as they say, goes full circle.Some circles just have larger diameters.

Book preview

Chapter One - Rebirth

I was in my office, such as it was, nursing a hangover and pouring over the Monday morning’s edition of the St. Paul Dispatch, honed in on the latest outstate bank robbery story. Okay, maybe I wasn’t honing. Honing required a certain amount of concentrated focus.

I had no focus. Hadn’t had any for a long while.

Though I did have more than a passing interest in bank robberies. And a certain bank robber; blonde-haired, German accent. Carried a Luger. And a bullet in his left elbow.

He was at the top of my Men I’m Going To Kill If I Ever Get The Chance list.

I was sipping Bushmills, hair of the dog, and in the process of lighting up a fresh Chesterfield when she popped into my third floor walk-up office, interrupting my second reading of the poorly-written bank robbery story, looking for any details I may have missed the first time.

She was about the size of a Sumo wrestler, had a tent for a dress and wore one of those pill box hats that sported a couple yards of face-covering veil. Reminded me of a French Legionnaire after a wild night on the oasis.

The veil hid her eyes but I could make out enough of her lower face to note a pale complexion and bloodless lips that strayed aimlessly across her cheeks before fading into nothingness.

I’d seen more exposed skin on a leper.

She hesitated just inside the door, clinging to the knob as if uncertain she was in the right place and unwilling to give up her chances for a quick escape if she wasn’t. It was a typical reaction for those brave enough to climb three flights of stairs to find me at the end of the rainbow. Most arrivals, and there hadn’t been many, were usually panting like a sheepdog after making the climb. This broad, as far as I could tell, wasn’t even breathing hard.

Maybe she’d levitated.

Smoke? I asked without getting up, gesturing towards the open pack of Chesterfields on the desk. It was the first thought that came to mind, my brain automatically assuming the dour woman had accidentally stumbled into the wrong office. Had to be looking for someone else. Maybe a beauty consultant. Hell, she could’ve been the cleaning lady.

Filthy habit, she replied in a high-pitched, blackboard-scratchy voice that sent my nerves, already on edge, climbing to a Ten on the Aggravation Scale.

Whiskey then? I suggested, determined to use my filthy habits to chase her out of my office so I could get back to the bank robbery story and important matters like deciding if the rotten odor I was smelling came from the socks I hadn’t changed that morning or the shirt I hadn’t changed in several days.

This time of the day? she scolded in that metallic screech.

For medicinal purposes. You know, because of the three flights of stairs.

She shook her pill box hat in disapproval. Another disgusting habit.

I took a sip out of the Bushmills just to show her I was a man’s man and could handle being scorned by a bag lady.

She didn’t leave, or advance from the doorway. The old fight or flight conundrum.

Chair? I offered with a gesture, keeping up the witty repartee.

She surprised me by closing the door and floating over to the nearest uncomfortable chair, the sail she was wearing for a dress stirring up dust bunnies in her wake. She gave the seat a skeptical look before dusting it off with a hankie she pulled from her sleeve, then slowly settled in as if afraid it wouldn’t hold her weight. Maybe she was the Fat Lady from the circus. Hell, for all I could tell she might’ve had a man with her under that dress.

We both waited a few seconds to see if the chair was up to the task. It held and I lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.

She ignored the eyebrow and instead took a moment to appraise her surroundings.

The best way to describe my office was, uh, unpretentious. That’s a kind way of saying it belonged to the second-hand school of decoration. The walls needed paint, the bare wooden floor squeaked and the single window hadn’t been washed since the last rain storm. The furniture consisted of the salvaged oak desk, a dented Army-green four-drawer filing cabinet housing five closed files, a couple of skin magazines, a half-consumed bottle of single malt reserved for medicinal purposes only, a back-up fedora, a battered box of .38 caliber bullets and a spare dog leash because you never knew when another Fido might go missing.

I’d been specializing in finding lost dogs. Just not on purpose.

Two uncomfortable oak chairs that had stood the test of time rested strategically in front of the battered desk, a cracked banker’s desk lamp equipped with a new bulb that cast creepy shadows on the walls sat perilously close to the desk’s corner edge, a swivel chair that squeaked in protest whenever I took a deep breath and a foot stool that looked like it had been carved up by spurred cowboys contributed to the ambience.

As for wall decorations, one lonely framed Citation for Bravery hung where anyone sitting in front of the desk might see it. If they looked hard enough. And squinted.

The oak desk had more empty drawers than a whore house. I used one of them to hide a two-shot derringer I’d taken away from a punk kid, a spare shoulder holster, empty, an assortment of sharpened pencils and a half dozen legal pads, each partially filled with my lists. Oh, and a four-week old pack of Blackjack gum in the upper right-hand desk drawer for when I really got serious about quitting smoking along with a carton of Chesterfield’s to keep the BlackJack company. For when I got tired of Blackjack gum and stopped being serious about quitting smoking.

It pays to cover all your bases.

You’re the man who stopped the bank robbery? she asked me after several more seconds of silent appraisal, her voice dropping several octaves. Her tone carried a good deal of skepticism. I’d readily admit I wasn’t awe-inspiring at first impression; wrinkled suit, two-day stubble, slouched in a squeaky desk chair in a cracker-jack office, my bad leg resting on the spurred foot stool. But there was that citation hanging on the wall behind me that said I was more than I appeared.

I pointed at it.

She squinted, read it, mouthing the words silently, then nodded her head as if deciding to plunge the country into war. Unfortunately the Japs had beaten her to it.

So you are the man who stopped the bank robbery.

More like interrupted, I politely corrected the bag lady, deciding that maybe she’d come looking for me on purpose and therefore I should listen to what she had to say. She might have lost a dog and the office rent was coming due.

Excuse me?

The robbers had already blown the vault, I pointed out. So they were in the process of robbing the bank, already taking the money out.

But you stopped them.

I stopped three of them. The fourth got away with most of the money. So I only interrupted the robbery.

Have it your way. I wish to hire you in any case.

You have a bank robbery you want me to interrupt?

She stared at me unemotionally, tilting her head to one side than the other as if trying to interpret my question. Is that an attempt at self-deprecating humor? she asked after careful consideration.

A poor one, I admitted before pausing to stub out the Chesterfield. So who do you want me to kill? Anybody who could use the term self-deprecating wasn’t to be dismissed out-of-hand.

Another attempt at levity, she decided.

I shrugged. Figure of speech. What exactly do you think a private detective can do for you?

I want you to find my husband.

Your husband? I said more as a matter of astonishment than as an attempt at clarification. She was about as unattractive as a woman could get without deliberately trying to be hideous. If she had a husband he had to be blind. Or she had to be rich.

I began to warm up to her.

He disappeared, I said, stating the obvious.

She nodded. I waited for details but none were forthcoming. I sighed and reached for the Chesterfields, but my hand froze in mid-air when she noisily cleared her throat.

Look, lady, I informed her callously. If you’re not going to talk, I’m going to smoke while you think about what it is you might want to tell me.

Very well, she snipped, surrendering to my charm.

Let’s start with your name. And the name of your husband.

Vivian Delaney, she announced, her eyes expecting a reaction.

Delaney. A familiar name. But there were probably a hundred and fifty Delaneys in the St. Paul phone book. That’s because there were more Irishmen in St. Paul than Dublin so the odds were good that I had arrested one Delaney or another during my ten years on the police force.

And your husband?

Quinn. Quinn Delaney, she answered, her eyes still expecting some reaction.

She got it. My heart did a one and half gainer off the high board. Quinn Delaney, Irish mobster that made a fortune running whiskey during Prohibition, not known for his kindness to others and therefore a man with a lot of enemies. If he’d disappeared it was most likely he was wearing cement overshoes on the bottom of the Mississippi. Or he was on the lam for dropping someone else into the Mississippi.

Assuming of course her husband was thee Quinn Delaney. So I asked her.

Yes, she said with a slight nod. She didn’t say it like she was confessing a sin. Or proudly. Just stating a fact.

Okay, so the overweight and hideous wife of one of the biggest whiskey smugglers in the city’s history, the same wife who thought smoking and drinking whiskey were filthy habits to be avoided, had just clumped up three flights of stairs to hire me to locate her missing husband who’d made a fortune running illegal whiskey during Prohibition while avoiding the St. Paul cops, the state police and the FBI.

Was she Alice in Wonderland?

And if she was Alice what was I? The Mad Hatter? I mean why would she seek out a gumshoe to find her husband when Delaney had more thugs on his payroll than extras in an Edward G. Robinson movie? Couldn’t all those hooligans keep track of their own boss?

Why not ask the cops for help? They had plenty of detectives on the force. Most of them better than incompetent. But then half the cops in St. Paul couldn’t find Quinn Delaney during Prohibition even though they’d known exactly where he lived and did business.

I put that question to her.

You’re a hero, she returned smartly. And you’re Irish. Quinn, my husband, always said it takes an Irishman to catch an Irishman.

I thought that only applied to leprechauns.

She shrugged, neither agreeing or denying.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Delaney, I began, trying to worm my way out of what could easily turn into another personal nightmare. But I have to ask? How can Quinn Delaney disappear? He couldn’t hide in a crowd at a St. Paul Saints game. I mean he’s rather well known, don’t you think?

I have asked myself that very same question, she responded primly in that still high-pitched irritating voice that made me want to pull the derringer out of my desk and shoot her.

I sighed deeply, steeling myself with forbearance while eyeballing the whiskey remaining at the bottom of the chipped coffee mug.

Considering his line of work, doesn’t your husband travel with a gaggle of bodyguards? I asked distractedly.

His line of work? she returned, cocking her head to one side as if missing the connection. Bodyguards?

Okay. Maybe the dame was in the dark. Maybe she didn’t know her boy Quinn was as crooked as a sidewinder. Or that he’d been a whiskey smuggler before he turned over a new leaf and invested his whiskey-running money under general crime. But if all that was true, then maybe this dame wasn’t playing with a full deck and was wasting my wallowing time.

Perhaps I got a little ahead of myself, Mrs. Delaney, I said, bracing myself. Let me rephrase. What line of work was your husband in when he disappeared?

Investments.

Really? I managed without snickering. What sort of investments? Stocks? Bonds? Real estate? Precious metals?

Yes.

Okay. Maybe Vivian Delaney’s understanding of thee in front of Quinn Delaney’s name was different than my understanding of thee Quinn Delaney. Thee Delaney that I knew wasn’t interested in making money unless he could do it illegally. Not saying that stock brokers were honest, but maybe there were two thee Quinn Delaneys; a crooked one and a dishonest one. In that case there wasn’t a thee Delaney and we could be looking at a case of mistaken identity here.

You wouldn’t happen to have a photograph with you, would you? I asked.

She opened the suitcase she was using for a purse and extracted a framed shot of the big guy. As soon as she slid it across the beat up oak desk I knew it was the same thee Quinn Delaney that I had in mind.

I’ve seen this man before, I advised her.

Yes.

I mean when I was on the police force.

Yes.

Maybe I’m not making myself clear... He was on a wanted poster.

My husband has a checkered past, she nodded. I know that.

Checkered implies a few white spots surrounded by a lot of black, I cautioned. Quinn Delaney doesn’t have any white spots.

You misjudge him, Mr. Taggert.

Me and a few thousand other law enforcement people.

She sighed, but she didn’t move, didn’t rise up out of her chair to throw things at me. Didn’t even look insulted. Maybe I was being too diplomatic.

Mr. Delaney made a good bit of money during Prohibition, Mrs. Delaney conceded. Doing things that weren’t exactly legal during those tumultuous years...

Weren’t exactly legal and tumultuous are both understatements, I said caustically. Bootlegging, hijackings, shootings, beatings...

But he’s been strictly legal since Prohibition was ended, she went on as if she hadn’t heard me.

Legally investing the money he gained illegally, I gathered. Tainted money.

Tainted or not, Mr. Delaney has done quite well handling his investments. He’s now considered a pillar of the community.

Sure, I scoffed. Why the hell not. Delaney laughed at the law for years and made millions while I tried to uphold the law and had nothing to show for it except a bad leg, a bullet in my chest and a half-pension. And now Delaney was a pillar and I was a forgotten man. Sounded fair to me.

I detect some resentment on your part, Mr. Taggert,

Really? I tried to hide it, I replied sarcastically.

Well, you’re not doing real well at it, she countered primly, but she still didn’t rise to leave in a huff. Or pull a heater out of that big ugly purse and put two more in my chest. Maybe not getting shot was an accomplishment on my part. Or a failure. Depending on what side of the fence I was on at any particular moment.

I wasn’t aware that thee bootlegging Quinn Delaney had taken a wife, I offered when she remained silent, her eyes never leaving mine.

How do you know that I didn’t take a husband? she countered. Okay. She had to be rich.

Look, lady. You and I aren’t exactly hitting it off here. You know what I mean?

And your point?

I don’t know if I can work for you, I stated as if I was beating clients off with a club.

You don’t appear to be working for anyone at the moment, she informed me. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here unshaven, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey in the middle of the morning.

I’m only sipping whiskey, I shot back. And you won’t let me smoke.

How much is your fee? she asked, unperturbed by my petulance.

What?

What do you charge for your services?

A hundred bucks per day, I lied, figuring if I quadrupled my fee I could get her out of my office and I could get back to feeling sorry for myself. Plus expenses. Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t cheap.

She opened her purse without a word, extracted a roll of bills that might’ve been pulled out of a choking horse’s throat and set it lightly on the slightly used oak desk as if the additional weight might collapse the behemoth.

I tried not to stare. Or drool.

There’s three thousand dollars there, Mrs. Delaney said in that screechy prim voice that brooked no argument. Consider it a retainer. If your services exceed that amount, submit an itemized time sheet plus receipts for all expenses incurred and I will reimburse you promptly. I will also pay a bonus of one thousand dollars, also in cash, on top of your retainer if you can locate my husband within the week. Is that acceptable?

Three thousand dollars! That was almost twice the annual salary for a police detective and this strange woman was handing it over to me up front and in cash? And another grand in cash if I could locate her husband within a week? She was nuts!

Or was I nuts for thinking I didn’t want to take on the job of finding thee Quinn Delaney, a man that most everybody knew on sight?

Well? she insisted when I didn’t immediately respond.

Three thousand bucks! With another grand up for grabs! Four grand would mean I could stay home Monday mornings to read the comics, drink whiskey and do my wallowing in private. The hell with climbing three flights of stairs!

It’s acceptable, I managed to croak.

Excellent!

And what do you want me to do once I find your husband? I asked, suddenly suspiciously. Was this where she told me she wanted me to whack the unfaithful cur? Was that the justification for the ridiculous upfront roll of cash?

Tell him I’m worried and ask him to call me.

Call you, I repeated in disbelief.

She nodded, the pillbox slipping forward as she did. She tapped it back in place.

That’s a very expensive phone call, I pointed out.

Quinn is very important to me, she replied evenly. He’s my soul mate.

Uh huh, was the best I could manage. The broad was either nuts or so rich she considered three thousand bucks pocket change.

I need not mention that you must find my husband as discretely as possible.

Of course, I nodded as if discrete was my middle name, which it wasn’t. Police detectives didn’t worry about being discrete, only effective. Maybe the word private in private dick actually meant more than I’d considered.

Now, perhaps we should have a shot of that medicinal whiskey you mentioned earlier... to seal the deal, she said primly.

I thought drinking whiskey was a disgusting habit? I couldn’t help ask. If she threw me anymore curve balls I was going to be out over the plate.

It is, she smiled sternly. But some disgusting habits have a ceremonial significance. Surely as one of Irish descent you understand the significance of sealing a business arrangement with a shared toast?

That I do. That I do, I assured her, scrambling to my feet to retrieve the single malt Bushmills from the filing cabinet. I brought back a mostly clean glass tumbler I kept on hand for special occasions along with the bottle, poured a couple fingers in the tumbler for Mrs. Delaney and splashed a topper into my chipped coffee mug.

I handed her the tumbler as she rose to her feet and I lifted my mug for the obligatory clink.

May you die in bed at ninety-five, shot by a jealous husband, she offered before I could open my mouth, tapping the tumbler against my cup.

Here, here, I grinned foolishly.

She lifted the veil just enough to expose her mouth and we tossed off our whiskeys with a flick of our wrists. She didn’t cough, blanch, or even grimace. For all her reaction, she might’ve taken a sip of water. Disgusting habit or not, Mrs. Quinn Delaney was no stranger to a whiskey bottle.

She very carefully set her glass down on the slightly used desk, extracted a small piece of paper from her purse and set it alongside the empty glass. I can be reached at that number, she explained. It’s my unlisted private line. I’ll expect regular updates.

Of course, I agreed magnanimously. For three thousand bucks up front I’d drive over to her house every afternoon and kiss her ass. Figuratively speaking.

She bobbed her head, acknowledging my fealty, and headed for the door.

Uh, Mrs. Delaney, I said to her retreating back. How about leaving me the address of your husband’s current business office? I’d like to start there.

She turned and gave me an enigmatic smile underneath that veil. Why Mr. Taggert, you’re the detective. If you can’t find my husband’s office, are you capable of finding my husband? Or am I betting on the wrong horse?

I whinnied.

Quaint, she remarked. By the way, You might want to consider opening your window. It smells rather gamey in here. She smiled, then squeezed out the door.

I went back to my desk and thoughtfully splashed another three fingers of single malt into my cup. I took a contemplative sip, then pulled open the drawer that held all my lists.

I removed the third legal pad down, the one entitled, Men I’m Going To Kill If I Ever Get The Chance and ran my finger down the names. I didn’t have to go far. There it was at Number Two on my Hit Parade; Quinn Delaney.

Thee Quinn Delaney.

Chapter  Two - The Slippery Slope

1942 wasn’t going to go down in the history books as one of America’s better years. The Japs were manhandling the US Navy in the Pacific, Bataan and Corregidor had fallen with the surrender of 78,000 troops, British and Russian forces were getting whipped by the Nazis, German U-boats owned the Atlantic and the U.S. government was desperately trying to gear up an economy that had been mired in the Great Depression for over a decade.

The whole country was reeling like an outclassed boxer who’d taken too many blows to the head by the third round, barely conscious but somehow still on his feet, praying for the bell and a chance to gather his wits before he went down for the count.

Like any red-blooded American, I wanted to do my bit for mom and apple pie, but I was more like the punch drunk pug who’d already taken one too many right crosses and was now relegated to cleaning out ring-side spittoons and picking up sweaty towels instead of stepping into the ring.

So while my stunned and beleaguered country was doing its damnedest to gear up for a two-front World War I was sitting on my duff in a shabby third-floor office drinking whiskey at ten o’clock in the morning and working my way through the comics.

It was terribly deflating to realize that while every able-bodied man in the US was stampeding down to the recruiting stations in his haste to enlist I was stuck on the sidelines too banged up to be of much use to anyone. If we don’t count the sex-starved floor nurse that had been making a play for me all throughout my lengthy hospital stay. She’d found me very useful after I was discharged. Often in ways I would’ve never imagined on my own.

But I’d had hopes I could regain my old life, actually believed I was on the road to recovery and could soon return to my job as a police detective; a job I loved. Then I got Pearl Harbored; the department retired me on a medical disability.

The forced retirement surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. Deputy Chief Higgins had been trying to get rid of me since way back during Prohibition. Higgins, who by the way was Number One on my Guys I’m Going to Kill If I Ever Get The Chance list, had never trusted me despite my exemplary record of solved cases. In fact it was my exemplary record that worried him most. Like many on the St. Paul Police Department in the 20’s and 30’s, Higgins was bought and paid for. It was just that nobody had proven it. Yet.

So after I was seriously wounded in the bank job Higgins had the excuse he’d been waiting for. He gave me a commendation, called me a hero in the press, slapped me on the back and handed me my walking papers and the public ate it up. And just like that I was pushed aside like a day-old bologna sandwich.

I didn’t even get a gold pocket watch. Just a half-pension and a kick in the ass.

So six months after I’d checked out of the hospital with a jagged scar halfway down the length of my right leg, a bullet still lodged next to my breastbone and a hangover from celebrating my hospital discharge with the floor nurse, I’d hung out my private dick shingle. Three months later the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor throwing the whole world into a tizzy.

Had I known the department was going to force me out I would’ve filed for the private dick license from my hospital bed. And If I’d known the floor nurse came gift-wrapped with a fifth of Irish single malt I’d have tried to check out of the hospital sooner. Backing up a couple more steps, if I’d known I was going to walk into the middle of a bank robbery I wouldn’t have been standing in line waiting to cash my paycheck that fateful day either.

But there’s no going back in life. No do-overs. You take your lumps and you move on. Or you sit around drinking whiskey and moping, wishing somebody would invent a time machine so you could go back to whenever and fix what you’d screwed up. Until one day in a stark moment of honesty you come to the sad realization there are no time machines, you can’t ever go back to the way things were and you either have to deal with it or swallow a bullet.

Me, I was torn. Not quite ready to give up on the time machine thing but for sure not ready to swallow a bullet either. Instead I was stuck in the whiskey-drinking-moping stage. I suppose because of cowardice more than anything. If I was going to get a bullet, another bullet, I’d prefer it came from somebody else’s gun. That way I wouldn’t have to go through that second-guessing thing.

The closest I’d come to death since leaving the hospital had been my first night with the nymphomaniac floor nurse. Unfortunately she’d had no more success in killing me than the clowns who’d blown up the First Merchants Bank with me in it. But if it came right down to it I’d rather go out in the arms of a pretty woman than trying to stop a bank robbery. Wouldn’t look as heroic in the obituaries, but at least they’d bury me in one piece and with a smile on my face.

Life’s full of trade-offs.

Sometimes they even out, sometimes they don’t. So far mine had been fairly lopsided. Maybe I was due...

All that aside, becoming a gumshoe had seemed like an obvious choice. It was part bullheadedness and part desperation. Yeah, I wanted to prove Higgins and the department wrong but I also needed to make some extra money. Half a pension was barely enough to keep food on the table and the lights on. Thank God I owned my house free and clear or I would’ve really been up the creek.

I‘d enjoyed being a cop, a detective. Gave me both a purpose and a sense of worth. And it was challenging. It was like piecing together a giant puzzle, after you found the pieces which were usually scattered all over the place. Then once you rounded up the pieces you had to put them together in the right order to catch the bad guy. Like I said, a challenge, but if you did your job right and the crook got sent up the river... well, it made you feel good. Let you sleep at night with a smile on your face.

But the forced retirement took all that away from me. Left me hanging out there in Never-Never Land.

So I became a private dick hoping to get back some of what had been taken away from me. Yeah, I could no longer arrest the bad guys but I could still find the clues and work the puzzles. And doing it let me thumb my nose at Higgins and the department.

If I could get some real tough criminal cases. Following unfaithful spouses and finding lost dogs wouldn’t cut it.

So I dipped into my small savings account, rented a third floor walk-up office because that was all I could afford and hung out my shingle where most people would never find it. And waited for the clients to come rolling in. I was still mostly waiting. Which was why I could spend a couple of hours reading the newspaper every morning.

Three months on the job and my Closed-Case file consisted of one stolen pearl necklace that I’d found by pulling the owner’s dresser away from the wall, a photograph of a cheating wife entering a motel in broad daylight with the husband’s best friend, now an ex-best friend with a broken nose, and two lost dog cases. Both pooches found at the pound.

My big case so far? I’d proven, against my client’s wishes, that the guy he’d side-swiped with his Studebaker really did have a broken pelvis. The evidence for that one had cost me a bottle of single malt and another wild night with the nympho floor nurse. This time in a real bed.

What a desperate private dick won’t do to get his hands on a set of X-rays.

But the pretty floor nurse wasn’t the only one who got stiffed on that deal. My angry client walked out without coughing up a dime. Apparently he expected me to find him innocent.

And that feeble history was what gave me pause. Despite the ugly building, the three flights of stairs, the uninviting office and the lack of a successful big case private dick reputation, the frumpy, overweight wife of a former crime boss had come seeking my help to find her husband and deliver a simple message; call home.

I reached for the Bushmills. The bottle was less full then it had been pre-Vivian, but as long as it wasn’t empty and still within my reach I was normally optimistic. So how come I wasn’t?

I poured myself another contemplative shot.

I had things to think about. Like why Vivian Delaney had sought me out and plopped three thousand in cash on my second-hand desk. Three thousand, in a tight little roll obviously prepared in advance, for a week of my time. With another grand dangling out there for an extra incentive. As if I needed one. Two years’ worth of my former salary for tracking down a man I’d tried to arrest and send to prison for most of my career as a cop was all the incentive I needed. Three year’s worth was overkill.

Good things come to those who wait?

Had my ship finally come in?

Or was I being suckered?

Maybe my bum leg would hold me back. Keep me from doing the usual legwork that often came with a missing person’s case. Or was I afraid to get back out there and do some real detecting? Afraid that I might no longer have what it takes. Afraid that if I failed to track down the missing Quinn Delaney I’d have to face the possibility the department had been right; I was washed up.

On the other hand if I quit wallowing in self-pity, stopped finding excuses for potential failure and got back into the detective groove, I just might get lucky, find the missing bootlegger inside a week’s time and collect that extra grand. Not to mention earning the gratitude of the homely but wealthy Mrs. Delaney. Pushing that thought a little further, a grateful Mrs. Delaney would almost certainly mention me to her rich friends and because rich people always had problems those friends might in turn retain my discreet professional services. I’d soon then become the most well known, and wealthiest, private detective in town.

Not bad for a cripple.

Stick that up your ass Deputy Chief Higgins!

The only fly in the ointment that I could foresee was I’d been coasting in neutral for so long I wasn’t even sure I still had a detective groove to get into.

And what if Mr. Delaney didn’t want to be found? I gently patted my chest, just to the right of the sternum where that bullet still snuggled too close to my heart to risk surgery. Would Delaney, if I found him and he remembered me from Prohibition days, put a couple more bullets in my chest to finish the job? Put me out of my misery? Wouldn’t be all bad I supposed. At least then I wouldn’t have to do it myself.

Or I could kill Delaney and scratch him off my To Kill list. Ought to be worth something.

But would Mrs. Delaney’s fork over that extra grand if I rubbed out Mr. Delaney? Would she recommend me to her rich friends after I bumped off her husband?

Somehow I didn’t think so.

But I was putting the cart before the horse. If I was going to buy into this whole problematic story, I first had to find the missing Delaney. Then I could decide which I wanted more; the extra grand or revenge. Better yet, if I was clever enough and played my cards right maybe I could have both. It didn’t take two good legs to be devious, did it?

Go for it you greedy Irish bastard! I said aloud, lifting my chipped coffee mug for a ceremonial toast to myself, symbolically washing away any reservations I might be harboring.

I wasted a couple of hours leafing through the phonebook looking for Delaney’s investment company to no avail. Inexplicably, there wasn’t a listing for Quinn Delaney in either the white pages or the yellow pages. At least not under Delaney or Investments or Brokerage. What the hell? You’d think a successful investments advisor would be listed in the yellow pages, wouldn’t you?

Of course there was the off-chance my new buddy Quinn was using a corporate name for his investment business. You know, something high-faluting like Argus Investments, Jupiter Wealth Management or some other crapola title. Which meant unless I was willing to spend the rest of the week calling every damn investment broker in the city asking for Quinn Delaney, I wasn’t ever going to find his office over the phone.

Goodbye bonus.

Stymied, I hid my unwashed hair under my fedora and hit the streets. There are times in the detective business when its smarter to burn up shoe leather rather than patience. I’d learned that as a cop. In fact Burning Up Shoe Leather was Number Three on my List Of Desperate Attempts to Find A Clue.

I grabbed a streetcar headed in my direction and had my choice of seats as the day was way past the morning rush hour. Riding a streetcar to work a case was a new experience for me. But what the hell, burning up shoe leather is only a figure of speech. It’s sort of like life; it’s not the destination, it’s how you get there.

Another little trick for finding clues, Number Two on the same list, was to spend time building long-term relationships with semi-shady characters who possessed keen powers of observation and didn’t mind sharing their observations for a little quid pro quo. And ironically, thanks to Mrs. Delaney’s healthy retainer, I had plenty of quid I could pay to a pro for a little quo. It was almost as if she’d hired me to bump off Quinn.

My favorite snitch was Big Brenda, an equal opportunity prostitute. Brenda wasn’t Big because she was heavy. Quite the opposite. Her build was rather slight, which only served to enhance her most obvious physical charms; a set of 38 C’s. The contrast between Brenda’s slight build and her very large chest stoked a desire in men to conduct a more private examination of her attributes. Fortunately for such men Brenda had no qualms submitting to a private examination... as long as they could afford a fee commiserate with the size of the mountains to be explored.

Brenda’s baby-doll looks didn’t hurt sales either. In another time, in another place, Brenda could have been a movie star. Instead she’d been born in rural Minnesota, gravitated to St. Paul as a teenager during the Depression where she quickly discovered hooking paid much better than factory work.

Big Brenda’s gifts went beyond the physical. Customers not only wanted to shed their clothes for Brenda, they also felt the need to shed their business secrets as well. Being an entrepreneur of sorts, Brenda was not adverse to sharing that inside information for a price. But only to a few trusted customers who understood the name of the source did not accompany the information.

I was one of those trusted customers. Informationally speaking.

Brenda and I had become acquainted back when I was walking a beat, back when the Depression was at its peak and jobs and money were scarce and people were forced into doing just about anything in order to survive. Me, I’d become a cop and Brenda had become a hooker, neither of us deliberatively choosing our careers, but somehow we’d both wound up doing something we were good at.

Beat cop and hooker. Helluva combination. And as we each pursued our vocations, our paths crossed often, but I never held Brenda’s occupation against her, nor did I ever arrest her. As long as she did her business out of the public eye I left her alone and Brenda repaid the favor by passing along the occasional tip; tips that helped earn my promotion to detective. In return I made it known to would-be pimps that anyone who tried to recruit Brenda was going to spend some time in a hospital bed and then in a jail cell.

So she owed me and I owed her.  It was what the scientists call a symbiotic relationship. Me and Brenda, we called it friendship.

The hero! Brenda exclaimed boisterously as I limped into the Do Drop In. Like many a late-shift blue-collar worker Brenda’s working day began with a hearty mid-morning breakfast at the Do Drop. Located midway between the river docks and downtown St. Paul, the Drop was the perfect breakfast location for a call girl that catered to a mixed clientele of white-collar managers and blue collar workers.

I waved hello to Alice the waitress, who waved back with a friendly smile and made a beeline over to Brenda’s armed with a cup and a coffee pot.

How are you doing, Brenda? I asked with an honest smile as I slid into the booth opposite her. She may have been a prostitute but Brenda was a genuine nice person and I liked her. In fact she was near the top of my List of People I Genuinely Like. She also had a ranking on my List of Women I’d Like To. Oddly, it was not often a human of the female persuasion held simultaneous rankings on those two particular lists.

Just thought I’d mention that. For no other reason than to prove that when it came to listing women, I was flexible. My rankings were not carved in stone. I slid subjects up and down as my interactions with each of them changed. Which was why I kept all my lists in pencil.

Doing just about everybody, the hooker smiled. Except you of course. But now that you’re off the force... maybe I should add you to my list of regulars. I’ve never done a hero before. I could give you a discount, she offered with a teasing look.

Alice arrived just then and splashed coffee into the mug she’d brought me. Looking for more than coffee? she asked way too innocently.

Uh, coffee for now, Alice, I told her, playing the idiot. But I should be ready to order once my stomach settles down.

Just whistle, she smiled before she turned and sashayed back to the counter. I couldn’t help watch her. Alice wasn’t just a fine waitress, she was a fine-looking woman as well.

About my offer... Brenda hinted, interrupting my concentration.

A very tempting offer, I assured the hooker with a look at the protruding front of her dress, and it was indeed very tempting. It had been awhile since the nympho floor nurse had tried to kill me and I’d lately been having trouble focusing on much of anything other than attractive females. But now I had that roll of Delaney cash, the promise of a large bonus and a murder to plan to distract my primitive desires.

Business before pleasure.

Some fool said that once.

But as much as I’d love to accept, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize our working relationship, I added for Brenda’s benefit, still smiling.

Oh, Jeez! she moaned with disappointment. You’re fishing for more information aren’t you? When are you going to start seeing me as something more than a gossip columnist?

Brenda, believe me when I say that’s not how I picture you, I explained with another wistful look at her bosom.

She giggled. You should see them when they slip their harness.

I’d love to, I admitted, my resolve weakening. But maybe some other time, okay? Right now I’m working a case and I just need a little background information. I punctuated my request by sliding a double sawbuck across the booth in her direction, retaining possession by holding down one corner of the twenty with my index finger.

Wow! You must be really desperate, she giggled. I love desperate men, she added with a coy invitation and a hopeful lift to her eyebrows. For twenty bucks I’ll do just about anything...

Just information this time, okay Brenda? I persisted, thankful that the table between us hid my interest in her offer.

Well, if your mind’s stuck on your business instead of mine, the hooker sighed regretfully. What can I help you with?

Quinn Delaney, I said.

Keep the double sawbuck and stay alive, Brenda shot back without any hesitation, dropping the coyness.

I just need to deliver a message, I returned.

I’m serious, the lady of the evening, or afternoon, warned.

I have no doubt, I assured her. But I have this client...

Give your client his money back, Brenda advised. And forget you ever heard Delaney’s name.

I stared at her, at her eyes this time, and tried to divine where the hooker was coming from. Had she had a bad business experience with Delaney? Or was she just afraid of his reputation? I asked as much.

No, Quinn Delaney has always been a perfect gentleman whenever he’s used my services, she replied. Well, not too gentlemanly, if you know what I mean. But he tips well.

Delaney frequented a prostitute? After meeting his wife, I could see why the man might be tempted to visit someone as attractive as Brenda, but he was filthy rich. He could afford ten mistresses, maybe not all as attractive as Brenda, but why go public