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"Is that you?" She again pointed at the name.
"Mr. Escott's out of town. I'm his partner, Mr. Fleming. May I ask who referred you?"
She took a turn at assessing me. I was taller than average, leaner than some, and looked too young for my actual age of thirty-eight. Her gaze drifted upward. I removed my fedora and put it on the desk, and that summoned a glint of humor to her eyes. "Taxi driver. I told him I wanted a detective, and he took me straight here."
I peered between the blinds to the street below. A yellow cab was double-parked next to my Studebaker coupe. The driver waved up. I knew him slightly; he often hung out in front of my nightclub at closing, hoping to snag a late fare. It was no surprise that he knew about Escott's agency and that one or the other of us might be found there at odd hours. The club's doorman liked to chat when things were slow. They'd have plenty to gossip about with this development.
"Did you pay him?"
The bride glanced pointedly at her dress, which was unburdened by pockets, and she had no purse. "Put it on my bill. I'm good for it." She unpi
I hadn't said I'd accept the case, but decided this was one I couldn't miss. "No problem."
Excusing myself, I left to take care of her fare, trusting that she'd not run up an excessive amount in the brief time since her nuptials. I'm too much the optimist: the meter showed two-fifty. They must have come from across town. I gave the driver three bucks and asked if he knew what the hell was going on.
He was cheerful, shaking his head. "That dame shot out of St. Mike's like one of them human ca
"You were driving past?"
"Nah, waiting for the wedding to end. There's always someone needin' a ride after. Weddin's and funerals is always good for business, right?"
On that point I had to agree. I thanked him and trotted back to my client. The Escott Agency undertook the carrying out of unpleasant errands for those with enough cash and a need for discretion. Escott flatly refused divorce work. Finding a missing groom was a gray area, but odds favored an easy fix. He'd probably succumbed to cold feet and was hiding out with friends. Why wait until after the ceremony, though?
I asked Mrs. Schubert some basic questions, scribbling her answers in shorthand. Soon as I heard her maiden name a light went on.
"Are you related to—?"
"Yes, Louie Huffman. He's my father."
My interest in the case went up a few notches, along with a sudden urge to back out before things got more complicated. I knew Huffman slightly. He hung out at another club—the Nightcrawler—with half the mobsters in the city. He wasn't a big-time boss like my pal Gordy Weems, but one of the lesser chiefs.
Which still made him someone I didn't care to cross. My friendship with Gordy provided a certain amount of insurance against bad guys getting stupid with me, but it wasn't something I ever tested. Huffman oversaw debt collection, and he was very good at it. He had a reputation for being almost as handy with a baseball bat as Capone. You paid your debt or got shattered kneecaps or disappeared entirely. It was pretty simple.
That he had a daughter should not have surprised me. Many of the mugs were family men, they just kept their work well separated from their home life.
I wondered if the groom owed money to his new father-in-law. "What happened at the wedding?"
Dorothy Schubert melted a little at the memory. "It was beautiful. My favorite flowers—Daddy had them shipped up special from Florida—and the music and everyone was there and it was perfect. Jerome was so handsome; he looked just like Ralph Bellamy in that tuxedo."
An instinct within tipped me off that a flood was on the way. She made another whooping noise, but by then I'd ducked into the back room and returned with a box of tissues. I had it in front of her just as the dam burst. She tore out a handful and bawled into them.
"I—thought—he—loved—me!" she howled.
Crying dames are nothing to be afraid of, but for the next few minutes part of me wanted to run like hell; another said to put an arm around her and go, "There-there." A much more sensible part kept me seated until she'd recovered enough to continue.
"We'd come back down the aisle and went to the church's social hall for the reception. I was just floating."
"No pictures?"
"Did those yesterday. Maybe I shouldn't have let him see me in my dress before the ceremony—no, that's silly—uh-uh-u …" She soaked another wad of tissues and blew her nose. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. The reception?"
"We had a line and a big cake and we cut the cake and it was perfect. Then Jerome wasn't there."
"What do you mean?"
"I looked away for just a moment talking to someone, and he was just gone."
"Men's room?"
"No—I sent the best man to check. Then they all started looking for him. No one saw him leave. Some thought it was a joke. Jerome's a kidder, but he knows when to stop and this didn't stop. I stood all alone while the ushers turned the church inside out. Then I couldn't take it anymore. How dare he humiliate me like that?"
"Your father have anything to say about it?"
"I didn't ask. This is my problem, not his."
She dabbed at her puffy eyes, which were rather raccoonlike from smeared makeup. In the pause I heard several sets of shoes clomping up the stairs. No knock, the door was thrown open yet again with violence. The glass panel thankfully held.
The man who trundled in was Big Louie Huffman. The tuxedo did little to mitigate his fundamental toughness. He was built like a balding fireplug with a solid trunk, thick arms, and seemed to use his raw muscle to suppress the force inside. His daughter had inherited his pronounced nose and downturned mouth. On her they looked good; on him they were intimidating. He looked ready to take the building apart.
Flanking him in the now much smaller office were two large goons also dressed for the wedding. Their tailor had failed to get the padding right, so you could almost tell the make and caliber of what they kept in their shoulder holsters. Each had a hand inside the coat, ready to pull out and blast away.
I held myself very, very still. "Uh—Mrs. Schubert—?"
"Don't call her that," Huffman rumbled.
"Oh, Daddy," she said, her voice creaking with the threat of more tears. "How did you—?"
"Followed your cab. Dot, what are you doing here?"
"I'm taking care of my problem myself." For this she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. "Just like you tell me."
He pushed out his lower lip, eyes going narrow as he thought that one over. "You're a grown woman, you know your mind, but we should keep this in the family."
She lowered her head and made a low noise deep in her throat. When my girlfriend made that kind of sound I knew to take cover.
Apparently so did Huffman. Even the goons backed up a step.
"I want," she said in a disturbingly level tone, "an impartial outsider to deal with this. I know you want to help, but I need to do this my way."
He thought that one over as well, then focused on me. Recognition clicked in his expression. "You're Jack Fleming—that creep from Gordy's club."
It beat being called a number of other, more colorful, descriptives. There was a lady present, after all. "Good evening, Mr. Huffman."
"Dot, we'll find another man for the job."
She rose and faced her father. With him and the others there for comparison I noticed just how tall she was, being eye-level with them. "I want this guy. He's got very nice ma