The Gold Pawn Read online

  “Need a little help?” he had asked with a grin as he’d run over to her.

  “That’d be great,” she croaked while she tried to maintain her grip on both the branch and the lantern.

  He took hold of her around the waist, supporting her torso while she carefully got her balance and a better grip on the lantern. Then he lowered her down, taking more time than strictly necessary, enjoying her nearness, the scent of her perfume, her soft curves up against him.

  After he had set her down, she uprighted the ladder and then started to climb back up. The ladder looked as if it had either endured the Great War itself or was approximately 265 years old. Just as he had been about to tell her to be careful on that fourth step, which looked particularly dubious, it cracked as she stepped fully on it. As she’d tried to right herself, her body twisted, and she reached out to find support. He dove over and grabbed her, saving her from hitting her head on the pavement, just inches away.

  It had been a perfect moment. They were nose to nose, her body pressed up against his.

  “You did that on purpose,” he whispered to her.

  “Maybe,” she whispered as her eyes flickered down to his lips.

  He kissed her. The taste and feel of her had been delicious and hard to bear all at once. She made him physically ache just thinking about her. He was too far away. He dragged hard on his cigarette, shaking his head to clear his mind, which had been so absorbed. Back in New York.

  All right, he declared to himself as he put out his cigarette definitively. He had a job to do. The quicker he made his contact and found the answers to his questions, the quicker he could go home.

  CHAPTER 6

  Before I caught my train to Michigan, I had an appointment to keep. I walked just a couple of blocks, to a little luncheonette and soda shop. I spotted up ahead a slight, lithe form with dirty blond hair leaning up against the wall outside of the soda shop.

  “Hi, Morgan,” I said.

  “Hi, Lane!” she greeted. “I think I might order marshmallow today!”

  I followed her inside and we headed to our usual table. We had rescued Morgan from a horrible predicament a while ago. She had been part of a group of street urchins for . . . well, I didn’t know how long. We’d hoped that she’d like to stay in a home for girls that Aunt Evelyn and several of her friends including the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had set up. But it didn’t take. Although grateful, Morgan found that her street life was something she couldn’t leave and she disappeared. In the short time that I had gotten to know her, I knew Morgan loved ice cream and had fallen in love with this soda shop. I had walked around here quite often, trying to find her. I finally did one day, and we set up a weekly ice cream appointment.

  After she gobbled down the grilled ham and cheese that I made her order first, she was at last making her way through chocolate ice cream topped with marshmallow goo. I asked her about something I had been pondering. “Morgan, you’re young, but you’ve lived on your own for so long it’s like you’re older than you really are.”

  “You can say that again,” she muttered.

  “Why didn’t you like living with the girls?”

  “Oh, they were all right,” she said while putting a strand of her hair behind her ear in a surprisingly feminine gesture. “In fact, better than all right. But . . . I don’t know.” Her blond hair was lighter than when we first found her. We had given her a thorough bath and she came out gleaming and her hair was much fairer once the dirt had been removed. She hated it. I looked at her, thought about the life she lived, the things she lived through . . . I had an inkling as to why she left the girls’ place.

  “Morgan, you might have heard from someone else, but my parents died when I was ten.”

  “And that makes you an expert on me?” she said with a defiant upturn of her chin.

  “Not at all,” I said calmly. “Just telling a story. When I came to live here with Aunt Evelyn, it was good, but awkward, too. Not because she wasn’t great, she’s wonderful. You know . . .” Morgan allowed herself a little smile as she thought about Aunt Evelyn.

  “But, well, let’s just say that I was angry. Really angry that my parents had died. And part of me felt like they betrayed me.” Morgan stopped shoveling in her ice cream and only her eyes shifted to look at me directly.

  “It’s now thirteen years later, and it might not seem like it on the outside, but sometimes it’s a little hard for me to let people get close. When they get close, they have power over me. Because it would hurt a lot if they decided to leave or were taken from me.”

  “But, Lane, you have a lot of close friends,” she said with an earnest tilt to her head.

  “Yeah, it’s not quite the word I’m looking for. It’s not that I have a hard time making friends, but it’s the independence I like. I don’t want to have to depend on them.”

  She exhaled with a puff.

  “So now, I’m still learning, believe me. But I know I have to fight it. I mean, I’d still rather do things on my own, but after a while I learned that it was worth it to take the risk. To trust.” I put down my cup of coffee. “Anyway, thanks for having an ice cream breakfast with me. Want to meet up again next week after my trip?”

  Morgan licked her lips, considering me carefully with a sidelong glance, then said, “Yeah. That would be great.”

  I smiled. “See ya later, Morgan.”

  * * *

  The past week full of travel preparations, a rousing night of dancing with Val and our office buddies, a quick ice cream with Morgan, then hurrying to the train that I almost missed due to traffic . . . All of it led up to this moment.

  I was finally sitting in the middle of the hopping, glittering Statler Hotel in Detroit . . . a long way from home. Alone.

  My table was for two, but currently I was a party of one, waiting for a Miss Tabitha Baxter to come and meet me. She was the daughter of the couple who were taking care of my childhood . . . home . . . in Rochester, a little town an hour or two outside of Detroit. I still tripped over that word. Home. It felt far away and isolated, like a distant relative whom I was seeing for the first time and feeling uncertain if she would receive me with open and friendly arms, or a chilly formality.

  I felt enveloped in a heavy coat of nervousness, like the new kid at school. Nervous about everything. About seeing the place where I was raised until I was ten years old, about meeting people who would remember me but whom I might not remember, about seeing the lake where my parents perished, about discovering more bits and pieces to their mysterious and troubling past . . . And then there was Finn.

  I missed him. Still no word from him, but I had sent my own letter off to a discreet London address that he had given me. I hoped he’d get it. And he’d certainly get Fio’s telegram; at least he’d be aware of the red envelope situation and Hambro.

  I just wanted to hear how he was doing. I knew that a trip to Europe could bring painful memories back to Finn. He had been born in Ireland and that seemed to be the happiest time of his childhood. But once the family moved to England, his brother, Sean, became twisted and was the cause of deep pain and betrayal. And there was one person there in England who worried me: Gwen, Sean’s wife. Finn had tried to warn her about his devious brother, he’d had feelings for Gwen at one point. And, well, let’s just say that I was highly annoyed to be even the slightest bit concerned about her, but there it was.

  As I sipped a glass of chianti, the thought of a strange recurring dream last night suddenly came rushing back to me. My own past had a lot of holes to it. Often, my dreams were my subconscious giving me details and memories of my life when I was ready for them. Well-known bits of my dreams had vanished recently as I had figured out their own separate mysteries. Like the lady in the green hat who flitted in and out of dreams for years, Daphne Franco. In real life, she’d loomed over me trying to finish me off after the incident at the lake that had taken the lives of my parents. Once I figured out her significance, not to mention she was safely locked aw
ay in a mental institution on Welfare Island, she was thankfully no longer part of my dreams. The main element that remained was that silver gun with the red scrollwork on the handle. And just lately, two new pieces fell into my recurring dreams: a shining gold chess piece—a pawn—and a picture of a ghostly gray hand pointing off to the right. It was puzzling, to say the least. Not to mention, I was terrified of two things: spiders and ghosts. Perfect. I at long last got rid of the diabolical lady in the green hat only to be replaced by a ghost hand. Fabulous.

  I finished my wine and looked at my watch; Tabitha was now twenty minutes late. New Yorkers were regularly fifteen minutes late, but this wasn’t New York. I thought I’d ask the barkeep if there was a message for me. I walked over and he rang up the front desk. Sure enough, Tabitha had just called to apologize and to say that she couldn’t meet tonight because their car broke down. She’d be here tomorrow morning at ten to collect me, Mr. Kirkland, and Aunt Evelyn.

  I thought about ordering another glass and what I was going to do now that my evening plans had changed. Now I wished Aunt Evelyn had been able to come right away, or Mr. Kirkland, but they would be arriving tomorrow. Which I would normally be quite fine with, I enjoy roaming around new places on my own; Detroit had some interesting sights and shopping that I was excited to see. But I had done a good amount of that already, and tonight of all nights! With all the teeming emotions of seeing my childhood home, I really could have used some company, if only for the distraction.

  I felt someone sit down next to me at the bar, then a friendly little nudge with his elbow.

  “Tucker! What are you doing here?” I exclaimed with genuine pleasure, enjoying the familiarity of his easy smile and open face.

  “I’m here on business, Lane. I’m staying right here at the Statler and happened to walk by the bar and saw you. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I’m visiting my family home in Rochester. I haven’t been back since I was a kid. It’s about time I got some things in order.”

  “Well, do you have dinner plans?” he asked.

  “Actually, no. They’ve just fallen through.”

  “I was planning on going to Carl’s Chop House for a steak. Care to join me?”

  Tucker and I went on a couple of dates before things with Finn solidified. It was a little awkward for a while, but over the past weeks as we ran into each other from time to time, our smiles became easier again.

  “A steak sounds fabulous. I’m starving!”

  He chuckled, “All right then! Let’s go!” He gave me his arm as I hopped down from the stool.

  We walked out the hotel and Tucker strode over to the valet stand. “I think we’ll drive, Lane. It’s only about a mile away, but . . . I really like the car I got for this trip.” He smiled like a little boy who got to play with his favorite toy. I was just about to tease him about it, when a gorgeous vision drove up to the curb. A cream-color 1936 Cadillac Series 60 convertible. With a cognac-brown leather interior. I had a thing for beautiful cars. Tucker had to come to retrieve me because I was stuck in place, staring at the car. It was a warmer night than it had been the last week, so the lovely, lovely top was down.

  With a chuckle, he took my elbow and led me over to the passenger side. I said in an awed tone, “I was going to make fun of you for looking like an eager little boy, but . . . Oh, my God, I love this car.” I needed to learn how to drive if only to be able to drive this marvelous machine.

  We drove around a bit, to enjoy the sparkling sights. We drove past some of the wonderful stores that I had visited earlier: Himel-hoch’s, D. J. Healy’s, and B. Siegel. I loved the Hudson’s that I reached by trolley car and the big clock by the corner of Kern’s where friends rendezvoused for lunch and shopping. Detroit was a hustling hub of business, a city of firsts, biggests, and bests. You wanted the largest or first manufacturing plant of pretty much any kind? You built it here. From all that production and innovation, the city had its own style, its own kind of pace.

  We arrived at the large brass doors of Carl’s, the valet took the keys from Tucker, and we swooped in to glittering lights and the delicious scent of steak. It was a great place. Ah, take that back. Try amazing, spectacular, and enormous. With dark wood ceilings, crisp white tablecloths, candles, and red leather circular booths lining the walls. It took me by surprise as I’d been expecting more of a steak house tavern with casual elegance like my favorite, Keen’s, in New York. This was not just a steak house, it was an event. It must’ve been able to hold a thousand people.

  “Oh my gosh,” I breathed out as I took in all the sights.

  Tucker squeezed my arm and looked down into my eyes. He said, “Breathtaking, isn’t it?”

  “You could say that again,” I said. There were many places like this in New York, but I didn’t get the chance to frequent them. Let’s just say that my income didn’t allow for places quite like this.

  I was just about to make are you sure about this? noises, but Tucker intercepted those thoughts and ushered me quickly in. “Come on, I have a reservation. I’ll just make sure it’s changed to two.”

  When we got to the golden podium where the host was waiting, Tucker went up to him and said something quietly in his ear. The host nodded and looked over at me with a gracious smile, saying “Right this way . . .”

  Our table was a cozy circular booth in the corner.

  Tucker said, “You look gobsmacked, Lane.”

  “Yes. Between your car and this place? Yes, I am,” I said as I closed my gaping mouth.

  “I’m really glad I ran into you. This was looking like it was going to be a boring trip full of monotonous meetings. Nice to run into a friend,” he said.

  “Yes, I can say the same thing. Not so much the boring bit, but it was definitely nice to see a familiar face tonight.”

  He looked intently at me for a moment, putting his fist to his chin in a thoughtful gesture. “You look unusually . . . hmm . . . tentative. It’s an emotion I’ve never seen on you.”

  I thought about that and replied, “I’m excited for my trip here, but there are a lot of unknowns. Not sure how I feel about it all, you know?”

  “Unknowns?”

  “Well, I was born here, in Rochester. But when I was ten, my parents died in an accident . . .” I wasn’t prepared to delve into the fact that they had been murdered. Not exactly scintillating dinner conversation. “. . . and I haven’t been back since.” I looked around nonchalantly, taking the awkwardly large menu in my hands and trying hard to seem at ease but failing miserably.

  He nodded, still looking at me intently, probably trying to read between the lines. Thank God he did. “Well, how about this . . . Let’s have some fun, and you can forget some of your worries for just a couple of hours. Sound good?” he asked, with a kind smile and eyebrows raised askance.

  I exhaled gratefully, “Sounds really good, Tucker. Thanks.”

  We both looked at the monumental menus and ordered T-bone steaks with mushrooms, the house tomato salad, and mammoth baked potatoes. Apparently, everything was large in this place.

  “Do you want a glass of wine? Or a sidecar? I love those. Hilty Dilties are good, but the name leaves something to be desired. . . .” Tucker asked me as he looked at the wine menu.

  I bit my lip and looked at him with a wrinkled nose. “Actually, I’d really like a beer,” I said with a sheepish grimace.

  He let out a bark of a laugh. “You never cease to surprise me, Lane.”

  Beer was seen as more of a man’s drink. And definitely not the usual beverage at such a classy establishment. But beer went so well with a good steak.

  I lowered my voice and asked, “Do you think it’s not ladylike enough for this place?” Things were finally changing for women now in 1936, but . . .

  “The hell with that!” he laughed. “If we want a beer, we’ll get a beer! Besides, steak is so good with beer.”

  “Exactly.”

  The servers didn’t blink at our request for a beer. They brough
t them out in frosty, oversize wineglasses, which worked out perfectly. The delicious food mixed with friendly service took the edge off the snootiness that you might expect in a place of this caliber. The evening couldn’t have been a better reintroduction to Detroit. The colors, the glitter, the laughter, and the good conversation.

  During dinner, Tucker and I talked about current news, the excitement of fall and winter events coming up, but especially our enjoyment of the fact that President Roosevelt had just been reelected. Soon we’d be gearing up for Fiorello’s own election campaign. The steak was to die for, cooked to perfection. We both had a coffee after dinner and sat with that relaxed and content feeling from a wonderful meal and easy company.

  “So, how’s your job going, Tucker?”

  “Oh, pretty well. I have some new clients and some new responsibilities that are much more interesting than just paper pushing.” I believed that. There was something different about his demeanor. He had a job in finance, a very reliable and dependable type of person. But there was something slightly tougher about his face, a little more worldly these days, like the job captured his imagination and passion.

  “Say, Lane,” he said, cutting into my thoughts. “The band is playing. Do you want to dance?”

  I hesitated, knowing that he and I had shared some nice dances as well as some nice kisses a while ago, but now . . .

  He read my face and said with a smile, “Don’t worry, Lane. I know you’re dating someone. Just a dance for fun. Come on,” he said with an engaging smile.

  I laughed. “Sounds great.”

  I took his offered hand and we headed out to the dance floor. The band was playing a pretty lively number by Bing Crosby. It was fun to see all the colors of dresses against the crisp black suits. To hear the large band with all their brass instruments, the crooning lead singer, and the chatting, frolicking, fun crowd. My deep purple dress swished and swayed around my knees as we danced. I had been saving up and I was wearing a new pair of black high heels that had a ruffled bow of purple on the peekaboo toe. They were glorious.