The Gold Pawn Read online

  “Wait a minute!” exclaimed Roxy, with her head bent to an awkward angle, looking at the base of the pawns, peering between them. “Do you see this?”

  Val and I went over to her. “Here, right here,” she said, and I took a close look at where her slim finger pointed. At the bottom, between the pawns, there was an X etched deeply in the concrete. I looked to the next one, same thing. All along, there was one X at the base of each one of the pawns, except for the last three. The last three in the line of ten were blank.

  Val verbalized what we were all thinking: “Huh.”

  After looking around a little bit longer, we decided we found everything we could. We all walked back to my place, seeking warmth and sustenance, which were always in abundance at our home, thanks to Mr. Kirkland. We climbed the steps, tuckered out from our journey, our breath making puffs into the brisk air. Ripley was wagging his tail in the side window. Roxy, behind me, stuttered, “Uhh . . .”

  I chuckled, “It’s okay, Roxy, I’ll have a word with security.”

  She responded with a chuckle that was half-laugh, half-nervous Are you sure?

  I opened the door and patted Ripley’s big head and whispered in his ear, “She’s okay, big fella, you can keep your eye on her, but she’s a welcome guest.”

  Val, who had heard my whisper, laughed. Roxy still looked a little dubious and was just about to say something. I intercepted her, saying, “Oh, and Roxy, don’t call him doggie, he hates that. ‘Ripley’ will do.”

  “Ookkaayy,” said an even more nervous Roxy. “Hi, Ripley. Uh, how are you today?”

  Ripley cocked his head at a funny angle and looked at me quizzically.

  I grinned and took their coats. We all headed back to the warm kitchen where the unmistakable and scrumptious smell of chicken noodle soup was brewing.

  “Hi, Lane. Hello, Val and Roxy,” said Mr. Kirkland with a gruff and friendly growl.

  “Hi, Mr. Kirkland!” we all chimed. He laughed as we couldn’t take our eyes off the humongous pot on the giant stove. “Hungry, girls? How about I dish up some soup for you? You look a bit chilled.”

  We all responded at the same time. “Thanks!”

  “That would be great!”

  “Oh, my God, yes.”

  Val and Roxy plopped down at the table while I poured some tea. Our faces were red with wind and cold, eyes bright, giddy about the soup. Mr. Kirkland brought us the steaming bowls and a plate of sourdough bread with a big dish of butter. Heaven.

  “So, what have you girls been up to? Looks like you did more than just come home from work. Anything interesting?”

  At that juicy question, Aunt Evelyn came sweeping in. “Interesting? Hi, girls! What have you been up to?”

  I filled them in on Finn’s telegram and our walk through Central Park. Mr. Kirkland’s and Evelyn’s attention had been fully captured and they joined us at the table, looks of deep and satisfying contemplation etched on their faces. They enjoyed a good mystery just as much as I did.

  “So you saw this, during the summer?” asked Aunt Evelyn.

  “Mm hm,” I replied with a mouthful of noodles. I swallowed and said, “We also found that on the one side, there were ten larger pawns than all the other parts of the railing. And on seven of those pawns was an engraved X at the bottom. Three were left blank.”

  Mr. Kirkland asked, “So what made you start looking at the pawns exactly?”

  I hadn’t told them about my dream yet, and a wave of peevishness came over me. I knew Evelyn and Kirkland understood my dreams and memories, but Kirkland’s tone implied he knew what it was about and it annoyed me that he might be keeping more secrets. But that was ridiculous. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the weird bad mood that had suddenly descended on me. “Well, you know how I’ve been dreaming about that silver gun for years? A little while ago, I, uh . . . started dreaming about a gold pawn.” I noticed that everyone had stopped eating, but I just kept going, filling them in on the strange image of a chess piece.

  Mr. Kirkland’s spoon clanked to his bowl. He abruptly got up, shoving his chair backward, and ran upstairs.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “That can’t be good.”

  “Oh dear,” said Aunt Evelyn.

  “Evelyn!” bellowed Kirkland from upstairs. “Do you know where my rucksack is?”

  “You have ten! Which one?” she yelled as she made her way to the bottom of the stairs.

  “The . . . the . . . big greenish brown one!”

  Aunt Evelyn muttered exasperatedly, “Oh good grief, they’re all greenish brown.”

  At that, a memory nudged its way into my thoughts. One day a couple of months ago, Valerie and I had taken one of his rucksacks to the park and Finn ended up meeting us there . . . That was it. I ran upstairs, taking them two at a time. “I got it, Mr. Kirkland! I know what you’re looking for!”

  I ran to my room. I had found something at the bottom of his rucksack that day and had pocketed it, not thinking anything about it. It had looked like a child’s play thing, but I had kept it in my dresser drawer. I retrieved it and ran back down, hearing Kirkland’s footsteps pounding right behind mine. When we got to the kitchen, I opened my hand for everyone to see. On my palm was a black chess piece, a pawn. As I looked closer, it was unmistakable.

  The thought hit Valerie and Roxy at the same time. Roxy nodded enthusiastically as Val said, “That’s the shape of the pawns on the railing of the bridge!”

  Mr. Kirkland was nodding. He looked at me and I handed him the pawn. He sat down with a sigh.

  “I hadn’t thought of that in over a decade,” he said, looking out the patio window, although I was sure he wasn’t thinking of the patio. He looked far, far away.

  I said, “Sssssssoooo, what are you thinking, Mr. Kirkland?”

  “Well, Lane. Here, take a good look at it.”

  I took it into my hand. It was heavy. I looked closer and although dirty, I could see through a bit of the grime. And then the weight of it hit me.

  “Oh, my God. It’s solid gold, isn’t it? What’s engraved on the bottom of it?”

  Evelyn snatched it right out of my hand.

  “Wait a minute. This is the pawn from your dream?” She looked closely at it, rolling it around in her hands. She got up and went to the sink. She brought down a chemical from an upper cabinet and rubbed the piece with it. In a few moments, it turned a bright shiny gold. She brought it back over and placed it in the center of the table, all our eyes completely glued to it. And directed right at me, on the base of the pawn, was a clear and deeply etched RR, now extremely vibrant against the gleaming gold.

  All our eyes went to Mr. Kirkland.

  “All right. Fine, let me think for a minute,” he growled. He growled often, but I couldn’t tell if the growl was indicative of him needing a minute to figure out how to explain another secret being revealed, or because he was exasperated that I found something I wasn’t supposed to find. Again. I did have a knack for that. He muttered a few other choice words as he went to the fridge and pulled out some courage in the form of a beer. I heard Roxy make a noise that was like a laugh that she turned into a cough just as Kirkland’s eyes darted to her.

  He sat back down, now ready to take us on. “All right. The RR. Well . . .”

  He was interrupted by a door slamming open and screechy bellowing echoing through the house. Fio was here on his almost nightly visit on the way home. Mr. Kirkland looked relieved, but I said, “Oh, no you don’t. You can take a break while Fio comes in, but we’ll pick it back up again, mister.”

  I was joking and he knew it. But there was part of me that knew there was so much more that we needed to understand to put this together. I had so many questions about my parents and everything they were involved in. I thought I knew deep down that they were good people, but I had doubts beginning to form as I discovered things like the silver gun. They had been undercover trying to infiltrate the Red Scroll Network. But when someone goes undercover, they often have to make choices for
the mission that they’d never make in real life. How far were they willing to go? And how far was past the point of no return? In some circles, there were innuendos about them being involved in art theft in the war, some art that they supposedly retrieved but was never returned. Was I prepared to believe that they were just as bad as some of the people I fought against? And Kirkland worked with them; there was no way that he had evil intentions. No. It just didn’t fit. There had to be more, much more, to this story.

  Fio came in flapping and bellowing. When Valerie was forced to put her hands to her ears, he moderated his voice.

  “Oh, hi, Valerie. Hi, Roxy,” he said. He sat down and Mr. Kirkland gave him a bowl of soup.

  “Well . . .” said Aunt Evelyn with a furrowed brow. “This is what’s going on. . . .”

  Thank heavens she filled him in quickly and with the precision and ease that only she can achieve. I didn’t have it in me to do it again. We should have just called a council of war, as we grew accustomed to calling our meetings.

  Fio’s agile mind took everything in, calculating all the while, and then looked at Mr. Kirkland. “Okay, so what is this RR all about?”

  Then the doorbell rang.

  I ran to the door, yelling, “Coming, Roarke!” It was that time of day that our friends happened to appear on our doorstep.

  I swung open the door to a bewildered Roarke. I grabbed his arm, pulling him along, telling him at breakneck speed the details. He laughed, but I knew he was listening and the gleam of investigation was in the forefront of his eyes.

  Mr. Kirkland began, at last. “Finally. Well, it’s Rex Ruby.”

  Of course it was Rex Ruby. But my heart still skipped a beat as I heard the name of the man who had been behind the Red Scroll Network. Mr. Kirkland continued after a long swig of beer. “As you know, your parents and I had been working against this network of thieves, retrieving art and returning it to the perspective countries. Not only was the art sacred to the countries, but the havoc that this ring of people wreaked was abominable. Hundreds of innocent lives taken for the sake of money. These were unscrupulous, soulless thieves and murderers, promising safety and security, only to steal the priceless, ancestral treasures and leave the people to the wolves. As hard as it is to take a life, it wasn’t hard to take this guy’s. When your father and I, uh, dispatched Rex, we found two of these pawns on him. I took one, your father took the other. After Rex was gone, the network seemed to have stopped in its tracks, so we never found out what they meant. It wasn’t until Daley Joseph and Donagan Connell came around with an interest in the silver gun that we realized we might not have killed the organization when we killed Rex. It may have just gone into hibernation.”

  I nodded. The atmosphere that had been light and jovial with all our usual bantering was now thick and solemn.

  I added, for Valerie’s and Roxy’s sake, “This ring of thieves was called the Red Scroll Network.”

  Val almost whispered, “Just like the scroll on the silver gun, right?” I nodded.

  Roxy added, “And on the Glade Arch Bridge.”

  Mr. Kirkland continued. “Your parents and I had a long history with them. Your parents had gotten in with some of the agents of the network as they worked undercover. After a while their cover was blown, but we’d learned enough to at least be able to start tracking their movements. We followed them across Europe, taking out the perpetrators if they fought us, trying to bring them in, but not one single person surrendered no matter how hard we tried. Probably knowing that it would be far better to be killed by us than face their boss with failure. After years of searching, we at last located the leader, Rex Ruby, and we took him out. Your parents had already moved to Rochester; a place where you could blend in. Figured a small town was better than a busy city.”

  We were all silent for a usually boisterous group.

  Fio took over at this point. “Yes, Lane, because of the interest in the silver gun, we have been wondering if Rex Ruby somehow had lasting connections with our last case and with Donagan Connell. Donagan Connell was starting a new enterprise, for sure, but we wanted to know if he was really trying to reignite the Red Scroll. It’s actually why we sent Finn to Europe. With Europe in such a mess right now, President Roosevelt felt that a revived crime syndicate—especially this one—could be extraordinarily dangerous.”

  In an incredulous tone, I sputtered out questions fast and furious. “Wait. Lasting connections? What do you mean? You think Rex actually survived and it’s been him that’s behind all this? Is he the guy that Venetti warned me about, the mysterious new gangster whom no one knows about with a ruby ring on his pinky?” I frankly found that hard to believe.

  Fiorello said, “Well, no. The evidence of Kirkland taking out the original Rex is incontrovertible. He most definitely was killed. However . . . We know he had a son. Finn and other contacts are trying to find the whereabouts of this son. It seems there was great care taken in keeping him hidden. It’s possible the son has taken on the mantle of Rex Ruby. And Kirkland, what do you know about red envelopes being delivered when Rex was in control? Because it seems that my friend Hambro received one.”

  Mr. Kirkland looked a little pasty. “Your friend who disappeared got a red envelope?” he quietly asked.

  “Two,” said Fio.

  Kirkland squinted in thought. “Those red envelopes died with Rex, until now. He sent them to people, usually to terrorize them. Occasionally, he’d send one to a high-ranking employee to tell him he’d been promoted. But it was most often a death knell. He truly liked to toy with his people.”

  I had another thought. “Let me ask you, Mr. Kirkland. How many of these Red Scroll Network people did you take out? Not including Rex.”

  He ticked the numbers on his fingers. “Six. There were six of them.”

  Val broke in, “Lane, are you thinking of those seven marked pawns on the bridge?”

  “Yeah. I was wondering if those seven X’s marked the players who were taken out. And I’m certain they don’t involve Rex himself, he surely considered everyone else his pawns.”

  “That sounds right, Lane,” agreed Mr. Kirkland. “But there were six, I’m sure of it, not seven.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The diminutive elderly lady rubbed her lower back like she was trying to ease away years of arthritis. Her stooped shoulders shivered in the cold wind as she made her slow and rickety way up the gray, unwelcoming walk. The walls were tall, dreary, and menacing. The barbed wire viciously kept people in and kept other people out. She adjusted the veil on her hat and hobbled forward.

  The hardened guard at the door leaned down, unsmiling, peering at her face. This particular guard had seen her every Monday over the past few weeks. He said in a gruff voice, “Morning, Mrs. Connell. Go on in. Visiting time just started.” He hit an invisible button behind him in his booth.

  The old lady shambled forward, her ankles wobbling, each step just a couple of inches. She muttered, “Thank you, thank you.” The guard looked at the long path and wondered if she might miss the visiting hour altogether she was so slow. But every single week like clockwork, she made her laborious way here to see her son.

  After what seemed like hours, she at last got to the room where he would come in. She sat gratefully down on the chair provided. It was nailed to the floor. So was the table.

  Finally, Donagan was brought in. She thought he never looked like himself in here. His clothes, the cut of his hair, his face, somehow, was even different. Of course, hair stylists, makeup artists, fashion designers . . . these were all luxuries that he wasn’t afforded in prison. And those pieces of character were essential to the real him. They were just as much a part of his personality as his face and his limbs.

  Donagan sat down gingerly, the guards backing away a bit, giving them a modicum of privacy, but not exiting the room.

  The guard on the left watched Donagan carefully. He wasn’t allowed to touch his mother, they could only speak. He looked down into her homely face and smile
d. The guard noted with distaste that Donagan’s smile just wasn’t right. God, he’s a disturbing creature, the guard thought.

  “Hi, Mother,” said Donagan. “So good to see you again.”

  They exchanged small talk, a mother talking with her son. After a few minutes, the guard yawned and the old woman looked up into Donagan’s face. “Donagan,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you. When?” He smiled devilishly at her.

  He held a special kind of hatred for those who put him here, in Sing Sing. His deep passions and lusts were not quenched in here, nearly suffocating him. But he would get out, and he would get his vengeance, that was goddamn sure. All that outrage was carefully, but expressively poured out in saying her name. “Eliza,” he whispered, barely moving his lips.

  Her eyes were alight with the glow of fierce devotion. Only he understood her bloodlust and her bitterness and anger. Only him.

  Donagan stroked his chin in deliberation, pursing his lips. She noticed that his nappy halo of rust-colored hair was more coarse and irregular than he liked it to be. And the scar on his face was more accentuated, an angry red that he usually covered with makeup. She supposed that having scars in prison was a good thing, a statement. Although, she didn’t think Donagan would have any unwanted attention; his very being emanated brutality. She loved that, reveled in it. He had a strong face, not exactly handsome . . . but not ugly either. It was his power that attracted her.

  He suddenly grew wary of her rapidly approaching departure. He whispered, again hardly moving his lips, “Wednesday. Be ready.”

  Donagan stood up and the guards stepped toward him, taking his arm. He looked down and said, “Good-bye, Mother. See you soon.” Eliza kept in character, her face and hands perfectly twitching the slightest bit like a very old woman with a palsy. She slowly, painfully stood up and said in a soft, aged voice, “See you soon, Donny, see you soon.”