Case of the Wandering Star - chapter 2

What can I say... the plot thickens.. Pete puts out feelers....

Awr, Hell. When does a man get any sleep around here?

 

I picked up the phone on my bedside table, and it was Flora, so I bit my tongue.  She was a good lady and did a good job, and I wasn’t about to offend her just because I had a small hangover, sorta like a thunderstorm inside my head..

 

“Mr Grappler, I had a call just now… from a Miz Alexia Ringwald.  She seemed quite concerned, and asked me to ring you right away.  I hope that was all right?”

 

“Sure, Flora”, 

 

I sat up and scratched my hair around a little, and ran a hand over my whiskers.

 

“So what’d she have to say?”

 

“She said it was most important that she speak with you again, and soon.  I said I would call back after I spoke with you, but she could not give me a number.  She said she’ll ring at 11 for your answer.”

 

Eleven!  Jeez - I was getting old,

 

“Yeah, sure Flora”,

 

I grabbed a glance at the clock,

 

“Look, give her my number here, and I’ll talk to her soon as she rings.  I ain’t got time to clean up and get down there by eleven - busy with some work at home, you know.”

 

“Yes, I understand, Mr Grappler.  I’ll give her your number when she calls.  Good-bye for now.”

 

“Good-bye, Flora, and thanks.”

 

Yeah, Flora’d understand all right, but one thing I liked about having her around was that she ever said anything about my sleeping habits and such.  She knew how much cash was coming in, and she knew that it was always covered by my slush fund in the bank, courtesy of ol’ Cyrus, anyway when we were short, so she didn’t ask too many questions.

 

I’d have to give her a pay rise for Easter, or was it Christmas coming up?

 

I had time for a shower and a shave and maybe even shave my teeth and the inside of my mouth, too, and put on some coffee and grab a bagel…… and was just settled down when the phone rang……

 

“Pete Grappler”, quick as a whip, real professional like.

 

“As if I didn’t f****n’ know that, Grappler!”

 

It was Jimmy the boy.. awr jeez…

 

“I gotta talk to ya, Grappler, and somewhere private.  Name a spot and I guarantee you I’ll be there!”

 

Jeeezus -  Jimmy wanted to talk to me?

 

“Yeah, sure Jimmy.   What about the back room at Luigi’s, Armand’s office through the back door, seven pm sharp.  Ya be wantin’ a drink?”

 

Jimmy hesitated for a moment,

 

“Yeah, OK - I’ll take a drink with ya, but it don’t mean we’re pals or nuthin’!  Seven pm.  I’ll be there!”

 

Sounded like the long Arctic Winter of my relationship with Jimmy just had a temperature rise of about half a degree or so there, but Jimmy was playing it mighty close to the chest here, so I figured I’d play along and see what cards he had in his hand.  I put the phone back in its cradle and it rang again almost immediately.

 

“Pete Grappler!”

 

Again with that Southern accent,

 

“Mr Grappler, it’s Alexia Ringwald again.  Hope I didn’t disturb you.”

 

“Nah, Miz Ringwald, it’s OK.  Any time!”

 

“I’m sorry, Mr Grappler, to call you again, but I rang that police captain and was just shuffled off, you know?”

 

I knew, and she went on

 

“I really have a problem, and I need your help.  I can’t give you a number for this phone, but believe me, I am locked in a house, and I don’t know where it is, either.  I need to get out, but I don’t know how.”

 

“Take it easy, Miz Ringwald.  Can you hear anything, anything at all?  Outside the house, I mean.”

 

“I can hear a train going past sometimes, not much else.  The widows are all locked up and painted over, and I just can’t see anything.  It’s like I’m just blind to what’s going on, and… and.. I don’t know… what to do!”

 

She started to cry and it was all I could do to hold on myself - yeah - I’m a soft old b*****d inside, but don’t tell no-one or I’ll rip your heart out!

 

“Easy, Miz Ringwald, I’ll do everything I can, but it’s hard when I don’t know where you are and what your number is.  Look, give me all the details so I can try to trace back what’s happening here.  You OK now?”…..

 

She was one tough girl all right, she pulled herself back together real fast, and laid it all on the table for me……

 

*    *    *

 

Alexia Ringwald took a midnight train from Georgia and headed West ‘cause she felt that the change’d do her good.  Too much trouble and pain back home with that family of hers, sins of the family fall on the daughter, and the way they played emotional games all the time, so she packed up and just walked away.  Ended up in California dreaming a whole new life and just set about trying to get back on her feet again.

 

Must be hard coming from one of them old southern plantation families - maybe they had a Civil War cannon in the front yard, but they sure didn’t know how to treat  a daughter right, so she left.

 

Met up with a guy named Parker Dansby in California.... first class charmer, slicked back hair, pencil moustache and the gab like Howard Hughes, and .. so he said anyway.. the money to match…

 

I figured I knew that guy right away, clear case of non-mistaken identity…. in fact I meet him all the damned time about twice a week and he’s always a master of disguises and even looks like a completely different guy every time.  But hell - the gals sure fell for it… time after time…

 

OK - so I had a name to work on… Parker Dansby ….. never heard of him… but that didn’t mean nothin’….

 

He wooed her and promised the moon, like they all do, and then he offered a trip away, just to see some old friends, good for the soul, you know, and all the way to Chicago into Pete Grappler’s back yard….

 

Yeah - I was beginning to see it - young girl doing it hard, older guy..  getting in tight with her, all smarm and crap, then whammo, she finds out he’s got a wife all along…..but he’s going to leave that wife and family and just be with her… forever. 

 

Sure he is!  Seen that happen at least twice a week, too!

 

Yeah - I could swallow that… like a ten pound mackerel in one bite…

 

So they’re in Chicago and he says he’s got a nice place they can stay free.. courtesy of an old friend, who just happens to be highly placed…  a true pillar of society, and they go there at night, she goes to sleep, and next day, no doorway open to get out, no key, barred windows all painted out, and no nothing but a phone they somehow forgot about in a closet, still wired,  but with no number on it…… and a railroad track runs through it….

 

So that’s why she hadda be discreet in her conversations with yours truly.. the guy… or was it guys.. might hear and take that phone away… her lifeline…..to Pete Grappler, now the knight in shining armour.

 

That was all I needed right now to start work on finding out where she was and get her the hell outta there, and she hadda hang up anyway… someone was coming.

 

So now I had a grip on the score, railroad track, telephone, and some high-placed amigo of this Parker Dansby crapper…and didn’t need to know any more - just that Miz Alexia was in trouble, and I was sure gonna do something about it.

 

Hey, I had nothin’ else to do with my time, anyway.

 

But I needed that phone number…. Now how to get it!

 

*     *     *

 

I figured I needed some kind of timetable, a schedule of old trains sorta thing, so I headed off for the Chicago Central information counter… but they couldn’t get me a schedule for the freights, so I’d have to get the fix in with someone who could……

 

I figured Freddy the Snitch would be the best man - he new the rail dope like the back of any married woman’s body that he could get hold of. 

 

Remember Freddy?  Not many forget him.  Freddy was the perfect World Class snitch.. people knew that Freddy could be relied on to pass along anything they wanted…any little bit of hatred and character poison … but that he’d hold onto to anything they wanted him to keep quiet like the grave…

 

Freddy was good all right… he’d sell ya the brakes off his mother’s wheel chair, and nobody had fitted him for cement shoes just yet…. so he hadda be doin’ somethin’ right…

 

Freddy would be the man there… he was always on the make for a quick buck, and knowin’ the train schedule was a great help in some of his less than salubrious business ventures..  I’m not sayin’ Freddy was a thief or a hijacker or nothin’… let’s just say he knew people like that who paid for info… and knew ‘em pretty good..

 

I knocked once and walked right in.  Freddy had his feet up on his desk, and phone in his hand, so I took a seat until he finished…..

 

“Pete Grappler!  Hello again!  Was just thinkin’ abou’cha.  Too early for a drink?”

 

“Yeah, Freddy, I got some important stuff to do, could be life-threatenin’, ya know.  Waddya got on the schedule for freight trains.  I’m tryin’ ter hook somethin’ up here.”

 

“Sure, Pete.”

 

Freddy stood up and went to a filing cabinet, started rifflin’ through  a drawer… pulled up a fistful of old train schedules… and turned  back triumphant-like to show me..

 

“Jeez, Freddy, I was kinda hopin’ ya had somethin’ a little more up-ter-date and maybe a little shorter.  I wasn’t looking to spend my retirement goin’ through that stuff!”…

 

“S’OK, Pete.. jest showin’ ya the quality here .. just for the creds, ya know.  This one here is the latest I got.”

 

Freddy held out a paper about three feet long, one of those roll type things with the little joins in the pages, and waited.  I reached for my wallet….slid out a C note….

 

“Wow, Pete!  This is important, huh?  Maybe I should hold out for a li’l bonus.  Some flowers fer me mother’s grave, sort o’ thing?”

 

“Ya mean new brakes fer yer mother’s wheelchair, don’t’cha, Freddy? It’s a C note or nothin’.  You’ll take it and you’ll like it!  I ain’t got time for this.  Someone is in a bad way here.  So take it and gimme that paper!”

 

I guess Freddy saw the look in my eyes… he handed over the paper and scooped up the C in one move, and disappeared it into his greasy vest pocket like a drunk getting rid o’ a bottle o’ cheap wine….

 

I folded the page, and got up, not giving Freddy the hand shake.. not sure what I’d pick up there… and started to leave, then stopped and turned, causing Freddy to look up from contemplating what he’d do with that 100 bucks and maybe wondering if I had a gun in my hand….snitching was a nervous business…..

 

“There’s somethin’ else.   If ya can put me onto somebody that can track a phone for me, there’s another hundred in it for ya.  Ya got my number at the office or Luigi’s.”

He wouldn’t be getting’ my home number.. ever….

 

Freddy nodded … yeah, he’d be looking’… in fact , he was picking up the phone as I walked out…

 

*     *     *

 

 3pm.. what the hell could I do now?  All I could do was get back to my office and wait for that phone to ring, though that was getting harder by the minute, since I had no idea what Miz Alexia was even into, let alone what could happen to her… all I knew was it hadda be bad, so I ran the Packard Double Six back at a little over the limit… a LOT over the limit…

 

Flora was pleased to see me, since I hadn’t been there all day yet…. and she was considering heading for home anyway by now….

 

“Thanks for sitting the office for me, Flora!  You’re a champ!  I reckon I can take it now, and you can head home if you want. “

 

“Why, thank you, Mr Grappler”, she said, “I left a message on your desk from that Miz Ringwald again…all timed and everything for you!”

 

Something fit together right there for me,

 

“Did you hear a train by any chance, Flora, on the phone, that is?”

 

“Why, surely I did, Mr Grappler, right in the middle of the conversation…had to stop for a second or two until the noise quietened down a bit.  Could hardly hear that young lady.”

 

I nearly hugged her for that, but hadda be content with a typical Grappler,

 

“Yer a good kid, Flora!  I’m givin’ ya a pay rise starting next week.”

 

She was real pleased, and I reckoned I’d double that rise - she deserved it.

 

“Now you go on home and I’ll sit the phone for a coupla hours, then I got work ta do tonight, around seven.”

 

Flora nodded and picked up her handbag and keys, and waved goodnight at the door.

 

I sat down at my desk and looked at that note she left, time and all…….

 

*     *     *