Podmore, P.I. - Part 22
The buildings loom tall and gray, making and covering the city of Chicago. The year is 1926, and nowhere do the twenties roar so loudly as here in the Windy City. They say the name comes not from the icy gusts that race around every corner in the winter, but rather from the hot air blowing out of all the local politicians.
Down in the gutters, it doesn't really matter. Everybody's just trying to scrape by, and who's in charge doesn't amount to a hill of beans when it comes to making a difference. That doesn't stop a precious few from trying to make a difference anyway, though, and among these is Sturgis Podmore, Private Investigator.
When we last left the detective, he was heading out to drink off the loss of an old friend. Now the light's coming through the window with a vengeance, and like every sunrise, it's bringing us closer to another sunset.
* * *
On the chessboard, everything was black and white. The street was the same. Black night, bright streetlight. Black pavement, white sidewalk. Black night, white stars. (There shouldn't be stars).
Long forward, short left, he ran. Forward and right. A tight cut to the left and a long charge forward. The white knight's path was harder than the rook's simple barreling forward, but it would save him, this zigzag pattern of unexpected lefts and rights. Tough to plan, and tougher still when you were just a piece on the board. But he knew his purpose. He couldn't see the whole picture, but he knew his purpose.
The white pawn was key to the king. Keep her safe, and that was game. But there was something in his way, one more piece in the path.
It came sharp from the left: the black knight. Flanked by the rook and the bishop, there'd be no sneaking around him. There would have to be a sacrifice.
Too many sacrifices already. A laugh rang across the board, loud and full and smelling of bourbon and cigarettes and jasmine. It echoed off the walls of the buildings and down the alley, with Delta blues sliding in behind it along with half-remembered dark eyes that were clearer than before. Too many sacrifices, and there were some he knew couldn't be made, and while he was thinking the black knight's lance was lowering, pointing dead at his throat. All sound vanished except for the pounding of his heart, loud in his ears and getting louder. The lights grew brighter, drowning the shadows and blinding him.
"Mr. Podmore!"
It wasn't pounding, it was knocking. The detective sat up in bed, wincing at the sunlight threading through the busted shade. The light was too warm - Christ, what time was it?
"I'm comin', I'm comin'!" The knocking stopped, but the pounding was still going. That would be his head, reminding him not to drink so damn much. He was still dressed from the night before, except for his shoes and his jacket and tie. Good enough to answer the door for his neighbor, anyway.
"The hell d'you want, Ida?"
His next door neighbor's friendly disposition was unaffected by his grumbling at her. After a few years, she was pretty well used to the detective's odd hours and odder moods. "Before you kill me for waking you, I have pancakes," she told him. "I made extra for you. Warm maple syrup and everything."
He stopped midway through beginning to explain to little Mrs. Catchlove the perils of waking a man who'd spent half the night at the bottom of a bottle after losing an old friend. Clearly the girl knew him better than he thought. "...I'm listening."
"My sister showed up this morning, and I'm worried about her," Ida explained. She worked quickly, hoping that the lure of pancakes could keep his attention long enough for her to get this out. Phil was supposed to be starting the bacon, and that should do the next part of the job of getting their neighbor's help. "She's not telling me much, but I can tell she's upset. There's no way she'd be coming down to this side of town for a visit otherwise, and I think it's something to do with that guy she's supposed to marry."
"And you want me to have a look at him?" That seemed to be where she was going with it.
"It's just not something I can go to the police with, you know?" Ida grimaced. "Given who her fiance is."
Podmore realized then that he had no idea who Ida's sister was marrying, but that maybe he should have been paying more attention to his crazy artist neighbors. "Who is her fiance?" he asked, already wary of the answer.
"Barty Crouch Junior. The police commissioner's son."
...definitely should've been paying more attention.
"You keep 'er here," the detective ordered, already turning back into his apartment to get dressed as fast as he could manage. Thank god he already had Chloe Wilkes put someplace. "She say anything at all about what was goin' on?"
Ida, whose usual easygoing calm had already been rattled by her sister's sudden dawn appearance, was now verging right on into wide-eyed panic. She followed him into the apartment, barely even registering the fact that he was changing clothes right in front of her. "She just said he wasn't who she thought he was!" Ida quickly replied, and the worry was as clear in her voice as it was on her face. "She looked scared, that's all I know."
"Ida, if you're gonna stand around and watch me change, you might as well put on some damn coffee," he snapped. "And see if you can find a pack of matches while you're at it."
"We've got coffee on already," she informed him. She started looking for matches, though, only because she needed to find out just what the hell the detective already knew about Barty Crouch. "Now what is it you know? And why didn't you tell us Merry might be in trouble?!"
"'cause I didn't know she was your sister!" Podmore shot back. He buttoned his shirt fast as he could, because if Meredith was running scared there was no telling what her fiance might be up to. He had to get that file down to the office and figure out what the hell it meant now - hell, he needed to have done it yesterday. "Should've just woke Sully up last night," he muttered to himself, and then turned to address Ida as he put his tie on. She tossed the box of matches at him, and they bounced off his hand as he tried to catch them. "Don't throw shit at me before I've had a cup of coffee, Ida. Now go get me some pancakes and I'll be over in a second to talk to your sister - and for fuck's sake don't let her go anywhere and don't tell anybody else she's with you."
By the time he got to the apartment next door, Meredith Watkins was already crying in her pancakes. Her elbows were braced on the table, shoulders shaking as she sobbed, with her sister kneeling beside her on the floor. Phil was at the sink, pouring a glass of water for her and wetting down a washcloth.
"Merry, honey, you gotta calm down," Ida murmured soothingly, but Meredith was bordering on hysterical. Podmore didn't know what happened in between "she's just scared" and "she's about to make herself pass out with panicked crying", but whatever it was wasn't good.
"He called here looking for her," Ida supplied, seeing the detective walk in. "I told him she wasn't around - that she never comes down here, we just meet up at Mom and Dad's. She started this soon as I hung up the phone."
"He's going to kill me!" Meredith wailed. It was the first time since the phone call that she'd gotten out any actual words.
"No he's not," Podmore said firmly. Ida's attempts at reassurance weren't working, so it seemed a different sort of touch was going to be necessary to get her calmed down. The detective walked over and leaned down just enough to look her straight in the eyes. "Meredith, look at me. Now."
Meredith was, thanks to her parents, used to following orders. She looked up, face still soaked with tears and panic, but with one shuddering breath inward she silenced the tears.
Good. That was what he needed from her - or the beginning of it, at least. "Nobody's gonna hurt you. I've already been looking into him, I've got the FBI on it, and everything's gonna be fine - but to make sure it is, you gotta tell me everything you know about what he's up to and what he's planning."
"I don't know," she whispered, the bare, rattling sound all she could manage to produce. "I know he's hurt people. He likes to hurt people. I didn't see it at first, but then I did, and he told me--he told me not to worry. He said Mr. Riddle was going to take care of everything, and we'd be all set for the rest of our lives, and I just--I just--I shouldn't worry my pretty head about it, he said. He said after tonight, we were going to be just fine, and I--"
Phil brought the glass of water over and handed it to her. "Easy, Merry," he said softly. "You're doin' fine." Ida took the washcloth from him and brought it carefully to her sister's face. Meredith's eyes closed gratefully as she tried to get herself under control again.
"I smiled," she whispered helplessly. "I smiled, and I said "that's nice, dear," because I just didn't know what else to do. And as soon as he left, I just...I ran."
"You did exactly right," Podmore told her, standing up straight again. As he went on, he poured himself a cup of coffee. "Now, the next thing you're gonna do is get someplace that he's not gonna look for ya. You've got friends down in Indiana, right?"
"How did you know I--"
"Don't worry about it," he said as he dumped in the sugar. "But you need to give the MacFusties a call and let 'em know you need a place to stay for a little while. Just a few days, and as soon as it's safe for you to come back I'll call. Mrs. Fenwick's already down there, and I know they'll be glad to see you."
"But I can't just leave everything like this!" Meredith protested.
The detective shook his head and grabbed up a pancake to toss on a plate. "You let me take it from here and just work on keeping yourself alive," he said flatly. "Me and the feds'll handle the rest."
The FBI was a good thing to mention - the Watkins brother was FBI, and they were accustomed to trusting him. "Go on and take the plate with you," Ida told him. "Seems like you haven't got time to waste."
"Sure as hell don't," he agreed, and quickly doused the plate in syrup. If anybody wanted to look at him funny for eating pancakes on a streetcar, they could just get over it. He had things to get done, but they weren't gonna get done on an empty stomach. "You got some aspirin I can take with me, too?"
"Think so," Phil said, heading toward the bathroom. He'd thought that was a distinctly hung over look on their neighbor's face. If he was going to keep Meredith safe, Phil would be happy to let him have the whole bottle. He'd already lost a brother-in-law; he didn't want to lose his sister-in-law as well.
By 11 a.m., Sully's nose was being assaulted with a bizarre mix of maple syrup, cheap bourbon, and of course smoke. "Mornin', Boss," she said, because really, the smell of pancakes was far from the strangest thing to make its way into her office.
"I need you to figure out what the hell this thing means," he said, tossing Betty's file on her desk. He'd gone over it twenty-odd times on the way over (getting a bit of syrup on it as he went), but couldn't make any sense of it at all. It seemed like complete nonsense, but of course nobody was going to kill somebody over a file full of nonsense. Somebody smart as Patrice Nott wasn't going to keep a file full of nonsense to begin with. "Get Mac on it if you have to, but I need it done yesterday. Came from Nott's desk at the bank by way of Betty Braithwaite, and she got iced for it."
The only sign of the secretary's shock was a slight widening of her eyes. Other than that, she just nodded and took the file. If he was willing to call the MacDougal kid in on it before it was an obvious hopeless case, this was serious business. Usually he wouldn't let her use his ex-wife's nephew by marriage unless the situation was otherwise impossible.
"Remus'll know where to find him," she agreed with a nod. "And I'll see what I can do while I wait."
"Good girl. And while you do that, I'm gonna make sure nobody's made any moves on Chloe."
He let his secretary make her call first. While he didn't like Mac any better than he liked the kid's uncle, there was no denying his head for cracking through information. Usually he was too busy using it for illegal junk with Doyle and Remus and the rest of them for it to be useful, but every now and then, when the price was right, he was damn good to have around. Given how all those people seemed to feel about Benjy Fenwick, though, Podmore was pretty sure they could get his services pro bono this time.
As soon as she hung up, Podmore made his own call. "Hey, Molly. I--"
"She's gone!" Molly cried. She was already panicking, that was clear - she had actually just been going to the phone to ring the detective herself. "All she did was leave a note, Sturgis. She said she's gonna finish this thing, and Percy said he hugged her goodbye and then she just started off down the street and got in a cab. What the devil is that girl getting herself into?!"
Podmore cursed under his breath, a lively string of invective against Chloe, Crouch, Riddle, and everybody else involved in this mess. "Just sit tight, Mol," he told her. "I'm on it."
And with that, he hung up. There was no telling where the girl was headed - not specifically, anyway. In a general sense, he was already sure: she was going straight to the top.