Podmore, P.I. - Part 23
Chicago, 1926. The sun is coming down on another day in the dirty, gritty town that is the center of American industry. Time is running out, not only on this day, but on last chances for a whole lot of people.
Among these is Sturgis Podmore, Private Investigator. When he took Celeste Lestrange's money, he didn't have a clue what he was getting into. By the time he did know, it was too late; he never had been willing to give up once he took on a case. Up to his eyebrows in danger and intrigue, there's no telling now whether he'll keep his head above water or not.
When we last left our detective he had just gotten information (and pancakes), handed off Betty Braithwaite's pilfered file for decoding, and promptly discovered that both Chloe Wilkes and Meredith Watkins were nowhere to be found. Now...a little more on that.
* * *
I love you. Always.
That was all there was to the note Chloe left with Severus Snape to give to Regulus Black.
Thank you.
That was the entirety of the message she left for Celeste Lestrange.
Neither Snape nor Celeste had a clue where she was gone, and every minute Podmore spent not finding her was time that he needed for other things, like keeping her alive. The news only got worse when he got to the Catchloves - Meredith had given them the slip at the train station not half an hour after he left them. She was supposed to be headed south, but now she was god-knows-where. Her sister was terrified, and as soon as she managed to get a call through to their brother he was gonna be terrified, too.
The sun was setting, and time was running out - that was if time hadn't run out already. Until they got something out of that file, there wasn't anything he could do. Standing over Sully's shoulder just made her glare at him, and the MacDougal kid would just start cursing up a storm. He could chase around the city, but that wouldn't do any good and might put him out of the office when he needed to know something. He'd called Bones, and Bones would be on alert and ready to hit it on the double when they had something to go on, but in the meantime all he could do was prepare to arrest a bunch of people at the bank the next day.
That left Podmore with nothing but sitting and thinking. That turned quickly to pacing and smoking, which then went back into sitting and smoking. Somewhere in there a cup of coffee was added to the mix (which would have been better with whiskey in it, so he took another aspirin instead). Finally, he was just left to watch the sun go down over the city out his window.
Light warmed, and shadows lengthened. The noises of traffic died down while the music from the bar below the office picked up. Fog rolled in like the smoke from his cigarette, curling in the last few shafts of amber sunlight. The air didn't cool, not yet - it would be a few hours yet, and he couldn't help but think of how Betty had laughed when someone had called this a heat wave.
"Y'all don't even know from heat!" she'd said, and launched into a story about her home town. He wondered where Dorcas Meadowes had been from, what her stories had been about. Had she been in love with Gideon Prewett? Someday, he needed to ask.
"Boss?"
Podmore near jumped out of his skin, and turned back from the window with an irritable glare. "Didn't I tell ya to quit doin' that?"
His secretary didn't even dignify the question with the obvious response. "We got somethin', Boss."
And then it didn't matter if he was irritated or not, because they were getting somewhere. Podmore was already halfway around the desk by the time he started talking. "Well, what is it?" he wanted to know, and as he came through the door Peadar MacDougal was already explaining.
"It's a hell of a cipher, is what it is," he said from his spot on the floor. He was surrounded by paper that he'd scribbled on from here to kingdom come, messy hair falling in his eyes as he gestured from one to another. "Took me forever to piece it together. That's one clever son of a--"
"I don't care how ya did it, Mac," the detective snapped. "When everybody's safe and a small army of assholes're in prison, then I'll buy you a drink and you can relive the glory. For now I just wanna know what you found out from it."
"A whole damn lot," Mac replied. "All the mayor's account information at the bank, all the Lestranges' and the Blacks, and a series of records of the biggest smuggling operation I ever seen."
"Get to tonight, Mac." It was that quiet voice from the corner that alerted Podmore to the presence of his secretary's favorite stray. He made a mental note to make the Lupin kid start putting on tap shoes when he came in or ordering him to chew louder or something.
"They've got a shipment coming tonight, and another going out," Mac explained. "It's drugs going out, but it's women coming in. Along with liquor, but we're talking about a prostitution-slavery business he's trying to start up here."
And with the cops looking the other way, he'd be able to make a killing on it. Unless, of course, somebody stopped him.
"When's the shipment coming?" Podmore asked.
"Midnight."
His secretary nodded. "But they'll be there before that, which means we need to get there quick."
"No we," the detective shortly replied. "You give Bones the call and give him the address we're headed for, and you keep yourself right here."
Too many sacrifices. He wouldn't let her be one, and he also wasn't going to think too much about just when it was that she had become so important.
Sully nodded. "Then take Remus," she said. "He knows the way." It went without saying that her boss didn't. Podmore was always getting lost, despite having lived in the city his whole life, and this was one time he couldn't afford to be late.
It was no time for bluster or argument. Podmore just jerked his head to the door and started walking, expecting Remus would follow. "Mac, you stay with Sully and make sure no trouble finds it way here, a'right? Somethin' happens to her, I'm gonna happen to you."
The address Mac had picked out of the code was to a warehouse on the lakeside docks. Sure enough, Remus did know the way. The kid was good with shortcuts and quick dodges, and he kept them moving quickly and surely on a zigzag path through the city streets. All he had to worry about now was that Chloe and Meredith were potentially going to be caught up in this mess. He didn't know how they would have found out what was going down, but they might not even need to. Maybe Chloe got the right (or rather, the wrong) information from somebody, but maybe she had just taken it into her head to follow Riddle and find out the truth on her own. She and Meredith were friends; they could have pieced things together and decided to take care of matters on their own.
Idiots.
Their zig-zagging pace picked up with an unconscious realization that they were cutting it close. There had to be witnesses, just in case the feds didn't get there with the kind of speed they needed. And if Meredith and Chloe were there, someone needed to get them the hell out before they got themselves killed.
Night had fallen, the stars obscured by streetlights and clouds. That had never seemed odd before, but Podmore had the strangest feeling that there should be stars. The smell told him they were near the water, though, which meant they were almost there. Warehouses and train tracks, everything dark and gray, winding together in a web that centered on their destination.
"This one," the kid whispered. Podmore hadn't noticed that they had reached the address, but as Remus pointed to the number, he realized they were indeed there. Dim light filtered through each crack between doors and windows - someone was definitely there, and there was only one way to find out who. Silently, Podmore reached for the doorknob.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
The murmur was smooth as silk, and even before he turned around to see the young man who had a knife to Remus Lupin's throat, Podmore knew who it would belong to. Barty Crouch was grinning at him, with the kind of wild look in his eyes that never belonged in a human face. "You shouldn't have come here at all, Detective. We've got an awful lot to do tonight, and you will be very much in the way."
"Put the knife down, Barty," Podmore warned him. "You're not gonna get away with this one. The feds know about it, and they don't answer to your dad or even to Riddle. You kill him, it's over for you."
Barty snickered, and drew the knife very slowly over Remus's throat, barely nicking the skin. "They've got nothing on me," he declared. "I'll be just fine. You're the one who needs to worry, Mr. Podmore, because I don't just know you: I know everything about you. I know about the ex-wife you can't let go of, and the secretary you're screwing, the old partner, and the little girl you think is so safe in New England...and I can have even more fun with them than I did with Benjy Fenwick. And once I've done that, then I'll come for you."
Remus didn't know how he managed to stand through it all. Surely he should have passed out. There was a knife at his throat, eight inches of sharp steel just waiting to slice right through and end his short life, and somehow he was still on his feet. Maybe it was all just by virtue of having his eyes closed, or maybe he actually was braver than he had ever thought he might be. Either way, he was dimly aware of two things occurring at the same time: Podmore's gun rising to point right at Barty's face, and the knife suddenly falling away from his throat and clattering to the dirt at their feet.
Barty's arms fell away from him, too, and for a moment Remus thought maybe Podmore had actually shot the man - except that he hadn't heard any gunfire. Remus spun around, and found himself face to face with a pretty dark-haired girl wielding a bat and staring down at Barty's body on the ground.
"Meredith!" Podmore was already stepping forward, past Remus to take the bat from the girl because she was already starting to shake.
"I couldn't let him hurt anybody else," she whispered helplessly. "I couldn't. I had to stop him."
"It's okay, Meredith," the detective said softly. "You did great, ya crazy broad. Is Chloe with you?"
Meredith shook her head. "Inside," she whispered. "She...she said she had to go to the top, and she had to end this once and for all."
Shit. That was the last thing he wanted to hear, especially with the FBI still god knew how far behind them.
"Hey Kid!" Podmore carefully pushed Meredith toward Remus. "Get her someplace safe, and then call Sully to tell 'er where."
Remus didn't argue. He just took Meredith by the hand and started getting her out, stopping only to give Barty Crouch Jr. a good solid kick to make sure he was really out and to make up for the guy holding a knife on him. The man didn't move - definitely a good sign. Meredith, mostly dazed at this point, followed where Remus led.
Which left Podmore to sneak quietly into the warehouse. There was one thing he could rest easy with, though: that creepy bastard Crouch didn't know him nearly as well as he thought.