In this chapter, Law gets to work. He also meets a couple people that figure into the case. Let's see who they are. I hope you like the chapter. Drop me a line if you want. I'd be pleased to hear from you!
NOTE: Check out my other stories in the Sci-fi / Fantasy Section Crown Vic to a Parallel World From Whence I Came Stolen Love
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Wasted Life a Law Edwards Mystery by Sam Stefanik
4 The Easy Work
Since I'd been fed without having to leave the office, I remained at my desk to start work. I took another look at the notes Bea had written in her engineer's printing. The list showed the rooming house and Consolidated Ship Building. I reasoned that I could so the rooming house anytime, but I'd need an appointment for Consolidated. It made sense to start with them.
After too much sparring with a preemptive and sour receptionist I got to speak with Mister Franklin Beedle, general manager of the Philadelphia operation. He sounded silky and a little salesman-y over the telephone, but he readily agreed to see me when I mentioned Preston. "Meet you outside the gate in an hour." He suggested. I agreed and hung up.
I pocketed Bea's list of addresses and telephone numbers and left the office without locking up. I strolled toward the trolley stop for the Broad Street line. I tried to make progress along the sidewalk but gave up when I couldn't even maintain my plodding pace. I stepped off the curb to walk in the empty street.
The way people clung to the sidewalk both frustrated and amused me. Because of the war, there were no tires for private cars, no parts to fix them, and no gasoline to run them. Most people had put their cars up on blocks for the duration. That meant the streets were empty of traffic except for official vehicles which were few and far between. Regardless of the empty streets, people clung to the crowded sidewalks. They seemed like they'd rather push and shove than walk where there was room. Fine with me,' I thought, let them bang their heads together.'
I followed my feet in the opposite direction of the drunken stroll I'd taken the night before. I watched the clear, blue sky as I walked because I had no reason to look at anything else. I knew I was getting close to the Broad Street line when the overhead electric grid that powered Philadelphia's trolley network invaded my skyward view.
I lowered my gaze to see that the trolley stop was crowded, like it was always crowded. I had to wait for several of the green and yellow, wooden body trolleys to come and go, paring down the crowd as they went, before it was my turn to board.
I climbed the steps and shouldered my way through the standing riders until I could find a place out of the way of people who were getting on and off. I grabbed the overhead brass rail and set my jaw against the hatred I had for the pitching, rolling, clacking, crowded trolleys. I only rode them when I had to, and because of the distance between my office and the Navy Yard, I had to. I let the Broad Street trolley take me to its southern terminus at the Navy Yard.
At the agreed upon time, I stood in the shade of a red brick pillar that supported the wrought-iron gates of the Navy Yard and shook hands with a very smooth character. Franklin, `call me Frank,' Beedle was six-feet-tall, mid-forties, and a sweetheart of a guy.
He had one of those smiles that knows something no one else does, and a manner that suggested we'd been friends for years. When he released my hand from shaking it, he used his fingers to brush some dust that I couldn't see from his grey tweed jacket. When the non-existent dust was gone, he checked the points of his white display handkerchief like it was the most important thing he was going to do that day.
Everything about Frank exuded class. From his dark hair that looked like it had been parted with a surveyor's transit, to his black shoes that glistened like they were polished just seconds earlier, he was the model of a highly paid executive. A fine gold wristwatch glinted from his left sleeve in support of that image.
With Frank was a big, ugly, bulldog of a guy who wasn't introduced to me. The man had a battered fleshy face, thinning grey hair that was combed forward, close-set beady eyes, and a stern tight-lipped expression. He could have been anywhere from forty to sixty-five and looked like a leg breaker. He stood apart from us like our conversation was none of his business. I noticed his presence because he was such a sharp contrast to Beedle, but I paid him no mind.
The conversation with Beedle was productive. He explained, "the kid stole some prints and other papers when he left. Obviously, we build ships for war and the designs are all classified, but we're not doing anything that isn't being done the same in every steel hull fabricator all over the world.
"I assume he was hard-up and grabbed something stamped `CONFIDENTIAL' thinking it would be worth something to someone. It just isn't, except to us. The papers aren't valuable, but their absence creates a problem for us. The documents are all numbered and tracked. We get audited by the Navy every few weeks. If they discover the theft, it means a black eye for me. If you find Preston and get the prints back before the end of next week when we're due for an audit, I'll make it worth your while."
"How do you know he took them?" I asked. I deliberately asked a question about the theft because I didn't want to sound too eager for a reward. I didn't want to seem that way, even though the suggestion of money was immediately the most important thing on my mind.
"It couldn't have been anyone else." Frank said with a slight lift of his shoulders, like the barest suggestion of a shrug. "The records show that he checked them into the records room from the shop floor himself on Friday afternoon. On Monday morning, when he didn't show, someone else went to get them and they were gone. I guess he signed them in but never turned them over. That's the only way it could have happened. He took them. I actually feel bad for him. He's a nice kid from what I understand, quiet, did his job. He was misguided, I guess. I won't even press charges."
I accepted Frank's logic and returned to more important things. "You mentioned something about making the recovery worth my while."
"How does one hundred dollars sound?" Frank offered in a voice that dripped with honey and kindness.
I doubted my landlord would accept a hundred and a promise, especially after three months of non-payment. I tried for the brass ring. "A black eye ought to be worth more than that." I suggested.
"Double?" Frank asked.
"And a half?" I countered and hoped I hadn't pushed too hard.
Frank grinned like he'd won a big pot at poker and offered his soft hand for me to shake. He parroted my terms in agreement. "And a half." He confirmed through his wide, white smile.
I shook Frank's hand and tried to remain stoic and businesslike. My mind turned greedy cartwheels at the idea of being able to pay my rent, plus a month, plus another fifty. I forced my thoughts back onto the case. "What specifically did he take?" I asked.
Beedle enumerated several document styles and counted them off on his recently manicured fingers. "Plans, elevations, details, specs, and material reports."
I didn't know what the words meant but decided not to expose my ignorance. I wrote the words down on a scrap of paper from my pocket and thanked Frank for his time. He offered his hand again. I shook it and walked back toward the trolley stop.
As I went, I had a small qualm or two. The first was over Frank's willingness to part with such a large reward for what he'd described as a small black eye. I wondered if there was more to the story than he was telling. I reasoned that almost no one tells the whole truth all the time. It followed that Frank had held something back, but I had no way to know what it might be.
The other qualm was over the idea that Preston had stolen the documents in the first place. The theft didn't mesh with the picture that Bea had painted of her brother. The boy she'd described didn't seem like an opportunist. Maybe there's another explanation.' I reasoned in order to give the kid a temporary pass until I had more information. Either way, I hope like hell he really did take those documents. I need that cash.'
Preston's old rooming house was a bunch of blocks to the north of my office and one hell of a long trolley ride from the Navy Yard. It was in a much nicer neighborhood than mine, and only two blocks back from Broad Street. The building was in the middle of the block and hemmed in against fifty-year-old brick-faced rowhomes on both sides. The building wasn't ten years old, though it had been built in the heavily ornamented style of an old residential hotel. It matched the well-preserved homes around it. I counted the windows of the building and figured it contained about fifteen rooms over three floors.
I crossed the short sidewalk to enter the tiny lobby. The room was little more than a vestibule with a row of wrought-iron mailboxes on one wall and one open doorway each on the other two. I let my eyes roam so my feet wouldn't have to and saw that I had to choose between two open doorways. One doorway led to a corridor with several doors on each side. I assumed these were the first-floor rooms. The other doorway led to the base of a wooden staircase with rubber treads on every step.
I moved through the first doorway and along the corridor until I found a door with a polished brass plate that read `manager' in all capital letters. I knocked twice with a light, polite, but businesslike knock. A thin, petite, late middle-aged woman in a starched apron answered the door. She was abrupt, direct, and a little hard, all the characteristics of a South Philly native.
"Paid up his bill and left." The woman announced in a high, shrill voice. "That's it. Nothing left, no address, nothing. A good boy. Cleaned his place spic and span before he went. Didn't have to do a thing but change the linen. Rent them furnished here, bring in a bag, and you're at home, take it away, and you're gone. Packed up, paid up, left. Saw him getting on the trolley, didn't notice which way. What's the trouble? Don't like trouble."
"No ma'am. No trouble." I lied to her through a reassuring grin. "He's come into a little money. Not much, but enough to want to get in touch with him. If he comes back for any reason, would you tell him to contact me or his sister?" I handed over one of my business cards.
My smile and vague talk of money mollified the woman. She accepted the card in a red hand that I assumed did a great deal of scrubbing. She held it clamped in front of her face while she talked over it. "That's trouble I'd like to have. Money. Good for him. I'll tell him. Don't expect to see him, but I'll tell him if I do."
"Thank you, ma'am." I said to finish the conversation.
The woman glanced at the card, then at me, then she stepped back, and swung the door shut. I turned away from the closed door to survey the immaculately clean hallway I stood in. I considered hanging around to ask some of the other tenants if they knew anything about Preston, but places that rent furnished rooms are usually as anonymous as a busy sidewalk.
Instead of wasting the time, I turned my steps back toward my office. The day was hardly spent, but I had no leads beyond the illuminating knowledge that Preston took a trolley somewhere. Philadelphia was a big city with two train stations. For the cost of a not-very-expensive ticket, Preston could be anywhere. I hung my hopes on whatever Bea would send me. Without more information, there was no way forward.