Grand Central Noir

Lost Property – by I. A. Watson

THE BIG MAN VAULTED the counter before Rebecca could react. He caught her by the collar and slammed her into the wire-mesh racking where the lost property was stored. “Where is it?” he snarled into Rebecca’s face. “Tell me now and I won’t hurt you – much!”

It was late, past two in the morning. Even the Grand Central Terminal’s main concourse was quiet. A difficult traveler at baggage checking might have been spotted by the clerks at the south side ticket booths – if the angry man hadn’t come over the counter and pushed Rebecca back from their line of sight.

The slim brunette gasped, choked by the calloused hand gripping her throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I… please… ”

The grasp tightened. “I’m talking ’bout locker 59, honey,” the intruder growled. “I want my suitcase.”

The woman struggled but he was too strong. “I don’t understand,” she insisted.

Hanner’s face was red. A vein on his temple pulsed with his rage. “Two hours back I deposited a case in one of your lockers. I come back, it isn’t there.”

“I don’t know about that,” Rebecca insisted. “Talk to security. They have a master key. Maybe you had food in there that smelled rotten? Or a live animal?” It was remarkable what people tried to stuff into platform lockers. The baggage check girl could have told some great stories if a strangler’s hand wasn’t at her windpipe.

“I’m not talking about the bag,” her attacker hissed. His spittle splattered her cheek. “I’m talking about the locker. The whole damn row of lockers – gone!”

“That’s… unlikely,” Rebecca stammered. Was the man mad? Drunk? His stale breath has a sour whiskey tang to it.

“You took it. You or your thieving station buddies!”

“Sir… I have no idea what you’re… you’re hurting me. I can’t breathe!”

“I want it. I gave everything for it. If I don’t get it then it was all for nothing. No reason to take away those lockers ’cept to steal what’s mine. So again – one last time, sweetheart – where is it? Where’s my case?”

“Nothing’s been handed in.” How many times had Rebecca to say that every day to plaintive passengers? She’d never expected they’d be her last words.

The intruder had a gun. He pressed it to her cheek. “I already asked your security guy. He didn’t tell me. You want what he got?”

Rebecca cringed. So she was going to die. Her clerk’s life seemed very grey and flat. What had happened to her wild romantic dreams? She worked where thousands of people travelled to far off wonderful places – and she never went anywhere. Death in a lost and found was only one last disappointment.

Her mind raced through her options. Knee the big man, or maybe scream for help? Both would probably get her killed. But since he was going to murder her anyway…

The counter bell rang. The ding-ding was too cheery and incongruous for the final moments of a young woman’s life.

Hanner dropped out of sight behind the desk. His.45 kept steady on the woman. “Get rid of him,” he whispered.

Rebecca turned back to the front of the shop. A man in sharp pinstripes and a tilted fedora gave her a winning smile and tipped his hat. “Evening.”

“How – how may I help you?” The gun was three feet away from Rebecca. The thug could see her every motion, her expressions; any wrong move and she’d be dead.

“This is where lost property gets reported? I’ve lost a hat.”

Rebecca glanced up at the newcomer’s head.

He had a charming, roguish smile. “Not that one. The absent article’s a big flowery wide-brimmed affair of Auntie’s. In a hat-box about, oh, like this…” He gestured a circular container two feet in diameter. “Candy-striped. The box, not the hat. The hat’s monstrous enough without stripes.”

“Nobody’s handed in anything like that.”

“Probably not. Who’d want to be seen with it? It probably crawled off the train by itself. We should be calling up the circus with nets and – hey, are you okay?”

Rebecca hadn’t meant to tremble. “I’m fine. Long day, late night shift. You know?”

“Not really. I try to avoid honest work.” The newcomer handed over a calling card. “Bill Maxton. And you are…?”

“Rebecca Sharp.”

It was surreal, being flirted with in a killer’s gun-sights. But how could Maxton know what was hidden beneath the counter? He saw only a personable clerk in a deserted concourse in the small hours of Monday morning. Another time Rebecca might even have flirted back.

“Look, Mr. Maxton, I can fill out the lost property register with your details and we’ll call or write you if… ”

“Oh, call me anyway.” The newcomer grinned. “Life’s too short not to.” He turned to his left, where the turnstiles led to the tracks. Steam gushed out from the platforms, sending warm gusts into the high roof-vaults of the world’s most elegant station. “You know, we could just turn round, the two of us, and hop on any one of those trains and go anywhere.”

When Bill Maxton said it like that, with that twinkle, it was almost enough to convince. If Rebecca hadn’t been at gunpoint, if her throat wasn’t still sore from Hanner’s chokehold, if she’d not been scared out of her wits… she’d still not have gone. But in her dingy one-room walk-up later she’d have regretted it, and dreamed of how her life might have changed forever.

“I’ll take your details. About the hat, I mean.”

“What hat? Oh, that hat. Auntie’s hat. Horrible, really. If someone does hand it in, you might do the public a service and arrange for it to be ceremonially burned. With a priest on hand for exorcism. It’s that horrid a hat. I’d probably have written it off and faced the wrath of Auntie except I noticed that there was a remarkably gorgeous girl on late-night lost property duty. And so… ” Maxton offered a what-can-you-do gesture with his hands.

The thug under the counter pinched Rebecca’s leg hard. “Get rid of him,” he mouthed.

“Mr. Maxton… ”

“Bill. Call me Bill. People who’re going to run off together should be on a first-name basis. Where d’you fancy? Chicago? Toronto? Niagara Falls?”

“Mr. Maxton, I’m very busy. I don’t have time for nonsense tonight.”

Maxton looked around the quiet concourse. A few travelers drifted about, mostly crossing the waiting room to the men’s smoking room or the women’s rest room, but the seething bustle of the day’s traffic was reduced to a handful of visitors.

“I don’t have time for nonsense from you,” Rebecca clarified. She wished there was some way she could signal to Bill – Mr. Maxton – that she was in trouble. But that would kill them both. “Be on your way.”

Maxton was persistent. “You haven’t put Auntie in your book yet,” he pointed out.

Rebecca reached for the lost property register. She flipped the big ledger open and uncapped a pen. She checked Maxton’s card for his address.

Written on the calling card in sprawling script was: I know you’re at gunpoint. This is a rescue.

The woman swallowed hard. She glanced over at Maxton. His expression remained amiable and relaxed. He winked at her.

She scribbled onto the register page: There is a man with a gun under the desk. Call the police.

Bill Maxton grinned. “What’s going on here tonight?”

Rebecca tensed. Did he realize that the killer under the counter would shoot them both at even the suspicion that he’d been detected? “I don’t know what you mean,” she told Maxton.

“All those goons with guns running round the station. At first I thought maybe the Mayor or someone was coming and they were security. But their suits are a bit loud for Secret Service, and badly cut for hiding the gun-bulges.

Beneath the desk Hanner looked around wildly, like a hunted man.

“I don’t know anything about that,” the baggage girl replied.

“Oh sure. A real mooks’ convention, down where the lockers are. Half a dozen knuckle-draggers scratching their heads. I think they’re looking for their buddy.” Maxton dinged the counter-bell merrily. “Ah well, I’ll be off, then. I’ll be seeing you again though, Miss Sharp. I promise.”

The baffling traveler turned to go, but Hanner sprang from concealment and leveled his.45. “Don’t move, bud. Climb over the counter and get back here. Fast.”

“How can I not move and jump back there?” Maxton asked reasonably.

The thug turned his gun to Rebecca. “Get in here. Where nobody can see you.”

Maxton shrugged, then scrambled over the desk to join Rebecca.

“In back,” Hanner insisted.

Maxton laid a guiding hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and steered her before him into one of the aisles behind the front desk. The wire shelving was filled with cases and parcels ready to be collected.

Rebecca felt absurdly ashamed at her relief when the gun turned back on Maxton. He seemed so much more suited to being held up by some seedy gorilla.

“Tell me about those guys you saw at the lockers,” Hanner demanded.

“What’s to tell? Around six of them, I’d say, with some buddies out on Vanderbilt by the taxis. Plenty of mashed noses and cauliflower ears between them. Like if an old boxers’ convention accidentally stumbled into a cheap tailor’s store. They’re looking for a friend of theirs called Hanner.” Maxton looked speculatively at the man aiming a weapon at him. “You wouldn’t be Hanner, by any chance, would you? You’ve got the tailoring for it.”

“Don’t be smart. Did they have a suitcase?”

“A case? No, no case. To be honest I didn’t get too close. I think they might be jimmying open lockers. I steer clear of that kind of business. You’d think the station guards might be a bit more vigilant.”

“I think… he may have done something to Mr. Stuart the night guard,” Rebecca admitted.

Hanner’s lip twisted. It might have passed for a smile in the dim light of the naked overhead bulbs if the expression had reached his eyes. “Nothing like what I’ll do to you if I don’t get my goods. I want my locker. I want my suitcase. I want what’s due me.”

Maxton turned to Rebecca. “This fellah seems to have lost some property. Any ideas?”

“No. He just grabbed me and knocked me around and pointed a gun at me. I don’t understand what he’s after.”

Maxton glanced at the sweating thug. “Let me take a guess. This guy Hanner, he’s run off with something that he thinks he’s entitled to. Those bruisers out there disagree. He hid his swag in one of your station lockers while he, I don’t know, bought a ticket, got a drink, used the boys’ room – I hope you washed your hands, buddy. And now he can’t remember where he parked his stash.”

“I remember fine!” snarled the gunsel. “Locker 59. Here’s the key, see? But when I went back down to the lockers, opposite the barber shop, it’s gone.”

Rebecca frowned. “You’re not claiming that a whole row of metal cabinets has just disappeared, are you? That’s ridiculous – and impossible!”

“I know what I did! I know what I saw!” Hanner was sweating profusely now. His eyes kept flicking toward the counter. He was afraid that the men he’d double-crossed might search here next. Time was running out. It made him more dangerous than ever.

“Stay calm,” Maxton advised him. “We can solve this. You’ve got a gun on us so we’ll have to. Tell us some more. We need all the info. What’s in the case?”

“None of your damned…, ” the thug began; but he caught himself and explained through gritted teeth. “Thirteen years I worked for Charlie the Head. Done everything he asked me to. Tortured. Maimed. Killed. Took out my own cousin when he was going to squeal. Charlie owes me. He owes me big.”

“So you took a retirement plan?” Maxton guessed. “When Charlie wouldn’t just let you go away with a fair settlement you grabbed what you could into a suitcase and made for Grand Central?”

“It was due me!” Hanner insisted. “I heard about – this guy sold me the combination to Charlie’s safe. So I took what I was due. And now I want it. I want it!”

“Maybe those men Mr. Maxton saw have already found it?” reasoned Rebecca.

“I can understand your frustration, big guy,” Maxton admitted. “Been thinking about retirement myself. Get out of the rat race. Travel the world. Maybe settle down somewhere eventually with a nice girl. In fact, I was considering Miss Sharp here for the part. I’m fairly confident that if there hadn’t been a hulking goon lurking behind the counter I could have had her on a train out of here before the guard blew his whistle.”

“You would not!” Rebecca insisted, blushing.

“Why not, honey? I saw it in your eyes when I dinged your desk. You’re just spinning your wheels here. It’s not living. It’s not what you dreamed of, is it? But you’re smart, you’re easy on the eye, you’re a good person – and brave, I can see that – so why not take a risk and retire with a fellah like me? You need a change. I need reforming. Could be a match.”

The baggage check girl failed to contain an incredulous smile. “A man is pointing a gun at us. Is this the time to try for a date?”

“There might not be a later.”

Hanner jammed his.45 into Maxton’s ribs. “Shaddup, Romeo. I need to know what Charlie’s boys are doing. I need to find my bag an’ get away from here. If I don’t get those things, you and Juliet are dead. Got it?”

Maxton nodded. “How about this, then? You looked for locker… 59 was it? And it wasn’t there. But did you look to see if there were two locker 159s? Or 259s?”

“Of course!” Rebecca gasped. “Hauling away a big bank of lockers would be impossible. But just stenciling an extra number on the ones with only two digits… ”

Even Hanner caught on. “It’s still there? Some joker changed the numbers?”

“That’s how I’d do it,” Maxton admitted. “Paint in the store, hardly anyone around this late… Of course, Charlie the Head’s boys never knew which locker the case was in. They’ll just jimmy them all open.”

Hanner’s red face twitched. “No. No, they mustn’t. Not after everything.”

“I know what you should do!” Rebecca blurted. “I know!”

The gun turned on her. “What?” Hanner demanded sullenly.

“There are men breaking into our lockers. Mr. Stuart may be… hurt. We should call the cops.”

“Oh, I get it,” Maxton saw. “The police come and clear out those knuckle-draggers. Maybe pin your security guy’s misfortune on them. While there’s a big fuss on, Hanner here just strolls down with his key and tries all the lockers ending in 59 until he finds the right one, then just hops on a train.”

The brutal killer looked suspicious. “How’d I get past the cops?”

“Well, that’s the easy part,” Maxton told him. “Don’t you see what that big package right behind you is?”

Hanner glanced over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“It’s a diversion,” Maxton answered as he grabbed the thug’s wrist and twisted the.45 aside. “And this is a punch in the kidneys. And that’s a left cross.”

Hanner slammed back into the racks. Parcels fell around him. The gun fell amongst them. Maxton went in with his fists.

Rebecca slid out of range of the brawl. She found a letter-opener sharp enough to serve as a knife and held it ready. She looked about for where the gun had skittered.

Hanner was bigger and stronger than Maxton. He was an experienced murderer.

Maxton never gave him a chance. His attacks were scientific, precise, devastating. “Gut blow… Right cross… Left cross… Haymaker.”

Hanner lost all interest in his missing case, the kidnapped girl, or anything.

Maxton bound him hand and foot with packing crate webbing. “There. That should hold him until the officers of the law come to claim their lost property.” The young man retrieved his hat.

Rebecca pointed the gun at him. “Not so fast, mister. I have questions.”

Maxton froze. He had Hanner’s key in his hand. “Enquire, Miss Sharp.”

“I don’t think it was coincidence that you lost your auntie’s hat, was it? You already knew about Hanner and the stolen goods.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Is there even a missing hat?”

“There’s not even an auntie, I’m afraid.”

“The renumbered lockers? Was that you?”

“Right on the money.”

“The goons?”

“Not really here. Charlie’s boys aren’t that smart.”

“And the gangster’s safe combination that this Hanner thug learned?”

“Yep. Fed it to him through a joe I know.” Maxton’s smirk vanished. “Didn’t expect Hanner to go rampaging round the station, though. I’m sorry about Stuart. And I apologize for your ordeal. I just wanted… ”

“To retire,” Rebecca understood. “From a life of… con artistry?”

“I need reforming. The love of a good woman.” He smiled up at Rebecca. “You know, this key opens a locker with the best part of a million dollars in it. That’s a lot of retirement. Enough for two. Before the cops arrive to drag Hanner away an adventurous couple could be on a train to anywhere.”

Rebecca kept the.45 steady. “You’re a thief and a scoundrel. You almost got me killed. No girl could trust you.”

“But you do. Right, Rebecca?”

From Grand Central Terminal there are trains to anywhere in North America. From Grand Central Terminal you can go anywhere in the world.

“I’m keeping the gun,” Rebecca told Maxton. “In case.”

“Then I’m keeping the girl,” Maxton insisted. “Deal?”

Rebecca relented. She slipped the gun into her pocket and fended off Maxton’s kiss. “Hold it,” she warned, sliding the lost property book over to him. “First you have to sign for me.”