Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street

‘Right,’ Meade said, when all the customers had gone, ‘now I’d like to talk to the boss.’

The boss was a thickset man in a blue dress, and even the heavy make-up he was wearing did not quite obscure the stubble on his square jaw. He said he’d like to be addressed as Miss Annie, if they didn’t mind, and Meade bit on the bullet and said he didn’t mind at all.

‘You know, it’s really not fair that you should disrupt my business in this way,’ Miss Annie said, in a high falsetto voice which didn’t quite come off. ‘I should be very cross indeed, but,’ looking directly into Meade’s eyes, ‘it’s hard to be cross with such a pretty boy as you.’

Meade shrank away, and it was all Blackstone could do to stop himself from laughing out loud.

‘I. .’ Meade began, with a crack in his voice which showed just how dry his throat had suddenly become.

‘You do know you’re a pretty boy, don’t you?’ Miss Annie interrupted.

‘And you do know that we could haul you — and all your nancy boys — down to the jail, don’t you?’ Blackstone asked, deciding the time had come to rescue his partner.

Miss Annie flashed him a look of pure hatred. ‘And how long do you think you could keep us in jail?’

‘Not long,’ Blackstone admitted. ‘But then, consider this — you don’t have to go jail at all . If you were to answer a few simple questions, we’d be out of here before you could say, “Bent as Dickie’s hat band”.’

‘What kind of questions?’ Miss Annie asked suspiciously.

‘Let’s start with an easy one,’ Blackstone suggested. ‘How long have you been sending out your whores to the house on Coney Island?’

‘Entertainers,’ Miss Annie said. ‘They are entertainers .’

‘Your entertainers, then. How long ?’

‘I’m really not sure I know what you’re talking about,’ Miss Annie said huffily.

‘Call for a paddy wagon,’ Blackstone told Meade. ‘It’s time to make a few arrests.’

‘There’s no need to be so hasty,’ Miss Annie told him. ‘Did you say a house on Coney Island?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose I must have been sending my entertainers there for six or seven years, now.’

‘And how is it arranged?’

‘A gentleman called Fanshawe — an English gentleman like yourself, though with more manners — visits us about once a month. Not for his own benefit, you understand, but merely acting as an agent for another gentleman.’

‘I understand.’

‘Mr Fanshawe knows the other gentleman’s taste, and selects an appropriate entertainer to meet his needs. The entertainer travels back to Coney Island in the afternoon, and returns to the city the next morning.’

‘What’s the name of this other gentleman?’ Blackstone asked.

‘I have no idea, but my girls tell me he likes them to call him “Daddy”.’

‘And what does he look like?’

‘How would I know that? I’ve never met the gentleman.’

‘If your “girls” have told you what he wants them to call him, I’m sure they’ve also given you a description of him,’ Blackstone said.

Miss Annie sighed. ‘This is all most unprofessional, you know.’

‘Give me a description, and that’s the last you’ll see of us,’ Blackstone promised.

Miss Annie nodded, and did as requested.

‘Now do you believe me?’ Blackstone asked Meade.

‘Now I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,’ Meade said.

When Blackstone, Meade and Ellie Carr got off the streetcar at its terminal on Coney Island, the veteran Sergeant Jones was already waiting for them with the police carriage.

‘How’s our Inspector Flynn?’ the sergeant asked, once the introductions had been performed.

‘Inspector Flynn is growing stronger all the time,’ Blackstone told him. ‘And when I get back to city and report to him on what’s happened here, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he rises up from his sick bed and does a jig.’

‘I’m delighted he’s improving,’ Jones said, ‘but I think you’re wrong about the jig. It’s not Mr Flynn’s style.’

But maybe it would be, now that the heavy weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for seven years was finally about to be lifted, Blackstone thought.

‘Did you seal off the house?’ he asked.

‘We did,’ Jones confirmed, sounding a little worried. ‘But I can’t say the family were exactly happy about it. Mr George said,’ he glanced at Ellie, ‘excuse my language, ma’am — he said that first he’d have my balls on a platter, and then he’d have my job.’

‘That’s just the sort of thing Mr George would say, but your job is safe enough — and so are your balls,’ Blackstone assured him. ‘You didn’t tell him why you’d sealed it off, did you?’

‘No, only that I’d been instructed to.’

‘So nobody in Ocean Heights knows anything about the corpse that was found in the woods?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘And where is the corpse now?’

‘It’s in the local mortuary,’ Jones turned to Ellie. ‘Will you want him moved somewhere else, ma’am?’

‘No,’ Ellie replied. ‘I can cut him up in the mortuary just as easily as I can cut him up anywhere else.’

‘It’s a strange job for a lady,’ Jones said, almost to himself.

‘Well, then, it’s just as well that I ain’t one,’ Ellie countered, in her best cockney.

The man lying on the mortician’s table was in his middle to late forties. He was five feet five inches tall, and had a bald head and waxed moustache which looked considerably less elegant than it must have done before it had been covered with earth.

Ellie studied him for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll have to cut him up, of course, but I’d be surprised if the cause of death was anything other than a single — rather professionally delivered — puncture wound to the heart.’

Jake and Bob had bragged about killing three men in the saloon — the Pinkerton men and one other. For a while, Blackstone and Meade had thought that the third victim might be Big Bill Holt, and then that it was Fanshawe the butler. But it had been neither of them — it was this man lying on the table.

‘I’ll need to do some tests, but I’d guess he’s been dead for about four days,’ Ellie said.

‘You may be right,’ Blackstone told her. ‘In fact, I know you’re right — although, legally speaking, he’s been dead for seven years.’

Blackstone and Meade were shown into the parlour in which they’d first met the two Holt families, and, as on the previous occasion, Harold and Virginia were sitting on one sofa and George and Elizabeth on another. This time, however, there were no straight-backed chairs for the two detectives to sit on — this time, it was plain, their visit was unwelcome.

‘I must complain in the strongest possible terms, Inspector Blackstone!’ George said. ‘We have been told by your police officials that under no circumstances are we to be allowed to leave the house. We have, in short, been treated like common criminals, and I very much resent it!’

‘Shut up, George,’ Harold said firmly.

‘What was that, little brother?’ George asked, amazed.

‘It takes a brave man to forcibly detain an important family like ours, George. Do you think Inspector Blackstone would ever have contemplated such an action if he didn’t believe he could more than justify it to some higher police authority?’

George frowned. ‘No, I. . err. . suppose not,’ he said doubtfully.

‘So your best plan would be to shut up, and let him tell us exactly what’s made him so brave, wouldn’t it?’