Chapter 11

Our very private chat now done, we headed on home with naught but a grocery stop at the A&P planned along the way.

We agreed that mission number one for tomorrow morning was shopping to seriously upgrade our extremely limited wardrobe. I’d picked up a few basic items of casual clothing at a couple of local used resale shops in North and South Hell over the last couple of weeks, but I still had nothing that our old pal Rags would have been caught dead wearing. We now had the dough, so it seemed fitting to skip the usual low-quality Westside resale shops for some place far more upscale. No, we weren’t going to try and blend in with the Wall Street or Madison Avenue crowds, and we didn’t intend to make a go at the fancy Park Avenue skirts, but by visiting a few trendy ‘gentleman’s resale establishments, no one could ever again take us of a couple of palooka’s who had but recently been living at a flophouse!

Besides, Blackwing had given me a hat and coat that had originated from some highbrow 5^th Avenue tailors shop and I was determined that the rest of my clothes from now on wouldn’t embarrass these exceptionally fine garments!

During the drive home, Pilsner broached the topic of his brother, Micha, and what (if anything) we wanted to do regarding the old salvage business. I shrugged and thought for a moment and decided that the topic wasn’t too dangerous to discuss, even with a near-certain listening device planted inside the van. Thinking again on the matter, the odds were slightly favoring the likelihood that the plant was one of Blackwing’s gadgets, or else it certainly belonging to another heroine, like Green Canary. The chance that Micha or one of his pals had done it was almost nil, less than one percent.

I could accept those sorts of odds. After all, at least as far as our law-enforcing friends were concerned, the pair of us now needed some sort of overtly legitimate, not to mention honest, means of making money. We needed a respectable business or proper jobs for cover so that any future, less than honest, enterprises could better withstand scrutiny.

“What would it take to buy your brother out?” I casually inquired, “We could probably swing it, maybe in a month or two, or sooner, if he’d consider accepting partial payments for a while.”

“Probably too much, or at the very least, more than the scrap pile is worth. You don’t need me to remind you what a cheap bastard he is! He’d ask for every dime that he thought he could get, especially if it was me, his brother asking. Hell, for his own kin, from the same flesh and blood, he’d probably even double the asking price!”

“Yeah ... that’s about the way I see the odds too,” I sighed, “At best, we’d need a third party, a white knight to make our offer privately through. Even then, I think we’d be paying too close to full value for the dump. Odds are, we’d be better off starting over with a brand new company, but that still means buying up some local real estate for storage ... and worse, cultivating buyers. That’s one thing, damn him, that Micha does well ... he knows all the scrap buyers and exactly what they’re looking for! That’s a talent that neither of us have, and why we’ve always needed to deal through him.”

“I think that having a new van of our own, regardless, would be nice,” Pilsner agreed, “This one does belong to Micha and I think, from what you’ve told me, that she’s already used up the last of her nine lives. Besides, this van’s been one the levers that he’s always used against us ... that we’ve needed him, more than he’s ever needed us. And he pays us accordingly. Now if we could at least present the appearance of functional independence, then he’d have to pay us more ... especially for higher end, legitimate, salvage materials.”

“Then chances are ... you’ll love this, then. On Wednesday afternoon, I’ve got an interview set with Milton Properties, Inc. They’re looking for contractors for the scrap-out before the final demolition of the old Maidstone Hotel on 39th. I’ve already taken a quick inspection tour and the place is largely intact, except for the furniture and anything easily portable, which has already been cleared out and sold. It still has eighty-two rooms full of lighting, electrical, plumbing, and assorted hardware fixtures that need to be removed, before they tear it down.”

“Wow, now that would really be a step up for us, but can we swing making a bid for the contract?”

“Barely, and it will make us both skint for a while if we do, until we can sell the stuff. Odds are, I figure, that there is a minimum of ten large in salvage value to be harvested there ... even calculating what Micha would normally pay us, which is jack and shit. Most of that value is from the antique light fixtures ... there’s some really good stuff there. From the ground floor up to the penthouse, it’s all nice original Gilded Age stuff from the 1890’s with lots of dangling crystal, not plain glass. As of yesterday, when I checked with Milton, no bidder has offered more than 800 dollars for the contract. Further, odds are that putting a grand in cash on the table when bids close next Friday afternoon will get the contract to have the rights to strip that whole building. Our tentative start-date would then be in about two weeks, on the first of June, with the final completion for the job due no later than the end of that month. We can clear, even just the two of us, three rooms a day ... easy. Having almost two weeks before the job starts will also give us enough time to get ready. It will be a lot of hard work, but we can handle it all by ourselves.

“Or,” the brains of our duo suggested, “We can even hire a crew for a change to do the real work, and we can just supervise and start selling the salvage immediately. If we had a team, of say ten or even twenty people, we could even strip all the copper wire and piping from the walls and floors before they blow the joint up. That’s another two-to-five kay’s worth of salvage! That’s just too good of a deal to pass up! At worst, we’ll at least double our bid money or even turn an honest profit of about five or ten large. Two muggs like us, Chancer, actually turning a square deal!”

“I thought you’d approve of my initiative,” I grinned, “so it’s a go?”

Pilsner whistled, “For an honest payout like that, let’s do it! Also, this would give me, or rather Mick, the direct chance to offer some cash paying jobs on our new work crew, including also a few of the local toughs for security. That would be a really good way to reward any of the Italian street brunos that haven’t fallen in with Fire Drake yet. Let’s return this old clunker back to Micha’s junkyard, as soon as we can get some fresh cash rolling in to replace it with, so we can start fresh and new. A new business, a new van and, hell, a new attitude too! After that, my brother can damn well then deal fair with us, as equals, or he can go screw himself!”

“That would be swell,” I agreed, using Pilsner’s favorite word with a grin on my face, “to actually create a few local paying jobs! There’s too damned few of those in the Abattoir! That’s always been the problem here, no jobs, no future, and no hope. We could have at least ten volunteers within an hour of asking around, and probably darned near a hundred, or more, if we put the word out for a few days!” We could ... easily. Perhaps there were indeed some real advantages to being senior in Connor’s outfit now, namely that we could make our own action now ... and none of the other local mugs would be putting their hands out, or pulling roscoes, to take their slice.

Much later, when we were at home and once again had the certainty of speaking in full privacy, Pilsner quickly deduced my other ulterior motive for desiring the Maidstone Hotel salvage contract.

“The Maidstone Hotel,” he slyly surmised, “isn’t that where Texas Tillie lived like a queen for half a century until she died a few years ago? It used to be, well, until the big depression anyway, a really swanky place! She had the whole penthouse floor and remained the very last tenant there until she passed. I think she partly owned the place and the other owners couldn’t shut down the old run-down dive for good until after she’d croaked ... and after everyone first searched high and low for her hidden Madam’s Black Book! They say she hid a fortune somewhere there ... and not just in her secret client list either! Rumor has it, that in years of searching, nobody’s ever found her secret hidden stash! I think that’s why they’re now blowing the entire building, rather than just refurbishing it ... so that they can bust down that entire penthouse floor and really search it, brick by brick.”

Texas Tillie was the notorious owner of Tillie’s, one of the most infamous upper Midtown speakeasies on 53^rd Street during Prohibition, and she ran a celebrated bordello there as well, upstairs, encompassing the upper four floors of the building. Both businesses were casualties of the recent post-war second depression and Texas Tillie was said to have retired to her penthouse suite a vastly wealthy and very politically powerful woman. The regular clients of her joy house were said to include most of the swells of Park Avenue and supposedly there wasn’t a cop, judge or politician whose name wasn’t marked down in her infamous Black Book.

“Chances are,” I laughed, “that with just a little bit of good fortune, that we’ll at least be able to find where she hid that famous client book and her account ledgers, and more than likely, a nice bit of her stashed savings too!” Odds were that, quite probably, each of those treasures were all still there, just waiting for a bit of luck to be discovered. Her secret black book would, even now, name names... important ones; the clients of her brothel, business partners for her various other illegal operations, and all the police and local and state judges, politicians, DA’s and prosecutors that she had paid for nearly half a century ... and owned.

No ... I was not considering using this to get into the prostitution business myself ... but with her book securely in my hands, it just might provide us with some additional political protection, should we need it. We did, after all, have plans for the Westside that the current ‘powers-that-be’ would undoubtedly object to. Not to mention, that someone in authority had wanted my father dead. At worst, her Black Book would be another useful tool that someday just might come in handy!

Shopping at the A&P on the way home, Pilsner unabashedly filled one shopping cart completely with grub, and I followed in his wake with another half-full cart containing the overflow. We had a new house, with an all-new kitchen, complete with the largest refrigerator that the department store offered, and my long-starved friend was determined to fill it. Since his money was as yet unspent, I let Pilsner pay for the groceries, but there was no complaint ... only a silly smile stuck on his round cheerful face!

Back when we were poor, or in prison, Pilsner used to borrow cookbooks from the various libraries and dream about all of the exotic dishes that he’d someday prepare. Well, that someday was now! He babbled excitedly during the short drive home about menus, of the feasts that he was now about to create ... and devour. He was in heaven, entirely lost in dreams of the certain feasting to come, and didn’t notice that we appeared to have company waiting outside for us.

Someone, wearing a bodysuit of bright green, red, and yellow, was hovering, smoothly floating in mid-air, directly in front of my stoop, and examining our otherwise unmemorable street lamp with extremely focused attention. Like most of the streetlights in South Hell, it hadn’t worked in years. She, that much was at least certain from the gentle curving outline of the body-hugging costumed outfit, was fixated on the upper portions of the light fixture, and ignored our arrival entirely. As I’d noticed last night on Green Canary’s boots, hers also had a similar glow with a circle of light underneath, levitating the wearer and likely also allowing her the power of full flight.

I tried addressing her a few times by calling out ‘Miss’, from the base of the lamp beneath her, but she didn’t respond. I didn’t much care anyway. There were at least twenty sacks of groceries to bring inside, and that task would take a while. Pilsner was already getting ready to start cooking something for dinner, a fat roast, I think, and he wasn’t paying any more attention to me than the costumed heroine was.

After making the last trip carrying sacks from the van, I left everything on the dining table for the chef to deal with. Since I could barely even fry an egg, it seemed appropriate to let Pilsner decide where he wanted all the kitchen stuff kept and I left, to let him arrange things later to suit himself. My friend seemed to approve of the new digs and once he’d set foot into the kitchen he was happier than a pot of clams being stewed in French brandy! He was oblivious to the entire world now and he never left the kitchen for the remainder of the afternoon and then most of the evening, as well.

Sneaking a peak out the small one-way mirrored glass window in the front door, I noticed that our curious visitor was now gone, but she reappeared soon enough, peering through the left side master bedroom window on the second floor ... quite upside down. She had been examining the windows from the outside, and judging by the mystical glowing of her hands, she was finding something in the framework of interest. I’d successfully disabled the device protecting the middle bedroom window that the Green Canary had entered through last night, but both of the other windows still had at least one lingering trap that I couldn’t isolate and disable.

My new visitor didn’t care, and seemingly without effort, she floated (feet downwards now) right through the window and wall, as if they were immaterial. I had to admit that the trick was impressive!

Up close and personal now, standing in the bedroom, face to masked face, I started to address her, but already she was turning, with her attention now focused again upon the interior workings of the left-most window she had been examining outside, and then in turn upon the other two, as well.

“Miss?” I calmly repeated, for about the fifth or sixth time, “Can I help you?” I was starting to lose my patience as a result of her silent intrusion.

“Miracle. Call me Miss Miracle, or just Miss ... and no, you probably cannot,” She muttered at long last, as she turned again to briefly face me. For emphasis, or just to show off, she dropped a collection of assorted electronic devices onto the writing desk near the left window. She had pulled them all out of the wall and window frames, one by one ... without causing the slightest amount of damage anywhere. She had just put her hand immaterially through the wall and yanked the sensors and trigger mechanisms out, casually, one by one.

“You must be the Miracle Maid then,” I surmised, “and I suppose then that you’ve removed the last of the traps that were on those three windows? Last night, the Green Canary had some trouble with those.” That was probably an understatement, but already my visitor was too distracted once more to pay me any further attention for another full five minutes.

“That’s my stage name, yes, but only when I’m working,” she eventually replied, “The Canary is good ... I spent a few years teaching her, but this place is quite... special. I’ve paid a brief visit here before, just to look it over, but decided then that the risks were too severe to risk entering. Now that I’m here, I can see that the perils are indeed worthy of my attention.” She admitted, as her attention again wandered and my presence became of very little interest to her once more.

A moment later, I was again essentially alone with a rather intrusive houseguest determined to rummage and yank out every trick and trap that her mystical fingers could perceive. The trail of extracted electronic sensors and triggers grew, just casually dropped down to the floor wherever she stood, as Miss Miracle located and disabled each device in turn.

For most of the next hour, she ignored every single one of my questions as if she barely even recognized that I was there, as she focused intently on her work, until I asked her about the sidewalk lamp that she had been examining in front of the house. That, apparently, got her attention, but merely for a moment.

“A most unusual device, incorporating a large electrical coil within the entire pole structure, to broadcast forth an electrical discharge of sufficient amperage and wide area effect to kill everyone on the steps or within forty yards of the pole. Triggered as an apparently random event upon attempting to open the door using a metal object, like a battering ram. Undoubtedly designed for use against aggressive salesmen.”

Nasty. That was the genius of the devices here in the Murder Mansion and now apparently outside it as well. Every trap had random triggers that were utterly unpredictable, that constantly lured the unwary into deadly situations! It was a wonder that I’d only found the remains of a dozen or so bodies left inside when I’d first entered the house! The rumors were likely true that the house had claimed at least a score of lives over the last decade. Chances were that this accumulated death toll was likely even higher.

Over the next four hours, she had made the entire second floor completely safe and secure. She never uttered a single discernible word, other than the occasional odd sort of ‘clicking’ sound that either she or her costume sometimes emanated when she was in especially deep thought. Already I could tell that my heroine visitor was a rather peculiar sort of person, who had very limited ‘people skills’. She often muttered to herself in a language I couldn’t begin to comprehend ... and perhaps she was looney enough to even answer herself back in a different voice. Even for a costumed super-heroine, she seemed like an unusually peculiar one!

The odds of her being either a potential friend or an eventual enemy were unfathomable. My gift just wouldn’t focus upon her, as if she herself was immune to the normal effects of Fate ... or else, I eventually decided, she wasn’t entirely of this Reality at all. In either case, my odds of dealing with her, should I annoy her or, worse, seriously piss her off, were about nil ... unless I became extremely creative in adjusting my own Reality, by getting my ass far away from her, and as fast as possible!

At some point during the evening, Pilsner had called out that dinner was ready, so I offered my guest some, but she was still unresponsive and uncommunicative, so the two of us bachelors dined alone without female company. We devoured that roast and enjoyed a few glasses of red wine along with it in an unhurried manner, toasting our recent good fortune. It was good stuff, the wine; something French or perhaps Italian. Pilsner had picked it out and he’s read books about how to enjoy wine. To my taste buds, it’s all good stuff.