The Big Cinch

“Mr. Joye,” she said, extending a small hand with long, slim fingers. “Please call me Violet.”

I didn’t think she meant it. I shook her sweaty palm, which smelled of Shalimar and jumpy nerves. “Mrs. Humphrey, an unexpected pleasure. This fine morning is now brighter, indeed.”

Her look told me, “Cut the blarney, paddy,” but she said, “The old woman in the lobby predicts snow. The ghost from the elevator shaft told her so.”

I didn’t know which old woman she meant but pretended I did, doubling down on the brogue. It seldom failed me. With American women, anyway. Gents? Not so much. “Pulling your leg was she?”

At that time, I didn’t know any better than old granny tales, that ghosts were merely folks carried off to Faerie, come to pay a bit of a visit to our mortal realm. Not that I’d ever seen any of the fae, including ghosts. At least, not in the courthouse lift. Other places perhaps? I’d just as soon not dwell on that.

Violet returned to the bag and fished out a photograph. The Judge took it, gave it a glance, and handed it back to her. “Why don’t you explain your problem to Mr. Joye?” He folded his hands across his tweed waistcoat, leaned back in the chair, and smiled. I’d never seen him more pleased with himself. “Of course.” She took a deep breath. “This is difficult.” I dumped my coat and fedora on the coat rack and pulled up a chair. “It’s about my sister, Lillian. Lillian Arwald.” She indicated the photograph in her hand and handed it to me.

A pretty young woman—a child, really—in a white, high-collared dress that hung near her ankles, smiled out of the sepia-toned picture while her eyes challenged the world. She looked about sixteen years old. Long blonde hair was pulled back from her face with a fancy comb and hung in loose curls down her back.

 “We had a small family squabble, and now Lillian’s run off.” Violet looked down at her lap. She bit her lip, like she was about to cry or something.

I didn’t buy it. Something had spooked her, but it wasn’t the need to discuss her sister’s indiscretions with a circuit court judge. “Do you think she’s in danger?” I leaned in closer. “Sounds like a job for the cops.”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Her debut is this weekend at the Piasa Lodge Ball.”

“Debut?”

“A party. Where young ladies are presented to society.”

I nodded like I understood. I didn’t understand. “And it’s in a piazza? Somewhere on the Hill, I guess.” I tried with difficulty to picture which courtyard in the tidy Italian neighborhood, not far from where I stayed, could hold a fancy society party—in February, to boot.

“No. Piasa. Pie-uh-saw,” Violet said as she crossed her arms. “The American Indian mythological figure? The painting on the river bluffs discovered by the first French explorers?” The Judge looked embarrassed at my ignorance. “At least a dozen businesses in St. Louis and even more across the river in Alton are named for it,” he said, smiling at her. “And, of course, the premier civic booster organization of the city.”

Well, la-de-da. “So, nothing else for her to hide from?”

“She’s been a bit wild.” Tapped the picture in my hand, Violet said, “That’s from a few years ago. Now her hair’s cut short. Skirts too.”

I liked the twinkle in Lillian’s eyes and something about the smile. The girl had a secret or two, just waiting for the right moment to bust loose.

“She’s just in a phase,” Violet continued. “She’s engaged to be married to a respectable attorney.”

“Trouble with the boyfriend?”

“Perhaps.” But from the look on her face, the boyfriend had nothing to do with it.

“We know—we think we know—where she’s staying. We need someone who can go there, talk to her, and get her to see reason.”

I glanced at the Judge. He beamed at me. Really. Like a damned gold-plated, overgrown cherub.

“She’s hiding in the Mount St. Michael Convent,” Violet said. “The administrator—a nun—won’t even admit she’s there, let alone allow me to see her.” Violet was flummoxed. Flummoxed and seething. Someone had told her no.

Now I got it. A prominent Catholic politician like the Judge, who dined with the archbishop on a weekly basis, had the pull to open convent doors. And the Arwalds, whoever they were, would be in the Judge’s debt. “Mr. Joye is quite skilled at motivating people. Under my direction,” he said. “He’d be happy to help you.”

“‘Course,” I said.

Violet clasped her little bag and stood, a doubtful look on her face. “You seem a bit young for such a responsibility. I’m sorry if that sounds rude—”

I jumped to my feet. “Not at all. And I’m much older than I look.” I was twenty-three years old. I extended my right hand. “Until next time.”

She was about my height and looked me straight in the eyes. She shook my hand, calmer now, all lady-of-the-manor-in-charge again, then put on her lavender gloves. “I expect to hear from you soon.”

“Looking forward to it.” I smiled, all charming and suave. Hoped so, anyway.

She looked amused, then glanced at the Judge before she turned her cool blue eyes on me again. “Mr. Joye—” she emphasized the ‘Mister,’ “bring her home.” She then exited stage right, the heavy door’s latch clicking after her.

The Judge chuckled, then snickered. I sat down and leaned back against my chair’s cool red leather. He took up guffaws, which yielded to belly laughs. I packed a pipe, lit a match, and rolled it across the bowl, drawing the smoke. Outside the window, flags flapped in the breeze in front of the courthouse. I was warm, comfortable, and safe on a dirty, raw January morning in America. Silent Cal Coolidge sat in the White House and robber baron Andrew Mellon had the run of the treasury. The Big Cinch was firmly in charge of everything. America got rich minding its own business while Europe still lay in ruins five years after the armistice.

“What’s so funny?” I asked the Judge.

He dried his eyes and blew his nose on a large handkerchief. “Oh, that felt good. A good laugh adds a year to your life. This has been worth a decade.”

I nodded. He was in one of his humors, but it did me no harm. He selected a fat Cuban cigar from the humidor on the desk and then clipped and lit it. “Joye, today I continue your education about our fair city. That was Violet Arwald Humphrey. On her mother’s side, the De Noailles. Old money. Old, old Protestant money. Which puts them at the top here, in the social order.”

“OK. I get that part. It’s—what’s that word—ironical, her sister with the nuns. Probably the most annoying thing she could think to do. Kids are like that.”

“Yes, the irony is delicious. But their father, Joseph Arwald, sent her—he must have, she wouldn’t come to me on her own—for help.” Then he was off in a fit of giggles again.

“And?”

The Judge often wheeled and dealed with the Big Cinch—the people that own everything, run everything, decide everything. “They’ve already had one free favor. Taylor Humphrey—” he pointed with the cigar at the door by which Violet had just left us. “Her husband, a professor, I believe, from England, wanted offices here in the courts building.”

That struck me as odd. What connection could an Englishman have with the Missouri state court system?

“Now they’re gonna pay, right?”

“God, yes. Arwald is stinking rich. Stocks and bonds. His people are East Coast arms dealers. The family’s fortune was made in the Civil War.” He frowned. “But the Humphreys have had their troubles. Remember last fall? That baby kidnapped and murdered?”

I felt bad for the pretty lady.

“Must have missed that.”

I’d arrived in St. Louis in the summer of 1923, fresh from the Irish Civil War, which had followed hard on the heels of our armed struggle against the British. The American gangs’ battle to control bootleg liquor’s flow was at its height here and I’d fallen in with—let’s just say, “the wrong elements.” I got nicked doing something stupid and by sheer luck ended up in the Judge’s court one fine day. He dismissed the charges and offered me a job, citing my wartime reputation. I wasn’t supposed to have much of a wartime reputation; my intelligence work with General Collin’s squad was top secret. I’d stuck close to the Judge since then, purely in self-defense.

“You were working for me by then, but maybe out of town.”

By “work” he meant anything not quite above board that needed doing and by “out of town” he meant picking up moonshine in the wilds of Southern Illinois.

“Lillian Arwald’s my priority today?” I asked. “I’d planned to visit Hannigan about his campaign contribution.”

“Is he late again?”

“And he was short last month. You’ve given him a couple or three second chances.”

He considered that. “Pains me to say it, but at this point, he needs to experience the consequences of his bad decisions. But it can wait until tomorrow.”

I’d also planned to meet with the Judge’s rumrunner. “How’s your supply holding up?”

“Fine, fine. Not much entertaining lately. But that shall soon be remedied,” he said as he stood, went to the coat rack, and handed me my hat. “The Mound City Piasa Lodge Annual Parade and Ball is Friday. And the 1924 festivities will see this upstart, shanty Irish politician included in their party.” He buttoned his suit coat over his wide belly and donned a homburg and topcoat. “Come along, Joye. Lunch at my club. I’ll make a man of the city out of you yet.”

I tapped the tobacco ash from my pipe into his spittoon. Grabbing my coat, I followed him out the door.