Chicago Typewriter

1.

Cluttered desks and beat cops clogged my path. The only route to my own cubicle went by the police chief's office. I slouched past his door, but he spotted me, anyway.

"Lucy!" he called boisterously.

Lucy— well, that would be me. Detective Drew Lucy, Chicago P. D., First District. Reluctantly, I turned and attempted a smile. It probably looked more like rigor mortis. "Mornin', Chief."

"Feeling sore, Lucy?" The chief's walrus mustache grinned big. He flexed his biceps and clasped fingers behind his head. A top-heavy bruiser, his upper arms bulged thicker than his thighs. Yesterday, we had a training session in unarmed combat. The chief and I had been paired as sparring partners. A regular Joe like me? I was willow tree, and he was moose.

"Yeah, Chief. That's about right." He'd only slammed me to the mat about six hundred times.

He barked a gusty guffaw. "Well, finish that report on the Waterton case. You can sit on your butt all day."

"Yes, sir!"

I creaked away to my own cubicle and gratefully oozed into my chair with restrained moans. The tiny space had four walls but no full desk, just a typewriter stand. I rolled a cover sheet into my Corona typewriter and clacked a few keys. That didn't hurt so bad. At least the chief hadn't bruised my fingertips. With a sigh, I sank into the doldrums of police report writing.

She slipped in so quietly I didn't detect her arrival.

The first hint came when I glanced toward the bottom drawer of the file cabinet where the injury report forms were stashed. Instead of cabinetry, I saw the petite curve of an ankle, demurely covered in hosiery. Her shoes were display cases for the firm flesh inside. Her skirt hem caressed her shins teasingly. My eyes skimmed up, over the trim waist and V-necked bosom to the face.

"Millie?" I said, aghast. Millie was the chief's daughter. Now I was guilty of ankle-ogling the chief's daughter. She was, what? Sixteen? Where'd she learn to dress like that? Was that lipstick?

She closed the door to my cubicle and leaned against it. The hubbub of the police station smothered to a surly rumble. She looked at me with big, hazel eyes. "Detective Lucy. I need your help."

"Ah." A paragon of articulate speech, that's me.

"It's Ike, Mr. Lucy. I'm worried about him."

Chief Largo had three kids. Ike was the youngest and Millie was in the middle. I'm bad with names, but the chief has a family portrait on his wall, so I get a daily reminder on which kid is which. A pleasant smell tickled my nostrils. Millie, perfumed. It smelled like satin sheets and the sorts of high-class parties I've never been to, and it was wrong for Millie. Not that a sixteen-year-old should be wearing perfume at all, but if she did, it should be something floral, like columbine or violet. What name had she dropped? Oh, yeah, Ike. "Go on."

"He sneaks out of the house late at night, Mr. Lucy. He comes back a few hours later. I'm losing sleep over it, and he must be losing more. He won't talk about it. He just tells me to shut up." Her eyes glistened with extra moisture. She dropped her gaze.

I leaned back and my chair springs creaked. Me getting involved in Largo family business? Bad idea. Chief Largo was my boss, for one thing. For another, I had a healthy respect for Italian tempers.

Millie detected the retreat in my body language and I saw a tiny flare of that temper. She stepped forward and poked a finger into my shoulder. Ow. "You have to listen to me, Mr. Lucy! I told Buster about it, but he told me I was silly and to mind my own business. He said he'd take care of it, but he hasn't." Buster was the oldest kid, a young man with an honest job. He sold shoes, I thought.

I didn't want to meet her gaze, but she had me backed up against the wall. She played her ace. "I can't tell Dad. You know I can't."

True.

Chief Largo had two moods, puppy dog happy and mad like a bull in Madrid, mid-fight, blooded, and all horns, muscle, and red eyes. He entirely lacked the trait of subtlety.

"Please, Mr. Lucy? Please?" She leaned forward, chest first. A wave of perfume washed over me and six kinds of alarm bells jangled in my head.

I stood up in a hurry and waved her back. "Look. I'll see what I can do. Just open that door again, will you? And don't expect miracles. People do dumb things and convince themselves they're smart. Especially teenagers. I can't think of a single noble thing a fourteen year old would be doing past midnight."

"He's fifteen," Millie said.

"I stand corrected." My collar felt too tight. I resisted the urge to try and loosen it.

She laid her big eyes on me some more and a little smile touched her lips. "Thank you, Mr. Lucy."

She turned to open the door, but before she laid a hand on it, it burst open. Sergeant O'Rourke's bulk filled the frame. He gave a single pop-eyed look at Millie, then zeroed in on me. "Lucy. You're up. Robbery-murder at Ebony Gardens."