Approx. 8,000 words

The problem was not that Eloise was missing— which was a problem, to be sure. The problem was that Dee hadn’t realized Eloise was missing at all until she was asked to find her.

It was Friday evening. Dee had just stepped around the corner, her oxfords and stockings grey with dust from the long walk from the shoe factory. Her back was sore from hunching over the typewriter all day, and worse, she’d snagged her skirt on something and it needed mending, the hem flapping as she walked quickly along the sidewalk to the boarding house.

A second pair of steps fell in beside her. Big shoes, not new, but the black leather was freshly shined.
“Excuse me,” the man said. Dee walked faster, not looking. “Excuse me,” he said again, “You’re a friend of Eloise Martin, aren’t you?” Dee kept moving. The man kept pace. “I know you. I’ve seen you and her together at The Arcadia. Can you help me find her? She’s gone missing.”

Dee skidded to a stop, her heels kicking up little eddies of dust. “She has not.” She turned to get a good look at the man. He probably wasn’t a police officer, since he didn’t have the gear or the blue coat. The man was nicely dressed— his pants and coat were a few years out of style, but good quality and well maintained. Behind the clothes, he seemed ordinary enough. Hair slicked to the side and shiny with pomade, all under a wide-brimmed hat that threw a shadow over his dark eyes. He could be anyone in a crowd. The man shook his head.

“She sure is. She hasn’t shown up to work this whole week. Maybe you know where she’s at.”

“I haven’t seen her since Saturday,” Dee answered. Technically, it had been very early Sunday morning by the time they’d left the dance hall and gone their separate merry ways, but that was semantics. “Who’s asking, anyways?”

“We work together. She’s our delivery gal. Say, you’re Dee, aren’t you?” The man grinned, too many teeth splitting his fleshy pale face. “She told me about you. The one who wants to be a detective.” Dee jammed her tongue against her teeth, flushed and annoyed. She’d told Eloise in confidentiality, and here Eloise was apparently spilling Dee’s deepest desires to any sort of stranger. The man kept talking.

“Maybe you can do some detective work for me.”

“I’m not a detective,” Dee snapped. Not yet, something inside her whispered— the stupid, dreamy part that lived in yellow-back ten-cent novels. The man grinned even wider, as if he could hear that voice. He did a little half step, partly blocking Dee’s way down the sidewalk, then flipped open his jacket and slid his hand into a pocket. There was a flash of silver as he pulled out a lighter. Dee also saw the blocky shape of the holster strapped to his side, stark against the white of his shirt. Huh, Dee thought, a little numbly. I bet that’s a real gun. Like curtains over a window, the jacket fell back into place. Dee flicked her eyes to the man’s face. He was calmly lighting a cigarette. She couldn’t be sure if he’d meant for her to see the gun or not. She should be scared. She should be turning tail and booking it as fast as she could back to the boarding house, just a stretch of sidewalk away. But pinning her in place was a nervous sort of thrill.

“Tell you what,” the man said, the cigarette between his lips starting to glow the same red as the bricks of the thin matchbox buildings crammed together around them. “You find our friend Eloise, before, say, Sunday morning, and I’ll make it worth your time.” He slipped the silver lighter back into his jacket, but withdrew his hand with something still in it. “How much does it cost to rent an office these days? Eighteen a month? Fifteen?” With a casual flick of the wrist, the man held out his hand. Dee almost through it was a cigarette, until the man loosened his grip. It unfurled like a strange sort of butterfly, dingy green and printed with faces and ones piled on top of each other. Dee caught her breath. Twenty dollars, at least. A whole month’s rent. And this man just had it in his pocket like it was two cents. Dee looked at the money, then looked at the man. He was smiling, and the glint in his eye could have been friendly, or from the fading sunbeams that slipped through the narrow spaced between the houses. But there wasn’t any warmth in it. His eyes had the same dark sheen as the gun hidden under his jacket. Dee’s mouth felt dry.

“She’s not in any sort of trouble, is she?” Dee asked.

“No, no. Not from me, anyways. We just want to make sure she hasn’t gotten herself in any trouble as it is.” Dee didn’t ask who ‘we’ might be referring to. A detective knew the right time to ask questions, and when to shut up. The man went on. “She said she’d have a delivery for us on Sunday, and we’d like to make sure it’s still on schedule. We just can’t find her to talk it out.” The twenty dollars sat in his outstretched hand. A whole twenty dollars. She could send it back to her family. Or she could rent out an office, and maybe have enough left to take out an advertisement. She could have clients, and consult. Like a real private investigator.

Dee took the money and slipped it into her pocket.

“You find her, you ring Taylor’s Grocer and ask for Robbie, alright?” The man— Robbie— took a drag from his cigarette, and, casually, started to stroll back the way he came.
Dee still had a question. “Why don’t you ask the police to find her?”

Robbie turned back, smoke hanging from the brim of his hat, still wearing an easy smile. “I think you know why, kid. Just find our friend Eloise, and we’ll be all set.”

—

Dee wasted a whole night and well into a morning searching. She tried all the dance halls in town, starting at The Arcadia and working from there, armed with a small dime photo of her and Eloise they’d gotten done. In every crowd, she was looking for blonde curls and green eyes and a shrill laugh. Nobody seemed to have seen Eloise since the weekend before. Dee made it back home with nothing to show, and collapsed into bed as the sun was starting to crawl over the horizon. When she woke well into the afternoon, her feet still aching, Dee decided the next place to turn was place of employment.
She’d first met Eloise when they sat next to each other at a talkie. The feature was an insipid love triangle between a clerk, a taxi driver, and a pilot. Eloise had caught Dee rolling her eyes at the leading man’s high-pitched hysterics, and leaned over.

“I think that ticket-taker out there could do a better job acting than that boy on screen,” she’d whispered. The flickering beam of the projection turned her hair silver-gold. Dee grinned back.

“He could probably dance better, too.”

“Hell, I could do better. They should’ve hired me.”
They’d gotten shushed by the row behind them, but they’d gone out dancing together afterwards, and then kept at it. On weeks when Dee came up short, Eloise would pay for them both to get into dances, and they’d go till the small hours. Somehow, she became Dee’s dearest friend.

The thing about Eloise was that while she was a good listener, she was spare on details the way most people were spare on money these days. She’d ask Dee all about her job as a secretary, but she’d dodge questions with the same ease she had when dancing. If Dee pressed for detail on where she’d been the past week, Eloise would give an answer so wildly improbable it couldn’t be true— that she’d gone on an expedition up the Nile, that she’d caught the eye of a millionaire’s only son, that she’d made a deal with a particular devil.

Dee didn’t mind the stories— they were as good as her paperbacks, better even, since Eloise was the one telling them. It was the strangest thing— Eloise was like a lamp, all brilliant, and Dee couldn’t help feeling like a moth, drawn in despite herself. But once, Eloise had mentioned making deliveries to the tailor’s shop near Market Street. Dee had figured that was at least somewhat regular work.

The shop door swung open with a jangly chime from the battered bell hanging from the door frame. Dee closed the door softly as she could behind her. The air was close and musty, dust filtering through the afternoon light that melted through the yellowing windows. The front of the store was not that large— just enough room for the clerk’s desk, and half a dozen shelves filled with an assortment of felt hats and slightly worn gloves, the lower shelves stakes with carefully folded blouses and skirts. A collection of mannequins huddled in a corner, their clothes wrinkled and slightly askew.

“Hello?” Dee called. No one was at the desk, but a woman with thick-framed spectacles and a severe bun poked her head out from a back room.

“We’re about to close. What you do want?” She snapped.

“Excuse me,” Dee put on her very sweetest voice, as she pulled the rather battered photo from her pocket. “Do you know a girl named Eloise? She used to work here, I think?”

“I don’t know any Eloise. Like I said, we’re about to close.”

Dee pushed a bit closer. “Eloise Martin. She used to do deliveries for you. I was hoping you might have seen her.”

The woman gave her a sharp, hawkish glance, here eyes piercing like pins. “What’s it to you?”

“I haven’t seen her all week, I’m just trying to make sure she’s alright.” Dee wished that felt a little less like a lie. It wasn’t wrong. “Here, I’ve got a picture of her.” She stepped through the shelves to the desk, holding out Eloise’s image. The woman looked down at it, and Dee saw her eyes flick with recognition for just a moment. Then her gaze snapped back to Dee, sweeping over her critically.

“This isn’t a police station, they’re more suited for that sort of thing. You ought to try there.”

“I’d rather not involve the police.”

A small sort of sneer twisted the woman’s lips. “Your friend in a bit of trouble, is she?”

“I don’t think so,” said Dee, rather less confidently than she would have liked. The woman glared balefully back.

“I might have seen her. But I don’t get paid enough to chit-chat about former employees,” the woman sniffed. But it wasn’t a no. The first hint of a lead Dee had gotten all day. Dee turned, grabbing the first hat she saw— a dark blue beret, scratchy with dust.

“What about with a customer?”

The woman’s mouth thinned out, decisive, though in which direction Dee couldn’t tell. Then the woman plucked the hat from Dee’s hands. “That hat’s five dollars.”
Double what it should be. Dee gave her the money anyways. The woman raised her eyebrows, but pulled a box from under the counter and plopped the hat inside. Finally, she spoke. “It’s been a while since that girl’s delivered anything. But I wasn’t the only one she worked for.”
Dee tried to tamp down her disappointment. “Who else?”

“That’s none of my business,” The woman folded the box shut, jamming the keys on the register with a controlled sort of viciousness. “None of yours, either.” She didn’t look Dee in the eye as she rang her up.

“If she’s in trouble, I don’t want anything to do with her. But you might try the corner of 11th and Locust.”
Dee took the box, choosing her next question from an ever-growing list. “Why there? What was she delivering for you, anyways?”

“You don’t know?” The woman smiled sneeringly. “Good luck finding your friend. I’ll see you out now. Shop’s closed.”

Dee had a dozen more questions. But she clearly wasn’t going to get those answers here. “Thanks for your time, then, ma’am.” Dee dropped the hat box back on the counter and flipped it open. She put the hat on with as dismissive an air as she could manage. The detectives in the dime novels she read were always cool and unbothered. The hat was a little big. The shopkeeper merely raised her eyebrows again, unimpressed. Dee abandoned the box, and opted for a retreat.

Shoving the door open, Dee nearly hit a man who was smoking a cigarette by the stoop. She barely nodded an apology before hurrying out into the street once more. When she found Eloise, she’d needle all the answers she wanted out of her. But first Eloise had to be found.

—

Eloise wasn’t at the corner of 11th and Locust, but Dee was getting used to failure at this point. The street was no stranger to failure either. It was home to a row of buildings that were mostly vacant. One, painted a faded peeling blue, had its large windows boarded shut. Beside it sat a pawn shop, the items displayed in the window gleaming cheaply where the evening rays of sun hit the storefront. The corner across from them was proudly occupied by the newspaper building with its squat archways. Above the roofs, in the distance, she could see the reddish tower of the factory where she worked. It rose over the trees, like a pile of boxes stacked precariously on top of each other, the highest tower emblazoned with shiny white tiles that spelled out “SHOES”. The street was swarmed with gangly teenage boys, dragging huge stacks of bound paper out of a boxy green truck emblazoned with the words Post-Dispatch. Dee spotted a grubby head of bright red hair she recognized, just as the boy heaved a pack of newspapers into his arms and turned, spotting her.

“Dee! Headlines?”

Dee usually ran into Jack on early mornings— he on his route, she on her way back home from dancing— where he’d let her look over the paper as long as she could keep up with his pace and slip him a penny. Dee rummaged in her coat pockets, feeling for a stray coin, the wad of cash burning against her hand.

“No thanks, Jack. You seen Eloise anywhere?”

Jack stuck the papers under one arm, tilted sideways to keep his balance. “Who?” Dee dug the photo out of her pocket. “Oh, her.” Jack started sliding papers into a bag over his shoulder. “You tried asking at the factory?”

“Which factory?”

Jack rolled his eyes, as if she were missing the obvious. “Samuel’s Shoe Factory?”

Dee frowned. “No, she doesn’t work there, that’s where I work.”

Jack frowned back, folding the papers over his arm. “Doesn’t she work there too? Making deliveries? I heard her talking about it with one of the office fellas.”

Dee’s brain skidded to a halt. “Who? When?”

“Just yesterday. She was talking with a man.”

“A man?” That could be anyone. “What kind of man? Youngish? Dark hair? Nice clothes?”

Jack’s face scrunched up under the description. “No-o-o, well, don’t know about how nice his clothes were. He was wearing all gray, gray hat too. But he’s older, his mustache is all grey. He doesn’t work the line, that’s for sure. You should know him.”

“You’re sure he works at the factory?”

“Sure am. I see him go back and forth every day. And his house is on my route, too. His wife gives me good tips when I go around for subscriptions. Gee, what’s his name, starts with a P…”

Dee racked her brain for anyone matching that desctiption. No one in the office— but— wait. “Mr. Parker? The bookkeeper?” Dee rarely saw the man, he had his own office.

Jack’s face lit up like a lantern. “Parker! That’s it! I think he is the bookkeeper! Always has a briefcase with him!”

What was Eloise doing talking with the bookkeeper? Dee would know if she and Eloise were working at the same factory. She would have typed that paper up for the records. There was no way she could have missed that. Right?

Dee slapped a dollar into Jack’s hand, ignoring his cry of delight and turning on her heel to head towards the factory. As she passed back by the blue-painted building, she caught sight of a sun-faded sign, fluttering against the door.

TAYLOR’S GROCER
Hours:
Monday-Saturday 9 AM to 4 PM
Closed Sundays

—

But by the time the factory was in sight, Dee was sure she was being followed. The sun was just starting to dip under the horizon, light fading fast, sending deep shadows spilling down the sides of the factory towers and over the sidewalk. Streetlights glowed like miniature moons. Dee’s steps echoed on the street, an unsettling trot that bounced against the cobblestones. The flood of people finishing evening errands before dinner had dried up as she’d walked along. That’s when she’d noticed the man trailing her. And now that she could see the light of the factory gate, she could hear his footfall too, faint behind her.

The man wasn’t Robbie, or didn’t seem to be. He ambled along as if he were merely out for an evening stroll. More than once, she chanced a look and saw him stopped on the sidewalk, studying a store front, casual-like. Blue-black slacks, his long coat somewhat shabby. When she saw him cross the street, her first instinct had been relief. Then she’d caught sight of his reflection in a window, still following on the other side.

She really should get a gun. All the detectives in her dime novels carried guns— even the lady ones. If she had a gun, she’d whirl around and demand to know what kind of business he was after. Maybe once she had cases coming in, she could buy one. Maybe Eloise had a gun. She’d never mentioned it, but then again Dee had never thought to ask. She’d been too busy basking in the light that was Eloise’s attention.

The light of the factory gate washed over her as she passed under the wrought-iron archway with its illuminating floodlights, the bulb buzzing as she passed under it. Dee stopped under it, and gathering up her courage, turned around.

The man was gone again. Dee stood there, searching the deepening shadows for any sign of him, half-blinded by the glare of the bulb. The only movement was the dancing shadows of moths about the streetlights. A chill started to seep into her skin, despite the warm summer air.

Hands balled into fists to keep from shaking, Dee marched herself across the yard to the main building. She unlocked the office with her spare key, stepped through, and then locked it quickly behind her, thoughts starting to boil over. Maybe Eloise was gone for good this time, and didn’t spare a thought for Dee at all. They’d spent so many nights out together, and Dee didn’t even know where Eloise got her money, though she had a few suspicions by now. More than a few. And she was a fool for not pressing about it sooner. Maybe it would have saved them both some trouble in the long run.

The office was painted blue with growing shadow. Dee fumbled her way to the desk to turn on the lamp, which flooded the room with pale light. A search for the familiar record books, each delivery that came through the doors marked line by line— nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that Dee hadn’t seen come in with her own eyes. A check of the employment roll. Nothing. She could scream. Instead, she got up and paced back and forth over the worn carpet.

Eloise’s name wasn’t in the books, just as Dee knew it wouldn’t be. Eloise was never one for explaining herself— not her intermittent absences, not the source of her ever-flowing dimes and nickels, nothing. But Dee should have figured it out sooner than this. And she wanted to be a detective! Who was she kidding. But she couldn’t just give Robbie his money back and go home. She had to find Eloise, if only to figure out just how much danger they were both in. She had to think, and she had to start thinking like a detective.

Jack said he’d heard Eloise talking to Mr. Parker about deliveries. If proof of any deliveries wasn’t in this office, it could very well be in his office down the hall. Dee stole out of the office on tiptoe, her pulse thrumming with nervousness, with exhilaration. The floorboards creaked and complained with every soft step she took down the hallway.

The door to Mr. Parker’s office was, to Dee’s surprise, not locked. The hinges whined plaintively as she pushed open the door. If Mr. Parker were somehow involved in Eloise’s illicit deliveries, he would have to be keeping some sort of record. There was always the chance that he kept it on him… but that would run him the risk of misplacing it. More likely, he kept it somewhere secure and discreet. Dee studied the room, enveloped as it was in growing shades of darkness. It wasn’t large. Much of it was taken up by a heavy wooden desk, with two brown leather chairs on either side. Shelves full of books took up the space behind and around the desk, another by the door. In fact, the only wall space not taken up by shelves was occupied by a file cabinet, a tall lamp, and a closet door. No lockbox. Best to check the desk first, then. Dee hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight of any kind. She switched on the lamp, and got to work.

The desk had many drawers, so Dee started with the small one in the middle, then branched out to the stack of heavier ones on either side. The desk itself was meticulously well-maintained. Papers, letters, and receipts were organized neatly, though none gave any secrets away, outside the ordinary expenses. The bottom left drawer, unlocked by the amateur jabbing of Dee’s hairpin into the mechanism, contained the ledger books.

Dee was just about to pull them out when she heard a breaking of glass from down the hall. She froze, her hand still in the drawer, her heartbeat in her throat. Through the wall, was a quiet thunk, muffled cursing, and the soft click of someone undoing the lock to the main office door.

The carpet in the other room silenced any footfall, but Dee could hear the subtle shift of weight over the floorboards, the not-quite-creaking of the wood as the intruder moved in the other room. It had to be the man who was following her.

She listened as the shuffle of someone trying to walk unheard grew closer. He was coming this way. She had to move. Under the desk? No space. Dee sprang for the closet, tugging at the lamp chain as she flew by. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her. The closet was dark and surprisingly cool, almost cold, and smelled like mold and damp wood. A thread-thin space that remained between the frame and the door. Dee pressed one eye against it. It cut her view of the room to a narrow slice. Her heart beat twice, thunderous in her ears, before it was overtaken by the whine of the hinges as the door of the bookkeeper’s office opened.

She couldn’t see him from her angle, but she heard him step in, his steps slow and careful. It wasn’t until he stepped close to the other side of the room that she got a thin glimpse of him. Navy blue slacks, neatly pressed. A gray coat that had seen better days. A pageboy cap over watery eyes that darted into the corners of the room. Certainly the man who had been behind her on the street.

He slipped out of her vision again, but she could hear him moving. The click of the lamp as he turned it back on. The soft thump of books being inspected. Then the dry scrape as he slid the desk drawers open. Dee bit down on her lip. She’d left them obviously rummaged through. Turning the light on had tipped him off to where she was. He must have seen it from the street. Stupid, stupid, idiot mistake. He’d probably followed her here to get Robbie’s money back, or maybe they thought she’d already found Eloise and was trying to give them the slip. Dee turned her head, but she could only see the edge of his worn shoe and his knee as he crouched by the desk, the pages of the ledgers rasping as he turned them.

The slam of the drawer made Dee flinch. Suddenly, the man stood. For a long, terrifying moment, Dee was certain he was coming to inspect the closet. Her heart beat wildly. She didn’t dare even breathe. But instead, the man stepped back through her line of vision, the ledgers stuck under his arm, and out of the office. He closed the door behind him. This time, he made no attempt to hide his footfall, and Dee listened to it fade down the hallway and back into the main office. Through the wall came steady hum of the dial-up telephone. Then a muffled voice, the words quiet and unintelligible. The man was calling someone.

Dee started breathing again, fighting down her panic. He knew she was in the room. Why hadn’t he looked in the closet? He’d left the light on— he planned on coming back. How was she going to get out of here without him noticing? No windows, so it would have to be the door.

Her hair tickled her face, stirred by the breeze. Dee shivered involuntarily. Why was there a breeze in a closet? It was coming from somewhere to the right of her, where the empty shelves dug into her shoulder. Dee edged the closet door open, as slowly and quietly as she could, to let more light stream in. The lull of the man’s voice kept steady in the other room. Dee licked her finger, trying to pinpoint where the breeze was coming from. There— cool air seeped from a hairline crack in the middle of the wall. About three feet apart, another one. She ran her fingers along the shelf in front of her. All the shelves were dusty, except this one. She could feel a seam in the wood, where there shouldn’t have been, aligned perfectly with the line in the wall. Like a doorway. Dee couldn’t help the disbelieving grin that spread across her face. A secret doorway.

Dee knelt down, feeling around on the wooden floor. Dust, and thin scratches in a wide crescent, arcing to the wall. It should swing outwards, then. Dee grabbed the shelves and pulled, carefully, as quietly as she could. She could feel a little bit of give, saw the crack start to widen. She pulled again, putting all her weight into it. Something shifted in the wall. The muffled conversation next door stopped. Dee held her breath for what felt like years, until it picked back up again.

Slowly, so slowly, Dee managed to swing the door wider. It was heavy, and while her arms ached with every pull, now that it was free from the wall it moved almost silently. The door hid an opening of pale yellow crumbling rock, that widened out into a sort of small, hidden room. Dee hiked up her skirt, and slipped through. Cool air breathed against her skin. A few wooden crates, nailed shut, were stacked against one wall, and took up much of the space. A sort of makeshift bed was lumped against the other wall. In the dim light from the room, Dee could see the shadow of muddy boots on the floor, that led from the boxes to the back of the room, which narrowed into a passageway and led out and downwards, fading into darkness.

Dee pulled the door closed behind her. The meager light from the room vanished, and she was left in complete blackness. Dee felt her way forwards, scraping blindly forwards through the room until she found the passageway. With one hand on the wall, the rough rock slightly damp under her fingers, she went onwards. Her stumbling, shuffling steps echoed too loudly in the passage, almost as loud as her heartbeat. Dee walked for ages, the way sloping ever so slightly downwards, the heavy smell of mold and dirt filling her mouth as she went. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it any longer, certain she’d trapped herself in a dead end, she suddenly found herself stepping out into smoother stone and dirt, the night sky opening up above her. Her ears filled with the noise of flowing water.

She was on the lower banks of the river, close to the water. It used to be, before Prohibition, that the smell of yeast would hang over the water, floating on the breeze from the breweries and seeping into the city. But now there was just the thick scent of mud and machinery oil, and rotting weeds. The river was black, except where the moonlight draped over it, tangling in the currents. A few feet away, a dock and a boat, where two shadowy forms moved back and forth, hauling boxes.

“Careful, don’t drop ‘em. C’mon, that’s the last of it.”

Dee recognized the voice, and the tall, catlike silhouette.

“Eloise?” Dee’s voice snapped in the night like a twig. The figures dropped like cut puppets, disappearing. A long silence splayed out. Dee broke it again. “Eloise? It’s Dee.”

“Dee?” Eloise’s voice was a hiss, almost lost in the whisper of the water. “What are you doing here?”

“You’ve been missed.” Dee crept closer, till she was nearly at the start of the dock. There was the sound of leather against wet clay, and suddenly Eloise was beside her, latching onto Dee’s arm. Her blonde hair was hidden under a cap, and she was wearing pants tucked into tall mud boots.

“Shut up, you’re too loud. Missed by who?”

“By me,” Dee said. “And some fella named Robbie.”

A sharp intake of breath, Eloise’s nails digging in through Dee’s coat. “Playing detective Dee, hm? How much did he pay you?”

“Does it matter?” Dee asked weakly.

“I guess it doesn’t.” Eloise let go abruptly. “What now, going to get Robbie running over here so he can get his goods? We’ll be well away by time time he gets here. Besides, you’re not the kind to turn in a friend, Dee.”

“I could lie, and say I couldn’t find you.”

Eloise bit out a low laugh. “And when he finds out? Good luck paying his money back with interest,” she scoffed.

“Sounds like you got me into a pickle, El.”

“Sounds like you got yourself into one, Detective Dee.” Eloise’s smile was knife sharp under the moon.

“But if you don’t like your options— you can come with us. If you’re not above running rum.”
A heavy click echoed through the night— The snap of a pistol hammer cocking back. Eloise’s eyes slid from Dee’s face to just over her shoulder. A look of stone settled over her face, marble in the moonlight, as she backed up fast, back towards the boat.

Dee turned, just as Robbie and two other men stepped out of the cave. One of them was the man in the office. The other she faintly recognized as the one smoking outside the tailor’s shop.

“Stop moving, Miss Martin.” Robbie’s voice scraped like steel against a stone, cold and full of danger. He stopped at Dee’s side, tilted his head at her. Specks of mud marred the polished leather of his shoes.

“Good job, kid. You’re not a half-bad detective. Couldn’t’ve done it without you.” His face was shrouded in shadow by the wide brim of his hat, but a pinprick of moonlight danced in the dark of his eyes. Dee could hear the smirk in his voice. “We might be good for each other, if you’re looking for work.”

“Leave her out of this, Robbie.” Eloise’s voice bit through the night where she stood, unmoving, at the end of the dock, still away from the boat.

Robbie’s voice curled like a venomous snake as he looked towards Eloise. “You made her part of this when you made off with the other half of my goods, Miss Martin.”

“They’re not your goods,” Eloise sneered. “Not until they’re paid in full. Offer me more next time, and maybe you’ll make it back on my list.”

“Back on your list—we had a deal,” Robbie growled.

Eloise scoffed, but to Dee’s ears it sounded thin and papery. “And I found a better one. Times are tough. You’ll have to make do with what you’ve got. Everyone else is.”

A humorless laugh fell from Robbie’s mouth to lodge in the riverbank. “You should know it doesn’t work like that. Other people have already paid for their deliveries, and they’re not customers I intend to get on the wrong side of.” He stepped forward two paces, his shoes clicking on the wood of the dock, and slid the pistol from his coat. “Now if you’ll step aside, I’m here for what I promised.” He leveled the gun.

Dee leapt. Robbie staggered as her full weight slammed into him, knocking his aim wide. Out of the corner of her eye, Dee saw Eloise, standing stock still.

“Eloise, go!” Dee shrieked, scrabbling to keep hold of the back of Robbie’s coat. The world spun as Robbie tried to dislodge her.

“Get off,” Robbie snarled. Moonlight sparked off the gun in his hand as he whirled. She clung to his back, buffeted by the glancing blows from his arms. Dee’s shoes scraped the ground. Her weight was dragging him down. She had to give Eloise time to get to the boat. Dee couldn’t see if she had made it. She held on tighter. “Someone get her!” The two men hesitated, guns in their hands, but unsure of where to aim. The one with blue trousers grasped uncertainly towards Dee, wrenching at her shoulder. She kicked out, and the grip slacked and vanished with a groan.

The other man picked a different target- the boat. Two loud cracks shattered the night. Dee heard a short, muffled cry through the ringing in her ears, and a soft splash. Out of the blur of the world she could see— the boat was moving, slowly drifting from the bank. Where was Eloise? Impossible to tell.
Robbie made a raspy, choking sound as Dee’s arms tightened over his windpipe. His arms flailed. Then stars erupted white across Dee’s vision as Robbie’s gun came down against her skull once, then again. Her grip loosened. Robbie bucked under her, and then she was thrown free, half-dazed. Her foot met the edge of the dock for one steadying second before it slid off. She kept falling.

Dee had a second to gasp as she hit the water, and then she was under. Sharp grit scratched at her eyes and filled her nose. Her shoes brushed the sucking mud of the river-bottom, pulling her down. Blind, she struggled upwards— or what she thought was up: the river was darker than the night sky. Sour, foul-tasting water flooded into her mouth, and she choked on mud and panic. All of a sudden, she broke the surface, and she was choking on air. Coughing, lungs burning, she struggled to stay afloat, weighed down by sodden clothes. Still half-blind, she spotted the looming shape of Eloise’s boat ahead of her. Dee paddled towards it, trying to keep sight of its silhouette against the sky. But already her arms were getting tired. One of the men — who, she wasn’t sure— was shouting, but Dee could only hear the shape of his words. A loud splash broke the violent muttering of the river as it pulled her along. The moonlight snagged on the edge of the boat. She could almost touch it. Almost.

A pale arm slithered over the side, reaching for her. “Dee!” Eloise hollered, her voice nearly drowned by the river-rush. “Grab my hand!” Dee grasped for her desperately. Eloise caught her arm, slippery with mud and water, and pulled. Dee flung her other arm to the edge of the boat, latching on. The boat rocked with her weight. Eloise yanked at Dee, rolling with the momentum to leverage her over the side. Dee tumbled in.

She landed hard. She lay on the floor in a puddle of water, panting and in pain, trying to get her bearings. The boat wasn’t much more than a rower, excepting a motor tacked onto one end and a covering that could pass as a pilothouse. Wooden boxes were packed into every available space, loosely covered by tarps. A young man— maybe a little older than Dee, with wild dark hair—crouched inside the pilothouse, clutching his shoulder and watching her with a confused and slightly shocked expression. A line of bright red blood was seeping through his shirtsleeve.

Eloise crawled across the boat to hunch beside her. “Alright, Dee?” She grimaced, but there was an edge of a true smile inside it.

“He’s been shot,” Dee said, staring at the man, her voice stupid in her ears.

“Just a graze, he’ll be fine. Stay where they can’t see you. Bill, where’s your gun?”

“Dropped it in the water,” the young man groaned, miserable. Eloise swore. A shot rang out from the bank, then another and another. The bullets whizzed wide, well over their heads and to the side as they crouched in the bottom of the boat. There came a wooden scrape, and a shuddering as a log scrabbled against the hull. The current started turning them back towards the bank.

Eloise scrambled to the end of the boat, trying to stay low. “They’re too far to hit us, I think. We’ve got to get the motor running.” She shoved a paddle towards Dee. “Just push off those logs—”
Dee knelt up with the paddle, just as the boat lurched violently to the right, knocking her off balance. A pair of hands latched on to the side. Robbie, soaked through, clung on.

“Give it up, Martin,” he gasped, with a furious shake of his head. His wide hat had been lost in the river, and his dark hair stuck to his forehead like weeds. His eyes met Dee’s, burning. “You,” he spit. “You’ll—”

Dee didn’t wait to hear the rest. She brought the paddle down on his hands as hard as she could. A crack of wood against knuckle, and a howl of fury and pain from Robbie. The boat lurched sideways as he tried to keep hold of it, the white of his hands clutching like a dead man’s. The boat tilted precariously, the occupants with it. Boxes bumped each other as they slid to one side. The engine guttered as it struggled to start, half out of the water. Dee struck again, twice, panicked. Robbie’s fingers slipped from the edge of the boat. He disappeared into the dark churn of the water with a shriek just as boat righted itself, and the engine roared to life. Eloise gave a triumphant whoop as the boat jolted forwards. The current ripped the paddle from Dee’s hands as she toppled back down to the bottom of the boat. They flew along, sped by the current, away from the city and the men with guns, down the river.

It was a while before they talked. Eloise kept by the motor. Dee sat on a box beside her, wrapped in Eloise’s coat, still muddy and damp from her dip in the water but drying quickly. Bill, curled in the pilothouse, slept. Dee spoke quietly to Eloise, so as not to wake him.

“Don’t you think you owe me an explanation, El?”

Eloise laughed, soft and silvery. “You’re the detective. Why don’t you explain it to me, and I’ll tell you if you’ve gone wrong.”

Dee was silent for a long time, gathering all the threads in her mind together so they wouldn’t drift off with her exhaustion. “Robbie isn’t the only one you deliver to. That shop on Market Street, the lady there said there were others. Mr. Parker must be one, too. You found someone that wanted in on your deliveries, but you didn’t have any more goods to spare. But the pay was better, so you decided to drop Robbie, and give his booze to your new guy. But Robbie’s already promised it to somebody. He figured if he could find you, he could find his goods. And I led him right to you.”

“See, you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.” Eloise smiled, star-bright.

Dee shivered in the wind, pulling the coat tighter around herself. “How’d you know about the tunnel under the factory?”

“Found it when I was headed back up here one morning. It’s good and hidden from the bank. Once I figured out what was over it, all I had to do was find a way in.”

“Is that why you made friends with me?”

“Gee, you’re full of questions.” Eloise pulled her misshapen cap off, letting her hair fall limply past her jaw. Under the moonlight, her eyes were a pale green. “No. Well. I mean, it felt a bit like fate, don’t you think? Here I was, trying to figure out a way into the building that wouldn’t get me caught, and then there you were, just chit-chatting away about your little job in your little office. You told me you could put in a word with Mr. Parker if I ever needed a spot, and I knew exactly who to go to. He wasn’t one to say no to an extra salary.”

Dee felt her face get warm. “And I guess you just stuck with me for a laugh, huh?”

“Oh, Dee, don’t take it the wrong way.” Eloise gave a noisy sigh, and Bill shifted in his sleep. She waited for him to settle before finishing her thought. “I’d have dropped you long ago if I didn’t really like you.”
“The same way you dropped Robbie?”

Eloise laughed again, quietly, but with little humor. “I dropped Robbie because he likes to act as though he’s the best-paying customer I have. Has to be the cleverest person in the room, or he throws a fit. Now I don’t mean to blow my own horn, but he’s not the only clever one around here.”

“How’d Robbie know we were friends anyways?”

Eloise shrugged. “Sure, I probably mentioned you once or twice. A few times.” She pressed her thin lips together. “I guess I didn’t think things would end up like this. He wasn’t a bad sort at the start.” She glanced at Dee, then back out to the water. “I should’ve told you what I was up to. Didn’t want to scare you away.”

“You can’t go back now, can you?” Dee asked, though she already knew the answer, a sinking feeling already settling in her stomach. It was not as crushing a blow as she thought it would be. The thrill of the adventure, though fading, was still buoying her, mixed with a dull sort of anger at Eloise, and at herself.

“Maybe after a while.” Eloise shifted, tilting the rudder to keep them on course. “Things will die down eventually. What were you going to do with Robbie’s payment, anyways?”

“None of your business,” Dee glowered, or tried to.

Eloise grinned wide. “Don’t tell me you were really going to be a detective.”

“Shut up. It was stupid anyways.”

“You can still do it, you know.”

“With what money, El?”

“With my money. Help me out, and we can split the profits.”

“Oh, sure, if you don’t get me killed first.” Dee hated how cross she sounded. Hadn’t she wanted adventure? Well now she had it, and there wasn’t any turning back. She should be over the moon, or full of remorse. But all she felt was a curious emptiness, like a shedding of weight, a space to be filled. The options spooled out before her like loose thread.

Eloise reached over, grabbing Dee’s cold hands in her own warm ones. Her green eyes caught Dee’s own. “Dee Howard, I promise you, we’ll make so much cash, you can send home twice what you made at that factory and still have enough to have your little detective business. Anything you want, we can get, if we stick together. We could take on the world.”

There was something about Eloise, something about the light in her eyes, the depth of earnestness, that hurt to look at. Dee looked away, out at the river rolling by, and watched the moon trace silver whorls in the water. Eloise turned back to the motor, but kept one soft hand on Dee’s. “If you want to go home, you can. I’ll pay your ticket back and everything. But I’ve been making it on my own a while, and I know you don’t want to waste your whole life sitting over a typewriter.” Eloise said softly. “It might be nice to have the company. We’ll be in New Orleans by the end of the week. A good place to wait for this thing,” she gestured vaguely towards what they’d left behind, “to settle down a bit. You don’t have to pick right away. Think it over. You can tell me once we catch the car at Sainte Gen. We’ve got a delivery at dawn.”

“Sure,” Dee said, watching her old life disappear down river, the new one forming on the horizon.

This story is loosely set in 1930 in St. Louis. Many of the city’s breweries had access to underground caves, used for storing beer. The Lemp Brewery Complex is one of them. During Prohibition, the Lemp Brewery went out of business, and was bought by the International Shoe Company. Today much of that original building is in ruins, like many old historic buildings in St. Louis. The parts that aren’t crumbling are home to ghost tours, though there is an excellent newer brewery right across the street. While I don’t believe the caves under Lemp lead near the river, and I have no proof that bootleggers were using those caves to store illicit alcohol… I just couldn’t let go of the idea or the characters.

This is the first non-novel (don’t ask which one) related project I’ve worked on in a while, though of course the characters are clamoring for a wider world and some breathing room. Therefore it gets put out into the world for you to read. Dee and Eloise have adventures still in store– their next one takes them to a dance hall in the heart of New Orleans, just a few months before Prohibition comes to an end. When Dee begins to investigate the mysterious death of the dance hall’s owner, what seems to be an open-and-shut case spirals into something much more dangerous– putting Dee on a collision course with a grizzled Police Detective. As bodies start piling up– will Dee be able to solve the case that threatens everything she holds dear?

….We’ll find out when I finish writing it.