Eddie Bruce

The sign on the door says Bruce. That’s me. Eddie Bruce. Private eye.

The city never slept. If you ask me if could use a good nap, but then no one ever came to me for advice.

I’ve never been one to take advice either, so maybe that’s a good thing.

The sign on the door says Bruce. That’s me. Eddie Bruce. Private eye.

The door swung open with a squeak. I asked my secretary to fix that twelve days ago.

She went on permanent leave shortly after on account of not being paid.

Times were hard.

Smoke billowed into the office first, followed by a pair of legs too rich for this part of town. Those heels. One could pay my rent for a month, the other could get my secretary back.

The legs and the heels belonged to Imogene Stratmore, uptown socialite. Comes from old money.

“Your door makes a noise,” she said. “You should get that fixed.”

“I’ll add it to my list,” I replied.

She glanced at the empty secretary’s desk which was starting to gather dust.

“That must be some list.”

She put her cigarette out in the ashtray on the empty desk and stepped closer.

I motioned towards the seat across my desk.

She sat and pulled a fresh cigarette from a gold case, holding it out expectantly.

I offered a light.

“How can I help you today?” I asked.

“My husband is cheating on me.”

She didn’t mince words.

Why anyone would cheat on Imogene Stratmore was anybody’s guess.

My job wasn’t to ask why.

It was to catch the bastard.

His name was James. Everyone who knew him called him Jimmy. He grew up in wealth, and he married Imogene just in time to stay that way. One week after the wedding his family’s fortune vanished in the Great Crash. Without her he’d be in a bread line with the rest of ‘em.

Imogene said he’d been spending an unusual amount of time lately at 1342 Coppin Street, which is the address of the old Oglethorpe Hotel. Like the rest of this town, it fell on hard times. Once a haven for the social elite, the Oglethorpe Hotel had become the city’s most infamous brothel.

The Oglethorpe wasn’t my kind of place. I liked a good time as much as the next guy, but on my budget a pack of smokes and a bottle of cheap bourbon was about as much “fun” as I could afford.

The hundred dollars up front for taking the case was the only reason I could show my face in there.

I took a seat at the bar and ordered a double. When the bartender came back with my drink I asked about Jimmy.

He shrugged his shoulders, so I slipped him a tip.

“Oh yeah. Now I remember.”

“Funny how money does that.”

The bartender said he was a preferred client and only ever went to the private room upstairs.

“Well how do I get up there?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

I downed my drink and stood up.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said.

“Any time,” he said with a sly smile, wiping the counter with a towel.

I looked around the room. In the corner, sitting alone was a blonde. She had on the dress and the makeup, but her face said she wished she was somewhere else.

I couldn’t blame her. I wanted the same.

There was an unlit cigarette in her hand. She held it up the moment I sat down.

“Gotta light?”

She took one drag to light it, but not another toke after.

“Not much of a smoker.”

“Disgusting habit,” she said through a thick southern drawl.

“Then why the cigarette?”

“It’s what’s expected,” she said.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” I asked.

“Biloxi.”

“Mississippi?

“You know it?”

She sounded surprised.

“Had a buddy in my unit back in the war. Charlie O’Keefe? Know him?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“I don’t anymore either. He’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

She put out the cigarette, then looked me up and down, probably guessing the size of my wallet.

“So, you here for a good time? What’ll it be?”

I waved my hands.

“No, no. Nothing like that. I’m looking for someone. A man.”

“That ain’t what we do here, although I hear there’s a place over on eighth that might…”

“It’s not like that, okay. I’m on a case. Wife says her husband’s been here a lot lately.”

“We get a lot of husbands,” she said. “They’re our best customers.”

“What’s your name, doll?”

“Candy. Short for Candice. What’s yours?”

“Everyone calls me Bruce. Eddie Bruce.”

“Well, Candice, his name is James Stratmore. Know the guy?”

I reached into my pocket, ready to pull out another five for answers. Hopefully she would be more help than that greedy bartender was.

“Yeah. I know the guy. Fancy bigwig always going upstairs. I ain’t never seen him with no girls though, and believe me, they’re trying.”

“No girls you say? Then what’s he up to?”

“Search me? I seen ‘im go up there with some big ticket clients though.”

Candice stopped. She looked worried, then said, “I think maybe I said too much. I ain’t want no trouble.”

I pulled out the fiver and slipped it across the table.

She picked up the money and stashed it in a place I was embarrassed to look.

I looked anyway.

She stood up, then took my hand and pulled me to a small room on the second floor.

Candice locked the door behind her and told me to sit.

“I don’t know what you got yourself into, but it’s bigger than you think.”

I met with Candice a few days later for coffee.

I hardly recognized her outside of the hotel. She looked young and out of place in the city, wearing a blue gingham dress with her hair down around her shoulders.

Jimmy had been to the private suite on the top floor of the Oglethorpe with some of the biggest names in the city. Judges, cops, businessmen, local politicians, and at least one member of the clergy.

“He ain’t cheatin’, but he’s doin’ something,” she said.

“They call it the penthouse. I been up there twice when Jimmy was there. He smoked and drank and played cards, but he ain’t never had a girl on his arm.”

Candice added, “I even tried and he just shooed me away.”

I met with Mrs. Stratmore in my office the next day.

She wore a necklace that was probably worth more than the building, possibly the whole block.

“I see you haven’t fixed the door yet.”

“My list got bigger.”

She was not pleased when I told her I hadn’t found another woman.

Rather than give up, Imogene doubled down, offering more money.

“You catch him and whatever trashy harlot he’s with!”

Despite the money, I felt sorry for her. Even if it wasn’t cheating, her husband was doing something behind her back.

Candice watched the Oglethorpe.

She was more than happy to do it too. She wanted out somehow. She hadn’t said it, but I could tell.

If Jimmy got up to anything, she would give me a ring.

I went after some of those “big ticket” clients to see if I could squeeze something from one of them. They were tight-lipped, the whole lot of them. Every one of them told me to either scram, to get lost, or to mind my own business. One of them though, the clergyman, said something interesting when I met him in front of a particularly pious looking parishioner.

“Leave it alone, or you’ll ruin everything,” he said.

So, they were up to something.

But what?

I met Candice for coffee again.

“Now that you mention it, they are up to… somethin’.”

“Any idea what?”

“Search if I know. I don’t usually get close enough. I did hear a few of ‘em say “gin” though, and they wasn’t talkin’ about the drinks in their hands.”

“Gin? Why would a bunch of fat cats care about gin?”

I sipped my coffee.

Candice sipped hers.

She was pretty in a simple, southern sort of country way when she wasn’t at the Oglethorpe. I didn’t say anything, but she caught me staring.

“How come you don’t call me Candy like everybody else? Ain’t I sweet enough?”

I put a hand on hers and looked in her eyes.

“You’re plenty sweet, doll. Sweeter even than some penny candy, but calling you that doesn’t seem right. You… you’re better than all that.”

She squeezed my hand and for a moment the world seemed to stop.

A moment.

Then she stood up and said she needed to get back.

“I’ll call you.”

She lingered at the door long enough to make me think she was going to say something, but not long enough to actually say it.

That night, I propped my feet on the desk and thought about Candice.

Maybe a girl like her and a guy like me co…

The phone rang.

I picked it up in an instant, thinking it was her.

It wasn’t.

“He’s here. He’s here. You’ve got to help me!”

It was Imogene Stratmore.

“Whoa. Whoa. Slow down, Mrs. Stratmore. Who’s there? What’s happening?”

“Help me! Please! He’s crazy!”

Then the line went dead.

The Stratmores lived in the penthouse suite atop the Foxglove Hotel, the most exclusive and expensive address in town.

I had some trouble with the elevator operator so I punched him out and figured out how to get up there on my own.

I had to hurry.

When the elevator door opened, Jimmy Stratmore was shaking Imogene by the shoulders.

She screamed for help.

I ran in and punched Jimmy right in the jaw. He fell to the ground, but got up and came after me.

Arms swung.

I got in a few good hits.

He got more in.

Finally, my old army training kicked in and I was able to push Jimmy to the floor.

He stood up. Just as he took his first step back towards me… BAM!

Standing behind him was Imogene Stratmore with a pistol.

I rushed to him. I had wanted to kick his teeth in, but I didn’t want the guy dead.

Coughing up blood, he sputtered, “you… have to… stop…her….”

He pulled a black book from his coat pocket.

“Here… is her… b… cough cough… book.”

I took the book. It opened to a page with the mayor’s name on it.

“It’s all…. In… th… there…”

Jimmy died with his head in my hands.

I looked up at Imogene.

The gun was pointed at me now.

“I don’t want to kill you Mr. Bruce, but I won’t hesitate. Now why don’t you just hand over that book.”

The pearl handled pistol in her silk gloved hand showed me that she meant business.

I set Jimmy’s head down on the floor, then opened the book to the front page. Despite the gun, curiosity got the better of me. Hopefully it wouldn’t get me killed.

1342 Coppin

Coppin Street?

I stood up and flipped to another page in the book. The precinct captain.

Then another page. The president of Winthrope Industries.

Another page. Deacon Merriweather.

They were all “big ticket” clients that Jimmy had met with.

There were dates and times beneath each name, plus other details, the kinds of details that would make a God-fearing man blush. I read them anyway.

“You… you knew… you…”

Keeping the gun on me, Imogene explained everything.

“Of course I knew. Who do you think OWNS the Oglethorpe? Who do you think all those girls work for?”

She pulled out a cigarette, but this time lit it herself. The lighter had “GIN” engraved on it.

Imogene caught me looking.

“Oh that. Yes. Growing up, daddy called my Ginny, but these days everyone calls me Gin.”

It was all starting to make sense.

“It was all about this, wasn’t it? They wanted the book.”

Gin smiled, “go on.” I could tell she enjoyed watching me figure it out.

“Because… you were a threat. You had information that could ruin every one of them.”

She nodded.

“But why bring me into this?”

Gin took a long drag from her cigarette.

“I needed a trustworthy witness. Having them all in my pocket is one thing, but I needed to at least make James’ death seem like self-defense. You, my friend, are going to be paid very handsomely for telling the police that James came at me and would have killed me if I hadn’t shot first.”

“All this just to make me a stooge? Why not ask one of your girls to do it?”

“Oh Mr. Bruce. Who on earth would ever believe them? You know as well as I do that the word of a woman counts as nothing in this town and their word even less. But you, you’re trusted, respected… okay, well maybe not respected, but you’re a man.”

Imogene Stratmore would not face trial. The killing of her husband James was ruled as self-defense. Statements were made by the investigating detective, the chief of police and even the mayor.

She was front page news not only locally, but across the nation. The grieving widow had the nation’s sympathy.

There were two people who knew better.

Candice and I kept our mouths shut.

We met at our coffee shop. They served breakfast.

I had scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. It was terrible.

Candice had a slice of peach pie. She said it reminded her of home.

She wore the same gingham dress.

“It suits you,” I told her.

She blushed.

“I… I have something for you.”

Candice, opened her eyes wide.

“You didn’t have to, but what did you get me?”

Her smile was real and pure. She was too good for this place. Too good for him. Just too good, but…

In one pocket there was a diamond ring.

In the other pocket there was a single, one-way bus ticket to Biloxi and an envelope full of cash.