A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4) by Robert Bruce Stewart

He leapt up on the bar, whooping and howling, picking nits, etc. Unable to compete, the fellow at the piano began playing accompaniment.
    I can’t say I was surprised. I’d been exposed to Thibaut’s genius on board the steamship L’Aquitaine . I remember one episode in particular. Each evening after dinner, I’d bring Thibaut a bottle of wine. That was key to my ruse of keeping him distracted. On this occasion, I found him with a bag of mail he’d taken from the hold. He was opening letters and reading them as a way to while away the hours he spent alone. As soon as I provided him an audience, however, he began performing them. Solely through gesture, he revealed the emotional core of each. There was love requited, love unrequited, love forbidden, love betrayed, and a lost puppy in Marseille. A lot of tears were shed that night.
    But let us leave that moving scene and return to the story at hand. With the time now ripe, I went upstairs and began looking around for where the White Rats might be assembled. There was a roulette wheel running and several tables of rouge-et-noir. And off of this main room, smaller ones where fellows were playing poker. I popped into one and then another, and in the third found three fellows not doing much of anything.
    “Private party,” one told me curtly.
    “Excuse me, I was looking for a friend.”
    “Do you see him?”
    “No, but perhaps you know him. Ernie Joy.”
    The three of them gave me hard looks. Well, two of them did. The third made a little stage laugh. But at least I knew I was in the right room.
    “What’s your game, fella?”
    “I’m looking into Mr. Joy’s death.”
    “For who?”
    “Jimmy Yuan, the owner of the establishment where he was shot.”
    I then had to go into a rather lengthy explanation of Yuan’s business and what had happened the night before. Meanwhile, several additional members arrived and it was necessary to begin all over again. The story didn’t sound any less ludicrous on the second telling.
    “What is it you want to know?”
    “Well, Joy’s death was either the result of an improbable set of coincidences or it was intentional. In which case it had to have an intricate plan behind it. And a motive that required the killer to be beyond suspicion. This was no simple murder, whatever it was.”
    “So what do you want from us?”
    “Was Ernie Joy’s life endangered by his association with the White Rats?”
    “You mean, would the syndicate have him killed to keep him from joining?”
    “They’d just blackball him,” another fellow interjected.
    “Well, if the purpose behind blackballing him was intimidation of others, wouldn’t killing him be even more effective?”
    “Why Ernie? He hadn’t even signed on.”
    “But he was thinking seriously about it, wasn’t he?”
    “Maybe. But there’re others who’ve been in since the beginning.”
    Then one of the late-comers piped up.
    “Why the hell are you telling him all this? Who is he? Do any of you know him?”
    “Maybe he’s on the level, Cliff.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe he was sent here by the same people who had Ernie shot. If you’re on the level, tell us what Ernie was really doing in that warehouse.”
    “I told you what I know.”
    “That Ernie went on a midnight tour of a make-believe Chinatown? And you idiots believe that? He’s a damn spy. You know what they did with spies at Homestead? Slit their throats and threw them into the Allegheny.”
    “Monongahela,” I corrected.
    “What?”
    “The great battle at Homestead. It was on the Monongahela, not the Allegheny.”
    “It’s the Ohio that flows through Pittsburgh,” another fellow interjected.
    “The Ohio flows out of Pittsburgh,” I corrected. “The Monongahela and the Allegheny flow into the city.”
    “How the hell does that make any sense?”
    “The Monongahela and the Allegheny are tributaries of the Ohio, which originates in Pittsburgh,” I explained. Or tried to. I suppose I should have known