Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, in “The Blind Tiger”
Nova Loncastre, 1924
Within the clandestine confines of “The Blind Tiger,” the air hung heavy with the illicit perfume of bootlegged whiskey and the rich aroma of cigar smoke. Inside, Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, drank while feeling at peace.
Who is Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator? Picture your quintessential 1920s noir detective—drinks and smokes too much but is the best at solving the case. His life goes like this: Drinking, investigating, and solving. Rinse and repeat. After solving Dunsmuir’s murder, he’s currently enjoying the “drinking” phase. Where can you read “Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, in ‘The Spirits of the Woods’” and all his past exploits? In my newsletter (GiovaniCesconetto.Substack.com). But wait, there’s an unexpected twist to this old tale! Me! The omniscient narrator! Since we’re on the same page, we can start this tale.
Mickey “The Tiger” O’Sullivan, owner and bootlegger of “The Blind Tiger,” shattered the tranquillity of the scene upon his arrival. Seating casually beside Harvey, O’Sullivan joked, “Harvey, my most loyal client! Are you here to arrest me?” His voice cut through the haze like a razor’s edge.
Harvey, in a silent response, lifted his half-empty glass.
Harvey won’t ever be a “half-full” type of person.
O’Sullivan’s lips curled into a smile. “I know, I know,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp that echoed with the weight of unspoken truths. “But tell me, Harvey, what compels a man who prefers drinking alone to linger here?”
Behind O’Sullivan, Frankie “The Rat” Rossi, the bootlegger’s stalwart enforcer, surveyed the room with the keen-eyed vigilance of a predator stalking its prey. But in this den of vice and deception, where loyalty was the only currency worth its weight in gold, the notion of danger seemed as absurd as a nun in a gin joint.
“Come, I have a proposition for you,” O’Sullivan declared, rising from his seat with the grace of a tiger ready to pounce. His voice echoed with the authority of a king addressing his court.
“I’m in my drinking phase.”
O’Sullivan, trailed by Frankie, without breaking his stride, said, “Your ‘drinking phase’ always ends with a new case, which I’m offering you,” his words, smooth as silk yet tinged with a hint of steel. “Or, I could end it by cutting your supply.”
With a smile, Harvey raised his glass in silent acknowledgment before downing the amber liquid in a defiant gulp. Leaving behind the remnants of his libation, he rose with purpose.
The trio navigated the labyrinthine depths of the speakeasy, traversing its shadowy corridors and secret passageways with the ease of seasoned navigators charting familiar waters. They ventured into the heart of darkness and got to O’Sullivan’s office.
O’Sullivan sat behind his mahogany desk like a monarch on his throne, radiating power and authority. His surroundings, a veritable shrine to his magnificence, constantly reminded him of his dominance over this clandestine kingdom of shadows and whispers. The room was opulent but filled with a strange, yet familiar, odour.
His desk is even better than Harvey’s, which says a lot. You don’t remember Harvey’s desk? Read his first adventure, “Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator.”
As Harvey and Frankie stood, the heavy oak door clicked shut behind them, sealing their fate within the gilded cage of O’Sullivan’s empire.
A small bar with only an empty crystal decanter stood in one corner. At its side stood Veronica “Vixen” O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan commanded her to speak without so much as a glance in her direction.
“Your favourite,” Veronica began, her voice tinged with the slightest hint of fear as she presented the decanter in her trembling hand, “It’s over.”
O’Sullivan turned his gaze to his wife, his expression a mask of disbelief. “Frankie, round up everyone tomorrow,” he commanded. “I replaced this bottle today. Someone is stealing from me. And that, I cannot abide.”
With a forced smile, he reassured Veronica, though her unease remained palpable. “Thank you, darling. You’ve done nothing wrong,” his words rang hollow in the silence that followed.
Turning his attention back to Harvey, O’Sullivan pressed a button on his desk, and the click of the speaker echoed through the room. “Bring me another bottle,” he ordered.
“What do you want?” Harvey inquired.
“As you can see, Harvey,” O’Sullivan’s voice cut through the thick air of the office, “I’m facing a bit of a loyalty conundrum. While I can handle the immediate predicament, deeper troubles are brewing, and I aim to keep my hands as clean as a choirboy’s conscience.”
“What sort of troubles?” Harvey asked.
“The rodent kind,” O’Sullivan replied with a hint of menace lurking beneath his words.
Harvey shot a wary glance at Frankie. “Not a Rat problem,” O’Sullivan muttered. He leaned back in his chair, a predatory glint in his eyes as he recounted a tale from his family’s lore. “You see, my grandpa had a saying,” he began, his voice gravelly. “When faced with a rat infestation, you don’t bother with poisons. No, you trap them and let them stew in their filth until they turn on each other like a pack of rabid dogs. And when only one remains, you release it into the wild, a solitary beast with a taste for its kind. But, as it turns out,” O’Sullivan fixed his gaze on Harvey with an intensity that sent shivers down his spine, “my grandpa’s solution had a flaw. The lone survivor may devour his kin but won’t touch anything else. And that’s where you come in, Harvey.”
A sharp rap at the door shattered the tense atmosphere. O’Sullivan pressed another button in his table and nodded to Frankie, who swung the door open, revealing a waitress bearing an open bottle on a silver platter.
“About time,” O’Sullivan growled, his voice dripping with impatience. Frankie closed the door behind her, sealing the room once more.
As the waitress calmly placed the bottle on O’Sullivan’s desk, the crack of a gunshot filled the room. Harvey lunged for the door while Frankie rushed to his boss’s side. At the same time, O’Sullivan bolted for the window overlooking the speakeasy below. And in a desperate bid for safety, Veronica sought refuge beneath the table. The waitress, her eyes wide with terror, threw herself to the ground.
“What was that?” O’Sullivan’s voice sliced through the tension like a switchblade through silk.
“I’ll get to the bottom of it,” Frankie replied.
“No, you stay put. You,” O’Sullivan’s steely gaze fixed on Harvey, “ain’t it your job to sniff out trouble? Start sniffing!”
Harvey hesitated, the allure of a mystery tugging at his senses like a siren’s call. With a reluctant nod, he bolted down the stairs as soon as O’Sullivan pressed the button to unlock the door.
But there was no enigma to unravel. A simple dispute at the poker table had spiralled into a deadly confrontation, leaving two souls bound for the morgue. One lay dead from a gunshot wound; the other was halfway there, battered beyond recognition as a grim warning to any who dared cross the line at “The Blind Tiger.” Disheartened, Harvey trudged back to the office.
Do you think Harvey not trying to save the person is out of character? If so, wait for the end of the story!
Upon his return, a macabre scene awaited him. O’Sullivan was on the floor with blood dribbling from his lips, while at his side, crimson rivulets also stained the waitress’s pallid lips. She was alive, he wasn’t.
“Poison. From the bottle,” Frankie’s voice was as stern as tempered steel, his eyes gleaming with a feral intensity. “That’s why it took her so long. She took a little detour to poison the bottle. She and her cronies did him in. But I’ll have their names. Unfortunately, it looks like you arrived too late, Harvey,” Frankie’s words were like a scythe through the wheat, his new authority unchallenged in the wake of tragedy.
As Harvey surveyed the room, his gaze lingered on Frankie, then on the trembling waitress, and on the floor, where he saw a bleeding tongue. Something was amiss, something that didn’t quite add up. And as he mulled over the details, a realization dawned on him like the first light of daybreak.
“You know, it’s a curious thing,” Harvey spoke, his voice a low rumble that echoed through the room like distant thunder. “She’s about to off one of the biggest, worst wolves in this city, yet she waltzes in here like she’s on a Sunday stroll—no trace of drops on the plate, no spillage on the floor. And ain’t it a coincidence? A gun appears out of thin air, a shot rings out, and suddenly, we get ourselves a double funeral. I ain’t saying O’Sullivan didn’t have enemies, but enemies brave enough to stare death in the face? I can count them on one hand.”
Frankie’s brow glistened with nervous sweat, his composure cracking like old plaster under pressure.
“And worse,” Harvey’s voice cut through the thick air, his words heavy with implication, “the widow flees the scene without a backward glance. Now, ain’t that peculiar? Her old man breathes his last, and she high-tails it out of here quicker than a rabbit from a hound. Don’t you find that... curious? Especially when the prime suspect’s sitting right under our noses, ripe for the picking.”
“What’re you getting at?” Frankie’s voice was a low growl, his fists clenched in readiness for a brawl.
“Me? Nothing much,” Harvey mused, his steps measured as he prowled the room like a hungry panther. “Just pondering out loud.” Halting in his tracks, Harvey fixed Frankie with a steely gaze. “If I were a fanciful sort, I might conjure a tale where you and the missus cooked this whole caper together. O’Sullivan taught you to feast on rats, but you got a taste for all meat. So you’ve been nibbling away at his empire, making him itchier than a flea-bitten hound. You clouded his vision, stirred his rage, and plotted his demise in the shadows. But you couldn’t do it alone—enter the spurned wife, holding the key to his heart and secrets. The only soul with the run of this joint and the know-how to slip the poison past the sentries. And the only one who could get close enough to the desk to slip it into the open bottle. If I were drunk, I would’ve recognized the smell of recently thrown-away liquor. Funny how a sober mind can overlook what a drunk one sniffs out without a second thought, eh?”
Frankie’s gaze narrowed, his knuckles whitening with tension. “And what’re you planning to do with all this?” He spat, his voice a dangerous whisper, poised on the edge of violence.
“I’ll be taking a little stroll downstairs,” Harvey announced. “Fetching myself a few free souvenirs. And then, I’ll be back for another round, and another, and another. Keep me drunk, and I won’t say a word.”
The waitress’s, the scapegoat’s, sobs echoed through the room, her desperation palpable as she reached out for Harvey’s fleeing form. But Frankie was quicker than a snake’s strike, his boot finding its mark with a brutal kick, spiralling her into unconsciousness.
Downstairs, Harvey liberated bottles from their dusty confines with the precision of a surgeon. Frankie’s silent signal granted him passage, an acknowledgment of their truce.
“Ain’t it a sight,” he mused, popping the cork from a liberated bottle, “to be the only soul to walk through their doors without dropping a dime and live to tell the tale.”
Is it a character assassination making Harvey care more for him than for the victims? I struggled with that myself, but then I got an idea that... Well, you know what? You’ll have to wait for the next chapter to uncover my thinking.
With a nod to the night, Harvey embarked on his timeless routine.
Drinking, investigating, and solving.
Rinse and repeat.