“On the Upper East Side, Eighty-Ninth Street.”
A Yellow cab, driven by a dour hackie who muttered about the mayor’s many faults, got us to our destination ten minutes early. The building, an unadorned four-story brick number with a currently unoccupied playground on one side, was separated by high metal fencing from the noisy FDR Drive, and just beyond it, the gray waters of the East River.
In the small entry hall, a white-haired receptionist behind a window with a sliding panel recognized Lily and gave her a dimpled grin. “Hello, Miss Rowan, it is so nice to see you again. Mrs. Ferris is expecting you; I will buzz her.”
“Thank you so much, Doris. It is good to see you again, as well. I hope your husband has recovered from his back troubles.”
“He has indeed, Miss Rowan; he’s almost as good as new, and thank you for asking. Here’s Mrs. Ferris.”
Emily Ferris stepped into the entry hall and greeted Lily with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was small and full-figured, with auburn hair, bangs, and a sunny expression. “And a hello to you, Mr. Goodwin,” she said. “You may remember that we met a few years ago at a benefit auction in the Commodore Hotel.”
“I do remember, of course,” I said, finally recognizing her from our very brief moment at that frenzied function. “To Lily’s friends, I’m Archie, none of this ‘Mr.’ business.”
“Archie it is,” she said, patting my arm. “Let’s go to my office.”
Once we were settled, Emily Ferris behind her plain wooden desk and Lily and I facing her in equally plain wood chairs, our hostess said to Lily, “Well, my curiosity is piqued. I do hope this visit does not mean that we have misused any of the funds your group has so generously given to us.”
“Oh no, not at all. I have heard no complaints whatever about the way the orphanage is being run, quite the contrary. The reason we are here is to talk about Maureen Carr.”
“Funny that you should mention Maureen,” Emily said. “I was just this morning wondering why I haven’t heard from her for some time now. She usually calls or stops by at least once a week, sometimes more often.”
“Nobody else we know has heard from her for some time, either,” Lily replied. “She seems to have disappeared without leaving any clue as to where she might be. We were hoping you might know something about her whereabouts.”
The orphanage director wore a shocked expression. “My heavens! Let me see, the last time I saw Maureen was” — she opened what turned out to be a datebook — “yes, here it is. We had lunch three weeks ago yesterday, and she seemed just fine, very cheerful.”
“And Miss Carr didn’t mention any trips she was planning?” I asked.
“No, not at all. I’m trying to recall what she said about herself that day. I don’t think she mentioned anything particular she was doing. But that is like Maureen. She doesn’t talk a lot about herself. She always seems more interested in what others are up to.”
“That is typical of her, all right,” Lily said. “When you were with Maureen at lunch, did she seem to be worried or distracted in any way?”
“Not at all, as I said. I’m still trying to think of anything she might have told me that would indicate some sort of problem, but I am sorry, nothing occurs to me.
“Oh, wait — Maureen had asked about my family and what we were doing, and I filled her in on our activities, which were nothing special. I thought I should respond with a question about her own family, which as far as I know consists of just the one brother, so I felt I should ask how he was.
“Her upbeat mood suddenly got dark, and just for a moment I saw... I don’t know quite how to put it... I opened a door into a part of her life that I probably should not have. Then, like in the blink of an eye, she was her old self again. But I wish I hadn’t been so nosy.”
“You weren’t nosy, you were just being friendly and supportive,” Lily assured her.
“I suppose so,” Emily said, “but now, given what you’ve told me, I have to wonder if her disappearance is somehow tied in with her brother... Everett is his name, right?”
“Yes. Had she ever talked to you about him before?” I asked.
“Only in passing, and never with any details. I couldn’t even tell you what he does for a living, or where he lives, although I’m sure their parents must have left both him and Maureen comfortable financially. After all, I do know a little about Maureen’s past.”
“If you hear anything from her, please let me know,” Lily said as we rose to leave.
“I ask the same of you,” Emily Ferris responded. “I simply can’t imagine where she could have gone.”
I won’t bore you with the descriptions of our conversations with the women who oversee the children’s aid society and the unwed mothers’ home, as neither of them had anything to add regarding Maureen’s disappearing act.
“Have you got any other suggestions?” I asked Lily as we left the last of our meetings.
“Not at the moment, except to check back with the members of our group to see if any of them has news.”
I dropped Lily off at home and returned to the brownstone. Wolfe was indulging in his afternoon session in the plant rooms, and I found a note on my desk from Fritz that read, “Call Mr. Panzer.”
“Goodwin replying to your summons,” I said into the mouthpiece when Saul picked up his phone.
“Archie, I got hold of that bookie, Spencer, although he’s not a bookie anymore; he went straight — well, sort of. He now runs a pawnshop in Yorkville, which is where I talked to him. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. He remembered Everett Carr as a regular who came into his handbook damned near every day. ‘That guy loved playing the ponies,’ Spencer told me, ‘but he didn’t seem to know the first thing about handicapping. It got so that I almost felt sorry for the guy, because he ended up almost always backing losers.’”
“Did it seem to Spencer that Everett Carr had deep pockets?” I asked.
“I asked him that, of course, and he laughed. ‘That’s why I was almost sorry for him; it seemed like he was always carrying a thick wad, and I don’t mean Abes, but double sawbucks and fifties and even the occasional C-note. And it didn’t seem to bother him much when he came up a loser, which sadly happened most of the time.’”
“Does Spencer still see Carr?”
“Not at all,” Saul replied. “He said that after he got busted, he got out of the bookie business altogether, and he cut his ties with all his old customers at his wife’s insistence. The last time he saw Carr was the day the cops shut Spencer down and hauled him in.”
“Pick anything else up from other bookies?”
“Not much at all. Oh, there is one named Leon. He operates out of a cigar store on Thirty-Second Street, and he told me there’s somebody he knows only as ‘Everett,’ who he thought was living at the Y. He said Everett came in like clockwork until recently, and then just stopped.”
“Was Carr just as unsuccessful at this establishment as with Spencer?”
“That’s what I picked up. Our man gambled heavily and never got upset when he lost, according to Leon, who said, ‘the guy seemed to have a bottomless pit of money, although he dressed more like a vagrant than a swell.’
“That’s the extent of what I’ve learned, Archie, which is not much. I can hit a few more places tomorrow. Heard anything from Fred or Orrie?”
“Not yet, but I expect they will be checking in. If you haven’t got anything else on your plate right now, you could visit a few more bookies, but I’m not sure you’re going to learn anything more about our elusive gambler.”
No sooner had I hung up with Saul than Fred checked in. “I’ve been to more darned bookies than I ever knew existed in Flatbush and the far reaches of Brooklyn, and it seems that nobody running those joints knows one single thing about Everett Carr. That assumes, of course, that he uses his real name when he’s laying down bets.”