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- Herausgeber: Cora Buhlert
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Valentine's Day 1938: All Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer wants is to have a romantic dinner with his beautiful fiancée Constance Allen. But on his way to his date, Richard happens upon a mugging in progress. Can he save the victim and make sure that young Thomas Walden has the chance to propose to his girlfriend? And will he make it to dinner with Constance on time? This is a short Valentine's Day story of 7200 words or approx. 24 print pages in the Silencer series, but may be read as a standalone.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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A Valentine for the Silencer
by Cora Buhlert
Bremen, Germany
Copyright © 2019 by Cora Buhlert
All rights reserved.
Cover image by © Phil Cold via Dreamstime
Cover design by Cora Buhlert
Pegasus Pulp Publications
Mittelstraße 12
28816 Stuhr
Germany
www.pegasus-pulp.com
A Valentine for the Silencer
It was February 14, 1938, half past five in the afternoon. The winter sun was still up, if only barely, but the light sucking bulk of the Equitable Building already cast its long shadow down on Nassau Street.
Two blocks from the Equitable Building, Thomas Walden, twenty-five years of age, junior accountant at the Sinclair Oil Corporation, walked out of the gilded revolving door of the gothic extravaganza that was the Sinclair Oil Building on the corner of Liberty and Nassau. He had curly brown hair, open blue eyes and a sprinkle of freckles on his nose. He also had a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips and it seemed to him as if even the dome of the Singer Building a block up Liberty Street smiled down on him on this wonderful day. With a wide grin on his face, he rounded the corner and headed for the unremarkable brownstone building that sat right next to the soaring white terracotta tower where he worked.
On the ground floor of this unremarkable brownstone was a small, equally unremarkable shop. “Abraham Bernstein & Sons — Diamonds and Fine Jewellery,” a sign above the door announced in discreet gilded lettering.
A chime jingled, as Thomas Walden pushed open the door and stepped into the shop. Behind the counter, an elderly man with curled silver sidelocks and a matching beard laid down a magnifying glass as well as the ring he’d been examining and looked up.
“Ah, Mr. Walden,” Abraham Bernstein exclaimed. If he noticed the class ring of gilded pot metal on the young man’s hand and the modest gilded watch on his wrist, he gave no indication of it. “It’s a pleasure, as always. And right on time, too.”
“Do you have it?” Thomas Walden asked, completely forgetting his manners, “Is it finished?”
In response, Abraham Bernstein gave the young man a benign smile. “Of course, it is finished. I promised you that it would be, did I not?”
“And…?” Thomas Walden asked, near bursting with suspense.
Abraham Bernstein’s smile widened. “It is magnificent, if I may say so. A ring to win the heart of even the most icy of maidens. But see for yourself.”
With great ceremony, Bernstein unlocked the counter, picked up a ring from the display and held it under a desk lamp for Thomas to examine.
“A 0.75 carat emerald cut diamond flanked by smaller baguette cut diamonds and sapphires, all set in platinum…”
The technical terms meant little to Thomas, but he squinted at the ring, dazzled by the shimmer of the diamonds and sapphires.
“It… it’s beautiful,” he stammered.
“A true beauty for a beautiful lady,” Bernstein agreed, “The sapphires will match her eyes.”
“Her eyes?” Thomas exclaimed, utterly confused
“Your bride,” Bernstein clarified, “You told me she had blue eyes and blonde hair. The ring will match her eyes and hair and complexion.”
Thomas wasn’t entirely sure why engagement rings had to match a lady’s complexion. His own mother wore a plain gold band that certainly did not match her ruddy cheeks. But things were different now and Daisy was the daughter of a Wall Street banker, accustomed only to the very best. And this ring was the very best, or at least the very best Thomas could afford on a junior accountant’s salary.
“She will love it,” Abraham Bernstein assured him, “Young ladies always do.”
“Yes, I… I think she will.”
Bernstein placed the ring into a velvet lined box, while Thomas pulled out his chequebook and wrote a cheque with higher numbers than he had ever written, at least as far as he could recall.
“When is the proposal, if I may ask?” Bernstein wanted to know.
“Tonight,” Thomas blurted out, his hand shaking ever so slightly, “I’m meeting her at the fountain in City Hall Park in…” He checked his watch, his very modest watch, gilded instead of gold, 3.45 at Montgomery Ward’s. “…fifteen minutes.”
“But surely you won’t propose in the park,” Bernstein said.
“No, I have a table reserved at Zuccotti’s for tonight. Dinners, music, champagne, the whole works. And that’s where… where I’ll ask her.”
Thomas slipped the ring box into a pocket of his coat and smiled at old Mr. Bernstein. “Wish me luck.”
“I’m sure she will accept,” Bernstein said indulgently, “Mazel und brucha for both of you.”
And so Thomas Walden left Abraham Bernstein & Sons some ten minutes after he’d entered the shop, the ring box heavy in his pocket and his bank account lighter by several hundred dollars. With a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips, he walked north along Nassau Street towards City Hall Park where Daisy and his future were waiting for him.
He did not even notice the icy wind that blew down Nassau Street or the snowflakes that it drove into his face. And he certainly never noticed the man who was loitering in the doorway of a shuttered tobacconist shop across the street. Nor did he notice that the man emerged from the shadowed doorway and followed him, making sure to always stay about five steps behind.
At around the same time, Richard Blakemore, pulp writer by day and the steel-masked crimefighter known only as the Silencer by night, was walking up Nassau Street at a brisk pace.
For though the sun was still up — in theory at least, for that blasted Equitable Building was plunging all of lower Manhattan into shadow — the Silencer had already completed his mission for the day and has spent the afternoon putting the fear of God into a crooked banker who had cheated sweet little old ladies out of their life savings.
The banker had promised to pay back his ill-gotten gains — all of them — and donate the rest to the Littlest Angels Home for Orphans in Hell’s Kitchen. And just to make sure that the man kept his promise, Richard had personally watched him write the respective cheques, while he kept the Silencer’s silver-plated twin .45 automatics trained on the banker all the time.
He’d left the twin .45 automatics along with the Silencer’s steel mask locked in the trunk of his Maybach Zeppelin that was parked in the shadow of the Singer Building a few blocks away. And now he was just Richard Blakemore, pulp writer and man about town, on his way to a romantic dinner with his beautiful fiancée.
In his hand, he held a heart-shaped box of fine chocolates he’d picked up at a chocolatier on Maiden Lane. And in one of the many pockets of his swirling black coat — the same swirling black coat the Silencer wore — was a jewellery box holding a slender bracelet studded with diamonds and emeralds that matched Constance’s green eyes.
An icy wind whistled down Nassau Street, blowing snowflakes into his face, so Richard turned up the collar of his coat, tightened his blood-red silk scarf and pulled the brim of his fedora — the same fedora the Silencer always wore — deeper into his face.
Tomorrow he would start typing up the latest Silencer adventure, the one with the crooked banker. Though he would have to come up with a better title than that. Hmm, what about The Werewolf of Wall Street? Or maybe The Vampire of Wall Street?
