All the while, Kron reported back to Grace everything he was learning about the shop. They would meet at her office or in hotels, and he would pass on the information. The one-story building itself was largely taken over by motorcycles, most of their repairs now far overdue. There was a workshop in the cellar, but it was only accessible through the outside stairs in the front. Mrs. Cocchi never let him go near there, Kron told Grace. Whenever he needed tools, Mrs. Cocchi would bring them up herself. Kron didn’t think she trusted him, or anyone, for that matter.
Grace had also hired a young female detective named Marie Vanello to gain Mrs. Cocchi’s confidence. Grace had her rent a room from Mrs. Cocchi, who was obviously in dire need of cash. Kron would see Marie sometimes, in passing, but would not acknowledge her. Grace’s plan looked very promising. Her people had already closed in around Mrs. Cocchi, who suspected nothing.
On the fifth day of Kron’s new job as a mechanic, a customer brought in a motorcycle that needed three of the front wheel spokes replaced. All Kron needed to do was to solder it—but the equipment was in the basement. Without pause, Kron began to put on his hat and coat. Mrs. Cocchi stopped him.
“Where you going now?” she asked.
“The smithy. To get these spokes soldered.”
“You don’t need to go to no smithy,” Mrs. Cocchi said. “I’ll take you down-stairs and you can use the heater there.”
Kron put his hat and coat back on the tack. He made sure to control his breathing and his eyes. Mrs. Cocchi wiped her hands, and he followed her outside the shop. At the front sidewalk there were four steps that led down to the cellar. As Mrs. Cocchi remained standing on top to watch the store, Kron jumped down. Mrs. Cocchi kept an eye on Kron as he went inside.
When Kron entered the basement, he tried to take it all in as quickly as possible. There was no lavish furnished space or medieval dungeon; there was only a workbench, a massive tool chest, some rags in a corner, and the slick smell of motor oil. There were two windows facing the front small alley. Kron scanned the wooden boards on the floor for new damage or shiny bright nails. But even the dust was uniform. Kron knew that the police had already searched this room twice. It certainly looked like it.
“Don’t you see the heater there in front of you?” Mrs. Cocchi shouted from the stairs. There was a pause. Cocchi looked around again for a footprint or a scuff—anything. He started searching the back wall when he realized he had taken too long. “Never mind, come on up,” Mrs. Cocchi said, quickly. “Take the spokes to the smithy.” At that moment, Mrs. Cocchi’s high-pitched voice convinced Kron of two things. One, there must be some kind of tiny clue in that basement, and, two, that the jig was up.
Kron grabbed the spokes and scrambled up the stairs. He could hear a customer in the shop upstairs. Maybe she just didn’t want him in the cellar unattended. Maybe there was nothing down there after all. The tools were valuable, but not as valuable as what he was looking for. There was no secret cell or hiding place. Or at least he had not seen one. It was just an ordinary cellar. Maybe Mrs. Cocchi hadn’t noticed the length of his absence. But when he came up the stairs, he saw her eyes locked on him. He instantly knew that his time down there had been too obvious.
“I know you now!” she shouted. “You’re another one of those detectives that chased poor Al away—you’re no mechanic! You’re hounding after him still even after—.” She broke down, crying. “Get out! Get out!”
As Kron was pushed out into the street, he now understood what Grace had been telling him this whole time. There had to be some clue in the cellar. The plan had worked beautifully until he got in that basement and blown his cover. He had failed her. Kron slouched and sighed and walked away from the store, back toward square one.
That week, a half-Indian prisoner in the Tombs banged his cup against the bars and said he had something to tell the police. His name was Stephen Smith and he said that Cocchi had hired him a few months ago to haul away a huge pile of dirt he had dug out of his cellar. Smith, who had been in jail since April, said that Cocchi also asked him a very strange question.
“Don’t you want to go to Mexico?” Cocchi had said, according to Smith. “Dozen of pretty American girls have been taken down there.” Grace was interested in the lead, until Smith tried to commit suicide and refused to speak anymore.
This was hardly the first time someone had brought up white slavery with regard to Ruth Cruger. But now Grace was beginning to think it might be more than just a rumor. In fact, she’d been following a thread of this on her own. She called Kron into her office. He was still disappointed over his performance at the store, but Grace didn’t have time for spilled milk. She wanted to get him back in the game. Grace told Kron she had another lead for him, a person of interest who might have actually seen Ruth Cruger.
“She says that she was lured last winter by the leader of a gang of South American white slavers,” Grace said. “She says she may have been in Cocchi’s cellar. I want you to talk with her.”
Grace sensed Kron’s hesitation. Not only had his pride been wounded by being exposed by Mrs. Cocchi, but, Grace knew, he hated white slavery cases. Half the time they weren’t real, Kron always said; when they were, they were impossible to prosecute.
“Listen to her story before you jump to any conclusion,” Grace pleaded.
The detective still wavered. Kron looked like he wanted to jump on a boat to Italy and just shoot Cocchi for putting them through this.
“Don’t be hard-boiled, Kronnie. Have a little patience with her. She has been through some horrible experiences.”
Kron finally agreed. Grace called the witness and arranged for her to come into the office later that day. When she did, Kron sat her facing the light. He studied her. She was brunette and pretty.
“I don’t know just were to begin,” said Consuelo La Rue, who was dark in complexion and had a Spanish accent prowling on the edges of her words. Kron remembered that Cocchi once lived in the Spanish section. There might be something here after all. Kron studied her more carefully. She had rouge on her lips. He could tell she was one of the new generation of girls who shopped and traveled without an escort and was of the age and disposition to attend dances on the roof of the Astor Hotel, which lasted through the evening and well into the next morning.
“Well, begin at the beginning,” Kron said. “Where did you meet the man who lured you to Cocchi’s cellar?”
“At my dressmaker’s, on West Fifty-eighth Street.”
La Rue proceeded to tell the story of how she had met a handsome man of Spanish nobility. His full name was the Count de Clemens, but she called him “the count.” Kron noted that she told the story with some hesitation but no embarrassment. And there were certainly plenty of counts in the city these days.