Slow Burn (23 page)

L
OOMIS AND
Soames were waiting for me in the hallway. I was a bit wobbly on my feet — partially from the riot, Partially from my conversation with Carmichael. After all, it wasn’t every day that a man learned he was a dead man walking.

Soames led the two of us upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms so I could wash up in private. He said he’d bring us up some sandwiches, as well as some of his clothes that I could change into. We were about the same size. I was going to tell him not to bother, but when I finally got a look at myself in the mirror, I kept my mouth shut. My face was smeared with dirt and dried blood — mostly other people’s blood. I felt a certain amount of pride in that. My shirt was torn at the shoulder, as was the left sleeve of my jacket. The front had been ripped open, too, and all the pockets on the outside of my jacket were shredded. Blood had smeared and dried again all over my pants and shoes. My tie was nowhere to be found.

I stripped out of my shirt and undershirt, left them in a pile on the bathroom floor and hung my holster and gun on the back of the bathroom door. I tossed my sap on the dresser and emptied my pockets. It wasn’t much: my apartment key, my Luckies, some loose change and a handkerchief.

And those matchbooks I’d found in Jack’s apartment, and in Chamberlain’s hovel at The Chantilly Club. The ones with the gold VL.

Things had broken so fast with Chamberlain that I’d forgotten to ask him about them. What did VL mean? Based on what Carmichael had just told me, I guess it didn’t matter anymore. I was done for, either way.

I filled the sink with cold water and dunked my head all the way in. The cold shock seeped into my scalp, my bones, cutting the pressure that was building up in my neck and head and dulling the ache in my jaw. The pain in my head made everything roar anew. I pulled my head out of the water and toweled off. The bruise under my jaw was blue, darkening towards black. The bruise on my temple from whatever hit me was shaping up to be just as bad. Both hurt like hell, but I was still too numb from Carmichael’s threats to notice.

I pulled the plug in the sink and watched the red tinged water swirl down the drain. The similarity between the water and my career wasn’t lost on me. I made the water about as hot as I could stand it, and went to work on the blood on my hands.

I realized I’d forgotten Loomis was in the bedroom, sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, watching me clean up just like my daughters used to watch me shave every morning. Remembering them suddenly made me feel better and worse all at the same time. I would’ve given anything to be with them, to talk to them right then, but that couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t want them to see me like that, anyway. I put that out of my mind and focused on washing the blood.

Loomis said, “It doesn’t come off that easy, does it?”

“It’s not supposed to.”

“O’Hara told me about Carmichael sending Hauser to raid the address Chamberlain gave us,” he said. “I’m sorry. It should’ve been you.”

“It should’ve been us, comrade,” I smiled. Maybe some of Chamberlain’s commie bullshit was rubbing off on me.”

“What difference does it make, anyway? Carmichael’s been looking for a way to get rid of me for a while. Now he’s got his chance.”

“I know.” Loomis looked away. “Soames and I overheard everything he said. He’s wrong, you know, and so was I. If we’d waited for the Feds to get involved, they’d still be getting set up by now. Instead, we drew one of the kidnappers into the open and got a solid lead on where Jack might be. And we managed to find out who killed Jessica and why. That means something, Charlie. No matter how this turns out, no matter what Carmichael does to you, I hope you’ll remember that in the long run. I’m glad you did what you did. And, for what it’s worth, I’m glad I did it with you.”

I hadn’t expected him to say any of that, but it was good to hear. “It’s worth a lot, believe me. I just hope I don’t pull you down with me is all. You didn’t want any part of this. You shouldn’t get dragged down with me.”

Then I threw my towel down into the sink, splashing flecks of reddish water onto the mirror. “All this shit over some spoiled punk who was looking to elope, got drunk, and ran his goddamned mouth to the wrong people. Look at where it got him. Look at where it got his sister, and his grandfather, and his parents.”

Look at where it got me, I thought, but didn’t say it. Because Jack Van Dorn didn’t get me into anything. I got into this mess all by myself, a long time ago.

Soames knocked and walked in with a black suit, a shirt and a tie on a hanger in one hand. He had a tray of sandwiches in the other. The look on his face told the whole story.

Loomis said it before I did. “Hauser called, didn’t he?”

Soames nodded slowly as he laid the clothes and the tray on the bed. His eyes were wet around the edges. That cold feeling spread through my gut again.

“What is it, Soames?”

Soames shook his head. “Jack wasn’t there.”

T
HE SCENE
at the apartment read: Panic. The place was nothing but a jumped-up tenement on Twenty-Third and Eighth, a three-room apartment that had seen better days twenty years before. The living room was set up a lot like Chamberlain’s hovel at the Chantilly Club.

Three cots and some chairs scattered around a card table. One chair had been knocked over. The others had been pulled away from the table at odd angles. Someone had been in one hell of a rush. The table and floor were littered with beer bottles, poker chips and cards. Four days’ worth of newspapers were scattered all over the place. A cheap radio crackled out bits of garbled music near the window. The few slats that remained in the blinds were yellowed and cracked. The window behind them was caked with dirt. The kitchen was worse. The trash bin was overflowing with takeout bags and food rappers. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and empty bottles of what looked like bootleg whiskey. Several cockroaches sat high up on the wall, fat and happy, waiting for the noise to be over so they could get back to eating.

The sweet stench of it all made the sandwiches I’d eaten on the ride down repeat on me. My headache came back in spades. I grazed the back of my hand along the coffee pot on the stove. Some warmth, but not much. Judging by how hot it was that day, I figured the pot had been warm two hours before. Probably less. The whole scene screamed hole-up. The mess screamed panic. My years in Vice came in handy. I made a couple of educated guesses.

Guess #1: They’d brought Van Dorn here after getting him drunk. Killing Jessica sent Enzo and his pals into a frenzy.

They heard about the A.P.B. on Chamberlain, but Chamberlain made a pitch: I know the Van Dorn type. I’ll broker a deal for Jack and cut us a good deal. Leave it to me.

Guess #2: Enzo and his pals knew Chamberlain wasn’t as tough as he thought he was. They waited until Chamberlain turned the corner, then moved Jack elsewhere.

Guesses were all well and good. There was only question that counted: Where did they take Jack Van Dorn? Every minute of every hour since four that morning had been nothing but guesses and questions and answers leading to even more questions. I’d thought we were close when we broke Chamberlain. But the trail was cold before the smug bastard even rang the Van Dorn’s doorbell.

I punched the kitchen wall with the side of my hand. We’d been so damned close all along, but never as close as we thought. Now Jack could be anywhere.

Loomis called out to me from the bedroom. “Charlie, you’d better come take a look at this.”

The bedroom was the worst of it. A metal-frame bed with a paper-thin mattress in the corner. No sheets on the bed. No pillow. Just a lot of empty gin bottles scattered around. The washbasin in the corner had been used as a bathroom and it was overflowing. I almost gagged.

Loomis pointed to a man’s shirt balled up in the other corner of the bed. A shirt with a hell of a lot of blood on it. I used a busted chair leg to prod the balled up shirt open. I saw the label, clear as day — Brooks Brothers. Jack Van Dorn’s shirt all right. And Jack Van Dorn’s blood, too. A lot of it. And every one of Chief Carmichael’s threats crowded in on me.

Loomis asked Hauser the question that had been rattling around in my mind as I walked through the place. “The apartment was empty when you got here?”

Hauser nodded. “I had men eyeballing the place the second I heard Chamberlain give up the address. Nobody came in or out the whole time. The icebox is full of beer, so I’d say they were planning to stay here for a while. They probably cleared out once Chamberlain said he was going to try to cut a better deal with the Van Dorns. They knew we’d break him eventually.”

It made sense, but it still didn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t just the bloody shirt, either. Three guys and a drunk don’t just disappear in broad daylight without someone seeing them. “Your men canvass the building already?”

“Started knocking on doors right after we found the place empty. Building is full of hard Micks who hate cops. Even if they saw anything, they’d never tell us.”

I opened Van Dorn’s crumpled shirt further. The front of it was covered in dried blood. A long smear of it was on the right sleeve, from the elbow down to the cuff. But nowhere else. Not on the collar. Not on the other sleeve and not on the back.

Loomis took a closer look at the shirt and grinned. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably,” I said.

Hauser moved between us. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

I tossed the shirt back on the bed. “Jack’s probably still alive.”

“Probably,” Loomis agreed.

Hauser wasn’t buying it. “Nice try, ladies, but that shirt says otherwise. That’s a hell of a lot of blood.”

“Someone busted him in the nose,” I said, nodding at the blood trail.

“Could be from the mouth,” Loomis said, “but my money’s on the nose. Both bleed pretty bad, but neither one’s fatal.”

Hauser didn’t look convinced. “How the hell do you know?”

Loomis said: “The blood’s only on the front of the shirt and the right sleeve.”

Hauser still didn’t look convinced. “So?”

“Van Dorn probably sobered up long enough to realize he was being held here against his will,” I explained. “Probably tried to escape, got busted in the nose and bled like a pig.” I pointed at the right sleeve. “Wiped it away with his right arm. See?”

Loomis added, “If they’d cut his throat, there’d be more blood. Same as if they’d shot him, but there’s no holes in the shirt. There’s no blood on the floor, or the mattress, or the calls — and no signs they cleaned any up, either. Given the condition of this place, these boys don’t look like the types who clean up after themselves.”