Slow Burn (18 page)

“Up yours, donkey,” Joe croaked. “I ain’t no snitch.”

O’Hara brought his nightstick down across the bartender’s shoulders. Even I had to wince.

“You always were a tough guy, Joe,” Hauser told him. “That’s admirable. Expensive, but admirable.”

One of O’Hara’s men snapped the legs off a blackjack table. Another put his foot through it. Joe moaned as if it was happening to him.

“The quicker you play ball with us,” Hauser explained, “the quicker you can start cleaning up. If you work hard, you might even be open before Christmas. Where’s Max Lennon?”

“No way,” Joe shook his head. “Word gets out I ratted, he’ll put a bullet in my brain.”

Hauser grabbed Joe by the hair and jerked him forward. The steel cuffs dug into Joe’s hands until he screamed. Loomis cringed and walked away. You didn’t have to do this kind of thing on the night shift. “And we’ll make you a cripple if you don’t,” Hauser yelled. “Start spilling.”

Normally, I wouldn’t have cared if Hauser wanted to smack the guy around for a bit. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Jack Van Dorn had that kind of time. I motioned for Hauser to back off and he did. I said, “We need to know where Lennon is, and who he’s running with. And we need to know right now.”

Joe squinted up at me through the blood and the pain. “Hey, I know you. You’re Charlie Doherty, ain’t you? Yeah… you used to be somebody.”

“Still am. And right now, I’m the only way you’re getting out of this. Max Lennon, Joe. Tell me about him.” Joe jerked his head in Hauser’s direction. “Why don’t you ask your buddy Hauser here. He’s busted him enough times. He can tell you all about him.”

Joe flinched as Hauser went for him again, but I held him off. “I’m asking you. And if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll let Officer O’Hara and his friends resume their line of questioning.” I made a show of looking down at his bloody apron and his tooth on the floor. “We both know you’ll talk sooner or later. If I was you, I’d make it sooner.”

Then one of O’Hara’s men dragged somebody out of the bathroom and dumped him on the floor between us.

The cop tossed two small bundles to O’Hara. “Look at what we found on him, Liam.” O’Hara opened one of the small bundles and smiled. He handed the bundle to Hauser, who sniffed it too. “You know what this is, Joe?”

Joe’s moan told the whole story.

“Heroin,” Hauser told him. “And we found it in your joint, Joe. This is a lot worse than selling beer and bootleg booze. Things keep getting worse for you all the time, don’t it?”

For the first time since I’d gotten there, Joe’s head dropped. The heroin knocked all the fight right out of him “What do I care anyway? It ain’t my joint anymore. I just work here now.”

O’Hara perked up. “Now there’s a tidbit of news. Who owns this place now?”

“Danny Stiles took it over a while ago,” Joe told us. “Mean anything to you?”

There’s that name again, I thought. Danny’s been coming up in an awful lot of conversations lately. With Alice Mulgrew, with Wendell Bixby and now here. I kept that part to myself, in case it meant something later on.

“Too bad for you that Stiles is on the lam,” I said. “That means you’ll have to swing for that bundle all by yourself.”

The bartender hung his head again. More blood dribbled onto his apron from his busted nose.

“But that doesn’t have to happen,” I said, “Max Lennon, Joe. Tell us everything, and don’t lie, and all of this stops right now.”

Joe looked around at the wreckage all around him, at his broken blackjack and poker tables. “Lousy bastard ain’t worth all this fuss. Lennon came back to town a couple of months ago. Started managing the place again for Stiles. That’s all I know.”

I didn’t say anything. I just kept staring at him, waiting for the rest of it to come out. Joe said: “It’s the truth, honest. I ran the bar, Lennon ran the take and the tables in the back. Lennon ain’t the type who makes friends. Ask Hauser, he’ll tell you.”

But all Hauser had was questions. “He have anybody who came in here to see him lately?”

I watched Joe really think it over. “A couple of guys, I guess. I never saw them before they started coming around here a month or so ago. They didn’t talk to me much. Mostly they’d come in later and play cards in the back, sometimes all night. Some of them were real mean-looking bastards, too. Some of them were high-talking types. Well-dressed fellas that Lennon seemed to know. I always got the impression they were swells looking to slum around and…”

“Recognize any of them?” Loomis asked.

“One of them, maybe—” Joe said, then stopped himself.

I knew there was more, and I knew it was probably important. “Go on. Whatever it is, you’re already in it up to your neck, so spill.”

Joe squirmed and stomped his foot. I even thought he might start crying. O’Hara signaled one of his men to hit him again and Joe jumped. “The Van Dorn punk, okay? The Van Dorn punk who’s missing.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “What about him?”

“He used to come in here all the time, talking loud, spouting off about politics and such. Swell-head shit I didn’t understand, but Lennon seemed to like it well enough. They got along fine. Van Dorn also liked to gamble big and lose big, which made Lennon like him even more.”

Loomis, Hauser, O’Hara and I looked at each other. All of a sudden, we liked Lennon too, but for a much different reason.

“Where is Lennon now?” Loomis asked.

Joe nodded toward a door behind O’Hara. “I don’t know, but he bunks down in the store room mostly. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you, and that’s God’s honest truth.”

Hauser was already on his feet. “Which room?”

“Downstairs,” Joe said. “It’s where he used to have his private poker games for the high rollers. Least high rollers this place gets. Pimps mostly, and other...”

But I didn’t care about any of that. “How do I get down there?”

“Back stairs over there, next to the shitter,” Joe said. “I’ve got the key in my pocket if you need it.”

The uniforms stayed with Joe while Loomis and I jogged down the hall. I found the door, but it was locked. Loomis and I put our shoulders into it, but it wouldn’t budge. Over Joe’s shouts that he had the key, O’Hara and Hauser came up with a crowbar and dug it into the wood. For an old door, it took more effort than it should’ve, but the lock eventually snapped.

I pulled my .38 as the door swung open. Thick, stale air drifted up from below. The four of us stood there quiet. Listening. I didn’t hear anything — no sudden movement — so I flicked on the light switch by the door. An old yellow bulb showed the plank wooden staircase that led downstairs to a dirt floor. I saw more light below.

There was no telling what was down there, so I motioned for the others to stay put while I trotted down the stairs. I wasn’t a heavy guy, but the planks creaked and bowed under my weight. So much for the element of surprise.

The basement ran the full length and width of The Chantilly Club. A few thin poles kept the ceiling propped up. A thick layer of cobwebs and dust lined the bare ceiling beneath the floorboards of the club above. The stone walls were lined with crates of booze stacked just above my head. I crept further into the room, watching and listening. Waiting for any sudden sounds or movement. My .38 was ready.

A couple of old beer barrels had been set up with a wooden board on top. Some chairs were scattered around it, so I figured that’s where the poker games Joe had mentioned took place. Behind another wall of crates, I found where Lennon lived, if you could call it living. A cot was set up in the corner with a dirty pillow mashed flat from sleep. Off to the side, an old wardrobe with a door missing. A chest of drawers with clothes sticking out was on the opposite wall. The rest of the store room was clear, so I called up to the others to come down.

I put my .38 back in my holster and started tossing the living area. The wardrobe had a couple of dark suits and some shirts in it — cheap and poorly tailored. I patted down the pockets, but didn’t find anything but a couple of neckties in the inside pockets. I hit the dresser next, just as Loomis and the others got downstairs. Half a bottle of booze was on top. I opened the cork and smelled it: Rot-gut whiskey. I tossed it on the Lennon’s cot without putting the cork back in it. Clumsy me.

I opened the top drawer of the dresser first. It was filled with the usual things: handkerchiefs, tie clasps, calling cards, spare change.

And matchbooks. One in particular that caught my attention.

It was a brown matchbook with a golden VL on the cover—the same kind I’d found in Jack Van Dorn’s apartment. There were plenty more in Max Lennon’s drawer. Coincidence? Maybe, but I’d been a cop too long to believe in coincidences. O’Hara flipped the cot while Hauser looked at the wardrobe.

Loomis asked me, “Find anything?” I tossed him one of the matchbooks. “Maybe. I found one of these in the dresser here. I found the kinds of matchbooks in Jack Van Dorn’s place, too.”

Loomis looked it over. “VL. No address on it. No phone number, either. Where’s it from? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but it links Van Dorn to Lennon somehow. It’s not much, but it’s more than we walked in here with. I’d better find a phone and call it in to Carmichael.”

“Tell him Lennon’s looking better all the time.” I found a wall phone opposite the stairs and had the operator connect me to the Van Dorn house. After two rings, a cop picked up and I told him to get me the Chief. There was plenty of commotion in the background while the cop put the phone down to find him, but I couldn’t hear anything clearly, just a lot of men shouting, more to be heard than out of anger. As the yelling eased up, I knew Carmichael was about to come to the phone. He had that effect on people.

“Doherty?” the Chief asked. “That you?”

“We just tracked down Max Lennon’s last known address and where he works. I think he’s—”

“Skip it. Just get your ass in a car and get up here as soon as you can.”

I didn’t have time for another trek up to the mansion just to kiss Carmichael’s ring. “With all due respect, Chief, I’d like to question some of the men we’ve rounded up here about where Lennon might be.”

“I already know where he is,” Carmichael said. “The A.P.B. worked, because the son of a bitch just turned himself in. He’s sitting in Van Dorn’s front parlor right now. And he didn’t come alone.”

T
HE FOUR
of us piled back into the car. I drove. It was only half-past one and it had already been a full day. Twenty-four hours ago, I was doing what I did best in those days: sleeping. When I woke up, I began counting down the minutes until I could go back to sleep again. I remember figuring out how I could stretch out my shift and do as little as possible. I’d almost gotten away with it, too, until the phone rang. Some girl had gotten herself killed at The Chauncey Arms. And now I was caught smack in the middle of a murder/kidnapping case involving one of the richest families in the city.

Sure, I’d pushed my way into this mess and fought like hell to stay in it. But that’s when I thought I might walk out of this thing with a couple of bucks in my pocket.

Maybe get the Van Dorn clan to owe me a favor or two for keeping my mouth shut. I hadn’t counted on this being tied to the Van Dorns directly. And I hadn’t expected Mr. Van Dorn to stick up to Carmichael for me like he did. Now I owed Mr. Van Dorn a debt I could only pay one way — by bringing his son back to him. I guess the old saying is true. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.