Slow Burn (29 page)

I brought up my .38, aimed, and fired once. The bullet caught the man low in the back on the left side, spinning him around. My two other shots skipped wide of the target.

More screams rose up as Hauser took him down with two shots in the chest. I’ll never forget the sound of the shotgun skidding across that marble floor. We ducked back behind the staircase just as Grimes turned and opened up on us with the Thompson from the ticket windows near the entrance of the main waiting room on Forty-Second. The rounds kicked up chunks of marble flooring all around us.

The shooting stopped. Grimes was reloading, if he wasn’t running toward Forty-Second Street already.

Hauser and I used the lull and sprinted toward the railroad cops pinned down behind the circular booth. But as I reached the booth, I realized Grimes was nowhere in sight. I figured there would’ve been more screams if he’d run out onto Forty-Second Street. That meant he must be reloading in the waiting room off to the right. And Thompsons were tough to reload quickly. I knew I had time if I went after him now.

I didn’t care if he killed me. All I cared about was ending this goddamned thing once and for all.

Not for Carmichael, or Mr. Van Dorn. Not even for the other people in the terminal.

For me.

I switched direction and ran towards where I’d last seen Grimes fire: near the waiting room at the Forty-Second Street entrance. I ran faster than I thought I could. I was still running when I rounded the corner and saw Grimes crouched next to a bench in the main waiting room, struggling to slap a new drum into his Thompson. People around him crouched in terror behind their benches.

Grimes was less than ten feet in front of me when he slid back the bolt on the machine gun. I shot him three times in the chest as I ran toward him. Dead center.

He dropped the Thompson as he fell back onto one of the benches and laid like that, just for a moment, before he slid down onto the marble floor. Grimes was still alive when I reached him. Hauser came up right behind me.

The bastard’s eyes fluttered and his hands twitched like he wanted to reach for something in his belt, but didn’t have the strength to do it. He was coughing blood. He struggled to raise his head enough to see Hauser and me standing over him. He gave us a flat, bloody smile, then spat blood up at us. He managed to spray Soames’ nice white shirt.

I knew I had one bullet left.

I aimed down at Grimes I saw the men I’d beaten in the riot. I saw Mrs. Van Dorn crying in her husband’s arms. I saw the three dead railroad cops Grimes had just cut in half. I saw Jessica Van Dorn lying naked on the floor. Cut throat. And that goddamned halo around her head. I saw Grimes, the man responsible for all of this, squirming at my feet. Smiling.

And I did not let that bullet go to waste.

I’
D LIKE
to tell you that all of this had a happy ending.

I’d like to tell you that I saw Jack swept up into his parents’ arms, that Mr. Van Dorn damned near pulled my arm out of its socket while he pumped my hand, thanking me for bringing his son home alive. I’d like to tell you the press made me out to be a hero, and how Carmichael cringed when he had to pin a medal on my chest before all those people at headquarters. I’d like to tell you that all the attention made Theresa come back to me — and bring my girls with her — and that we all lived happily ever after. But I can’t tell you that.

I’m a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them. I wasn’t expecting a parade down Broadway for saving Jack Van Dorn’s life, but I didn’t expect to be crucified for it, either. And that’s exactly what happened, courtesy of Andrew Joseph Carmichael, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department.

Sure, people were glad Jack Van Dorn had been brought back safe and sound. But a rich man’s return to his family isn’t as compelling as the headlines a massacre can bring. After all, three railroad policemen had been gunned down in the prime of life. The gunmen who’d killed them were dead. But I was alive. And don’t forget about that riot on Fifth Avenue that had happened only a few hours before. Scores of innocent civilians had been hurt in the melee outside the Van Dorn mansion. Great word, isn’t it? Melee.

Carmichael saw I took the blame for that, too. He said these incidents were the direct result of a police force rife with corrupt and incompetent men. And it was one of those corrupt and crooked men who’d allowed these desperate cowards to wreak havoc in our fair city. To slaughter brave men and terrorize the populace at large. And that man was none other than yours truly: Detective Charles E. Doherty, New York Police Department. A man who’d been under investigation for years for accepting bribes and looking the other way for the right price. A man who laughed in the face of all the reforms that Governor — soon-to-be President — Roosevelt had tried to implement in this city. And now, the time was at hand to implement those changes.

My thanks for saving Jack Van Dorn? Indefinite suspension, pending dismissal from the force. And no criminal charges if I didn’t gripe about losing my pension. At least I’d have my freedom. I’d be broke, of course, but I’d be free. So there I sat one night at the bar at The Tangiers. No gun. No glory. No pension. No family, either. Theresa had served me with divorce papers the day after news of my suspension broke.

The official story slapped the goat horns on me and said I was just an incompetent crook who’d bungled the case and got a lot of people hurt and killed. Jesus, I didn’t even think they had newspapers all the way up in Poughkeepsie.

But it wasn’t all bad. Bixby used his column to tell my side of it, which helped a little. Not because he believed in me, but because he thought he’d get more ink by taking a different position on the case than the rest of the reporters in town. Still, he was the only one to remind people that I’d saved Jack’s life and the only people I’d killed were the three gunmen who’d taken Jack and killed Jessica in the first place.

The Van Dorns even granted Bixby an exclusive on the kidnapping ordeal. They praised me for bringing their son home alive and their daughter’s killer to justice. That helped make everything a bit easier to take. Not much, but a little.

The biggest surprise came from my brothers in blue, who didn’t buy the department line about my guilt. They actually saw me as a hero, thanks to O’Hara and Hauser speaking out on my behalf. Loomis did what he could, which wasn’t much.

Nobody liked talking to Loomis, even now. Nick the Greek, the owner of The Tangiers, learned long ago that all press was good press so long as they spelled your name right. He put aside our past for the sake of his business and paid me a few bucks to hang out in his place a few nights a week. It turns out that lots of people wanted to have a drink with the cop who broke the Grimes Gang. (I told you the newspaper boys liked alliteration, didn’t I?) I drank for free most nights — cold comfort for a guy who’d been aiming at self-respect, but it beat paying for my own booze.

Hanging out at the Tangiers also meant I got to see Alice on a more regular basis in the bargain. She’d been a big help to me since everything went south. Most people turned their backs on me when the negative press first kicked in, only to want to shake my hand when Bixby’s series of positive articles on me began to run. But not Alice. She’d been there for me from the beginning. She knew what it was like to live through the thin. And she was just as happy to be there now that things were beginning to brighten a bit.

I was sitting at the bar of the Tangiers on a cool, late September evening, nursing a highball, while some guy from Cleveland bought me a fresh drink and told me how brave he thought I was. I let him ramble on. Who was I to argue? My ego needed a little soothing anyway. Besides, I was just another one of the two-bit acts who’d landed at The Tangiers. And the customer was always right.

I didn’t recognize Mr. Van Dorn until he was standing right next to me. It was the first time I’d seen him since all of this had happened. He was just as tall as I’d remembered. Maybe even a little taller, now that the weight of a missing son had been lifted from his shoulders. But the loss of his daughter and his father had aged him more than a little. He was grayer, and a little grimmer, than I’d remembered.

I forgot all about the clown from Cleveland and slid off my stool to shake Mr. Van Dorn’s hand.

“Good evening, Detective,” Mr. Van Dorn said. His grip was as firm as I’d remembered. “I was hoping I might find you here.”

“I didn’t know that. We could’ve met somewhere better than here. A man like you doesn’t’ need to come to a place like this.”

Mr. Van Dorn smiled; the first time I’d ever seen him do that. It was a good smile. Warm and real, unlike anything else in the Tangiers. “My son isn’t the first Van Dorn to frequent places like this. I sowed a few wild oats in my day, too, you know.”

I found myself smiling back. “I’ll just bet you did.”

Mr. Van Dorn nodded toward the guy from Cleveland who’d been bending my ear. “I don’t mean to take you away from your friend here, but I was hoping to have the chance to buy you a drink, maybe talk for a bit in private.”

I ditched the Clevelander and steered Mr. Van Dorn over to a quiet table in the far corner of the place. It had a great view of the stage where Alice was about to perform. One of the waitresses dressed in veils came over and took our drink orders. Van Dorn ordered for us. “Two Scotches, not much ice.”

He asked me: “I take it the Scotch is decent here?”

I shrugged. “Not as good as the stuff you’ve got, but it won’t make you go blind.”

“Something to look forward, too.” Now that the small talk was winding down, Mr. Van Dorn got down to business.

“I’ve called you several times since everything happened, but you’ve never returned my calls.”

“I probably didn’t get most of them, especially if you called the precinct. I’m not too popular there these days. And my landlady’s not apt to giving me my messages, seeing as how I’m a couple of months late with the rent.”

“You were late, but not anymore. I stopped by your place looking for you just now but spoke with your landlady instead. She mentioned your difficulty, so I took the liberty of paying your rent through the rest of the year.”

“Sir, I wasn’t expecting…”

But Mr. Van Dorn held up a hand. “It’s the least I could do for the man who returned my son to me. And avenged my daughter’s death.”

The waitress brought over our drinks before I could say anything more. Mr. Van Dorn lifted his glass and said, “To you, Detective. For all you’ve done.”

But I wouldn’t drink to that. “To Jessica,” I said. “On her one-month anniversary in heaven.”

I watched his breath catch and his glass lower a bit. “You remembered.”

“I’ll never forget.” We clinked our glasses and I watched Van Dorn sip his. “Not as bad as I was expecting,” he said. “I was expecting far worse.”

“Like I said, it won’t make you go blind.”

“And, considering everything we’ve been through together, no more of this Mr. Van Dorn nonsense. Call me Harry.”

“Okay, Harry. As long as you call me Charlie. The detective title won’t be good for much longer.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

“You don’t know Chief Carmichael, sir. He’s not the kind of guy who makes empty threats, and he’s sure threatened the hell out of me.”

“Harry,” he said.

“Harry,” I repeated, though the name didn’t come easy.

“I trust you’ve read how my family and I have been very supportive of you despite everything Chief Carmichael done to tarnish your reputation.”