The Devil You Know (13 page)

Deep in the hotel’s service area I again picked up on footsteps and voices. People moved around below, busy at some kind of activity. I eased downstairs, trusting I’d hear anyone on the way up long before they became a problem.

There were more lights on in the basement than anywhere else. Cigarette smoke clouded the air. Several guys were talking at once, discussing something, but lacking urgency in their tone.

The stair was walled off so I couldn’t see them, but that worked in my favor since they couldn’t see me. I went semi-transparent to peer around the corner, then went solid; they had their backs to this side of the room. I got a good gander at everything.

They’d excavated a sizable hole in the concrete floor. Picks and shovels stood ready, but they’d brought in a jackhammer to break things up. A pile of broken concrete pieces rose on the far side of the hole, and too close for comfort lay a tarpaulin-wrapped bundle tied up with rope. It was about the right size and shape for a human body. I recognized the tarp. Barrett and I had covered its contents up with snow the night before.

There was no sign of him or Izzy.

I counted the opposition, and my heart sank. Swann, Thorp, the remaining guy who’d been in the car, plus two dust covered, sweating guys in work clothes, plus eight others idling around the hole, smoking and talking. I could see eight, but there were more. One of them glanced toward an area out of my angle of view and spoke to whoever was there.

Why had Swann brought in so many men? If he had some idea of keeping things quiet he could forget it. Most guys knew better than to talk, but this was a lodge meeting.

The hole itself was not deep, a few feet at most. I could figure that they intended to put the body in, then seal it over. There were bags of cement stacked in one corner, but no tub to mix it in, and the hotel’s water was shut off.

Swann studied things, walking around the hole while everyone gabbed. He finally held his hand up and soon his gorilla gang fell silent. “This is ridiculous,” he said to the two dusty guys who were having a cigarette break.

“Doin’ what you told us,” one of them muttered.

“You could have mentioned the difficulties before proceeding this far and leading me to think you had things in hand.”

“Hey, you spend the day down here with that stink and see how you do.”

“Yeah,” added his pal.

I took a whiff and caught the too-familiar stench of decay.

“You could have told me the water wasn’t on.”

The pal shrugged. “You got enough muscle here for a bucket brigade. You want cement made, we’ll do it, but getting the water’s your problem.”

Neither man seemed concerned about Swann’s displeasure. It made a change from the quiet cooperation of the other guys. Maybe these two were union labor.

“You didn’t plan this out.” Swann looked into the hole. “And now this.”

The first man shrugged. “It’s New York, what d’ya expect? They put one thing on top of another, so why the big surprise finding another building’s been in this spot before? It’s a miracle the whole town don’t sink into the Hudson from the weight.”

I craned to get a look. They’d gone through the foundation of the Pendlebury Hotel only to find another slab of concrete under it. It looked old.

“Wouldn’ta worked anyway, Swanny,” said the second man. “The cops see that—” he pointed his cigarette at the tarp, “—they notice the dirt first thing. Then they notice that there ain’t no dirt like that in this here basement. Cement? Lots of cement. But no dirt. Then some smart cop—and I have met a few—might wonder where all that dirt come from, then maybe they figure out that your corpuscle there ain’t been down here for very long. Of course they get the tip just from seeing fresh cement on top—you see how it goes? I been in construction all my life, and if
you’d
bothered to ask, I coulda told you this in the first place.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You was giving the orders, you know everything, and a day’s work is a day’s work, and
this
counts as overtime for me.”

Swann just stared at the man. It was fifty-fifty either way whether he’d let it pass or have Thorp to shoot him. Swann finally shook his head. “All right, I concede your point. This was a mistake on my part wanting to put him here, but you could have telephoned and acquainted me with—”

The guys laughed.

“After you bent our ears about how we gotta keep this quiet? Yeah, a couple guys like us are gonna have
a
good reason to call
you
an’ hope the big boss don’t notice.”

“It’s a private line straight to my office—oh, never mind. What’s done is done and we shall have to make up the lost time.”

“You want we should fill the hole back in?”

“No, leave it.”

“You want I should give you some benny-fit of my experience?” His friend laughed.

Swann did not. “I would be grateful.”

“You want to get this corpuscle to a place where there is lots of dirt already. You get a deep hole, put him in without the tarp, then fill it up a little at a time, tamping the dirt down every foot or so to pack it solid. Then you cart away what’s left over so you don’t get no bump on the ground, and you put the grass back on top and walk away. A couple of weeks an’ you can’t tell there’d ever been a hole.”

Unexpectedly, Swann smiled. “That is excellent advice. There’s another hundred in it for each of you if you will help me accomplish such an endeavor tonight.”

“A whole c-note? No kiddin’?”

“No kidding. But in the future, I expect you to speak up should you see a problem that can be avoided.”

“Sure, Swanny. It’s a deal,” he stuck out his hand.

Swann looked at it. “We’ll shake later, if you don’t mind.” They found this hugely funny.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to load that back into the truck? Make sure you are not seen.”

“What about the two upstairs?” This came from Thorp, who leaned against a wall, easing his bad leg. I’d cracked him a good one, but if he had a history in the boxing ring, he’d know how to ignore the pain. Anger was an effective distraction.

“Soon,” muttered Swann, still frowning at the hole.

“What?”

Swann turned to face him. “Soon. When we’re done here.”

“What about that skinny creep?”

One of these nights I’d have to figure out why some people liked me and others instantly labeled me a creep. Of course, the latter types weren’t the kind I have as bosom chums, so no loss there.

“Mr. Taylor will shortly be answering questions. We need to organize a relocation. Has anyone a map of the city?”

One of them had a map in the truck and volunteered to get it. I light-footed it up to the ground floor, wondering why Swann had wanted the body planted under the hotel. Or why hadn’t it been reburied on Long Island? With Barrett and me, the only witnesses, apparently dead and also buried, it would be safe enough there.

Unless at some point he wanted it to be found. The things the workman mentioned hinted as much.

I’d figure it out later. Thinking about the fate of Brogan’s late business rival, I wanted to see who they had on the upper floors, though I could guess. I took the stairs cautiously, listening at each landing.

The place didn’t seem to have an elevator. Maybe the building was too old, its original architect too cheap. I kept an ear open, just in case.

The ambient light got better on the third floor. There were windows at the far end of the hall allowing in a wash of bright light. The building next door had something important about itself to advertise in garish yellow and red.

At the fifth floor I wondered if I’d overshot or misunderstood.

A scraping, no telling what caused it, followed by the soft creak of a rusty hinge.

One floor to go . . . I took the stairs slow, my back to the wall.

No one jumped out when I made the landing. I could—if I went very still—hear breathing: one set of lungs going fast and shallow from fear. I’d been quiet, but he had to have heard me.

I eased down the hall, coming up to the only closed door. It was ajar. Blackness lay beyond the inch-wide gap, and that’s where he’d holed up. I had to assume he was nervous, armed, and ready to shoot.

Which was pretty much my own state of mind. I held my gun ready to return fire if it came to that.

Time to use my edge. I kicked the door open and went partially transparent. There was enough of me visible to draw fire, but bullets wouldn’t put holes in me or my suit.

Nor would bodily assault be a problem. A shadowy blur launched out of the darkness, arm coming down to slam something into my head, and instead it bulled right through me, which was disconcerting. I faded back, grabbing Isabelle around the waist before she crashed into the opposite wall.

She yelped, but I dropped the gun and clapped a hand over her mouth. She kicked and flailed and tried to hit me again, but I caught her wrist and a length of lead plumbing pipe clunked on the floor.

“It’s me, Izzy, settle down!” I spoke in a normal tone, trusting that the gorillas below didn’t have my kind of hearing. “It’s okay!”

She abruptly stopped fighting and sagged. It made her seem heavier, which wasn’t saying much.

I put her down and knew I’d have to kill someone. She had the makings of a black eye, and tear streaks marred her reddened face. Her clothes were in the kind of disarray that comes from serious roughhousing. She’d lost her hat and gloves, and her stockings were shredded, leaving her barefoot.

“Oh, Jack. . .” She hiccupped, stifling a sob.

“It’s okay, doll. Slow down. Where’s Barrett?”

“He-he’s d-dead.” She pointed into the black room, her arm shook, hell, her whole little body trembled. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or shock.

I shucked my coat and put it around her. “No, he isn’t. Lemme check him.”

“I already did.” Izzy took a deep breath, working hard to keep control. “He’s gone. That big palooka did it.”

Going in, I found a blacker shadow sprawled on the floor that turned out to be Barrett, and he wasn’t moving. There was a bloody patch on the back of his head. Just enough light came through the doorway—the window was boarded up—to show his eyelids were at the halfway mark, and his eyes were fixed and unfocused like you see in morgue photos. With no beating heart or working lungs, it was little wonder Izzy had come to her conclusion.

“He’ll be all right,” I said, closing his eyes so they wouldn’t dry out. “Just stunned him. He’s got a thick skull.”

“Don’t lie you me, Jack Fleming, don’t you dare!” She came close, glaring, taking small, cautious steps to avoid the trash on the floor.

“I’m not. What happened at the club? I saw a guy cutting in on your dance. . .” I wanted her distracted from Barrett. He was in a bad way, but would heal up, given time.

“We have to get out of here, you idiot!” she snarled, turning. “We have to call the cops.”

I got between her and the door. “It’s under control, I promise. Tell me what happened.”

She looked ready to bust me one, then cut her gaze to Barrett. “He’s alive? You sure?”

“I’ve seen him in worse shape and he got better.” Wasn’t that the truth? “Quick now—you were dancing with him. . .”

“And that joker cut in, and the next thing I know he yanked me backstage. There were all these guys waiting there and grinning, and I started yelling, but the music was too loud for anyone to hear and one of the guys clocked me. Then Jonathan was there and swinging. He got two of them, but this really big mug hit him with a two by four and he just dropped.”

Wood. Of course.

I should have been there to watch his back instead letting Swann sidetrack me. Barrett had noticed my confidence, but he wouldn’t thank me for the overconfidence.

“Then they carried Jonathan out and pushed us into a truck and brought us here. Said we were going to take a lover’s leap. They tied me up, but I got free.”

“You got a knife?”

“Small hands.” She knelt and touched Barrett’s face. “Jack, he’s
cold
. There’s no pulse. . .”

“He’s going to be fine. Your fingers are too cold themselves to feel anything.”

She rubbed her hands together, blowing on them. They were red and abraded where she’d slipped off her bonds.