Slow Burn

by Terrence McCauley

  ROLL ‘EM

  LOOMIS, HAUSER and I drove over to The Roosevelt on Forty-Fifth Street and Madison Avenue.

  We parked and spied the scene from half a block away. The street was between Grand Central Terminal and the other hotels in the area.

  Travelers sweated while they lugged heavy bags through crowded streets to and from the terminal. Tourists fanned themselves with their hats while gawking up at the Terminal’s fancy façade. A bum stopped in front of them and relieved himself against a wall. The tourists gasped and hurried off. The bum smiled a toothless grin. Welcome to New York, folks.

  One of Stiles’ goons, dressed like a hotel bellhop, was guarding the service elevator on Vanderbilt. He was the kind of guy Stiles usually hired. Big, no neck, face like a bulldog. Half muscle, half fat, the epilates of his uniform stretched taut at the shoulders, the brass buttons strained to the point of popping.

  Hauser spoke first. “I think this Stiles punk is in on it. I bet we’ll find he’s been running the whole thing from the start.”

  I didn’t think so. “Stiles isn’t that ambitious. He couldn’t do it himself, and he wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it for him. He probably doesn’t know where Jack is, but he might know who Enzo is — and where we could find him.”

  Hauser let it go. He nodded toward Stiles’ goon in the bellhop outfit. “I say we stick a gun in fatso’s ear and make him take us downstairs in the elevator.”

  Age hadn’t taught me much, but I’d managed to pick up a little wisdom along the way. “That’s how I did it last time. Busted in there with twenty cops and tore the place up. Lot of people got hurt.”

  Loomis said, “Want to call for backup? We don’t have twenty cops with us.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” I said. “But I’ve got a better idea. Follow me.”

  The three of us got out of the car, walked around the corner and through the revolving door of the Roosevelt Hotel. We didn’t go up the marble staircase into the lobby. Instead, we took a right and walked along the arcade hallway instead. There was a little-used staircase to the basement that was tucked next to the elevators. It was small and narrow and easy to forget. I opened the door and smiled. Still there, a decade later.

  Our guns drawn, we headed down the three flights of stairs at a good clip. Loomis and I had .38s. Hauser had a .45.

  The air inside the stairwell was stale but cool. The few light bulbs that weren’t dead were close to it. Rats scurried past us up the stairs as we headed down. Smart rats. The bottom of the staircase was pitch black, except for a sliver of light at the top and bottom of the door. I felt for the door in the darkness and found it, as cold and heavy as I remembered.

  I pressed my ear against the cold steel and listened for the din of a casino from the other side of the door Cards shuffling. Poker chips clinking. Dice rattling along the green felt of a craps table. A ball skipping along the grooves of a roulette wheel. Winners cheering, and losers moaning. And all of it exactly where Alice said it would be.

  Thank you, Alice. The last time I’d raided the place, the main raiding party came down the freight elevator, while I’d used the door I’d been listening at. It hadn’t been fitted for a lock then. I hoped that hadn’t changed since.

  I turned the handle slowly. The door gave and moved inside about half an inch until something on the other side kept it from opening further. I squeezed my hand through the narrow opening and felt wooden crates. Stiles was using this as a storeroom. Hauser and Loomis put their shoulders into it and the three of us edged the door open slowly, careful to not knock any of them over. The crates skidded and bottles rattled, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

  We stepped around the crates we’d just moved and found ourselves in the storeroom. It hadn’t been there before, but a lot can change in ten years. A lot apparently had.

  Hauser was better with a gun than I was, so I stowed my .38, took my slapjack from the back of my pants, and slid it up my left sleeve, just in case. Loomis kept his gun flat against his side. I knew he wasn’t used to doing this sort of thing. But I knew he wouldn’t get us killed, either.

  Even in the dull light of the storeroom, I could see a black curtain covered the doorway into the casino. I made sure Loomis and Hauser were ready, then I went through first. Loomis and Hauser followed.

  We found ourselves at the back of the room in an empty, dark section of the basement. The casino portion of the basement was a good hundred feet away. I was surprised to see that the second incarnation of The Velvet Lounge was less ornate than the first one had been. No big bar. No fancy paintings of fat women drinking wine in a garden. No band playing. The rumbling trains on the other side of the wall were the only music I heard. In fact, the second Velvet Lounge was a bare-bones joint. Concrete floor, with bare yellow bulbs hung low over tables just above a thick cloud of cigar smoke.

  Beneath that smoke were men in suits sitting around playing either poker or blackjack. More suits stood around craps and roulette tables at the far side near the service elevator. The whole scene would’ve been damned near respectable if it wasn’t illegal.

  When the three of us stepped from the shadows, a tall geek in a tux spotted us and headed our way. He waved over two goons from the service entrance to join him. The suits at the tables looked understandably put out.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the geek yelled. “Get out of here, right now.”

  I showed him my badge and tried a smile. “Take it easy, Junior. We’re not looking to give anyone a hard time. I just want to talk to Danny Stiles. That’s all.”

  The geek kept coming. So did the two goons behind him. “That badge don’t count for shit down here. Now take it on the heel-and-toe before—”

  The geek wasn’t expecting a kick in the balls, or a knee in the face, for his trouble. He got both from me and hit the floor flat on his back.

  The goons broke into a trot as their hands disappeared into their tuxedo jackets. Loomis and Hauser came out and flanked me, guns drawn. Hauser aimed his .45 at the head of one of the goons.

  “Don’t fucking move. Hands where I can see them.”

  They slowly pulled their hands out of their suit jackets and raised their hands. The suits at the tables threw down their cards and started scooping up their chips, looking around, trying to remember where the exits were.

  I held my badge high for all of them to see. “Everybody just calm down. This isn’t a raid and nobody’s in trouble. I just want to speak to Danny Stiles. That’s all.”

  Stiles began applauding from the front left of the casino. Even in a tux, he still looked like just another cheap hood. Everything he knew about class he learned from gangster pictures and pulp rags. His black hair was streaked with gray and slicked back with too much tonic, giving it a greasier look than it already had. He had a crooked nose, pockmarked skin and a long scar down the right side of his cheek. He told everyone that he got that face in a knife fight.

  But I knew different. I’m the one who’d given it to him.

  “Great entrance, Charlie. Impressive as hell. But you really ought to do something about that suit.” He sucked his teeth and spoke to his gamblers. “See what happens when a crooked cop comes off the dole, boys? Poor little bastard dresses like an undertaker.”

  He shook his head. “The great Detective Charles Doherty. My, how the mighty have fallen.” A few of the gamblers laughed. Most just looked like they wanted to get the hell out of there.

  I wasn’t laughing, either. “I didn’t get this suit from an undertaker, Danny. I borrowed it from a butler. Jack Van Dorn’s butler.”

  Stiles wasn’t laughing anymore.

  He beckoned me to join him at the front of the room. Loomis came along, while Hauser kept the two goons and the geek in the tux covered. We followed Stiles into a cramped little office. A scuffed wooden desk, chairs and a couch — all were probably cast-offs from the hotel rooms upstairs. There was also a big safe in the corner that looked like it’d b
e hell to open without a couple cases of dynamite.

  The only decorations were a crumby old calendar tacked on the wall and a teak cigarette box on the desk. The rumbling from the trains heading into Grand Central Terminal was louder here than on the casino floor. I pegged the tracks to be just on the other side of that wall.

  The office was little more than a closet, but Stiles took his seat behind that desk like he was J.P. Morgan himself.

  Loomis walked in before me. I shut the door behind me and slid the bolt home.

  Stiles cocked an eyebrow, Cagney-style. “So it’s that kind of conversation, is it, fellas?”

  “Depends on what you have to say, Danny Boy. And whether or not I believe you.”

  Stiles jerked his chin to the left as he ran his finger along the inside his collar. He’d left his bravado out on the gaming floor. Being locked in a small room alone with two cops has that effect sometimes. “Come on, Charlie. I’ve always been square with you, ain’t I?”

  I looked at the scar on his cheek. “Not always.”

  Stiles shifted in his chair. “That crack you made in there about Van Dorn’s butler piqued my interest. What’s it all about?”

  “You tell me. You heard Jack’s been kidnapped, of course. Or have you been too busy with your customers out there to keep up with current events?”

  Stiles stopped fidgeting and got very still. The only thing that moved were his eyes.

  “Kidnapped? What the hell are you talking about, kidnapped? Who took him? That lousy goddamned kid owes me a lot of money.”

  “You don’t say?” Loomis asked. “How much is he into you for?”

  “What’s it to you?” Stiles took a cigarette from the teak box on his desk and struck a match off the side of his desk. “And who the fuck are you, anyway? I never seen you before in my life.”

  I shot the sap out from my sleeve and brought it down on the cigarette box. Goddamned thing splintered into a million pieces. Stiles dropped the lit cigarette into his lap as he jumped away from the desk.

  “He’s a cop asking you a direct question, fucko,” I said. “Answer the man.”

  “T… ten grand,” Stiles said. “He’s usually good for it, but sometimes he takes his time paying up. Always has a sob story about how he has to get the dough from his old man. Why?”

  Loomis didn’t say anything, and neither did I. We just looked at Stiles and watched him squirm.

  Stiles caught on quick. “Now wait just a goddamned minute here. You guys don’t think I took him, do you? Why the hell would I go and do something like that?”

  “You just said he’s into you for ten grand,” Loomis reminded him. “And he’s slow in paying up. Those are two pretty good reasons right there.”

  “You having money troubles of your own is a good third reason,” I added. “Ransom’s a great way to make a quick buck. Easy, too, unless things get complicated. And this got awful complicated awful quick, didn’t it, Danny?”

  “Are you guys nuts?” Stiles said. “I already got enough trouble with that crazy guinea downtown looking for me. Look around here, fellas. You think I got the kind of operation to kidnap this brat, hold him, and run this place all at the same time? A few years ago, maybe, but not now. Hell, if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be into Lucky for as much as I am. Come on, Charlie. You know me. I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “All I know is that you’re into Lucky deep enough to make him come looking for you. You own The Chauncey Arms — where Van Dorn’s sister got killed. You own the apartment where Jack lives. And you own the place the kidnappers holed up with Jack. ”

  “Not to mention,” Loomis added, “two of the kidnappers work for you.” I tossed one of the VL matchbooks on his lap.

  “Right here at the Velvet Lounge. Everywhere I’ve gone today, those matchbooks keep popping up. So either you’re behind all this, or you’re the unluckiest son of a bitch I ever met.”

  Stiles tried jumping out of his seat but I shoved him back down.

  “Now you wait just a good goddamned minute,” Stiles said. “That dead broad in The Chauncey’s mixed up in all this?”

  “She’s Van Dorn’s sister, smart guy,” I said. “She brought the ransom there to two of your flunkies — Chamberlain, and a guy named Enzo.”

  Stiles suddenly didn’t look so worried. In fact, he gave a little laugh and flashed his best matinee hood smile. “Well that’s where the cross up is, boys. Someone’s been feeding you a line. I don’t have any Chamberlain or Enzo on my payroll. Never have, and believe me, if I did, I’d know. You’re digging in the wrong place.”

  “Sure you do,” Loomis said. “Enzo’s probably an alias, but Chamberlain goes by the name of Max Lennon these days. He runs The Chantilly Club for you.”

  Stiles blanched. “Lennon? Max Lennon?”

  He looked at Loomis and I as if we’d tell him something different if he looked sad enough. We just looked back at him.

  “Lennon, that dirty bastard,” Stiles said. “You think he’s involve in this?”

  “He confessed to it a couple of hours ago,” Loomis told him. “He said a guy named Enzo and his friends were in on it with him. Chamberlain says he doesn’t know Enzo’s real name, but the Chief’s got some of his best boys interrogating him as we speak.”

  I smiled. “And from what they say, Chamberlain’s got a hell of a singing voice. He’s liable to admit to anything right about now. We could probably get him to implicate you, too, unless you tell us who Enzo is.”

  Stiles lost all color in his face as he sank back against the wall. “He… he could be Larry.”

  Finally, a name. I grabbed him by the collar. “Larry who?”

  “Larry Grimes,” Stiles said. “A guy I ran with a few years back. We were in a few scrapes together. He skipped town on account of knocking up this girl, then beating the hell out of her for getting pregnant on him. Bastard damned near killed her. He came back to town about six months ago looking for a job. Since I owed him a couple of favors, I put him to work for me from time to time when he needed it. Always seemed grateful.”

  I looked over at Loomis. Larry equaled Lawrence, which could equal Lorenzo, which might equal Enzo. Not the biggest leap we’d taken that day. For the first time, I felt like we might be catching a break.

  I eased up my grip on Stiles’ collar. “Tell us more about Grimes.”

  “He worked mostly at The Chantilly for me, but I used him here a couple of times as muscle whenever I was shorthanded. He’s got a bad temper, which comes in handy for the action I’ve got going on downtown.”

  “Did he know you owned The Chauncey Arms?” I asked.

  “Sure. When he’s not working with Lennon, he runs the crap game I run in the Basement, and some other things I’ve got going on down there. He prefers the dives to some of my nicer places, so I put him up in an apartment down there.”

  “The place on Twenty-Third,” Loomis said.

  “I got places all over town,” Stiles said. “It wasn’t too fancy, and I figured that one…”

  I wasn’t interested. “We just came from there, and he’s gone. And all we found was some empty bottles and a bloody shirt. Jack Van Dorn’s bloody shirt.”

  Stiles blanched again as Loomis ran it down for him. “You own the building where Van Dorn lives, the club where he was probably kidnapped, the dump where his sister was killed, and the place he was held. And two of the kidnappers worked for you. You’d better think of places where Enzo could’ve taken Jack — and you’d better think fast.”

  I thought Stiles’ bladder went. He grabbed for my arm, but I pushed him away. “Charlie? Charlie, you gotta believe me. These guys just worked for me! They just used my places, but I didn’t—”

  I clipped him in the back of the head to steady him down. “These bastards have been using places you own every step of the way. You got any other places they might’ve taken Jack?”

  “Sure. I’ve got all kinds of places, Charlie,” Stiles whined. “I’ve got places fo
r mugs like Grimes to hang their hat. Some nice places for high rollers, too. They come in, play too long and need a place to sleep it off, take a girl, whatever they need to keep them in town and gambling at my joint.”

  Loomis kept going: “Does Grimes know where any of these places are?”

  Stiles shook his head. “Nah, he never…” And then Stiles’ head shot up. His eyes wide. “Oh, God.”

  I was too close to the truth for theatrics. I grabbed Stiles by the shoulder and jerked him back in his chair. “Oh, God, what?”

  Stiles pulled open the top drawer of his desk. Loomis went for his gun.

  The drawer held several hotel room keys. About ten by my count, but there were probably many more. Stiles sank back in his chair and raked his fingers through his hair, clutching at a clump of hair at the back of his head. “Oh, no.”

  I tapped him in the back of the head. “Snap out of it, stupid. What is it?”

  “I pay the hotel to reserve ten rooms for me upstairs in case the high rollers need a place to stay. Larry knows that. I had him escort a big winner up to one of the rooms last week.” He looked down at the open drawer. “There are only nine keys here. The bastard must’ve palmed one when he was here last.”

  Larry Grimes. Here. Jack Van Dorn. Here. Maybe. But maybe was more than what I’d had all day. The end of this whole, rotten mess might only be a few floors above me.

  I grabbed Stiles by the collar and slowly pulled him up out of his chair. “What room number?”

  BLACK AND BLUE

  IT ALL boiled down to one place: Suite 1411 of the Roosevelt Hotel. Forty-Five East Forty-Fifth Street at Madison Avenue.

  Hauser, Loomis and I stood alone in the same stairwell we’d come down. I kept the door propped open for some light and air. My head was spinning, and I needed all the air I could get to keep from getting dizzy. Even stale air would do. Christ, the Van Dorn kid could be closer than I thought. Four floors above me.

  I took several deep breaths while Loomis filled Hauser in on how Enzo was really Larry Grimes.