Fireplay

by Suzanne Chazin

  4

  They found Doug Hanlon in a corner of the back alley. He looked impossibly young, even with the blisters and soot that marked his sad-eyed face. For most of the last half hour, Jack O’Dwyer had been hovering over him protectively, but he’d been called away to help on the roof, so Hanlon was alone. Georgia caught some of the firefighters giving him quick, curious glances. Innocent looks, most likely. But she knew how accusatory they must’ve felt to Doug Hanlon. God, how she knew.

  “I think you should handle this one alone,” said Carter.

  “You do, huh?” Her tone was defensive. Carter stumbled about for a reply.

  “You know his dad better than I do…And…you’re a woman. Hanlon will be more likely to open up to you than to me. If I’m there, he might feel like we’re ganging up on him.”

  Georgia gave Carter a long, penetrating stare. “Those aren’t the only reasons you want me to talk to him.”

  His face betrayed him. “I think maybe…you sort of know what he’s going through,” he said softly. “You can talk to him. Tell him what it’s like—”

  “This is a police interview, Randy. Not a therapy session.”

  Carter placed a hand on her arm. “Okay. Calm down. Forget I asked. Just get his statement, okay?”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Trying to get hold of Café Treize’s owner.” Carter gave her a reassuring nod. “Go easy on him, all right? Yourself, too.”

  They split up and Georgia walked over to the young firefighter. He was a big man, well built, with soft, pale gray eyes that seemed too young to be set in such a grief-stricken face. His nose and cheeks were red and speckled with heat blisters—second-degree burns. The burns had to be painful, but he seemed unaware of them.

  “Doug?” Georgia forced a smile and extended a hand.

  He blinked at her as if she’d woken him up from a deep sleep. His grasp was tentative. He didn’t seem to want anyone to touch him.

  “I’m Georgia Skeehan. I’m a fire marshal. I know your dad, Seamus. My dad used to serve in the same firehouse in Queens where your dad’s a captain.” Connections were important in the FDNY. To a firefighter, everyone was either family or an outsider. Georgia wanted to offer up as many connections as she could going in.

  “Sure,” he muttered in a way that suggested he hadn’t really heard.

  “You have some facial burns. Do you want to go to the hospital for treatment?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “I need to ask you what happened in the basement, Doug. Can you tell me what went on down there?”

  He turned away from her and hung his head. Georgia thought he was trying to compose his thoughts. But then she saw him put a hand up to his eyes. His shoulders started to quake. Georgia’s stomach dropped into her shoes. She’d had people break down on her before in interviews. But she’d never had to do this with a firefighter. She loathed herself for having to put him through this.

  “Doug,” she said softly.

  He wiped his nose along the sleeve of his turnout coat. What came out was black. He’d taken quite a feed of smoke down there. It was a wonder any of them came back alive. She sensed the other firefighters eavesdropping. She shot them murderous looks. They dropped their gazes.

  “Doug,” she said again. The site was crawling with firefighters—inside and outside the building. She couldn’t get him into her department car, either. That would’ve meant walking the gauntlet of reporters in the street. The most private place they were going to find to talk was a corner of the alley. She beckoned him there now. They leaned against a rusted chain-link fence, surrounded by crushed cigarette packs and empty condom wrappers. He kicked a broken bottle at his feet to avoid her scrutiny. Green glass sparkled in the sun. The bright cold morning mocked their mood.

  “All you have to do is tell me what happened down there as honestly and thoroughly as you can,” Georgia coaxed. “This isn’t an interrogation. No one’s blaming you.”

  He turned away from her and grabbed the chain-link fence. He seemed too ashamed even to meet her gaze. Georgia realized in an instant why: the word “blame.” She had given voice to his deepest fear. Georgia opened her mouth to try to tell him she understood, but nothing came out. She could not comfort him. After all this time, she still couldn’t comfort herself.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Hanlon said softly into the fence. His voice was raspy from the smoke. “We went in with the life rope, got turned around and couldn’t find our way out.”

  Georgia eased a notebook from the pocket of her turnout coat. “Tell me what you remember from the moment you got down there until the time you came out.”

  In a hoarse and halting voice, Hanlon poured out his twenty-two minutes of hell in the cellar of Café Treize. Georgia interrupted only to prompt him to the next memory. But she noticed there was one thing he omitted.

  “It’s okay, you know, that you were sharing masks,” she told him.

  Hanlon stared at her with bloodshot eyes, but said nothing.

  “Look, Doug, I understand. You ran out of air. You had no choice.”

  “But the rules,” Hanlon stammered. “The rules say you’re not supposed to—”

  “The rules were written by a bunch of pencil-pushing staff chiefs sitting on their fat asses down at headquarters, Doug. You’re a probie, for chrissakes. You’d never gotten turned around in smoke like that before. You were breathing hard, you used up your air and somebody gave you some of theirs.” She nodded to his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that—I can see the burns on your face and I need to know.”

  Hanlon touched his face. He was in such deep shock, he probably didn’t even feel them. He gave her a defeated nod.

  “I panicked,” he said softly. “And Tony, he…he gave me his mask. I told him he wasn’t supposed to do that.” Hanlon shook his head. “Tony and the Cap…they saved my life. That should’ve been me down there. Not them.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Georgia tried to reassure him. “It’s the nature of firefighting. You never know what fate is going to bring you.”

  Two firefighters hefted a black body bag from the basement. Everyone stood at attention. A shudder traveled through Hanlon’s large frame and he hung his head.

  “Yeah, well, fate took the wrong guy.”

  Georgia waited until O’Dwyer returned to stay with him before she went to find Carter. She didn’t see Randy outside, so she entered the restaurant through a fire exit that had been propped open. The cement ceiling of the basement that had baked Russo and Fuentes had also stopped the fire from spreading upward. The result, Georgia realized, was that the restaurant looked remarkably intact. The exposed brick walls showed no signs of soot damage, nor did the modern oil paintings that hung on them. There was no oily residue on the colorful hand-blown glass vases or the white linens on the tables. About the only damage Georgia could see was some broken glass scattered across the wide-board oak floors. It came from the skylights that the firefighters had broken on the roof two stories above.

  With a guilty glance, Georgia picked up a menu at the maître d’s station and scanned the offerings, all in French, though, thankfully, there were descriptions following each dish. This being a former beef wholesaler, they were heavy on French-style meat selections: sweetbreads and calf’s liver and pâtés. But there were also dishes Georgia wouldn’t have minded trying: andouille sausage with dried cherries, truffles and sage, escargot in a garlic cream sauce with vermouth, steak tartare on Parmesan-crusted bread with caramelized onions and capers. Georgia thought the prices were high, but not as bad as she’d expected. Then she realized with a jolt that she was reading off the appetizers.

  She put the menu down and walked up the open-air metal staircase to the second floor. She followed the sound of voices to a thick oak door that was heavily scarred—probably one of the original doors in the building. She could hear two men’s voices behind the door. One was Carter’s. The other belonged to a man with a nasa
l, singsong way of speaking. He sounded agitated.

  “I’m telling you, Officer—”

  “Marshal,” Carter corrected.

  “Whatever,” said the man. “The facts are the same. Business couldn’t be better. I’m booked solid for the next five months. Overbooked, as a matter of fact. I don’t know how I’m going to find tables for all these people. I’ve got no enemies. You should be out canvassing the neighborhood for the crazy person who fell asleep in my doorway and almost cost me my business. That’s who you should be looking for.”

  Georgia knocked and called out to Carter. He opened the door to a plush office done in sleek black leather. The walls were lined with photographs of celebrities wrapping their arms around a short, balding man with hungry eyes and a pinched smile. That man was in a chair behind a messy desk, rocking back and forth nervously and checking his watch. He wore dark gray slacks and a thick knit sweater with a geometric design on the front. Casual clothes, but they looked expensive. He narrowed his gaze at Georgia as she walked in, but made no move to shake her hand, so she didn’t offer it.

  “Barry Glickstein, this is Fire Marshal Georgia Skeehan,” said Carter. “Georgia, Mr. Glickstein is the owner of Café Treize.”

  Glickstein held his hands parallel to his face and waved them back and forth rapidly in a slicing motion. Georgia had the sense he used this same gesture on recalcitrant employees and suppliers.

  “I’m trying to tell your partner here that I don’t have any enemies. This fire…it’s some lunatic homeless person’s doing. I’ve got the personal cell phone numbers of nearly every A-list celebrity in Manhattan. Does that sound like a man with enemies to you?”

  “I’m asking Mr. Glickstein to open his books and show us his profit margin. I just want to see if his profits are in line with our perceptions.”

  “You think I’d burn my own restaurant? Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? You’re the crazy one, Detective—”

  “Marshal,” Carter said through clenched teeth.

  “Same thing.” Glickstein shrugged. He turned to Georgia. He would play one off the other if he had to. “Darling, you look like a smart girl to me. Look around this place. It’s a gold mine. Why would I burn it? I can fix that basement up in a matter of days. I won’t even be out of commission for more than a day or two. Does that sound like someone trying to get out from under a business to you?”

  “Then open your books, Mr. Glickstein,” said Georgia.

  “Not without a court order.”

  “Fair enough.” Georgia rose from her chair.

  “Where are you going?” Glickstein demanded.

  “I have subpoena forms in the car. You want a court order, it can be arranged. Right here. Right now.”

  “Whoa.” Glickstein put his palms on his desk. “You can do that?”

  “We’re fire marshals, Mr. Glickstein, not police detectives. We don’t have to get a judge’s permission to subpoena your documents. We have the power to do that ourselves.” Georgia neglected to mention that Glickstein had a forty-eight-hour grace period to produce those records—even with her subpoena. She was banking on panic over reason. Cops do it all the time.

  “Sweetheart, what are you doing to me? I’m no criminal. I’m a law-abiding citizen. Last year, I gave five thousand dollars to the Firefighters’ Widows and Orphans Fund.”

  Carter’s handy talkie began to crackle. It was Chief Broward’s aide. “Is the owner in there with you?” the aide asked Carter.

  “Affirmative,” said Carter in a cool, collected voice. Somehow he always managed to remain calm, even in the most trying situations. “Does the chief need him?”

  “Negative,” said the aide. “But we’ve got an angry liquor supplier out here. The cops are restraining him now. He says Glickstein owes him eighty-five grand on his account, it’s overdue and he’s afraid that with the fire, he’ll try to skip.”

  Glickstein got up from his chair, cursed and paced the floor. Carter bit back a smile.

  “Tell him to stay cool,” said Carter. “We’ll be out in a moment.”

  He slipped the handy talkie back onto his duty holster, and they both stared at Barry Glickstein like two jackals moving in for the kill. “Care to explain that one?” asked Carter.

  “It’s not eighty-five thousand,” said Glickstein. “It’s sixty-eight thousand—”

  “It’s a lot of money,” said Georgia. “You’re booked solid for months, but you can’t pay your liquor bill? I saw your menu, Mr. Glickstein. A dinner for two people without alcohol must run three hundred easily here. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing’s going on. You don’t think this happens twenty times a day in New York? I’ve got hundreds of suppliers, and they’re always kvetching about not getting paid. Always. Whether I pay them or not.”

  Glickstein turned on his telephone answering machine. The red light was flashing. He had messages on his tape. “You don’t believe me? Listen up.”

  He pushed Play. An oily voice came on.

  Hey…Barry. It’s Jeff. Listen, Mariah’s absolutely got to have a table for eight this Saturday. Do me this favor, amigo, okay? Ciao, baby. I owe you…

  “Mariah Carey’s publicist,” said Glickstein, rolling his eyes. “Man thinks I’m a table fairy. What does he want me to do? Book her on the ceiling?” There was a beep, then the next message started.

  Barry…I’m sending Fred down today. Pay something on that cleaning bill Five Gs…ten. You’re going to get a lot of people very pissed off if Fred comes back empty-handed.

  Georgia frowned. “Who’s Fred?”

  “He’s with my linen-cleaning service,” Glickstein explained. “It’s like I told you, darling. Everybody wants money.”

  “Seems like you owe a lot of people a lot of money,” said Carter.

  “And they don’t want me out of business because then they don’t get paid,” Glickstein shot back. “None of these jokers set any fires.”

  There was a pause on the next message, as if the caller wanted an uncomfortable silence before he spoke.

  Barry, my boy…You should really clear out that rear stockroom, ya know? All those paper towels and shit—they’re sooo combustible…I’d really hate to see a fire take down my favorite watering hole….

  Glickstein reached out to erase the message, but Carter was faster. He grabbed Glickstein’s hand in midair. “Erase that sucker, and I’ll lock you up right now for tampering with evidence.” Glickstein withdrew his hand. The message continued.

  So…how ’bout I come by for the money you owe me Friday night? Just put me in the reservation book—say eight-thirty? Freezer’s the name, but you knew that already, didn’t you?

  There were no more messages. Carter popped the tape out of the answering machine. “We’ll take this.” He paused. “Unless you feel the need for a formal subpoena.”

  “No,” said Glickstein sullenly. “Just take it. You’re going to anyway.”

  “Who’s Freezer?” Georgia asked Glickstein.

  “How should I know?” said Glickstein. “I didn’t even listen to that message until just now.”

  Carter leaned forward and held Glickstein’s gaze. “How much is McLaughlin shaking you down for?” Glickstein said nothing, so he continued. “That’s why you can’t meet your bills no matter how much y’all rake in, isn’t it? Big Mike’s putting the squeeze on you.”

  Glickstein dropped his head into his hands. He was sweating across his bald spot.

  “Come on, Glickstein,” said Carter. “I used to work this neighborhood back when men in pink hot pants and blond wigs walked these streets. Freezer’s been in this racket so long, he could collect a pension by now.”

  “I want to talk to my attorney.” Glickstein reached for the phone.

  Carter turned to Georgia. “What do you think, Marshal? Should we read him his rights?”

  Georgia could see the bluff in Carter’s eyes, but Glickstein couldn’t. She pulled a set of handcuffs off her duty holster and jingled th
em. “You have the right to remain silent—” she began. Glickstein cut her off.

  “You can’t take me out of here in handcuffs,” he pleaded.

  Georgia pretended not to hear as she discussed the evidence with Carter. “The grand jury case should be a piece of cake,” she said. “We’ve got a taped confession from a man who set a fire that killed two firefighters. And he’s calling Mr. Glickstein for money. Sounds like an arson-for-profit scheme to me.” She turned to Glickstein. “You’ll be a real hero to your A-list friends now when they find out you’ve been charged with the murders of two of New York’s Bravest. They’re going to love you.”

  “Please,” he begged. “I had nothing to do with this fire. Why would I burn my own restaurant? It was McLaughlin. Michael McLaughlin. He did it because I’m behind in my payments.” Glickstein turned to Carter. “You know Freezer. You know how ruthless he can be. This guy…when I owned my burger joint uptown? He chopped the pinky finger off one of my suppliers because the man was two weeks late with the money he owed.”

  Glickstein couldn’t read Carter’s passive expression, so he turned to Georgia. “I was scared. Wouldn’t you be? I tried to make the payments, I admit it. But I’m no murderer.”

  “Seems to me, Mr. Glickstein, it’s either him or you,” said Georgia. “You talk. You walk. What’s it gonna be?”

  “All right, all right.” Glickstein sighed. “I’ll give you a formal statement. Whatever you want to know. But you’re the fools if you think anyone can put the finger on Mike McLaughlin. On the streets, they say Freezer is Teflon-coated. Nothing sticks to him.”

  “It will this time,” said Georgia.

  5

  “So, who’s Michael McLaughlin?” Georgia asked Carter. They were back in their car, heading north on the West Side Drive. The Hudson River rippled with the stark, clear light of a bright winter day as barges and tugboats plowed the waters. Carter was wearing a small, satisfied grin that hadn’t left his face since pocketing the answering machine tape from Barry Glickstein’s office.

  “McLaughlin’s Teflon, all right,” said Carter. “But this time, he’s stepped in it. I’ll bet he had no idea the sprinklers at Café Treize had been turned off. If we get to him quickly, he may not realize what’s happened. Once he knows, he’ll lawyer up—maybe split town.”