Slow Burn

by G. M. Ford

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright ©1998 by G.M. Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781612183770

  ISBN-10: 1612183778

  To Rex Stout and his enduring creations: Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner, Theodore Horstmann, Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather, Johnny Keems, Bill Gore, Inspector Cramer, Purley Stebbins, Lily Rowan, Marko Vukcic, Lon Cohen, Nathaniel Parker, Doctor Edwin A. Vollmer, Lieutenant Rowcliff, Arnold Zeck, Lewis Hewitt, Ben Dykes, Dol Bonner, Ethelbert Hitchcock, Del Bascom, Sally Colt, Ruth Brady, Sol Feder, Herb Aronson, Bill Pratt, Harry Foster, Lieutenant Con Noonan, Avery Ballou and Carla Lovchen.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  About the Author

  I never meant to break his thumb. All I wanted was a ride in the elevator. The burnished brass doors were no more than ten feet away when I was gently nudged toward the right.

  “Pardon me…” I began.

  He was a big beefy kid with a flattop, smelling of scented soap and Aramis. He kept pushing, his blue blazer now locked on my elbow, his big chest bending my path steadily toward the right, toward the stairs, away from the elevators.

  I planted my right foot and swung back, only to find myself nose to nose with another one. African-American, this time; otherwise, same blazer, same size, same grimace.

  “What’s the problem, fellas?”

  “No problem,” said Flattop. “You just come along with us.”

  I stood my ground. “What for?” I said with a smile.

  He reached out and locked a big hand onto my upper arm, squeezing like a vise, sending a dull ache all the way to my fingertips. His hard little eyes searched my face for pain. “Listen, Mr. Private Dick…” he sneered. “You just…”

  I took a slide step to the right, putting Flattop between me and his partner, jerked my arm free, grabbed his thumb with one hand, his wrist with the other, and commenced introductions. Something snapped like a Popsicle stick. His mouth formed a silent circle. When I let go, he reeled backward, stumbling hard into his buddy as he danced in circles, gasping for air and staring at his hand.

  “Whoa, whoa,” his partner chanted.

  “You want some too?”

  He reached for the inside pocket of his blazer. I froze. He flipped open a black leather case. His picture over the name Lincoln Aimes.

  “Hotel security,” he said quickly.

  Flattop was still turning in small circles, eyes screwed shut, cradling his damaged hand, whistling “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” through his nose.

  I shrugged. “All you had to do was say so, fellas.”

  He rolled his eyes in the direction of his partner. “Lance wanted to,” he said with a sigh. “You know, he—”

  His explanation was interrupted by a familiar voice rising from behind me.

  “And what’s this?”

  Marty Conlan had put in his twenty-five years with SPD and then gotten himself a steady job. He’d been the security chief for the Olympic Star Hotel for the better part of ten years now. Other than having an ass that was cinched up tighter than a frog’s, he wasn’t a half-bad guy. “These belong to you, Marty?”

  He ignored me, glowering instead at the twirling Lance.

  “Did he attack you?”

  I don’t think Lance heard the question. He was otherwise occupied, making noises like a suckling pig and hopping about like a weevil.

  Conlan turned his attention to Lincoln Aimes. “Well? Did he?”

  Aimes thought it over. “Not exactly,” he said.

  “Did you identify yourselves?”

  “Not exactly,” Aimes repeated.

  “I thought I told you two—”

  This time, Aimes interrupted. “Lance wanted to…” he began.

  Conlan waved him off, checking the lobby, whispering now. “Jesus Christ. Take him down to the staff room. Call him a doctor. I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

  We stood in silence as the pair made their way around us, heading down the hall in the opposite direction from which they’d been trying to move me. “All they had to do was identify themselves,” I said.

  “Yeah, Leo. I know. You’re famous for being the kind of guy who comes along quietly.” He heaved a sigh. “Come on up to the office for a few minutes, will ya? We need to talk.”

  I checked my watch. Five minutes to ten. “I’ve got a meeting at ten.”

  “I know,” he said, turning away. “That’s why we need to talk.”

  I followed him up the carpeted stairs to the mezzanine and then around to the security office. Security consisted of two rooms. The first was filled with a U-shaped bank of TV monitors which nearly covered the room from floor to ceiling. Maybe a dozen in all. The cameras covering the entrances were left on all the time. The others, which monitored selective areas of the hotel, could be used on demand.

  Another kid in a blue blazer stared at the screens as we entered the room. He had a wide mouth, large liquid eyes, and absolutely no neck. His blue-and-red-striped tie seemed to be pulled tight, just beneath his ears. He looked like Stimpy. He started to open his mouth, but closed it with a click when he saw me.

  Marty paused to speak. “Call Frank Cooney,” he said. “Tell him we need him down here for the week.”

  “Frank’s off this week, Mr. Conlan. He and the missus are gonna—”

  Marty cut him off. “Tell him it’s an emergency.” He threw me a glance. “Tell him Lance had an accident and is going to be laid up for a while.” Stimpy still hadn’t moved. A mouth breather. I pictured him red with a blue nose and inwardly smiled.

  “Call him,” Conlan bellowed.

  As the kid dove for the phone, Conlan pushed his hands deep into his pockets and kicked open the door at the back of the room. I followed him through, into his office.

  Marty made his way around to the back side of the polished oak table that served as his desk and wearily plopped himself down into his black leather chair. “Have a seat,” he said.

  I stood in the center of the room and checked my watch. Two minutes to. “I have an appointment upstairs,” I said.

  “Room sixteen hundred.”

  “If you say so.”

  The smile evaporated. “What is it with you, Leo? Always the hard guy. Always making a pain in the ass of yourself.”

  “Color me with a crabby crayon, Marty, but I don’t like being strong-armed by amateurs. You know what I mean? It’s not good for my image. So either get to the point, or I’ll be on my way.”

&n
bsp; He quickly stood and pointed a manicured finger at me.

  “Listen, Leo, I don’t have to let you in here at all. You know that, don’t you? This is private property. I can have you removed.”

  “You’ll need a lot better help.”

  A film fell over his eyes. “The corporation won’t pay for it,” he blurted. “By the time I get ’em house-trained, they’re outta here. The suits just don’t get it. You can make as much in a frigging Burger King as they pay these kids. All they do is bust my ass about the high turnover.”

  I gestured at the well-appointed office, with its plush carpet, gilded mirror, real wood paneling, and awesome collection of framed photographs and certificates.

  “Beats the hell out of a squad room,” I offered.

  “Some days,” he said. “Other days…”

  I seemed to have found a sore spot.

  “They’re bouncers with Brylcreem,” he lamented.

  I was tempted to point out that it was more likely mousse and that the Brylcreem reference seriously dated him, but this didn’t seem like the best time. I settled for: “I guess that’s how come you’re making the big bucks, Marty,” an utterance which earned me only a short porcine snort.

  He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and pointed at the wall behind me. I knew what it was, but I craned my neck anyway.

  There, lovingly framed and mounted on the wall, was the infamous UPI photograph of the ten lousy seconds which, much to my chagrin, seemed destined to serve as my solitary contribution to local popular culture. Marty was rolling.

  “And here I am, spilling my guts to the bozo whose actions constitute the single most embarrassing moment in the history of this chain of forty-nine hotels. How’s that?” he demanded of the ceiling.

  In the photo, I stood, up to my knees, in the fountain at the hotel’s main entrance, my hair flopped down over my right eye and plastered to my head, my pants seriously sagging. That was bad enough. It was, however, the two nearly naked hookers to whom all eyes were inevitably drawn.

  “They use that frigging picture at training seminars. It’s been in all the industry journals. We’re a laughingstock. You know that?”

  I reckoned how I might have heard such a rumor.

  The irony was that I hadn’t even been in the hotel that evening. I’d been on my way to meet Rebecca for a couple of quick drinks and an even quicker appearance at a mayoral fund-raiser, when my progress across the driveway was blocked by a white stretch limo which jerked to a halt inches in front of my toes. I heaved a sigh and started the four-mile hike around the rear of the car.

  At first I thought somebody had popped a flashbulb inside the limo, as the interior was suddenly filled with a bright blue-green light. The violent rocking of the car and the four-part choral screaming suggested otherwise, however.

  Without thinking, I grabbed for the nearest door and pulled. The blonde came out first, wearing a pair of crotchless panties, a red feather boa, and a pained expression. Both the boa and her hair were on fire. I used her own momentum to hustle her past me into the fountain pool, where she landed facedown with an audible hiss.

  The little Chinese woman was another matter. Screaming in agony, she burst out through the limo door like a cannonball, butting me hard in the solar plexus, leaving me hiccuping for breath as she flailed wildly at herself and began tottering down the drive.

  She was wearing a pale lavender corset-type thing that left her small breasts bare, a tiny matching garter belt, and white shoes and stockings. All of which were on fire as she hotfooted it down the drive, her blind terror pushing her in exactly the wrong direction.

  I sucked in one long breath and ran her down, lifting her from the ground with one hand and tearing at her burning clothes with the other. In the time it took to turn back and take the two steps into the pool, her flames claimed my eyebrows, and the heat of the small metal corset hooks blistered my fingers. Ten measly seconds.

  A nameless UPI photographer, sent down to cover the fund-raiser, had caught the action at just the moment when I lifted the two women from the pool, one arm around each, all of us grinning for all we were worth. One big happy family.

  Turned out they’d been freebasing cocaine and balling a pimp who called himself Eightball when the red velour interior of the limo, having finally reached its chemical saturation point, spontaneously burst into flame. Despite his best efforts, the driver, one Norris Payne of Tacoma, had been unable to extricate himself from his seat belt. In his thrashing about, Norris had inhaled a couple of lungfuls of the brightly colored flame and died under heavy sedation a couple of days later up at Harborview.

  Eightball had eventually managed to roll himself out the far side and, with the help of several bystanders and a handy fire extinguisher, had successfully saved ninety-nine percent of his considerable epidermis. As irony would have it, however, the remaining one percent consisted of none other than his wanger, which, in a travesty of bad timing, had been experiencing liftoff at the very moment of ignition and thus took heavy lateral damage. He still calls himself Eightball. Behind his back, though, they call him Brother Beef Jerky.

  Marty Conlan peered over my shoulder at the photo. “Maybe if you hadn’t all just seemed to be having such a hell of a good time,” he mused.

  “People who find themselves suddenly on fire tend to be somewhat elated when the fire goes out,” I countered.

  “Or if you hadn’t been the one holding the dildo.”

  “I don’t know where it came from, either, man. It was just floating there in the water. I thought it was an arm or something. I just instinctively picked it up. It must have been part of the ensemble.”

  Resigned, he flopped back into his chair. After a moment, he asked, “You know who’s in sixteen hundred? That’s the Edwardian Suite, you know.”

  I decided to give him a break. “As a matter of fact, I don’t, Marty.” I told him how the message on my machine had merely requested my presence at ten A.M. on Sunday morning. It had assured me of a day’s pay, no matter what. Said I’d have to check in at the desk, because there was no elevator button for the private floors. A special security key was required.

  “Sir Geoffrey Miles,” he said.

  “A sir, you say? You mean like nobility?”

  “I do.”

  “Where do I know that name from?” I asked.

  “Food. He’s famous in food.”

  Yeah, that was right, food. Sir Geoffrey Miles. The world’s foremost authority on food. The Guru of Gourmands. The Bagwan of Bouillabaisse. The Ayatollah of Gorgonzola. Dude.

  “In town for the big food convention?” I asked.

  “Nice to see you still read the papers.”

  “An informed citizenry is the backbone of a free society,” I said.

  His nostrils suddenly flared in a manner usually reserved for sniffing long-forgotten Tupperware containers.

  “They’re all here,” he said. “At least all the muckety-mucks. We palmed a few lesser luminaries off on the Sorrento, and the hired help is camped out down at the Sheraton, but everybody who’s anybody is here.”

  According to the Times, for the next five days the best and brightest of the world food community would be holding their annual confab in beautiful downtown Seattle. The article had gone on to note that it was only following prolonged political wrangling at the highest levels that Le Cuisine Internationale had ever so reluctantly consented to the Seattle venue. Never before had the event been held outside Europe. A number of aquiline noses were seriously bent.

  Marty wasn’t through. “I figured, you know, these were classy people. Robin Leach. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and all that, and, you know, it’s a holiday weekend, so I figured we could get by with a skeleton crew…” He shook his head sadly.

  “No, huh?” I prodded.

  “Biggest bunch of assholes I’ve ever encountered,” he said. “Bar none. No lo contendo,” he enunciated carefully.

  “How come?”

  “Everybody hates
everybody else. These people got grudges going back thirty years. I don’t watch my ass, I’m gonna have an ethnic cleansing right here on the premises. The service staff is pulling its hair out. These people complain about everything. Nothing is good enough for any of them. They fax room service ten-page instructions on how they want their lunch prepared and then send the sucker back anyway. I’ve got royalty on sixteen. I’ve got armed camps hunkered down on fourteen. I’ve got—”

  I interrupted his litany. “Wadda you want from me, Marty?”

  He was ready. “You know, your old man and I—”

  “Stop the bus,” I said quickly. “Don’t take me there. Just tell me what you want. I’ve gotta go.”

  My father had parlayed an early career as a labor organizer into eleven terms on the Seattle City Council. Four times he narrowly missed being elected mayor. The good people of Seattle had instinctively known that Wild Bill Waterman was not the kind of guy to be left running the store. It was bad enough that nearly every city department was headed by somebody named Waterman. As several opponents had suggested, both Wild Bill’s sense of humor and his inclination for nepotism were simply too advanced for any office with wide discretionary powers. From what I hear, he knew everyone, and everyone knew him.

  Everyone but me. I was left with an uncomfortable composite of myth and remembrance upon which, at times like this, nearly anyone who had so much as passed him on the street could be expected to attempt to trade.

  Marty Conlan nodded his head at me and laced his fingers together. “Yeah…I suppose you must get sick of that shit, huh?”

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said, turning. Ten-oh-seven.

  “So, Leo…you’ll keep me informed, huh? I’ve got enough troubles already without trust fund private eyes roamin’ about the hallowed halls, stirring up trouble.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Leo. You’ve always been straight with me. Far as I know, you’ve always been straight with everybody. I’m not saying you’re not a stand-up guy. I’m just saying that if I had my druthers, I’d rather be dealing with somebody who needed the money. That’s something I can relate to. You understand what I’m saying?”

  What he was saying was that he, like nearly everybody else in town, was aware that my old man had left the family fortune in trust. Whatever his other failings, the old boy was a hell of a judge of character. He’d always sensed in me something less than a firm commitment to the Puritan work ethic and had wisely arranged to protect me from my own worst urges. The result was a trust fund of truly draconian complexity. For over twenty years, the trust had repelled all attempts to break it. A succession of greedy relatives, annoyed creditors, and one remarkably resolute ex-wife had squandered bales of cash, only to be left on the outside looking in.