He remembered. “Good, because there something else I found in the safe that he might be able to help me with.”
“Tell me.”
I opened the last part of the bundle. “It’s a leather notebook, pretty beat up. The spine’s half worn out and the whole thing is held together with rubber bands. I tried to make sense of it, but it seems to be written in a couple of different languages.”
“What languages?”
“Looks like German. Walter knew German, so it probably is, but the handwriting is so elaborate it’s tough to say for sure. There are also several pages with strange symbols that I can’t figure out.”
“Symbols? What do they look like?”
“Like letters. Maybe Greek, but crooked. There’s also some writing in some of the margins that’s tough to make out as well. Damned thing gives me the creeps.”
“Yes.” I heard Mr. Van Dorn tapping his pencil on the other end of the phone. He sounded distant, almost distracted. “Yes, this is good work, Charlie. Very good work; better than I expected.” He quickly added, “No insult to your abilities as an investigator, of course. I just didn’t expect to find so much in one place.”
“I guess insurance guys like to keep things orderly.” I closed the notebook and slipped the rubber bands back around it. “Too bad none of this junk explains why Walter killed himself.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he said, “Lock these documents in the safe we installed in your office tonight. I’ll send someone around to collect them in the morning so they can be brought down here to me in Washington, but I want you to keep the notebook.”
I caught that. “Someone? Who?”
“Someone who also works for me from time to time. He’ll introduce himself as a Mr. Wallace. Give him everything else, but keep the notebook.”
I thought he would’ve wanted me to hunt down where Countess Alexandra was staying, not the notebook. “Are you sure, sir?”
“I can examine the financial materials and leases on my own,” he said, “but we need to know the significance of the notebook you found. There’s an old friend of mine who might be able to make sense of it. He’s a Jesuit up at Fordham University, named Father Mullins. He’s something of a genius when it comes to languages. I’ll call and tell him you’ll be by to see him tomorrow. Shall I say nine o’clock in the morning?”
“Sure, but—”
“Consider it scheduled. In the meantime, see if you can’t pull some strings and have a policeman take you and Miss Swenson home. With our German friends running around, I’d like to make sure you and the materials are safe. And don’t forget your gun tomorrow, even when you go to meet Father Mullins. You’ll find he’s no stranger to firearms himself. He’s led quite an interesting life. Good night, Charlie, and don’t forget to call in tomorrow after you meet with Father Mullins. I’ll be most interested in hearing what he has to say.”
The line went dead just as a couple dozen questions came to me. I supposed that was by design. Mr. Van Dorn rarely did anything by accident. He’d given me my orders and that’s all there was to it.
I drummed my fingers on the bundle as I thought over what Mr. Van Dorn had said. Who was this other guy working for Mr. Van Dorn? I wasn’t the jealous type, but I liked to know who was on the team. What the hell was so important about an old notebook, and what would an old priest know about it? This whole thing was complicated enough without getting the Church involved.
“Get your goddamn feet off my desk.”
Floyd Loomis’s deadpan voice shook me out of my thoughts. He was a gaunt, lanky guy who always looked like he needed a bath and a shower, but rarely took either. He was a damned good detective, though, who paid attention to detail. I’d asked him to join me when I went private, but he turned me down flat. He didn’t say much and missed even less. That’s why I wanted to talk to him about why his report on the Fairfax case was so incomplete.
But first things first. “How’s Miss Swenson?”
“She’s fine.” He motioned for me to sit up so he could get his suit jacket from the back of his chair. “Come on. I’m giving both of you a ride home.”
I’d been preparing myself for a long night under the lights in an interrogation room, so I wasn’t complaining. I retied my bundle instead. “I thought you’d want to take my statement.”
He looked at what I had written down. “You signed it. That’s good enough for me. I’ll type it up later and sign your name to it.” He shrugged into his jacket and didn’t bother to flatten his collar. “Besides, I got enough from your lady friend to fill the phone book. Sounds like a hell of an ordeal, Charlie. What the hell were you two doing up in Fairfax’s office of all places?”
I saw no reason to lie, especially to Floyd. “I had a friend open a safe. We didn’t expect a couple of goons to try to rob the place. At least, that’s my theory.”
“Not much of a theory. All we found was a bullet hole in the stairwell and some blood on the treads. Whoever was there did a good job of making themselves scarce before we got there.”
That didn’t make sense. “No one saw them leave?”
“That’s what they tell me. Even checked with the freight operator to see if he saw anyone escaping, and he said he didn’t. Fat bastard’s asleep half the time, so if you’re looking for a way they got out, that’d be my bet.” Loomis frowned. “Say, what the hell are you digging around this Fairfax business anyway?”
“His wife hired me to look into why her husband died.”
“That one’s easy. A bullet to the brain does the trick every time.”
“She wants to know why, Floyd, not what.”
He looked at me while he dug a cigarette from the pack in his coat pocket. “You’re not taking advantage of her, are you, Charlie? I don’t think much of you, but I’d think even less of you if you stooped that low.”
That’s what I loved about Loomis. No punches pulled. “Don’t worry. She knows my opinion of the case. Even used your file as evidence, not that dime store version Carmichael created.”
Loomis looked around while he brought a bony finger to his lips. “Pipe down, stupid. The chief’s got eyes and ears everywhere these days.”
“The hell do I care? He can’t touch me now.”
“Yeah, but he can do plenty to me just for talking to you. And if he ever found out I fed you that file, he’d have me in front of a judge in a heartbeat.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “Sorry, Floyd.”
“You’re a walking apology,” he said as he beckoned me to follow him down the hall. “Come on. I’ve got the Swenson woman in Room B down the hall. We’ll pick her up and I’ll run you both home.” He thumbed a match alive and grinned as he brought it to his cigarette. “You might get lucky tonight. She says she’s too afraid to go home alone after all that’s happened. Said she wants to see if she can stay with you. Asked me to see if you’d mind, seeing as how we’re old partners and all.”
“My place?” I said as I tucked the bundle back under my arm.
He looked at me over his shoulder as we walked. “Don’t look so disappointed. She’s not bad looking. Seems harmless enough.”
That was my problem, I thought. The most dangerous ones always did. “I found out a few things that weren’t in your initial report. Like how Fairfax had a wall safe and that he had a private phone line in his office. Made a call to his doctor right before he did the deed.”
Loomis shrugged. “Didn’t know about the phone call or the safe because I didn’t have a reason to look. Didn’t have time, either. I’d just gotten there on my way home from the night shift, when Hauser showed up and told me to go home. I wrote what I saw in the file and gave it to the captain. He said Carmichael’s office had come to a different conclusion and told me to back off, so I backed off. They ruled it an accident. Shot himself while cleaning his gun. H
ow the barrel accidentally wound up in his mouth or how the trigger got accidentally pulled is beyond me, but that’s the way the chief saw it and that’s good enough for me.”
I felt a spark of anger. “You saw your duty and you did it, right?”
Loomis stopped walking. “This coming from a guy who spent his career as a bag man for the boys downtown.”
“This is different. I’m different. You know that.”
“All I know is that not everyone can be a crusader like you, Charlie. Not everybody’s got the same pile of dirt you’ve built up on half the department, either. I know it was a straight-up suicide. I also know I probably wouldn’t have looked for an extra phone line or a wall safe even if Hauser hadn’t pulled me off the case. Why? Because Fairfax blew his brains out. If he’d been any other schnook on the street, no one would ask twice, but he’s got money and a name so Carmichael did his family a favor. Now, they’re trying to make it into a mystery. Best to leave well enough alone if you ask me, especially with Carmichael involved. He likes gratitude, not questions.”
I knew all that. It’s what I didn’t know that bothered me. “Doesn’t explain why Fairfax did it, though.”
“People off themselves all the time, Charlie. Christ, you know that.”
We started walking again. “I thought so, too, until people started trying to kill me today.” I forgot I hadn’t told him about the shooting on Fifth Avenue, but since he seemed to think I was only talking about what happened in the Fairfax offices I skipped it. “There’s something about this mess that someone doesn’t want me to find out, but I don’t know what.”
“Smart thing to do would be to tell the old lady to concentrate on mourning her husband. Best for her.” He poked me in the chest. “Best for you, too. Because when Carmichael finds out you’re involved in one of his pet cases, he’s not going to be happy. He’s expecting a nice payday from the family for the favor he did them. You do anything to queer that, he’ll make you pay. He hates you, Charlie. He came out looking bad after that Grand Central Massacre business turned on him, and he’d love nothing more than to hang you for something. Be smart and walk away.”
I smiled. “Too bad I ain’t smart.”
“Can’t say I didn’t warn you.” He stopped outside Room B and rapped on the door. “At least you’ll have someone to keep you warm tonight while you think it over.”
The bundle under my arm felt a little heavier as my mind began to make a lot of connections I didn’t like. “Yeah. Lucky me.”
Chapter 10
No one had trailed us as Loomis dropped us off at the brownstone the Van Dorn family let me live in.
It was a ground floor apartment with a nice garden in the back that I normally enjoyed, but given the day I’d been having, it was something of a liability. The glass doors made it easy for some of my new friends to take a potshot at me. So while Miss Swenson took a shower, I made sure the doors were locked and the curtains drawn.
I’d outfitted the place with two safes. The one in the wall next to my bookshelf was for show. My clients liked to see their most sensitive information was secure.
The safe I used for the important stuff had been laid into the floor under the rug beneath my desk. I’d gotten the idea from an ex-enforcer for the Doyle mob who had a similar setup in his place at The Longford Lounge. That’s where I placed the bundle I’d taken from Fairfax’s office.
That nagging feeling I’d gotten outside of Room B back at the station house hadn’t left me, so I decided to give something a try.
I unlocked my desk and pulled out my ledger and some bank statements of my own. I even added an old case notebook to the bundle and tied it together with string. I left it in the center of my desk so Sarah could see it. Maybe my nagging feeling was just nerves, but it didn’t hurt to be sure.
I pulled out my old service revolver, too, and began cleaning it. The long-barrel .38 revolver wasn’t the most powerful handgun out there, but it was what I’d been using for years. A .45 had too much kick for me, and the damned things tended to jam. I was a damned good shot with a .38, so I stuck with what I knew.
I was still cleaning the pistol when I heard my bedroom door open. Miss Swenson stepped out wearing one of my shirts, showing surprisingly long, white legs that were just this side of pale. Her hair was down and her glasses were gone. She looked closer to thirty now, or even late twenties. The eyes I’d thought to be brown behind her glasses were actually a rich amber. She didn’t look particularly fetching or shy, but had an open expression like she was ready to take a letter for me.
I didn’t mind her borrowing my shirt without asking. I minded the view even less, but I couldn’t help thinking of a term baseball announcers used on the radio during a game.
Here’s the wind up…
“I hope you don’t mind me borrowing your shirt,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to put my things back on. Not after everything that happened. Not just yet.”
I set the unloaded gun aside and closed the cylinder. “Think nothing of it. How are you feeling?”
“Better. The shower helped.” Her eyes flicked to the bundle on my desk, then back to me. “Thank you again for letting me stay with you tonight. I didn’t want to be alone. I’ll admit the whole thing made me more than just a little scared.”
And here’s the pitch.
“It’s not everyday people try to kill you.” I decided to try something. “You take the bed; I’ll stand watch out here in case our friends take another run at us.”
She brought her hand to her chest, showing an outline of her bosom I hadn’t seen before. “You don’t think we were followed, do you? Detective Loomis said he was careful.”
“And he was. But I didn’t know they’d followed me before, so they may have followed me now. He’s arranged for a car to swing by every thirty minutes to check things over, just to be safe.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “That’s a relief. He’s a good man, Detective Loomis.”
“Yes, he is. Better than most. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I can put new sheets on the bed if you want.”
She looked into the bedroom, then back at me. “Well, if we’re reasonably safe, I don’t see why you should give up your bed. I’m already putting you out by staying here. I can sleep on the couch out here. It looks very comfortable.”
It actually was. The leather couch was one of the few concessions Mrs. Van Dorn allowed me to have when I moved into the place. The rest of the furnishings had all been her doing. It was a bit too fancy for my taste, but I didn’t complain.
I made a point of setting my gun on top of the bundle and came out from behind the desk. “Okay, if you insist. I’ll just get some sheets from the bathroom and—”
She popped up on her toes and kissed me on the lips. I kissed her back.
She gently slipped her hands around my head as if to keep me there, but I had no intention of moving away. As we kissed she took one step back into the bedroom, and so did I.
Strike three on the outside corner. Doherty caught looking.
Maybe, but it was just the first inning and I still had more at bats coming. And it had just gotten a whole lot more interesting.
Chapter 11
She groaned as she dug her nails into my shoulders, grinding herself down against me. Shuddering. The blue veins in her long, white neck pulsed as she threw her head back, moaning deeper and deeper until she climaxed again. She held herself like that, frozen above me in a moment of ecstasy, before gently collapsing onto my chest, panting.
Her damp skin felt good against mine as a cool breeze seeped through the window. Moonlight cast jagged shadows from the blinds across the bedclothes and along her naked back. Her breathing slowed to a quiet contentment, matching the rhythm of my own. My bedroom was post-sex quiet, that gentle twilight time when there’s nothing more to say or do but lie there because it’s a
ll been said and done.
Sex can stir up a lot of emotion in two people. It can also bring a certain clarity with it, too. And at that moment I was thinking clearer than I had all day.
I wished the fog had stayed for a little while longer.
She moaned as she slowly slid off me to my left, her body still flat against me. She gently trailed her nails across my chest as I reached for my cigarette box on the nightstand. I lit one and gave it to her, then one for myself. I put the ashtray on my belly. I hated ashes in bed.
She ran her tongue along my neck before taking a drag. “My God, Charlie. That was wonderful.”
She felt soft and warm against me. Soft and warm enough for me to wish all of this was more than what it really was.
I flicked my ash into the ashtray on my stomach. “I probably shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that. People’s emotions are usually all over the place after they go through what we did tonight.”
She nipped at my neck. “Well, if you’ll remember correctly, I’m the one who took advantage of you that last time.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and she let me pull her closer to me. Her hair was soft and smelled like rose water. “Yes, you did. And I didn’t mind one bit.”
She wrapped her free arm around me just as tight and whispered, “That makes me happy.”
I took another drag on my cigarette. “Know what would make me happy?”
She laughed. “I think I have a pretty good idea, though I don’t think you’re quite ready yet.”
I laughed, too. “I was thinking of something else. Like you telling me why you set me up back at the office.”
She was quicker than I’d expected her to be. She slid right across me and bolted from the bedroom, stark naked. At least I managed not to spill my ashtray.
I stubbed out my cigarette and swung my legs out of bed. I pulled my bathrobe off the back of the bedroom door and wrapped it tight. I figured at least one of us should be dressed for the occasion.
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