Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  “We can’t find any trace of this place, who or what it is. I’ve had people check every business with the word ‘Eden’ in it and the surrounding ten blocks. They couldn’t find a thing. Vice never heard of it. Do you have any idea what it is? Other than maybe an homage to Steinbeck?”

  “No,” Hatcher said.

  He stared at the photo side, studying the details, thinking, But I’ve seen those eyes.

  VALENTINE PLACED THE BOOK BACK IN ITS CASE AND gently closed the lid.

  “I hope you’re not thinking of sitting on my forty-thousand-dollar Italian leather sofa,” he said, still facing the wall. “You put your bleeding head anywhere near it, and your day will deteriorate even more than you thought possible.”

  Sherman froze in a crouch, his ass hovering over the cushion. He was holding several layers of gauze against the back of his head behind his ear.

  “Sorry, Boss,” he said, wincing as he pulled himself erect. “I just need to get off my feet. I don’t know how much more my head can take.”

  The lock on the case clicked into place and Valentine removed the key. “Fortunately, it probably won’t be much more. You should consider yourself lucky. You weren’t supposed to leave any evidence behind.”

  “I’m sorry, Boss. The fat fuck hit me with a golf club.”

  “As it turns out, he chose a body part you don’t use much. Regardless, it seems to have worked out for the best. I believe I’ve figured out a way to turn it to my advantage. They have your blood. You didn’t leave anything else for them to find, did you? Something I don’t know about?”

  “No, Boss. I wiped down everything I touched. Didn’t bleed much, but I had to clean up somehow. Stop the flow. Before I started, you know, dripping.”

  “Our friend is going to find the Carnates. Our contact in the department tells me he was given the card.”

  Sherman pulled the gauze away from his head, grimacing, and looked at the pasty clump of blood and skin clinging to it. “You think he’ll be able to?”

  “Yes. Whatever he lacks in intellect, I suspect he makes up for in determination.”

  “All I know is, if I get another shot at him, he’s not going to like it.”

  Valentine looked down at the book. “I wouldn’t underestimate him if I were you. Remember what happened the last time you did.”

  “But, Boss, he caught me off guard. This is different.”

  “It most certainly is.”

  Sherman shook his head, wincing again. “It’s almost as if you like the guy or something. I can’t figure out what you got going on with him. He probably doesn’t even know you exist.”

  “I know.” Valentine placed his hand on the glass. A faint trace of a smile graced his lips. “Manipulating people close to you is one thing, but doing it from a distance, well, that’s one of life’s beautiful little pleasures, now, isn’t it?”

  THE SUN WAS ALREADY DOWN AGAIN BY THE TIME Hatcher left the precinct. Wright had refused to speak to him as he left, and the image of her turning away from him in the hallway, the deafening tone of her body language, lingered like a body blow. He tried to push the thought of her out of his mind, but was finding it a tough task. He lowered his head and walked, forcing himself to plan out his next move.

  He took the subway as far as was practical and then a taxi the final few miles to get back to Long Island. It didn’t seem likely he was being followed, but cities had a way of making it hard to tell. During the trip, he tried to sift through what he knew, but the more information he possessed, the less everything seemed to make sense. Instead of forming lines from dot to dot, the connections were multiplying in ways that confused the picture even more. Why was Brian Warren killed? What was his connection to all this? And how did Garrett’s death fit in?

  The taxi dropped him off on Middle Island Boulevard, a couple of blocks from the Hicksville post office. The street gave him a good view of traffic in both directions as he headed toward West John Street. After a few minutes, he started to feel confident that no one had tagged along.

  The walk to the post office was refreshing after having spent so much time cooped up in the precinct, most of it handcuffed. The evening air was cool and moist. He inhaled lungfuls of it, expanding his chest and letting it clear his thoughts.

  Hatcher walked into the post office and rang the buzzer at the night window. He raised his hand to press it a second time when a postal clerk shuffled into view. He was a middle-aged black man with white hair and a pair of half-moon reading glasses hanging over his chest from a string around his neck.

  “Help you?”

  “My name is Garrett Nolan. I believe you have a package for me, mailed general delivery to this zip code.”

  The clerk rubbed the side of his face with his palm, long, knobby fingers stretched out. “General delivery?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me check.”

  The clerk disappeared. Hatcher’s gaze wandered, sliding over the rows of post boxes, settling on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted poster. He read the names, studied the faces. Not a very nice-looking bunch of guys.

  The clerk returned carrying a small box.

  “Don’t see people use general delivery very much. I’ll need to see some ID.”

  “I don’t have any. I told the person mailing it that I didn’t. They said they’d note it on the box.”

  The clerk lifted his glasses from his chest and placed them on his nose. He held the box low and looked down at it from a steep angle. The words “No Identification Necessary” were written on the same side as the address, along the corner.

  “Never saw that before.”

  “If I wasn’t me, how would I know I was expecting a package?”

  The clerk eyed him over his glasses for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose I can just let you sign for it.”

  Hatcher scribbled a signature on a form attached to a clipboard and wished the man good night before leaving the post office. Once outside, he tore open the box and removed the cell phone Fred had given him and several hundred dollars in cash he had taken off of Brian Warren. He put the cash in his pocket, turned on the cell phone and called the only number stored in the phone’s call log.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Did it work?”

  “The fact I’m talking to you on this phone should give you a hint.”

  “Right.”

  “Did the police take you in?”

  “No.”

  “How about Susan?”

  “No. They came to the door and told her about her husband, questioned her for a long time.”

  “How’d she hold up?”

  Fred paused before answering. “Well, considering. She cried, but I think they were mostly tears of relief. From what I could hear, she did okay.”

  “I’m assuming they’re still watching.”

  “Yes. They’re still right outside the building. I can see them from the window.”

  “Good. Are you sure they can’t hear this?”

  “Positive. This room is set up to disrupt any microwave or laser transmitters, and I have white noise machines tuned to frequencies that will wreak havoc with any parabolic mic.”

  Hatcher couldn’t help but smile. Paranoia has its advantages.

  “How’s Susan doing now?”

  “She’s okay. She’s resting. You have the money?”

  “Yes. Thank her again for me.”

  “I will. But she knows the police would have taken it if you hadn’t.”

  “Still, relieving a dead guy of cash isn’t something I do.

  Often, that is. Are you handy with Internet research?”

  “Is that some kind of joke?”

  “Forget I asked. I need a favor. I’m trying to track down something called ‘Pleasure Incarnate.’ It’s connected to all this somehow. It might be some kind of men’s club or brothel. I doubt you’ll find anything solid, but it’s the address I’m interested in. I need to locate it. What I have doesn’t make sense
.”

  “What address do you have?”

  “It’s in some kind of code. ‘Five blocks east of Eden.’ Somewhere in Manhattan.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. I could use a finger in the right direction. Do what you can.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  Hatcher pressed the button to disconnect and looked the street over. Traffic was light, an occasional pair of headlights approaching, taillights retreating. He checked the time on the phone. Almost nine. Hailing a cab back to the city might take a while. But whatever answers he was going to find, that’s where he would have to start. Somewhere in Manhattan.

  Five blocks east of Eden.

  CHAPTER 15

  HATCHER HAD THE REMAINS OF A DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER on his plate and was finishing his second cup of coffee when the phone rang. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin as he looked at the number on the screen.

  “Anything?”

  Fred cleared his throat, and Hatcher knew the answer. “Well, ‘Pleasure Incarnate’ doesn’t exist, as far as the net is concerned. Not in Manhattan. I had to sift through a zillion uses of the phrase, but I did come across one reference, in some private chat room. It was archived less than twenty-four hours ago. Don’t ask me how I got access. From what they were talking about, it might be the same place.”

  “Shed any light?”

  “Only that it does seem to be some kind of brothel. But other than that, no. The poster was making an inquiry, got shut down pretty quickly by the moderator. I think I could track the hosts down, but it might take a while. From what I can tell, the moderator was local. Could probably find him in a day or two.”

  “I’m not sure I have that much time. Anything else? How about the address?”

  “Nothing. All I learned was that there seem to be more Steinbeck clubs in Manhattan than there are Steinbeck books. Sorry.”

  Hatcher thanked him and broke the connection, dragged his hand down his face. He took the last sip from his coffee, fingered a French fry, then glanced down at the cell phone again and picked it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Why so many Steinbeck groups?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said there were more Steinbeck clubs than books. Why so many?”

  “He was a major literary figure.”

  “I know who he was.” Even though he could barely recall the two or three novels of his he’d rushed through in high school, one in college, Hatcher did remember his time learning Arabic in Monterey, California. Steinbeck country. “But I mean, why with this search? Why did his name come up?”

  “East of Eden. It’s one of his most famous works.”

  Through the ghost of his reflection in the window, Hatcher could see the activity on the busy Manhattan street. People walking everywhere he looked, engrossed in conversation, heading to various destinations, the nightlife of the most famous city in the world just getting started.

  “Yeah, I know that much. But where did the story take place?”

  “The story?”

  “The book. Where was it set?”

  A stretch of background noise filled the silence as he waited for Fred to answer. The clacking of a keyboard, the rustling and scraping of the phone brushing against something.

  “I’m sorry,” Fred said. “It’s been a few years, so I had to check. According to this, California, mostly. A few scenes in New England.”

  “Any in New York?”

  “I don’t think so. Give me a moment.” More clacks at the keyboard. “No, not according to Wikipedia. Why?”

  “Because I’m trying to find the connection.”

  “What connection?”

  “Between the book and the city.”

  “Oh. Well, I can think of one.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Something I happened to come across during the search. He wrote part of it while living here”

  “Here?” Hatcher shifted in his chair, sitting up. “In Manhattan? I thought Steinbeck lived in California?”

  “He did, but he also lived a while right here in New York. In a brownstone on East Fifty-second Street.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have the actual address to that, would you?”

  “Would that make you happy?”

  “Ecstatic.”

  “In that case, my friend, ecstasy is just a few keystrokes away.”

  DETECTIVE WRIGHT SAT AT HER DESK AND STARED AT AN open file, not seeing any of it. She felt literally beside herself, as if part of her was standing next to her chair, wanting desperately to pace. How could she have been so stupid? To let him have played her like that, to have . . . given herself to him that way—a practical stranger. A man still serving a prison sentence, no less. When had she become so reckless? The reminder of her sexual encounter with Hatcher was too unsettling. She scrambled for a handle on other thoughts to replace it, something—anything—to block it out. Nothing seemed to stick.

  What had come over her? She had never experienced any urge like that before, like a sudden, burning thirst that had to be quenched. The feeling had swelled inside her and just wouldn’t stop. It continued to build, pushing her beyond arousal, beyond desire. It had barely been relieved by her orgasms. Whatever it was, sex had never been quite that intense before. She’d come three times in those twenty or so minutes.

  “Sergeant Wright?”

  Wright looked up to see Reynolds standing in front of her desk. She sensed from his expression that he’d been standing there for several seconds. She broke eye contact, adjusting her sitting position as she reached for the nearest stack of papers.

  “What is it, Reynolds?”

  “Do you have a moment?”

  “Why are you here at this hour? Don’t you have a life?”

  Reynolds took a seat next to her desk. “Can you keep something between the two of us?”

  “That depends on what it is.” She pretended to read the document in front of her. “You haven’t done anything wrong, have you? If so, I don’t want to know. I’m really not in the mood to play priest.”

  “No. Not that I’m about to tell you, anyway.” He paused, smiling weakly. “This is about Jake Hatcher.”

  She leaned back in her chair. God, why can’t I escape that man? “What about him?”

  “You can’t tell the lieutenant though, okay?”

  That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. But if he did have information about Hatcher, she wanted to know it. “Whatever. What is it?”

  “I found a business card at the scene of the Warren murder. Maloney showed it to him.”

  “To Hatcher?”

  “Yes.”

  “He showed Hatcher a card you found? So?”

  “The card was for some kind of cabaret or something.”

  Reynolds pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and set it down on the desk. She picked it up and unfolded it. It was a photocopy of two images. One of a business card, the other a rectangular close-up of a woman’s eyes. The second image was the exact shape and size of the card.

  “This picture is the back of it,” Reynolds said, pointing. “It has some little riddle for an address. I think Maloney was trying to get him to go find it.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Reynolds shrugged. “Just a vibe I got. Look, you can’t tell Maloney any of this.”

  “Yeah, you already said that. So why are you telling me?”

  “Because if Maloney is setting Hatcher up, I figured you’d want to know about it. Maybe try to stop it.”

  “Oh, you did, huh?”

  “Don’t you?”

  There was something sly about his expression, something suggestive in the way he raised his eyebrows, in the innocent yet knowing tone of voice he used. This was a side of Reynolds Wright had never seen. She wasn’t certain what to make of it. She examined his face, started to sense things going on behind that expression she hadn’t suspected before. Perhaps there was more to him than she had realized.


  She picked up the photocopy and gave it a light wave. “Okay, so tell me what place this is.”

  Reynolds tilted his head from side to side, frowning. “Not quite sure beyond what I just said. Some kind of sexually oriented business, obviously. It must be an underground thing. Private club, maybe.”

  “And you think Hatcher’s heading there?”

  “I think that’s what Maloney wants, yes.”

  “Why?”

  Reynolds shrugged. “I don’t know. But something strange is going on with him. Like yesterday, I overheard him on his cell phone when he didn’t realize I was behind him. I think he was talking about Lucas Sherman. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “And that’s strange because . . . ?”

  “Because he sounded like he was giving someone assurances. Choosing his words carefully, if you know what I mean.”

  “What, exactly, are you saying?”

  “To be honest, I don’t quite know, but if you care about what happens to Hatcher, I think you may want to get a little proactive.”

  “Proactive?” Wright leaned back into her seat. “As in proactively doing what?”

  “I pulled the number off Maloney’s cell. I checked the times of his calls, found the one that matched the time I overheard that conversation. It’s registered to Heart and Soul Imports, Ltd.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy finding ways to end your career.”

  Reynolds put his hands on her desk, leaning forward. “Guess who the registered agent is?”

  “You’re trying my patience, Reynolds.”

  “Stephen Solomon.”

  Wright said nothing. The name bounced around in her head as she tried to make sense of what she was being told, uncertain as to whether she should believe any of it. And if she were to, whether it really meant anything.

  “And while there’s no public record of the limited partners,” Reynolds continued, “Heart and Soul Imports, Ltd., has a corporate general partner, with one director.”

  “Are you waiting for a drum roll?”

  “That director is Demetrius Valentine.”

  Wright paused, considering what she’d just been told. “As in, the major philanthropist, high-society big-shot Demetrius Valentine?”