Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “You know,” he said, “if I was a white cop, I’d have you down at the House for questioning right now.”

  I knew that.

  “I still might do that, if you piss me off.”

  I nodded, once, heart still pounding.

  “But for the moment,” he said, “I figure I can use you to close this case.”

  I wasn’t sure he would be able to close the case. I had a hunch he knew that. Maybe he wanted to close it to his satisfaction. Maybe he thought he could be a hero and get a child-killer off the streets.

  I hoped he could.

  “What do you want?” My voice sounded strange, strangled, as if it had come from me reluctantly, which, I suppose, it had.

  “An information trade.” He stood beside me, close, almost threatening. “Do you know who I’m looking for?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know. Not by name, not even by face. But I knew what I was dealing with now. By type.

  “Assuming you’re telling the truth, I’m going to need your cooperation.”

  I slipped my hands in my pockets to keep them under control. I didn’t like how close he had gotten to me. I no longer trusted him. “For what?”

  “You can save me some time.”

  “How?”

  “I need to see the guest list at the Hilton for last week. I need a warrant for that. I doubt I’ll get one very soon, considering who is inside and what’s going on.”

  I turned, backed away, nearly stepped on one of the flowering plants. “That’s not going to get you anywhere.”

  “You sure?”

  I wasn’t sure.

  He rubbed his cheek with his right hand. “If you don’t know who this is, then I gotta proceed like this is a normal perp. I start with the one piece of information I have. The Hilton.”

  “A place anyone can walk into. Especially the restaurant.”

  “Not in the last two weeks, Bill, and you know it. I’ll wager every suspicious person who loitered in front of the hotel last week was documented.”

  “That matchbook could have been picked up at any point.”

  He nodded. “If we’re dealing with a normal perp, yeah, I suppose. But it’s never been used. The edges aren’t even dented. It either sat in someone’s matchbook bowl for a very long time or it was recently acquired. I vote for recently acquired. And if that’s true, then we have a general description of our perp. He’s not a young hippie.”

  “The person following me, according to Marvella, was a black man with an afro,” I said. “He wouldn’t be too welcome in the Hilton either.”

  “Then maybe he’s not our man.”

  “Maybe he is.”

  Johnson shrugged. “The list’ll get me started.”

  “Any search you do based on that list won’t hold up in court.”

  He grinned. “You are smart.” Then his grin faded as if it had never been. “I’ve already asked for the warrant, but nobody’s willing to fast-track anything this week, especially concerning the Hilton. If I don’t get it, I’ll figure out another way to cover myself. I expect it to be a dead end, but if it isn’t, I want to get moving quickly. Every hour we waste is one that prevents us from solving this crime.”

  “What if you solve it,” I said, “and can’t touch the perp?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I thought you don’t know who did this.”

  “I know as much as you do.”

  “I doubt that,” he said.

  “So?” I asked. “What if?”

  “Seems to me,” he said, “if the right things are brought to light in the right ways, no one’s untouchable.”

  It was my turn to smile, but it wasn’t a pleased smile. “You haven’t been doing this very long, have you?”

  “Long enough to know that sometimes you catch a break.”

  “But usually, you stick your neck out and you get screwed.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “Remains to be seen, doesn’t it,” I said.

  For the first time in our conversation, he seemed uneasy. “You’ll get me that list?”

  I would get it. The idea was a good one, and the information might help us both. But I didn’t want him to think I was happy to do his dirty work.

  “Do I have a choice?” I said.

  “People always have a choice,” he said.

  “Yeah, and sometimes it’s between bad and awful.” I stood up and tipped an imaginary hat to him. “Thanks for the information, Detective. When I bring you that list, I’ll consider us even.”

  I walked down the path toward the arches.

  “I’m going to need help with the names,” he said.

  I stopped. “Anything else?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He paused. “I want to catch this guy.”

  “Believe me,” I said. “So do I.”

  * * *

  I got into my car, shaking. Not because Johnson was onto me—he was, but he was smart enough to realize that there was more going on here than he understood—but because of that matchbook.

  Brian Richardson was dead because I had chosen to come to Chicago. Because I had found my old friend Franklin Grimshaw and he had offered me help. Because I had chosen to stay in that apartment longer than I should have, because I had been picky about where Jimmy and I were going to live.

  I believed Johnson’s scenario was right. The man who found us, who had orders to get rid of Jimmy, one of the only witnesses—if not the only witness—to the King assassination, had not known us. Or had not known Jimmy.

  And that was a plus.

  This guy was days ahead of me, true. I let out a small breath. But he hadn’t found Jimmy yet. I had just spoken to Jimmy and Laura that morning. Because of the violence, they were planning to stay in all day. Jimmy hadn’t liked the prospect, but I had. Laura was keeping him safe.

  The last thing I needed to do was drive to the Gold Coast and see him. That was probably what the perp, as Johnson had called him, expected me to do. No phone calls. No visits.

  Just follow the plan as we had laid it out less than a week ago.

  A lifetime ago.

  I put the key in the ignition and shifted to reverse, scanning the area for familiar—or unfamiliar—cars. Except for Johnson’s unmarked, mine was the only car in the lot. I backed around him and headed to the street.

  The details of Brian’s autopsy were swimming in my head. Johnson was right. The torture method the perp used was by the book, and the book had been developed in San Diego just after the Korean War.

  We were told we would be subjected to various types of interrogation that would stop short of actual physical torture. Anything else was fair game.

  The interrogations were supposed to show how information—anything from patches on flight suits to personal items found in the pocket—could be used against the prisoner. But the process quickly evolved into something else, a contest between the Marines and military intelligence.

  Intelligence started using real personal information from files to break the “prisoners” and it usually worked. Only it hadn’t worked with me. I had so frustrated my first interrogator, one Thomas Withers, that he had struck me and had gotten pulled off the project. He had hated me ever since.

  My second interrogator, George Nichols, fared no better. I was the only prisoner in that unit who couldn’t be broken. I gained a measure of fame for that and maybe a bit of fear. I’d learned later that I was used as an example for years to underscore the maxim that some people couldn’t be taken apart without brute force.

  I had become a legend among the ranks.

  I was beginning to wonder if that legend had come back to haunt me.

  * * *

  I continually checked my mirror as I drove to the neighborhood. No one was following me. I didn’t even have the sense of being followed, which bothered me. If the shadow, the perp, thought I was going to lead him to Jimmy, he’d be on my tail.

  He hadn’t been—at least not so that I could see. And unlike earl
ier in the week, I’d been watching for him. So had Franklin.

  I hadn’t seen anything suspicious since the night Brian died. Then I had seen the Blue Olds. I’d had a sense for the last few days that something made this guy drop me. Now I was wondering if it was something Brian had told him. What could the boy know? He certainly hadn’t known where Jimmy went. No one knew that but me, Laura, and Jimmy.

  Maybe this guy assumed I wasn’t going to lead him to Jimmy. Or maybe his time in Chicago was short.

  Just like his time with Brian would have been.

  He would have killed Jimmy the moment they were alone. But he hadn’t killed Brian immediately. So he must have figured out fairly quickly that Brian wasn’t Jimmy—quickly enough to change his plans.

  Brian had been a well-loved child. His mother had noticed he was missing at dinnertime, had searched for him, and had assumed, reluctantly, that he had gone to his father. The absence of a child as well cared for as Brian would be obvious quite soon. The perp would know that.

  And, if he wanted to leave the boy as a warning to me, he had to act fast. Hence the crudeness of the torture. He needed as much information as he could get as quickly as he could get it.

  A man like that didn’t pick up a boy, bind him, throw him in a car and drive him to a remote section of the city. He’d planned on murder, not torture. He grabbed the child and carried him, just like I’d thought when Johnson was talking.

  He had tied Brian up at the last moment, when he realized he had the wrong boy. As he was preparing for the torture.

  I pulled onto our street and parked in front of the building, staring at the sidewalk. Drops of blood that led to the street but went no farther hinted at a car.

  But the perp was smart enough to keep the matchbook clean, to leave no accidental clues pointing to his own identity. And if he was that smart, then he was smart enough to make up evidence pointing to an imaginary car.

  I got out of my Impala and scanned the neighborhood. No strangers with afros. Nothing. I looked at the sidewalk again.

  KNIFE WOUND, JOHNSON HAD SAID. VERY EFFICIENT. ALMOST NO BLOOD AROUND THE WOUND AT ALL. QUICK, SUDDEN, AND LETHAL.

  The nose and split lip were scabbing, the blood on Brian’s body old. The knife wound would have bleed internally for the few seconds that Brian’s heart continued to beat. The perp wouldn’t have pulled out the blade until the boy was dead.

  There was no blood that could have dripped on the sidewalk, no reason for that clue, except to throw the police off the trail, to think that Brian was part of a pattern. The matchbook had been for me, just as Johnson thought it was. No one else was supposed to get the message and the white cops wouldn’t have.

  Johnson had.

  I whirled, looking at the buildings. Basements were too public, especially in the daylight, even if they were sound-proofed, which they were not. People were in these apartments during the day. They would have heard something. Brian had not been gagged. He had to have been somewhere isolated enough that his screams wouldn’t be heard.

  And he would have screamed.

  My gaze turned toward the stone steps where I had first recruited Malcolm. That building had been empty for a long time. The windows were boarded up, and the walls were made of thick stone.

  Someone screaming in the basement of that place would not have been heard.

  For a moment, I toyed with seeing if Franklin was home or Malcolm. Then I decided not to involve them. My shadow had made it clear that he wasn’t going to harm me. I didn’t interest him. Jimmy did.

  I opened the passenger door, and reached into the glove box. I got my flashlight and my gun. I didn’t like carrying the gun openly on the street, especially with undercover police around, but I felt as if I had no other choice. I wasn’t going into the building unarmed. Alone, yes, but not unarmed.

  I slipped the shoulder holster on, then put my suit coat over it. It was too hot for wool, but I didn’t care. I crossed the street, looking both ways to see who was watching me. I recognized all the faces on the block. I didn’t know them by name, but I recognized them.

  Part of me wanted him to be there. Part of me wanted to take care of this myself. I wasn’t sure how I’d do it, but I’d find a way.

  I hurried up the stairs. The door was closed but not locked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

  The floor was made of marble, cracked now, and yellowed, covered with dirt and grime. There were footprints in the dust, dozens of them, most of them old. But I saw what I was looking for. Little sneaker prints, about the size of Brian’s shoe, dragging down the hallway.

  Dust motes floated around me and I resisted the urge to sneeze. Cobwebs covered the ceiling, but none were low—and they should have been.

  I turned a corner, saw stairs leading up and down. The stairs going up were marble also, worn in the center, and covered in dried mud and dirt. But no child’s sneaker prints. Only the faint scent of urine. Squatters or maybe the Machine.

  The stairs heading down were the ones that interested me. They were wood, rotted and old. The first two, the only ones visible coming out of the darkness, were shattered. I trained my flashlight on them.

  The breaks were fresh. Someone had done this deliberately to make the basement seem impassible. Probably the same someone who was smart enough to leave a carefully orchestrated blood trail.

  The third step was still intact, as were the others leading down. And while there were cobwebs, they had been broken. They were hanging on either side of the staircase, but not in the middle where they normally would be.

  I used the stone wall to brace myself as I reached for the third step. It groaned under my weight, but didn’t break. The sound made me freeze. I held my breath and heard nothing.

  It felt as if I were alone. But feelings could be deceiving. That one sound was enough warning for someone waiting to ambush me at the bottom of the stairs.

  But why do that? A man who didn’t want to be found could hide from any unexpected visitor, and if he was expecting me, he wouldn’t kill me. Not right away. He would want to know where Jimmy was.

  I reached into my shoulder holster and pulled out the gun. It felt like a feeble defense. I had once told my friend Roscoe Brown in Memphis that a gun was the choice of a man with no imagination or no options. But I had been wrong. There was a third category, a category I was in now, one I wasn’t sure I wanted to acknowledge.

  I took the fourth step and the fifth. They sagged beneath my weight, but didn’t make a sound. Neither did my dress shoes. The wall’s grime coated my fingers and the heat was stifling. The air no longer smelled of urine. Just dust and mold—the smell of a place that had been closed up a very long time.

  There were only ten steps. The basement was large, the floor old concrete that was flaking. A rusted furnace loomed beside me, empty wooden shelves leaned drunkenly against each other. I held my breath, listening for the sound of another human being.

  I heard nothing.

  I went around the corner, the flashlight playing against the darkness. There were no windows here at all. But at the far end of the room, I saw a thin band of light. I shut off my flashlight, saw that the light floated through the vertical slats of a badly constructed wooden door.

  I made my way toward it slowly, shrugging my coat sleeve over my left hand as I walked. In my right, I held the gun. When I reached the door, I grabbed the knob through the fabric and pushed.

  The door creaked as it swung open. A single bulb hung in the center of the room, bright against the darkness. The room itself was small, more of a pantry or a walk-in closet. In the very center, stood a rickety table and an old chair with ropes at its base, and more hanging from the arms.

  The floor was spattered with dried blood. As I got closer, I realized the tabletop was too. There was another bloodstain against the back of chair, right about the place a child’s heart would be.

  How many hours had Brian sat here, just a half a block away from home, hoping someone would find him? Or had h
e given up hope the first time he got backhanded across the face? Or when the first cigarette dug into his skin?

  I forced those images out of my mind, and looked—really looked—at what was before me. Table, chair, rope. Old rope, thin, maybe even came from the building. No cigarettes. No ashes. The blood spatter was smeared closest to the chair. Someone had swept the floor. There wasn’t even dust here and no spider webs hanging from the ceiling.

  I felt as if I’d walked into a stage, and I felt as if it had been set up for me, but I wasn’t sure what message I was supposed to receive. That Brian’s death was horrible? I got that, and I also got that he would have been alive if it weren’t for me. But what else? That this awaited me as well, unless I turned over Jimmy? Or that this awaited Jimmy, which was a lie.

  Or was this message even subtler than that? I can torture a boy within earshot of you. I’m that good. I’m so good I can kill your boy and you won’t even know he’s dead.

  A message like that was extremely personal. This torture chamber made the crime feel as if it were about me, not about Brian, and certainly not about Jimmy.

  Very few people had reason to direct something like this at me. Nichols was one. Withers another. Withers, who had incited kids to riot in Memphis. Withers, who had been working undercover the last time I had seen him.

  The urgency I had felt after Brian’s funeral when I was talking to Johnson rose in me again, and I forced myself to stay rooted. I had no proof that Withers was involved. I had no proof of anything—not even the involvement of this so-called Professor.

  I needed something more concrete, and I needed it quickly.

  I had the sense that time was running out.

  FIFTEEN

  I WENT BACK to the apartment. No one else was there. Malcolm’s bedclothes were neatly folded at the end of the couch and the breakfast dishes were drying in a rack. A fan circulated hot air throughout the room.

  I was filthy and still shaking, along with a twisting in my stomach. I was still holding the gun, and the flashlight was weighing down the pocket of my suit coat. I didn’t remember placing it there.