Slow Burn (19 page)

I’d just driven past Twenty-Third Street and Park Avenue when Loomis asked Hauser, “Do you think Lennon, or Chamberlain, or whatever he’s calling himself, took Jack out of ideology or greed?”

Hauser shrugged in my rear-view mirror as he looked out the window. “What difference does it make? It’s up to us to get him back. Doesn’t matter who took him or why.”

I liked Hauser’s way of thinking. But Loomis was in one of his rare chatty moods. “Sure it matters. We should know if we’re up against one guy, or a larger movement. Knowing that could help us figure out the best way to get him back.”

Hauser shrugged again. “Who knows anything anymore? Whole damned world seems to have fallen on its head. Riots. Marches. Labor unions striking. Take those vets who marched on Washington a couple of months back, forinstance. The Bonus Army. Forty-thousand vets and their families, marching across the country. Just to demand back pay from Congress for a war that’s been over for more than ten years.”

I’d read about it, but I didn’t know what Hauser was getting at. “What’s that got to do with Jack Van Dorn?”

“I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with him,” Hauser admitted. “All I know is that there’s lots of angry, desperate people running around these days. People do crazy things for all sorts of reasons, even when times are good — and more so when times are tough. Lucky for me, I don’t get paid to figure out why people do what they do. I get paid to figure out what happened, who did it, and to put them away for it. That’s complicated enough for me.”

The others kept talking while I drove uptown. I didn’t say much, because my mind was elsewhere. I was worried about time. About not having enough of it left to find Jack Van Dorn. I blew through traffic lights just as they went from yellow to red. Drivers leaned on car horns and pedestrians darted out of the street. They didn’t run all the way to the sidewalk. They jogged just far enough out of my path so they didn’t get hit. I didn’t blame them; it was too hot for running. Besides, most of them had nowhere to run to, anyway. No job. No appointments. Nowhere they had to be in a hurry.

Sure, most of them had families and kids, but there was no rush to get back. Their families would be just as hungry tonight as they’d been last night and the night before, with more of the same on the menu tomorrow, and the next night, with no end in sight.

And that’s what got me wondering if Loomis wasn’t on to something. What if there was a Red angle in this kidnapping business after all? Lennon/Chamberlain having Red tendencies meant it wasn’t out of the question. I’d seen it happen before, back in ’18, when I’d gotten back from the war and rejoined the force. You couldn’t walk down the street without tripping over an anarchist back then.

Communism had swept through Russia and gave all the stateside lefties hope that the same thing could happen here.

Unions sprang up like weeds: bus drivers, construction workers and carpenters all organized. Hell, even the cops up in Boston struck. Workers struck. Cities burned, and a lot of people died. We had our troubles here, but nothing the department couldn’t handle. But times had changed since then. The Commie philosophy was a fad — a phase — like ragtime or the foxtrot. It died out in time, but the problem with fads was that they eventually came back.

If Communism could ever come back, now was the time. Jobs were scarce and money was scarcer, with no let-up in sight. Leftie trouble wasn’t just possible. It was damned likely. Marches and rallies were already happening all over town damned near every day. If the Van Dorn kidnapping was part of some kind of growing Red conspiracy, I didn’t know if the city could handle it. At least back in ’18, we had consistency. We had a stable government — city, state and even federal people — focused on preventing revolution. Now, all the city had was a crooked mayor being driven from office, an ambitious governor running for the White House, and a police department that was already stretched pretty thin.

If things broke as bad now as they had back in ’18, I didn’t know if we could handle it. Maybe it was just my lack of sleep, but I began to worry about a lot of questions I didn’t have answers to. And suddenly, the reason for getting Jack Van Dorn home alive became a lot of reasons. I floored the gas pedal and watched the city blur.

W
HEN
I’
D
driven away from the Van Dorn mansion that morning, the street had been full of cops milling around, killing time and waiting for orders. Now, those same cops were on crowd control. The crowd in front of the mansion had since grown ten deep, clustered around the corner of Sixty-Sixth and Fifth.

They were on the sidewalk and spilled out on to Fifth Avenue, all the way back to the wall at Central Park. Some were standing on benches, peering over each other’s heads. Ragged, thin people with blank stares and sunken eyes. They weren’t protesting or holding signs or shouting slogans. They were stone dead quiet, just standing there, facing the Van Dorn mansion.

It was ninety-five degrees and humid as hell, but the street was snowfall still. Big events like murders and court cases always drew people, but these weren’t rubberneckers. They were men and women and kids in all shapes and sizes. And they all had that same tattered, desperate look people got when the best of life turned away from them. They had nowhere else to be — no jobs, no food and no homes to go to. They’d had it like that for a long time and it would likely stay that way. Since they had nowhere else to go, they might as well be here. In front of the Van Dorn mansion on Fifth Avenue.

The sight of them gave me a pit in my stomach, because I knew they hadn’t just showed up out of the blue. They were a mob waiting for something to happen. Someone had brought them there. Someone like Max Lennon/Peter Chamberlain. Two cops parted the crowd to let us drive up to the mansion. The crowd peered into the car as they moved back further than the cops asked them to, like they were allowing us to enter. Like they wanted us to enter.

“Jesus,” Loomis said. “Look at them all.”

I looked at Hauser in the rearview. “Recognize any of them?”

He was already looking over the crowd. “A few. A whole lot of Reds and other malcontents, too.”

O’Hara and I had lived through the Red riots back in the Teens. “We’ll be needin’ more men, Charlie.”

I pulled up in front of the mansion and we all got out at the same time. I started making with the orders before Hauser or Loomis beat me to it. “O’Hara, get a handle on the situation. Carmichael’s probably got more men on the way, but check anyway. Hauser, you stay out here and keep an eye on the crowd. Point out all the troublemakers you know to whoever’s in charge out here. Loomis, you’re with me.”

Shutterbugs still lined the entrance to the mansion. They took pictures of me and Loomis as we walked up the steps. But this time, they didn’t shout questions at us. All we heard was the soft popping of bulbs; like the reporters were afraid to talk too loud. Like the slightest sound might start an avalanche.

One of the uniforms opened the door and another one directed us to the library, not the parlor. In fact, the parlor doors were closed. We found Carmichael and some of his men in the library with Mr. Van Dorn and Arthur Gottheim. Pinky Flynn was nowhere in sight.

“Hell of a crowd you’ve got out there, Chief.”

“Bastards started showing up just after this Chamberlain bastard rang the doorbell,” Carmichael told me.

“Came up one by one, like goddamned crows, until the street was full of them. Quiet, too. Word has it they were told to come here for some kind of a protest. To get attention for all the unemployed in the city.”

“Vultures,” Mr. Van Dorn said. “Using this tragedy for their own purposes.”

I knew Carmichael too well to ask if he’d ordered backup. I figured he already had. “How far out are the reinforcements?”

“Mounted units are mustering in Central Park as we speak. I’ve got the riot squad down by Fifty-Ninth and Fifth. Far enough away not to spark trouble, but close enough to get here quick if something starts.”

Like I said, Carmichael was a lot of things, but a fool wasn’t one of them.

Gottheim cleared his throat. “Now that the tactical situation seems to be in hand, please share with us what you learned from the girl, Detective.”

I didn’t know how much Carmichael had told them, so I filled them in on the kidnapping plot, and Rachel’s list of suspects. I left out the part about her pregnancy. This wasn’t the best time to tell Mr. Van Dorn he was going to be a grandfather. I’d do that later in private, if I got the chance.

When I finished laying it all out for them, Mr. Van Dorn balled his fists and turned away. “Damn you, Jack! Damn you for associating with people like this!”

Gottheim said, “It’s awfully convenient that Mr. Chamberlain turns himself in just as the crowd is amassing outside.”

“It’s no coincidence,” Carmichael said. “He rang the doorbell and turned himself in. Said he heard we were looking for him, and that he had information on where Jack was and who murdered Jessica. He insisted on speaking to Mr. Van Dorn directly, but that’s not going to happen.” He shoved a folder at me and I took it. “I had the bastard’s jacket sent up here once we issued the A.P.B. on him. It makes for interesting reading.”

Loomis asked, “What have you gotten out of him so far, chief?”

Carmichael’s jaw clenched and his face reddened. “Nothing. I wanted one of my men to work on him, but Mr. Van Dorn and Mr. Gottheim here wanted you two gentlemen to have a run at him first.”

Mr. Van Dorn surprised me by snapping at Carmichael. “I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, Chief. I made it abundantly clear that I will not have this investigation turn into a convoluted mess like the Lindbergh investigation. I want one clear thread of communication to keep everything orderly. Detective Doherty is that thread.”

Then Mr. Van Dorn turned to me. “Do you think this Chamberlain character can help us find my son?”

“I’ll know soon enough, sir.” I decided to get something off my chest that had been bugging me since we pegged Chamberlain. “I understand that Chamberlain’s family is also from New York, and you might’ve traveled in the same circles.”

Mr. Van Dorn looked surprised by the question. “We know them, I suppose, but we’re hardly friends. We’ve attended some of the same functions, vacationed at some of the same places from time to time, but that’s all. I believe Jack may have attended the same school as Chamberlain. Though, given Chamberlain’s age, they were several years apart.”

I didn’t know if it mattered, but it might come in handy. I said to Carmichael, “I’d like Loomis in there with me while I question him. He’s a hell of an interrogator.” I handed Chamberlin’s file to Loomis. He looked a little surprised by the compliment.

“How do you want us to handle it, Chief?”

“Go as far as you need to,” he said. “Hurt him if you have to, but for God’s sake stay away from his face. If we bring him out of here all banged up in front of that mob, we’ll have a goddamned riot on our hands.” Loomis tucked Chamberlain’s file under his arm. “You might have one anyway.”

L
OOMIS AND
I found Peter Chamberlain sitting alone at the desk in the parlor. He’d probably been a good-looking man not too long ago, but’ the life’ had slowly drained his good looks away. His hair was sandy brown, but thin. He had sharp features and a good jaw line, but his skin was pockmarked and gray from bad food and no sleep. He looked like a man in his late forties, which was a damned shame, because according to his rap sheet, he’d just turned thirty-five the month before.