11. Harlan Stout
Harlan
Stout woke up on his old couch at sundown. He had intended to
take only a light nap, but he was exhausted and slept right
through the afternoon and on into the evening. Harlan hacked and
coughed,as he always did after waking up and braced himself over his dirty
sink. After a particularly violent shuddering cough, he produced a
brown phlegmy loogie that he promptly spat and watched it slink viscously
into the drain. As he watched his loogie's travels, he thought
about switching cigarette brands to one of those doctor recommended
ones. His eyes darted from his murky reflection to the pack of
cigarettes on his coffee table and back again. Maybe when I'm done
this pack, he thought for the twentieth time.
With no
time or desire to shave, Harlan gargled some cheap whiskey and
swallowed. He threw on a shirt, trench and hat and walked out
the door, wishing he could just be at Margery's door already. He
had told her to stay put. It was time to see if this broad
could follow orders.
Detective
Stout arrived in the hotel lobby, nodded to the bell boy and made his
way unopposed to Margery Van Dine's room on the third floor. By
force of habit from years as a private detective, Stout took off
his shoes and made his approach, gliding down the carpeted hallway
silently and coming to a stop just outside her door. He was beyond
feeling bad for evesdropping on anybody. He didn't even expect to
hear anything at all. He stealthily put his ear to to the door and heard
Margery talking. As he bent down to place his shoes neatly beside the door,
he could clearly tell she was on the phone, as he only heard her side of
the conversation.
"Oh,
poor baby. Is he okay?"
"I
meant Arnold," Margery said happily.
Harlan
smiled empathetically. He didn't want to interrupt what sounded
like nice conversation, especially if it provided her some measure of
relief from the insanity of the last 24 hours.
“Good."
Harlan could hear the smile in her voice. "I’ll see you both
tomorrow night then, warts and all.”
Harlan
wrinkled his nose. Warts? She better be kidding.
“See you
then, Mister Silveri.”
Harlan's
jaw dropped and he let out a silent scream. He nearly lost his balance
and fell over. He needed to put some distance between her door and his
person. NOW.
Harlan's
mind raced as he reeled from the implications of what he just heard.
Adrenaline coursed though his veins, causing his legs to shake. As he
made his way down the stairs to the small bar in the lobby he nearly tripped at
least a half a dozen times. He sat at the bar fumbling through his
pockets. His hand groped the cold steel of his sidearm before
finding his pack of smokes. His hand trembling, he pulled a cig out
and fumbled with the matches.
"Need
a light, friend?"
Harlan's
gaze shot straight out, expecting to come face to face with a pistol.
Instead, it was the barkeep with a pack of matches ready to light.
"Please."
Harlan mumbled, still unable to calm himself down. "And get me
a stiff one, would ya?" Before he had finished his first drag, the
bartender carefully placed the drink was in front of him. Stout gulped it
down focusing on the slow burn in his chest, stifled a belch and tapped the
glass for another.
"You
alright, chum? You look like you've seen a ghost." The
bartender asked cheerily.
"I'm
good. Just got some bad news from a family friend is all."
The
bartender, genuinely concerned, opened his mouth to sympathize. Before he
could get a word out Harlan quickly followed up curtly: "It's
private." The bartender understood well when a man needed time to
think, placing the drink gently in front of the detective and moved to the
other side of the bar.
Harlan lit
up another cigarette only to find that he still had half a smoke in his
mouth. Goddammit Harlan, get a grip, he thought. He rapidly puffed
away his first cigarette and butted it in the ash tray as he took a
slower drag from the one he just lit.
This was
big. If Margery was connected to Silveri, then what the hell was she
hiring him for? Was he merely a pawn in some sick game? He resolved
to go back up and see Margery so she wouldn't suspect anything and
only after enough time had passed so as to not raise any suspicions that
he may have heard anything. He looked down at the floor in
concentration. Harlan broke out instantly in a cold sweat.
His shoes.
He stared
at his bare socks as he realized with a creeping horror that he might
be dead man. Slamming a dollar bill down on the table, Harlan made his
way back up to the third floor with as much dignity as a rattled shoeless
man could. Bounding up the stairs and looking down the hallway, Harlan
saw his shoes, laying where he had left them beside the door. Again
he stealthily made his way to Margery's room and slipped
on his shoes. He took a breath, relaxed, exhaled and
brought his hand up to knock gently.
His knuckles
should have rapped on wood, but instead they hit air as the door
opened.
"Oh! Detective
Stout!" Margery squeaked, surprised.
"Mrs.
Van Dine! I, uh, I..."
"Did
you just get here? I had almost given up on seeing you again
today." Something about the way she asked the question
immediately bothered Harlan. Was he just being paranoid?
"Why yes!
What a coincidence, heh, I was just about to knock and there you go opening the
door. Do you read Tarot cards as well?" Harlan joked
awkwardly.
"Tarot
cards?" Margery smiled, not quite getting it.
"Nevermind."
Then, regaining his compsure. "May I come in?"
"Certainly
detective. I was just going for some fresh air, but I'm glad you're
here." Van Dine said cheerily.
I bet you
were, you lying whore, Harlan thought. Lets play.
Harlan made
his way back to his apartment, his mind running a hundred miles an
hour. He was so deep in thought he didn't even think of pulling out a
cigarette.
He had
spent a good hour and a half talking with Margery Van Dine. Talking about
her relationship with her brother, Jim Soong, trying to find an angle. At
the same time, he baited her with subtle questions that
clearly revealed she was being elusive. Something was going on,
that much he was sure about.
Harlan had
left her that night saying that he thought she should stay in the hotel for at
least another two days. She needed to lay low until the heat was
off. Harlan told her that he needed a few days to work and that in 48
hours he would be back with his findings. He pre-paid for room service
for the next two days.
Of course
he knew Margery wouldn't stay put, despite her assurances. He saw her in
a new light now. She wasn't naive, far from it. This dame was a
sharp as a tack and dangerous as a king cobra.
Harlan
spent the rest of the night preparing.
Harlan set
three alarms for 4 pm the next day. He woke up, shaved, put on his best
clothing usually reserved for weddings, and strapped on his two revolvers in
matching hip holsters. In his sock he concealed a Derringer 2,0,
otherwise known as a ladypistol and strapped his combat knife from
the Great War to his leg. As an afterthought, he
carefully placed his straight razor flat in his breast pocket.
Stout grabbed the day's paper and began his stakeout of Margery Van
Dine.
Sitting
almost a block away on a park bench with a clear view to the entrance of
the hotel, Harlan waited. Years of honing his patience paid off as
he observed a brand new black Cadillac pull up to the front of the
hotel. An elephant of a man stepped out of the vehicle and opened the
rear passenger door. Margery Van Dine gingerly emerged from the
front of the building and hopped in.
Harlan
frantically waved down a cabbie and showed him a crisp 5 dollar bill.
"Follow that black Caddie and this is yours."
"Yes sir!" the cabbie responded, and sent the taxi
lurching forward in hot pursuit.
After 20
minutes of pursuit, the Cadillac squeezed through an alley
and finally came to rest at the rear entrance of the classically
designed 2nd 3rd Bank of New York. Once again, the giant man opened
the door of the car and Margery Van Dine stepped out and quickly ducked
into the building.
"Thanks
pal, now beat it." Harlan dismissed the cabbie, eyes fixed on
the rear entrance. Figures they'd use the back door. Harlan
spat. Scumbags.
Finding another park
bench with a clear view to the alley and a partial view of the back
door, Harlan waited. This time of evening was busy in New York
City. Harlan figured he blended right in as he staked out the Bank,
waiting for anybody to come in or out, hungry for clues. This was even
bigger than Mindy Jimmerson. This was the head of the giant, the king of
the underworld, the right hand of...
*click*
Harlan
froze as he felt the muzzle of a very large handgun dig into the base of his
skull.
*click* The
second click told him the gun was cocked and ready to fire on a hair trigger.
"Don't
turn around, don't say anything. You so much as pass gas
and it'll be a closed casket at your funeral. Let's go for a
walk."
Harlan kept
his cool and heard the rustle of a newspaper neatly folded over the magnum
resting against the back of his head. As he stood up, the concealed
gun kept contact with his lower back.
Looking
straight ahead, he was escorted toward the alley linking the street with
the back of the bank. Harlan thought about his options. He
could take his chances on the gun jamming or the gunman
hesitating. He could run or try to fast draw his own weapon. His
hopes faded further as he noticed a handful of men emerge from the shadows of
the alley. If he could just position one of the other men in front of
him, he could possibly get his captor to shoot one of his own men.
He counted
5 men in cheap suits when he felt a blunt force blow connect with the side
of his head.
The world
went black.
12. Ronald
Crispin
Crispin held up a trembling hand to
request a break. He removed the bit of wood between his teeth and took another
swig of mint julep. The side of his face had been painfully cleaned and
bandaged, but that was the easy part. The bullet lodged in his lower back was
the real problem. The little whiskey Rex had given him wasn’t nearly enough to
deal with the pain of semi-amateur surgery. Ronald had asked for more when they
had reached the hidden clinic, but with an embarrassed apology, the doctor explained
that mint julep was the only alcohol he had been able to get his hands on.
Taking a deep breath, Ronald bit down
on the stick again, he did his best to brace himself and signaled the doctor to
continue. The back alley surgeon plunged his tweezers into the bullet wound
again, provoking a moan of pain that Ronald couldn’t have suppressed if he had
wanted to. The pain only worsened from there, tearing through the thin veil of
comfort provided by the unpalatable hooch.
“Boy, it’s really stuck in there,”
grunted the doctor.
“How long is this going to take?” Rex’s
voice, laced with boredom, drifted through Ronald’s mental haze.
The pain grew exponentially and in
another moment, the world went dark.
Crispin came to slowly. He felt drunk,
but his pain remained intense. He opened his eyes slowly, discovering a set of
blurry rafters slowly rotating above him. Or were the rafters holding still and
he was the one spinning?
“Welcome back,” came an unfamiliar
voice. “Take it easy, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“wheerr,” Ronald slurred, “wheeerrrr
emmmmmmm…”
“You’re at my clinic. Johnson’s
clinic.”
Ronald struggled slowly to an upright
sitting position, swaying dangerously in every direction.
“Easy now,” the doctor repeated.
“emmm coaths…” Ronald continued,
then worked his tongue around his mouth trying to clean away the accumulated
paste. He felt his cheek sting and touched it gingerly with his hand, feeling
bandages from his ear all the way down to his mouth.
“Your what?” asked the doctor politely.
“Cooooooaths!” Ronald demanded,
attempting to fix the doctor with a stern look, but only succeeding in swinging
his head in a wide arc that left him feeling nauseated and dizzy.
“Your clothes, of course. Let me help
you.”
With the doctor’s help and seemingly
infinite patience, Ronald eventually found himself dressed. The dizziness was
gradually fading away and he was finally able to focus his vision, more or
less, in one direction at a time.
Surly, his body aching in pain, and
barely able to walk, Ronald soon found himself navigating with enormous
difficulty through an alley, heading toward what he assumed was a street.
Finally emerging from the alley, he ambled along, not really sure where he was
going or how to get there.
With no understanding of how long it
took him, Ronald finally came upon a phone booth. He fought with the sliding
door for a minute or so and finally made it inside. He grabbed the ear piece
and after a few failed attempts, succeeded in forcing a nickel into the slot.
"Hello, how may I direct your
call?"
“carr,” Ronald muttered into the mouth
piece.
“Car? Are you calling for a taxi, sir?”
“No, CARR,” he replied angrily, then
clutched his cheek again. “Rex Carr.”
“Are you referring to Rex Dickson Carr
or Rex Stuart Carr?”
“REX DICKS CARR” he yelled into the
phone, suffering a faint tearing feeling under the bandages.
“There’s no need to yell, sir,” scolded
the operator. “I’ll connect you now.”
“Rex,” came a familiar voice after a
few rings.
“Rex,” said Ronald with relief.
“Ronald? Is that you?
“Yeah.”
“You sound terrible, where are you?”
“new york,” he muttered.
“No kidding,” Rex sighed. “Look, I’m
glad you survived the operation. Now get home and get some rest. You’re no good
to me half-dead.”
“Hmm, rest…” Ronald mumbled back.
He hung up the phone and stepped back
on to the street. He stood still for a moment, contemplating his bed. Resting
sounded good. He put a hand to his lower back, feeling the deeper wound. As
addled as his brain felt, it was still registering a lot of pain. He didn’t
like the idea of agonizing in bed. He hesitated, unable to decide.
A yellow cab driving past brought him
back to reality and he registered it just in time to raise a hand to wave it
down. The cab pulled over and stopped abruptly. Automatically, Crispin climbed
in.
“Where to, mister?” asked the cabbie
casually.
Ronald thought for a moment. He decided
he didn’t want to go home. He wanted something to dull the pain. Perfect time
to head to his favourite speakeasy, the Fish Tank.
“da fesh tank” Ronald muttered and
leaned back against the seat. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
“What’s that?” asked the cabbie,
turning around to better understand his passenger.
“Said da fesh tank,” Ronald mumbled
back, struggling to make himself comfortable.
“Second third bank?”
“da tank,” Ronald agreed, finally
settling into a position that eased the pain in his back.
“Alright, then.”
Ronald tried to take slow, deep
breaths, but couldn’t help wincing and grinding his teeth as the cab bounced along
the road. The drive felt like it lasted for ever, but he relaxed, knowing
comfort was at the other end. The cab finally stopped and Crispin handed the
cabbie some money, hoping he wasn’t overpaying.
He climbed out and took a moment to get
his bearings. Where was the Fish Tank again? As he looked for familiar
landmarks, it slowly dawned on him that he was in the wrong neighborhood. He
looked back and saw the cab driving down the street.
“Rats,” Ronald thought to himself.
“Rotten cabbie just took me for a ride.”
He stomped his foot in rage, causing a
wave of pain to run through him and making him even angrier. He glanced around,
furiously looking for any excuse to yell at someone. He caught sight of a man
in a trench coat leading a man in a black suit around the side of a nearby
building. As he glared, his muddled brain recognized his old partner, Harlan
Stout.
“What’s that bastard up to?” he thought
to himself. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind,” he decided.
He gruffly barged through a group of
businessmen and saw his quarry disappear into an alley. With renewed
determination, he fought through the pain and fast walked after them. He turned
the corner just in time to see the man in the black suit pull a pistol out from
under a newspaper and smack Stout on the side of the head. Stout went down
immediately.
“YOO DIRRY BASRARD!” Ronald yelled
indistinctly, despite himself.
He couldn’t stand the sight of Stout,
but if anyone was going to pistol whip him, it was going to be Ronald Crispin,
not some stiff in a suit. He reached into his coat for his pistol. It was only
when he grasped at an empty holster that he remembered the Van Dine dame had
stolen it.
The man in the suit reacted to Ronald’s
movement by spinning around and firing. Stone chips burst from the wall near
Crispin’s head, causing him to belatedly attempt to dodge the bullet. He dove
out of the way as the man fired a second time. He landed hard and felt the
stitches in his cheek and back rip. Stunned by the sudden pain, he could do
little more than moan and writhe helplessly. A moment later, he became aware of
black shoes standing around him.
“I didn’t even hit him,” said one
voice.
“He’s definitely bleeding though,” said
another.
“Let’s get him inside,” said a third.
“You’ve drawn enough attention as it is.”
Crispin felt two sets of hands pick him
up under the arms and drag him deeper into the alley. He felt a sudden surge of
pain and then nothing.
* * *
“Ron,” came a familiar voice. “Ron, you
dumb mook.”
Ronald opened his eyes. The alcoholic
haze was gone now, but the pain was so much worse. He opened his eyes and found
that he was in a brightly lit room. He tried to move his hands, but felt cold
metal handcuffs digging into his wrists. He was sitting on a chair. He managed to
look around and found the source of the voice. Harlan Stout sat in a chair
beside him.
“Harlan,” Ronald croaked. “You rat
bastard.”
“How the hell did you get yourself into
my mess?”
“Long story,” Ronald answered
evasively. “Where are we?”
Before Harlan could answer, a door at
the other end of the room swung open and in walked Jim Soong, followed by two
of the large, black suited men Ronald had seen in the alley.
“You’re in a private office reserved
for my use at the Second Third Bank,” he answered calmly as he closed the door
behind his goons. “I know that because I put you here,” he continued as the
suits positioned themselves behind the detectives.
Soong contemplated his prisoners for a
moment before giving a tiny nod. Ronald felt a meaty fist smash into his
bandaged, bloody cheek and gasped in pain. A simultaneous shout from Harlan
implied he had received similar treatment.
“What I don’t know,” Soong continued,
“is why you are here.”
“I was following him,” said Ronald,
painfully inclining his head toward Harlan.
“What?” Harlan shouted back at him.
“What the hell were you do--”
The sound of another meaty smack cut
Harlan short. Ronald couldn’t help but smile, although the pain in his cheek
made him regret it immediately.
“I’m the one asking the questions,”
Soong explained quietly. “So, Mr. Stout, what are you doing here?”
“None of your goddamn business, you
triad bastard,” Harlan growled back defiantly.
Ronald turned his head just in time to
see one of the suited men grab a hold of two of Harlan’s fingers and wrench
them mercilessly. The resounding cracks and the scream of pain left no doubt
that they had broken.
“You really want to know?” Harlan spat
between gritted teeth. “I was following your cunt sister.”
“What?” it was Ronald’s turn to shout
in surprise and get punched for his trouble.
“That’s right,” Harlan continued. Ronald could see a shadow of confusion on Soong’s placid face. “Your sister just got off the phone with Flo Silvestri and then jumped in a car with you. Ain’t that the cat’s pajamas?”
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