A/N: Well, social distancing means more time for writing, I guess.
My university canceled face-to-face classes for a month, so it's just me and this here Mac for the foreseeable future. I may as well go on with the story, just to keep my hands thinking. Thanks to all who've been commenting!
(She Was A) Hotel Detective
Chapter Nineteen: Sarah Spook
Late Tuesday, November 9, 1965
Chicago, Illinois
Bryce Larkin's Apartment Building
Sarah stepped into the darkness of Larkin's apartment building doorway as an elderly man with a Chihuahua on a short leash exited the building, letting out light as well as his dog.
"C'mon, Grumble, it's time for your evening constitutional."
The man looked up from the dog to Sarah and she reset her features into a wide smile, slightly vapid. The man nodded and clicked his tongue at Grumble, encouraging him to move along.
Grumble vacated the doorway and the man held the door for Sarah. Behind her, she heard Grumble growl, then the old man growled too, at a harmonizing pitch.
Sarah pushed the elevator button for the third floor.
"Yes, Grumble," she heard the old man mutter as the door closed, "another sexcess for Larkin. — No, I don't know why you can't get as lucky. Maybe size does matter. — C'mon, I know, I know, it would have to be the size of the asshole..." the man added as the dog emitted a series of annoyed yips.
Sarah was too deep in thought to react to the human-to-toy-canine banter. She was trying to calculate, to understand.
The elevator was descending slowly. She looked at the numbers but did not recognize them.
Algernon told her that she had fifty-eight and a half hours when he let her out of the car.
That meant that Chuck must have been poisoned, assuming it was true, at around 10 pm Monday night. It was now 12:30 am on Tuesday morning.
She had hidden Chuck in a room bugged by the KGB. Of all the crazy bad luck! Likely, the KGB had not had an opportunity to retrieve the bugs. Perhaps they never intended to.
But at some point, they heard her bring Chuck into the room and they began to piece everything together as they listened in to the series of conversations, and other activities, in the room.
She knew why Algernon had been so successful. He took full advantage of opportunities. A good spy was a good opportunist. Luck loves skill, as the old saying goes. Why risk himself when he could have Sarah run the risks for him? She had access to places and people he did not; he had made sure she was highly motivated.
She realized that he must have been using the Palmer House for meets or drops for weeks, indeed maybe months. His moony, half-wit thief cover had been pitch-perfect. But Sarah had tingled when she found Andy in the hallway, found that dart. She should have followed up on it. She put the dart away and forgot it. But she had been tingling a lot at the time, and not just for bad reasons.
That Algernon had revealed himself to her was not, all things considered, a good sign. Perhaps that had not been his intention. Perhaps he and Nemur and Strauss had come to her apartment building expecting to tranq her as they had Chuck, then take her somewhere and give her instructions while keeping her blindfolded. Or maybe Algernon was playing an even deeper game than Sarah knew, a game that made his revealing of himself a necessary move? She was not sure what that game would be. Had he really intended to pay Maria Tomek for the records? Had she really intended to defect?
The elevator arrived. Sarah got on and forced thoughts about Algernon from her mind.
She needed to convince Larkin to tell her all he knew about Chuck, about Tony Accardo. To do that, she needed to get into his apartment and take control of him immediately. She could not afford to fail.
The elevator stopped. Sarah checked the hallway. The old feeling, the feeling of being Agent Walker, was descending on her, and, as much as she needed it, she did not welcome it, want it. Back in the shadows. And that was the problem with shadows. They were impossible to outrun, weren't they? She felt a numbness in her heart, felt it growing. How many times can a woman numb herself before feeling refuses to return?
By the time she was at Larkin's door, she was almost Sarah Spook. Damn it, Casey.
She took the bobby pins out of her pocket and scanned the hallway again. She started working on the lock. Her hands were shaking, her worry about Chuck compounded by her exhaustion. She had slept little since Friday. But the shaking also seemed to combine with the numbness that was pulsing from her heart, stealing the feeling from her extremities. Blowing out a breath, she stopped and let her hands relax. After a moment, her old habits, her infiltration skills, took over, and the lock was open. Spook.
She turned the knob slowly, pushing on the door. It opened with a subtle creak. Grimacing, she continued to push until she could slip inside. As soon as she was in, she shut the door. She stood, her back to it, getting the layout of the place.
Even before the apartment registered on her eyes, it did so on her nose: a strong, cloying odor of Marlboros and Old Spice Lime. She knew the tandem odor all-too-well, having dreaded it every Monday morning while she worked with Larkin. During the week, she would become used to it enough to ignore it, nose-blind, but it was a renewed insult each Monday.
What the hell was I thinking? How could I have gone out with a man who smelled like cheap citrus soap somehow set ablaze? She shook her head at herself. Sarah, you were an idiot, trying to make yourself like him when even your nose knew it couldn't work. How out of touch with your heart were you?
The apartment slowly became visible in the darkness, its colors registering on her. She was standing in the living room. There was a long, heavy couch, black leather, and two matching armchairs. A dark wooden coffee table was centered among them.
On it was a large, crystal ashtray, mounded with ashes and butts. Beside it stood a matching, crystal lighter. Beside it was a tumbler, a small amount of amber liquid in its bottom.
The floor was furred in very deep shag carpet, some shade of orange. A large stereo was on one side of the room. Above it hung a painting, a nude woman, its florid style pornographic, not artistic.
To her right was a small kitchen, and above the kitchen sink was a cutaway that looked into the living room. Various bottles were stationed there, whiskey and other liquors. To the left, was a door that presumably went into the bedroom — she could hear snoring beyond it.
Sarah took out Larkin's gun. She wanted the psychological shock of it. Padding soundlessly, she approached the bedroom door. The door was slightly ajar. She leaned her shoulder into it gently, pushing it open, the silver gun extended. The door opened.
Larkin was asleep in his clothes, shoes off but socks still on, atop his made bed. The bed was king-sized and it dwarfed Larkin, reminding Sarah that she was as tall as he, maybe taller. With the door open, his snores were out-sized, ragged, the snores of a two or three packs-a-day smoker. Another ashtray, smaller and metal, was on Larkin's nightstand, also full of butts.
Sarah moved around the bed to the side of it nearest Larkin's head, the nightstand side. She was able to put the gun to Larkin's face and still reach the lamp with her other hand. Larkin's mouth was open. Sarah put the short barrel of the gun into it and clicked on the light.
"Wake up, Bryce," Sarah commanded, her voice forceful, loud. "Now!"
Larkin's eyes snapped open and his mouth shut on the barrel of the gun. His eyes went wide and crossed as he stared at its bright silver. His body tensed for a second, then he looked into her blue arctic eyes and went limp. Limp — but surprised, shocked.
She smiled joylessly. "As I recall, Bryce, the last time we spoke, it was about comestibles. Now, unless I am confused, lead is not a comestible, although people have been known to eat it. You will get a taste unless you do exactly what I say. Deviate even a hair's breadth from my orders, and I will maim you or kill you. And I'll do it with as little care and as little concern for consequences as you showed when you deflowered that poor kid working in your office."
Larkin's eyes got larger. The words came bitter off Sarah's tongue; she imagined Chuck hearing her say them. She tried to stop imagining that. She had to do this — for Chuck.
Sarah's made her expression colder. "I see that you see your backup weapon." She rotated it slightly, admiring it, while leaving the barrel between his too-white teeth. " I like it. Thanks for it. I'm going to take it out of your mouth now and you are going to answer some questions. Do you understand?"
Larkin nodded once. She pulled the gun from his mouth.
"You bitch!"
Sarah hammered his mouth with the butt of the handle. Larkin's hands went to his mouth. A moment later, he pulled them away, blood smeared on his lips and cheeks.
"Goddamn you," he said quietly, "you loosened my front teeth." He put his finger in his mouth. "You chipped one."
"You'll suffer worse if you don't tell me what I want to know. You see Bryce, I was not a secretary at Langley — I was a full-fledged field agent, deep cover. I'm from the majors, Bryce. You're still playing tee-ball. You have no idea what I am prepared to do right now; you are overmatched."
Larkin moved his front teeth with his finger, glaring at her, frustrated, trying to catch up. "I assume this is about Mr. Wonderful, that Bartowski clown."
"Call him a clown again and those teeth will go from loose to lost." Sarah bared her teeth at him in what she knew was a ghoulish smile.
"Okay, okay, what do you want to know?" He spit blood into his hand and wiped it on his pants.
Sarah's stomach knotted.
Suddenly, she was back at the Farm, Camp Peary, reporting for the 'premier course' Joad had instituted in Interrogation. It was to last for three weeks, and Sarah was part of the third group to cycle through. She had been out-of-the-country, in France, and had missed earlier cycles.
The training required that anyone who wanted to take the course had to first go through its three weeks as an interrogatee, not as an interrogator. The three weeks had been three weeks in the Inferno. She was stripped naked, starved, then fed rancid food. At one point, she had been beaten as part of the interrogators' training, been forced to play Russian roulette with a gun that might or might not have been loaded.
It had ended with one of the instructors trying to force her into sex with him. He had underestimated her, her power of endurance, her reserves of strength.
She had beaten him savagely. She would have killed him and kept killing him if others had not stopped her.
The Inferno. The 'premier course'.
That Joad could create such a course and put agents through it had finished him in Sarah's eyes. Finished the CIA for her. She had realized the cold, depraved logic of the course. Each group of 'victims', humiliated and enraged, would treat the next worse than they had been treated, a steady, animalistic escalation of horrors, physical and psychological.
Algernon's phrase came back to her: Joad was hollow and his hollowness spread, hollowing out others. It was true. She had witnessed it, almost succumbed to it.
And Joad had told her the course was his way of making Paris up to her.
Chuck had asked if she had been to Paris. Holbert guessed she had been to France.
Paris, France... She cut the thought off.
Larkin was waiting for her to answer his question, ask her questions.
"First question: who killed Maria Tomek?"
Larkin's eyes darkened. Fear. But doubt, also. "I don't know."
Sarah drew the gun back as if to hit him again.
"No, I really don't. I figure it was Joe. Joey. The Clown. But I don't know it for a fact."
"But you know it wasn't Chuck Bartowski."
Larkin shrugged as well as he could while on his back. "I wasn't there but, yeah, it's clear that cl…that guy didn't do it. He'd have choked on his peppermint."
"Bryce...don't make me hurt you more." She put the gun closer to his face. "You were supposed to help frame him for it, right?"
Larkin lunged up. But Sarah was ready. She brought the gun down across his face, pounding him back down and tearing the flesh on his nose. He lay there bleeding and panting. He nodded.
"And, you've been working for Tony Accardo."
Larkin faced away from her but nodded. "And Detective Shaw is on the Outfit payroll too?"
He turned toward her and the knots in her stomach tightened. She hated this.
Larkin seemed more pathetic to her now than anything else. A less-than-middling detective playing out some twisted Philip Marlow fantasy, all posing satyr, with his liquor, his cigarettes, his women. His looks helped him with the last, but his looks could not make him a better detective.
"Yes."
"Where can I find Joey the Clown? The FBI thinks he's not in town or wasn't, but I saw him with you at that motel this morning."
Larkin hesitated, then he gave Sarah an address. "Get up, Bryce, you're coming with me. Where are your car keys?"
He fished them out of his pants, tossed them to her. She put them in her pocket.
He started to bend over, grab his shoes. "No, you don't get to wear those."
"Damn it, Walker. It's winter. It's snowing!"
"Then you shouldn't run, should you? And just so you know," she reached into her jacket and pulled out the sheathed combat knife, "I'm better with this than with a gun. If you run, we'll leave little pieces of you in the snow, Bryce."
Larkin swallowed. He nodded.
Sarah put the knife away, then grabbed a blanket, folded on the chest at the foot of the bed. She put the gun in Larkin's back. She led him out of the apartment, onto the elevator, and into the parking deck below the building.
She opened his Mustang's trunk. He gave her a look and she stared him down. He climbed in. She tossed him the blanket and shut the trunk.
The parking garage was cold. A cold wind swept, scythe-like, into it. The lights were dim, the shadows long, so long they reached all the way to Sarah.
Larkin had been one thing. Joey The Clown was another.
Sarah sat in the car. She heard and felt Larkin move in the trunk. He was not going anywhere. He would not freeze, but he was not going to enjoy their outing.
The engine of the Mustang throbbed to life. Sarah reversed out of the parking spot, turned on the lights, and pulled from the deck out onto the street.
The snow was falling still, maybe faster than when she got out of the taxi.
It had been snowing that night in Paris too.
Joad had phoned her from Washington to brief her on the meeting. An overseas call. Rare. Special.
She had understood it was to be more or less by the book. She would wait at a cafe and a woman would approach her.
That was not what happened.
Not at all.
Honk!
Sarah heard the horn of the snowplow just in time to swerve out of its way. She had left the city, going north, and was now in a residential neighborhood.
Like many of the Outfits leaders or major players, Joey Lombardo lived in a modest suburb of the city. Sarah slowed down as she got nearer to his address. She pulled to the curb a block or so from his house.
She did not know much about him. She knew his face from the papers. He had gotten the nickname, The Clown, by mugging for mug shots and for once leaving a trial at the Chicago courthouse, walking with an open newspaper in front, a small rectangle cut out of it so that he could see where he was going. He might be The Clown but he was no clown. He was a stone-cold killer. Sarah knew the type. There had been such among the agents at Langley. Men, and a couple of women, who were agents because they wanted a license to kill, because they lived to kill.
She had been partnered with one in Paris.
Sarah shook her head and shut off the car. She heard Larkin's muffled voice. "I'm freezing to death, maybe bleeding to death."
"Wrap up and settle in, Bryce. You'll live. The cold will slow the bleeding." Sarah looked at the clock alongside the steering column, hearing its steady tick, tock, tick. The Polka. Chuck. Apple fritters. Poison. Tick, tock, tick. Again, she pushed the rush of images and feelings away.
Larkin would live but she could not leave him out there for long.
She had left Chuck for too long. She had to get back to him. Tell Ellie.
She got out of the car and closed the door quietly, then started trudging toward The Clown. She felt like a ghost among ghosts, each snowflake a spectral butterfly flitting to the frozen earth.
A kaleidoscope of cold, weightless shards.
Sarah had killed while she was an agent.
She had never simply taken a life, say, performed a termination, although Joad had increasingly hinted that her path to career advancement lay in that direction. The three times she had killed someone it had been in defense of herself or of someone else, another agent or an asset or a by-stander.
Still, she had killed. The vertigo that comes with taking everything from another person, everything they had been, were, or could be, that was vertigo she had known. She was not sure it was possible ever fully to recover from it, no matter what justificatory story could be told, no matter how true that story was. In the final analysis, you were alive and the person was dead — because of you. You continued and they ended. Causing another person to change from living to dead was not changing a feature of that person's, it was to revoke that person's very personhood.
You made a hole in the world where a person had been.
She had gotten about halfway to Lombardo's house when she saw a light shine out from beneath the closed garage door. She stopped and stepped near a line of bushes. A moment later, the garage door was lifted up. It was Lombardo.
He quickly got into his car and backed out, then got out and shut the garage door. Sarah, staying near the bushes, got back to the Mustang, back inside it, and crouched down. Lombardo left his driveway, heading away from where Sarah was parked. She left the Mustang's headlights off, and pulled out to follow him.
Tick, tock, tick...
As she tailed Lombardo, she thought again of Algernon.
Algernon. Room 2022.
When did the rock band trash that room? A while ago.
Sarah guessed it was two weeks ago. How could Algernon have known about it, unless he had put the band up to it? Possible. But it seemed unlikely. It seemed more likely that Algernon had someone on the inside, a Palmer House employee who could have told him about the room. But who?
Louisa? Robert? Holbert? What about Morgan, Devon, Andy? Casey?
Sarah already suspected Louisa. But Sarah thought she was working for Larkin or the Outfit. Maybe for Shaw.
Lombardo pulled into a large, empty parking lot. Sarah pulled off the road at a distance from the lot. A moment later a car rolled by her and she ducked. She sat up. The car was familiar. It was Shaw's car.
Shaw parked near Lombardo and got out. Lombardo got out of his car a moment later. He had something in his hands, wrapped in a cloth.
The two men stood talking, their breath visible in the faint light from the one light pole in the lot. Lombardo handed whatever it was he had in his hands to Shaw. Shaw unwrapped it.
A gun.
Sarah knew: the gun that killed Maria Tomek, the gun Chuck fired at Tony Accardo's urging.
The police were about to find the murder weapon, covered in Chuck's prints.
A/N: The stuff about the 'premier course', also mentioned back in Chapter 1 is, apparently, true, although it took place in 1970, not in the mid-60s. Creepy.
Joseph The Clown Lombardo was a real guy, a mob killer. The details about him are true here, except for the placement of his home.
Thoughts?
(Hey, Mike B., we're good! And, no, I'm not kidding you.)
