into the gutter, too. “At least we’ve got a name in the register. Silas Van Dorn. Written plain as day, too. I know I’ve heard that name before, but I can’t figure out where.”
“Silas Van Dorn,” Loomis repeated. “Probably a phony. But it’s a fancy name for a dive like this.”
It was my turn to smile. “That’s what I said.”
Loomis gave up, digging his hands deep into his pockets. “You picked up the phone on this one, Charlie. That makes you the lead here. Tell me how you want to play it.”
Loomis was right. I was the lead and I had two choices. I could just fill out the paperwork and let the daytime boys run it down. Or, I could dig into this Silas Van Dorn angle on my own. The name was written too neat in the register. Too obvious to be random, even for an alias. I knew the killer must’ve used it for a particular reason. And I still had a few hours until the end of my shift to find out why.
Not the daytime detectives. Not even Floyd Loomis. Me. For the girl’s sake. Maybe for the sake of my own pride, too. Because I’d already been laughed at three times that morning. Once by Frank English, once by Ed Hancock, and once by my own partner.
Maybe I wasn’t much of a homicide man, but I’d been one of the best investigators on the chief’s staff not too long ago. And I was still a cop. It was time to start acting like it.
I pulled down my tie and took off my suit jacket. I knew my shoulder holster would draw stares, but I didn’t care.
“Tell Frank I want those pictures developed as soon as possible. Then follow up with the boys who are running down the day clerk. What’s his name?”
“Clarkson,” Loomis said. “Joe Clarkson. His landlady says he’s been drunk in his room, but our boys’ll straighten him up.”
“Good.” I slung my jacket over my shoulder and started walking north. I had an idea on who might know who Silas Van Dorn was, but I kept it to myself. What Loomis didn’t know couldn’t hurt me. “I’ll call you in about an hour to see where things stand.”
Loomis didn’t look pleased. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? The print boys haven’t even gotten here yet.”
“You wait for them,” I said over my shoulder. “I’ve got some thinking to do.”
I hadn’t gotten two steps when Loomis called back: “You did say ‘thinking,’ not ‘drinking,’ right, Charlie?” A snappy comeback lived for a moment before it died in my throat. I just kept walking north instead.
BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS
F LOYD’S CRACK about my drinking stung the whole walk up Ninth Avenue. I knew that people were starting to talk about my drinking, but I didn’t have a problem with booze. Not yet, anyway. But booze was starting to become an easy answer to a lot of hard questions I was trying to avoid asking myself. How did I fall this far so fast? Why didn’t I have two nickels to rub together anymore? Why did Theresa leave and take my girls with her?
Questions like that are always hard. But the answer was even harder: Me. I’d gotten myself into this mess. No one else. I’d played the game for damned near twenty years, and made every easy buck I could make. I’d toed the Tammany line my whole life. More so after I’d gotten my badge. I Archie Doyle’s dirty work for him and let him and his cronies break the law. I gathered and sold information for Doyle and busted the rackets he told me to bust. I leaned on Doyle’s rivals and turned a blind eye to the dead bodies his button man – Terry Quinn – left in his wake.
I also picked up my envelope from Doyle’s political headquarters every Friday like clockwork. Part of my job was picking up Chief Carmichael’s payoff, too, seeing as how I’d been his link to the Doyle machine and Tammany Hall.
My conscience never barked once. It purred, just like the Tammany Tiger.
And why not? The Tiger had run this city since before the Civil War. The Tiger was the meanest cat in the concrete jungle. The Tiger had