Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

looked forward to sleeping straight through the night and calling Frank in the morning.
    But it was when I reached the top of the second flight of stairs that I realized at once just how gravely misplaced my optimism was. I froze in the heat of my hallway, dead in my tracks.
    Standing outside my door, waiting for me, was the Chief.

Chapter Eight

    He was a physically imposing man, tall, long legged, wide through the shoulders. He was in uniform, complete with thick leather belt and gun and tall boots. His hair was thinning, gray, but his face held the ruggedness of an outdoorsman. It was deeply lined, gaunt and grim, colorless now, though I knew his complexion to be usually ruddy. When I was young and he was just a cop, all the children feared him and told wild stories about him. Back then he had reminded me of one of those mountain men from the movies. As I grew he didn’t diminish in size at all. He held his stature, his prominence. I could only assume that today’s children held him in the same regard and spread their own half-truths about him.
    He stared at me from the end of the hallway. A uniformed cop was standing behind him. The Chief nodded toward my door.
    “I think we’d both rather do this inside,” he said.
    I didn’t move.
    “C’mon, let’s go,” he said, “I don’t have all night.”
    Inside, I turned on a light as the uniformed cop moved about, making a quick sweep of all my rooms. When he was done, he said, “All clear, Chief.” And it was only then that the Chief stepped inside my place. He closed the door.
    I had crossed paths with the uniformed cop years ago. He was one of the three cops who found me on the kitchen floor of an unrented house in the Shinnecock Hills, a .45 caliber slug in my collarbone and the missing girl I’d been asked to find dead in the basement, killed by the family friend who had abducted her. I remember this cops’ face above me. I remember his look of uncertainty, as if he wasn’t sure at all what to make of me. That was the last time I’d seen him. It’d been, I think, two years.
    His name was Long and I could tell by the stripes on his sleeves that he was a sergeant now. His face was flattened, his jaw square like a box. His hair was dark and tightly curled, cut close to the scalp. He was, from what I heard, a decent guy. He stood back as the Chief and I faced off. There was something about the way Long looked at me, and the way he stood just behind and to the right of the Chief, that gave me the impression that he wasn’t necessarily one of the Chief’s boys.
    The Chief hadn’t moved. He stood just inside my living room, the shut door behind him. It was as if someone had planted a tree there—he was that large and that firmly set. He eyed me, saying nothing. I had to look up to meet his flinty eyes. His jaw muscles flexed under his thick skin like hard springs. After a while, he moved past me, stepping farther into my living room.
    The Chief made a survey of the room then. But it was a quick, perfunctory one, more curiosity than security sweep. When he was done, he looked at me again.
    A single, heavy drop of sweat sprang down my ribs, rolling over one bone at a time. Then it ran down my waist before collecting in my cotton T-shirt.
    “So this is where you hide,” he said. “This is the rat hole you won’t leave.” He nodded. “It suits you.”
    I said nothing to that.
    By his look I expected that at any minute he might grab me by the throat and squeeze. His lips were pursed tightly, and there was sweat under his nose, small beads that trembled just a little with the rage he labored to contain.
    “I understand that Frank Gannon hired you to find a woman who calls herself Marie Welles.”
    There was so much about that sentence that I did not like. I held still; I didn’t want to offer the Chief any opportunity to misunderstand even the slightest movement on my part.
    “I also understand,” he continued, “that you just had a meeting with her.”
    I watched him closely. He took several shallow, tight breaths through his nose, as if he was trying to breathe but not take in some horrible odor. He made another visual sweep of my living room, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his leather belt squeaking in protest.
    “What do you want, Chief?” I said. I tried to mask my fear with impatience.
    The Chief took a step toward me. It was a sudden move. Then he thought better of it and stopped short. As much as he clearly wanted