Read Chapter 32: The Basement

The Hotel Meridian's service entrance was a rusted iron door propped open by a milk crate, exhaling steam and the sour smell of boiled cabbage. Walter slipped through it, the five-round weight of his revolver a cold promise against his ribs. The basement hallway stretched before him, dim bulbs strung on frayed wire casting pools of sickly yellow light. Somewhere above, a piano player stumbled through "Happy Days Are Here Again" in a key that suggested he'd rather be anywhere else.

Walter moved fast, counting doorways. The clerk at the front desk had been too busy polishing a glass to notice him, but Walter didn't trust luck—not tonight, not after everything. He'd left a burning study behind him, a wounded man bleeding on marble, and fate had yet to collect its bill.

Room B-4 was at the end of the corridor, behind a door marked PRIVATE with a hand-painted sign that had faded to the color of old bruises. No lock. Walter pushed it open.

The room was small, cramped with boiler pipes and shelves of dusty ledgers. A cot had been shoved against the far wall, and on it lay a man so thin he seemed to be disappearing into the sheets. Dark hollows carved under his cheekbones. His wrists were raw, chafed by rope that had long since been removed. Arthur Phelps looked up at Walter with eyes that had stopped expecting rescue a week ago.

"You're not DeVries," Phelps said. His voice was a dry rasp, barely louder than the steam hissing through the pipes.

Walter closed the door behind him. "No."

"You're not Roy either." Phelps struggled to sit up, bones shifting under flesh like coat hangers in a sack. "I've met Roy. He's got a face that begs for a punch."

"You've met Roy?"

"Six months ago. He came to me asking questions about DeVries's shell companies. I thought he was honest. Then I thought he was dead." Phelps squinted at Walter. "What are you?"

Walter pulled up a wooden chair that groaned under his weight. "I'm the man who just burned the counterfeiting plates in DeVries's study, and I'm told you have evidence that can put him away."

Phelps stared at him for a long moment, then let out a laugh that turned into a cough, doubling him over. When he straightened, there were tears in his eyes—from the cough or something else, Walter couldn't tell.

"You burned the plates." Phelps shook his head. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Saved the country from a flood of fake bills?"

"You delayed it." Phelps swung his legs off the cot, bare feet hitting the concrete floor. "The plates were the operation's heart, but DeVries's plan is bigger than printing money. The Federal Reserve notes he was counterfeiting were the public face. The real scam is in the ledgers."

Walter leaned forward. "Ledgers."

"I was a bank examiner. I had access to records DeVries thought were buried. For months, I traced his holdings—shell companies, loan origination, insurance subsidiaries. The notes were just the spark. The theft is in the system itself." Phelps's voice cracked, and he swallowed, wincing. "He's been feeding fake collateral into the banking system through straw borrowers. When the panic hits and everyone runs to redeem, the banks will fail—but DeVries's companies own the debt. He's positioned to buy up failing institutions at pennies on the dollar. By the end, through his proxies, he'll own a quarter of the banking infrastructure of the Midwest."

Walter sat back. The dim bulbs hummed. "That's not robbery. That's the whole poker table."

"Exactly." Phelps met his eyes. "And I have the documents that prove it. Brokerage statements, loan records, corporate charters. They're in a safety deposit box at the Merchants Trust on Michigan Avenue, under a name DeVries doesn't know. If I testify—if I show those records to a federal judge—DeVries doesn't just go to prison. The whole enterprise collapses. His creditors turn on him. His political friends vanish."

"Then why hasn't he killed you?"

Phelps looked at his own hands. "Because I made sure he didn't know where the documents are. I told him they were with a lawyer who would release them if I died. It was a bluff—my lawyer's dead, natural causes, two years ago—but DeVries doesn't know that. As long as I'm alive, he thinks he has time to find the documents. As long as I'm alive, I'm leverage."

Walter was quiet for a long moment. Then he stood.

"We're leaving. There's a hotel fire escape at the end of the hall, but the steam tunnels under the basement are cleaner. They exit at the alley behind the theater next door. Can you walk?"

Phelps tested his legs, swaying, gripping the wall. "I'll manage. But Walter—there's something you should know."

Walter paused at the door. "What?"

"Roy came to visit me himself. Two weeks ago, in this room. He didn't know I was here—he found out through his own sources. He told me he was going to expose DeVries's scheme, take him down from the inside. He asked me to give him the documents."

"Did you?"

"No. I didn't trust him then, and I don't trust him now." Phelps pulled on a pair of shoes that were too big for his feet. "Roy talks about justice, but I know his history. He was a junior partner at DeVries's firm. He didn't leave because of conscience—he left because he'd been skimming from his own clients and needed a way to disappear before the audit. Roy's not a reformer. He's a parasite looking for a bigger host."

Walter felt the cold weight of that settle in his chest. But it didn't change anything. Roy had given him a false trail to escape the mansion. Whatever Roy's motives, he'd bought Walter time.

"One problem at a time," Walter said. He cracked the door and peered into the hallway. Empty. "The steam tunnels. Stay close. If I tell you to run, you run toward the theater alley. There's a cab stand two streets over. You tell the driver federal business and flash whatever credentials you have left. You don't wait for me."

"Where will you be?"

Walter checked the corridor again. Somewhere above, the piano player had switched to a mournful ballad. Behind them, in the distance, he thought he heard a dog bark.

"I'll be making sure nobody follows us." Walter looked back at Phelps, gaunt and swaying, a man who held an empire's ruin in his head. "You said you'd testify. Prove it."

Phelps straightened, pulling a thin jacket over his shoulders, and for a moment he looked less like a prisoner and more like what he'd been—an examiner who'd spent years hunting rot in the ledgers of men who thought they were above the law.

"I'll testify," Phelps said. "But we need to get the documents first. Commerce Trust opens at nine. DeVries will assume I'm dead or useless by now. We have until dawn before anyone thinks to check the hotel."

Walter opened the door wider. The basement corridor stretched ahead, dark and wet, and somewhere at the far end, a light flickered—not from a bulb, but from a flashlight beam, swinging as someone descended the stairs.

Walter pulled the door shut, killing the light, pressing his back against the wall. The footsteps grew closer, boots on concrete, unhurried and certain.

He counted the rounds in his revolver again. Five.

"Change of plans," Walter whispered. "We leave now."