Free Red Ice by Craig Reed Jr Page B

Financial District, within sight of the iconic Transamerica Tower. Despite the closeness to the city’s financial heart, the structure had a rundown look and feel to it. The light blue paint on the walls was faded and many windows had clothing hanging from them to dry.
    They walked past the topless bar, its loud music grinding from within, to a rough wooden door with a steel kickplate. Faded letters on the wood named the hotel.
    Inside, the smell of urine mixed with old cigarette smoke, body odor, and other less identifiable smells assaulted their nostrils. They found themselves in a hall six feet long and five wide, with unwashed walls and a dirty linoleum floor. At the end of the hall a flight of worn stairs led up.
    “Okay,” Vessler began in a soft tone. “Alec Wong, alias Alec W, is a low-level pusher and Triad wannabe. He’s the one who told us about the pier pickup, and we think he’s the one who sold Dyachenko the Red Ice.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be awake by now — he usually hits a few spots where his regulars from the Financial District go for lunch. He acts tough, but he’s nothing but talk. Follow my lead, they know me around here.”
    They climbed the stairs, the boards creaking alarmingly under their feet. At the top of the stairs was a lobby the size of a large living room. The front counter lay to the left of the stairs, surrounded by a cage of heavy steel mesh with only a small slot set in front. A few old chairs, a couple of ancient side tables and some dust-covered fake plants were scattered around the rest of the room. The reddish carpet was threadbare, and on the other side of the lobby, another set of stairs led up.
    Tanner eyed the two occupants of the lobby. One was a gaunt woman with lanky brown hair, a vacant expression, wearing a faded flower dress. The other was an old man in a suit two sizes too large sprawled in one of the chairs, sound asleep. Tanner dismissed him as the man they were looking for.
    Vessler went to the front counter. “Cordo,” she said to the man behind the counter.
    The clerk, thin with little hair and a bulbous nose, glared at the three newcomers with watery blue eyes. “Agent Vessler,” he said in a flat, unfriendly tone. “What brings you here today?”
    Vessler smiled. “Need to talk to Alec W. He in?”
    Cordo turned to look at the room slots on the wall behind the desk. “Key ain’t there, so I guess so.”
    “Still 203?”
    “Yeah. You see him, tell him he’s two weeks late with the rent.”
    “Thanks.”
    The three crossed the lobby and trotted up the stairway. Like the stairs from the street, these steps creaked under their feet. Tanner felt the banister wobble under his hand.
    Room 203 was the next floor up, two doors down from the stairs. Alec’s door, like the others they passed, was faded blue, cracked around the panels and sported a door handle tarnished to near blackness.
    Vessler stood on one side of the doorway, while Tanner and Naomi took the other. Vessler rapped on the door, the sound echoing in the empty hall. “Alec? Special Agent Vessler. We need to talk.” Seconds passed. Vessler knocked again. “Alec? I just want to talk.”
    Tanner motioned to the door handle with one hand while drawing his Heckler and Koch SOCOM pistol from a hip holster. Naomi pulled her own HK, while Vessler released her own Glock 22. Carefully, Tanner reached for the door, gripped the knob with his free hand, turned it, then released it. The door opened with a slight creak, then swung all the way open until it gently impacted the wall behind it.
    Tanner slowly eased around the door jamb, his pistol up and sweeping the room. Vessler moved into the unit, staying below Tanner’s pistol as she traversed to the right. Naomi stepped around Tanner, to the left.
    The room wasn’t large, and it matched the rest of the building’s faded decor. The walls were cracked and hadn’t seen new paint in decades. The furniture was cheap to begin with but