Free Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan

a street-level real estate office, listing sheets taped to the window underneath a sign reading ROOF DECK PROPERTIES AND MANAGEMENT.
    Royce pushed through the ornamental gate toward the stone steps. Maven looked up at the curved-front Victorian brownstone, then followed.
    Inside the unlocked first door, Royce waved to the side office entrance, where a frazzled-looking receptionist on the phone waved back and reached beneath her desk to buzz them inside. The second door in front of them buzzed and Royce pulled it open, revealing a chandelier of violet-tinted glass hanging in a richly paneled lobby. A thin Oriental runner led to the foot of a broad, curving staircase.
    “Eleven real estate agents working their asses off,” said Royce on the way up the stairs, “hustling student apartments, business sublets, artist lofts. Knocking each other over to land exclusive listings. The business is actually profitable, not that I give a damn. It’s a laundry machine to me. A front. Cash goes in dirty and comes out clean. But the workers, they have no idea. So they keep busting their asses for their commissions, trying to keep the office afloat. Poor fucks.”
    He stopped at the only door on the first-floor landing. His key turned in the lock, and Maven followed him inside to a splendid, modern kitchen with beet red walls, glass-front cabinets, stainless-steel fixtures. A floor-through apartment, running left through an archway to a larger room in the rear, and right down a short hallway to the street-facing front.
    Maven closed the door, and the entire city vanished. Royce set the suitcase gently down atop the silver-speckled countertop. He opened a panel on the island unit and a gasp of freezer steam escaped, and he withdrew two chilled pint glasses. He opened the door to a giant silver refrigerator, a bank vault of food, and pulled out two bright red, bottle-shaped aluminum cans of Budweiser. “They only drink American. I’m betting you won’t mind.”
    “Who’s they?” said Maven, still back on his heels. “You don’t live here?”
    “Me? I live upstairs,” said Royce, pointing. He opened the bottle and poured for Maven, the golden yellow beer sliding down the frosted side of the glass, then poured his own. He handed Maven his glass and clinked it.
    “To gay sex,” Royce said, watching Maven almost choke. “I got you.”
    Maven grinned, then drank down about half, as much as he could handle until the coldness started to close his throat. The suitcase was just sitting there on the counter. He forced himself to look away. Through the short hallway to the front, he saw a large pool table. “Damn,” he sighed, moving to it.
    The table had tassels on the sides and soft, ropy purses for pockets. Massive mahogany legs. A real Victorian-type piece set out on a plush Oriental rug, the entire room given over to it.
    Maven ran his fingers over its crimson cloth playing surface. A cue-stick rack hung on the wall between two enormous World War II–era propaganda posters. AVENGE DECEMBER 7 rallied the first, an angry man raising his massive fist into the air. BOOKS ARE WEAPONS IN THE WAR OF IDEAS proclaimed the second, a giant book burning in vivid color. The opposite wall was dominated by a stone-manteled fireplace.
    “They had to bring this thing up from the outside, like a piano,” said Royce, coming along behind him.
    Maven went to the far, curved wall, the centered window offering a view across Marlborough Street, and, over them, the top of the Prudential building beyond.
    Cars lined both sides of the street below, the wind spiriting the last of the fallen tree leaves. From the east, two men came along the brick sidewalk, each carrying a duffel bag. Maven made the Latino and the blond, approaching the front door below.
    He stepped back from the window. He felt anxious suddenly, out of place. He needed a moment to get his shit together, and emptied his beer glass. “There a bathroom?”
    I T SMELLED CLEAN, SPICED WITH