by P. N. Elrod
I pressed forward, heart galloping up to my throat. Going too fast and likely to stumble myself. “I’m coming, hang on.”
Something solid caught me around the ankles and pushed up hard and fast. It was too quick, too unexpected; I toppled forward. Hell’s bells, I was falling. Panicked, I lashed out with my arms to try to stop my momentum, but there was no banister to grab, I just slammed them into the walls. The solid thing pushed higher against my legs, and I tumbled headlong. At the last, the very last second, I managed to vanish so I wouldn’t crush her when I landed.
Damned convenient talent, but invariably disorienting. I spun faster than before, couldn’t get out of that part of it just yet. Damn, damn, damn—
The spinning slowed, I got myself in check, finally stopping to bounce lightly between the walls, trying to figure which end of me was up. My first guess was wrong as I floated one way and concluded I was heading toward the ceiling. Wanted to call out to her, find out what had gone wrong, but no voice in this state. A moment later I located the regular right angles that marked the steps. No sense of Angela, though, I must have floated well back up above her or had gone ahead and was below wherever she was. One way to find out. If she noticed anything odd I’d fix it later.
I materialized cautiously. Dark piled on top of dark met my eyes. I looked up, saw a very faint dim light. Rectangular. The trapdoor. Then it suddenly slammed down and the darkness got as bad as it could get without my actually being in hell. Ironically, that’s when the dawn started to break in my brain.
It was muffled, but I heard her triumphant, exhilarated laughter coming through the trap, the same kind of laugh as when she’d been throwing hand grenades.
“You goddamned little bitch!” I found myself shouting as I finally figured out what she’d done: faked a cry for help, dropped into a ball to trip me as I rushed to the rescue, then shot back up the stairs while I was still playing avalanche. If I’d been a normal man I could have broken my neck in the fall. She sure as hell hadn’t stuck around to find out.
Using my hands to climb, I charged up, vanished halfway along, and smoked through the trapdoor. Went solid. The closet was empty. Damn, but she was fast. Eased open the door to the hall for a peek. The place was still crowded with dozens of men, all in a sweat to escape. I joined them, trying to spot her small figure in the press.
Like I said, fast. She could be halfway to Cicero by now, dammit.
Milled around looking for her, but my heart wasn’t in it, besides the cops were starting to make real headway into this part of the building. It seemed a good time to disappear again. I could find a quiet corner, wait until the fuss died down, then maybe grab one of Angela’s inside boys to get a clue on her next bolt-hole, if she had one. Probably did. She was one lady it didn’t pay to underestimate.
The janitor closet was still as good a place as any to lie low. Small, but not like that damned passage, and I could leave the light on. If anyone opened the door to check inside, I’d have plenty of time to not be there for them. Went back to it—none of the other men had noticed it yet—and closed myself in and listened, putting one eye to the otherwise useless keyhole. More of the same riot going on in the hall, then the cops really started in, ordering everyone to shut up and make a line. No one was in a mood to cooperate just yet and punches were thrown. Fresh outbreaks of yelling, cursing, I heard Irish accents dominating the rest; it was a real donnybrook for everyone.
Then my peephole was abruptly yanked away as someone opened the door. I backed up and straightened; a small figure charged in, slamming hard against me before I could disappear.
Female, but not Angela, not nearly small enough. For an instant I thought she might be one of the taxi dancers and changed my mind as soon as I noticed the baggy woolen clothes and galoshes. She looked up and there was the familiar pinched face and thick glasses.
“Why, Opal, what a pleasant surprise!” I said, grinning down at the Paco’s bookkeeper.
Alarm washed over her features; she expressed it with an inarticulate chirp and tried to back out, but I had firm hold of her, dragged her in, and kicked the door shut with my foot. She went all fists and feet, hitting hard, but I caught her hands, looked into her eyes, and told her to knock it off. She did exactly that.
Okay, so I’d lost Angela, but Opal was the next best choice, having very quickly become Angela’s fair-haired girl of all numbers. Of all the people in the Paco mob, she would probably know where her boss lady would run for cover.
“Where’s Angela?”
Mouth open, Opal shook her head. “Dunno.”
Well, I could trust the truth of that, not just from my brief influence over her but from her very literal mind. I broke off and she woke right out of it to stare up at me.
“They said you were dead,” she stated in her flat voice.
“They were wrong, then.”
A scowl for me. “You should be dead.”
“Stop, you’re hurting my feelings.”
“Because you’re so mean. And don’t make fun of me!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I apologize. Let’s start over again.”
“I don’t want to. Just go away and let me by.”
“Taking the scenic route out?” I gestured at the trapdoor.
“No.” She gave me a look like I was prize pupil for the dunce’s corner. “The stairs.”
“Fine with me, I’ll help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
I got out of her way and let her wrestle the trap up. “Where will you go?”
“None of your business.”
“It’s really dark in there, be careful.”
Another withering look. She opened her huge purse and pulled out a flashlight, switching it on. Down she went into the passage, a real Girl Scout, prepared for anything. I followed, pulling the trap shut behind.
“I don’t want you to come,” she grumbled.
“Too bad.” The place was still too narrow for my comfort, but the bobbing beam of light made me feel almost brave. “Not much you can do about it.”
No reply, maybe she was trying not to slip around in her galoshes.
The walls were bare plywood and threw back what noise we made with interest. It was like walking around in a drum. She reached a tiny landing and tried the doorknob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge more than an inch. She pushed against it. Two inches more, but it tuckered her out.
“Lemme try.”
She pressed herself small into a corner to avoid any contact with me. I put my shoulder to the cold metal of the door and shoved. With a scraping sound something reluctantly gave on the other side. Another effort and we had enough space to squeeze through.
“Some escape tunnel this is, when you need to be King Kong to get out,” I said.
“I’d have gotten through.”
“Oh, yeah, in a week or three.”
“Lemme past.”
“After me,” I said, going first to check things. I nearly tripped on a hunk of wood sticking out; it was incongruously attached to the lower part of the door. I saved myself by grabbing the jamb.
An alley. Strong icy wind whipped between the buildings, rattling an army of dented trash cans waiting in hope for someone to empty them. One had been pushed in front of the door to block it. The can’s base was partially eaten away by corrosion and had been patched over with a small load of cement, about a hundred pounds’ worth. Opal could have moved it and maybe even Angela, but not easily. There’d have been hell to pay with the fire marshal, but someone had painted a “no-entry-no-exit” sign on the door. A couple of two-by-fours had been bolted across it, top and bottom, the lower one having caught my ankle. The effect, when the door was closed, was to make it look completely boarded up. Pretty clever.
Opal slipped out and started walking down the alley.
“Hey, wait up!”
“No!” She kept going, her purse banging hard against her hip. She brought it around and dropped the flashlight in.
&
nbsp; “You got no choice in the matter, lady. You’re stuck with me.”
“I don’t like you.”
“Your loss, but I’m coming with you no matter what.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to talk with Angela, and sooner or later you’ll lead me to her.”
“No, I won’t, so leave.”
“No.”
She growled something and walked faster, but I kept up the straypuppy routine.
“It’ll be all right, Opal. Angela and I were talking just before the raid hit. All I want to do is finish our conversation. Angela wants the same thing. Of course, if you can tell me where to find her, then I’ll go away so fast you’ll feel the draft.”
She had plenty of time to answer, but didn’t give me one. Another confirmation that she didn’t know where Angela was just yet. She probably knew how to contact her, though. “She wanted to kill you.”
“Nah, we worked it all out, we’re all roses and sunshine now.”
That one got me a snort of disbelief. Couldn’t blame her. “You were sick the other night. Really sick. I saw.”
“I got better, honey.”
“Don’t call me honey!”
“Whatever you say. Where you going?”
No answer. She got to the end of the alley. It was a different street from the one across and down from the all-night theater and looked a lot nastier, but there was no commotion of cops and paddy wagons here. I noticed a number of hard-looking men hurrying along, keeping their heads down when they weren’t glancing behind. They must have been lucky escapees from the raid.
Opal brought her purse around again and began digging in it. I heard the jingle of keys. She cut left onto the sidewalk and approached a parked Cadillac. From the smoked windows I recognized it as having belonged to the late Vaughn Kyler. As new as it was, no one had put so much as a finger mark on its fresh wax job, let alone attempt to hotwire and steal it. The locals knew better.
She unlocked the driver’s door and climbed in; I hitched a hip next to hers and slid her over.
“Get out!” she screeched.
“No!” I shouted back. “No more arguments, lady. Just give me the keys and tell me where to drive.”
She fumed, breathing hard. Not really enough light coming in for me to bring her around to my way of thinking, but it turned out to be unnecessary. She slapped the keys into my open hand, scooted as far as she could over to the passenger door, crossed her arms, and stared straight ahead, disgust showing in every line of her body.
I found the ignition, the starter, got the motor turning, and fiddled with the gears and clutch. “Where to, ma’am?”
She looked too mad to talk and only jabbed her index finger in a forward direction. Probably too much of a lady to use a more obvious digit, that or she didn’t know to use it in the first place. Her worldly education had some gaps in it, I knew.
I pulled sedately away from the curb. Smooth ride, quiet and secure as we all but sailed along. I could get used to it real fast, and the crazy thought flitted through my head that maybe I could talk Angela into giving the Caddie to me as a gift. After the shit I’d been through with her, it was the least she could do. Escott’s bullet-pocked Nash was in for repairs, he could drive my Buick until . . .
Corner. “Left or right, Opal?”
She pointed left. I brought the steering wheel around and drove us well away from the dance-hall area. Cop cars passed us, going the other way. It’d be a busy night in the holding tanks. I wondered if they chopped up all the gambling equipment. Usually they kept some intact for evidence, but from the sound of things, they weren’t being all that careful.
“What happened back there?” I asked. “Did some big shot downtown decide he wasn’t getting paid enough to look the other way?”
Opal shrugged.
“You feel okay?”
“No.”
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
She shot me a quick look. “No.”
“Good. That’s good.” I sneaked another gander at her, but she seemed all right. In her young twenties, but with a hard face, I wondered what it would take to make her soften up and smile. Maybe she didn’t know how. She knew squat about the social graces; the only thing that mattered to her were numbers. Vaughn Kyler had discovered her performing math miracles at an eatery, saw the potential of her bizarre genius, and hired her away to bigger and better things than collecting tips for parlor tricks. She did the books for him until his death, then switched sides to go to work for Angela. The last I’d seen of Opal had been on the yacht Elvira. Maybe she was intellectually short in some areas, but she must have had the instincts of a Houdini to get herself and Kyler’s coded account books away and clear. My hat was off to her.
“You want to tell me where we’re going?”
“No, I don’t.”
Damn, but I’d have to get used to her literalness all over again and watch how I phrased my questions. “All right, but I’m gonna have to know sooner or later or we’ll just drive in circles until the gas runs out.”
After a moment she said, “I don’t have the address, just how to get there.”
I told her that was fine with me and she fed me directions as needed. The blocks sped by, getting newer, more respectable, then decaying again. We reached a kind of halfway point between two such areas when she ordered me to stop at a run-down hotel.
“This is it?”
She nodded.
“You live here?” I remembered that Angela had promised to pay her fifteen hundred a month to keep the books. She could do a lot better than this joint.
“No, I’m supposed to go here when there’s an emergency.”
“Does it come with a parking space?”
Apparently not, so I had to find one. I finally nabbed a spot across the street, but only after making a quick and illegal U-turn. No cops around to notice. Maybe they were still at Flora’s studio primping to get their picture in the morning papers. I levered out, holding my hand toward Opal to help her. She glared at it and slid across the seat without assistance. I locked the car up and kept the keys.
She jaywalked over to the hotel entry, me sauntering close behind.
Once upon a time there had been a doorman out front, but he’d either retired or died a long time back and no one had bothered to take his place. The closest they had now were a few winos huddled over a steaming grate. Opal sped briskly past them and pushed through a door with an etched-glass panel. The glass was cracked.
The inside lobby was a faded glory. What had been beautiful at the turn of the century looked pathetic and used up now. The once proudly polished brass of the showpiece staircase was dim and dark with neglect. The patterned marble floor was scarred, stained, and dull with decades of dirt. The rest of the place, from the reception desk with holes kicked into its front, to a cobweb-decorated cage elevator, told the same sad story.
The place was strangely busy, though. Three or four men were lined up at reception. One impatiently slapped down a dollar, grabbed the key the old clerk offered him, and took off up the stairs. I saw no sign of a registration book, but you didn’t need a genius brain to figure out why. Waiting for the man at the first landing was a tired-looking woman with too much makeup, fighting middle age with every dab of paint and powder she could muster. She’d squeezed her ample body into a tight satin skirt, gaudy polka-dotted blouse, and topped it with a fancy hat. Her heels were much too high for normal walking, but then I was guessing she wouldn’t be on them for the next little while. The man caught her arm, and she tottered the rest of the way upstairs with him.
“Nice place for Angela to put you,” I commented as we paused just on the threshold.
“It’s safe,” she said, and pushed past me toward the reception desk. The old manager blinked at her.
“Angela sent me,” she stated.
“Huh,” he replied, checking her over. She didn’t look like she belonged anywhere but at a library, sorting through the decimal system. Certain
ly she didn’t fit into this place. He nodded, reached to the wall behind, and took a key off a hook separate from the others, handing it over. “Stairs, second floor, straight down to the end of the—”
“I know the way.”
“I’ll bet you do, girlie,” one of the men in line said, all bloodshot nose and leering mouth. “How ’bout you show me?”
She kept her eyes down and moved away. He made a grab for her. I stepped in and caught his arm before he connected.
“The lady,” I said, “ain’t interested, bub.”
He was just drunk enough not to take the hint. He swung at me with his other hand, but I hardly felt it. In fact it only made me grin. I caught hold of his coat and lifted until his feet cleared the floor. He was too surprised to do anything but gape. He wasn’t as tall as me, but considerably wider, and I shouldn’t have been able to hoist him up like a baby.
“Hey, no trouble, no trouble!” cried the manager.
Yeah, there wasn’t much point in my breaking some drunk in two. He’d only forget about it the next morning, if he lived that long. Hell, his hangover would do worse things to him than I could. I eased the guy back down and thoughtfully dusted his shoulders.
“No trouble,” I repeated, still grinning. “Right, bub?”
“R-right.” He backed off a few steps, falling against some of his friends in line. Half of them wanted to see a fight and egged him on, the other half told him to get out of the way so they could go upstairs. He disappointed them both by holding his place and plopping his dollar down on the desk.
Opal had watched at the foot of the grand staircase. When she saw I was finished and coming toward her, she started scuttling up.
“Nice place,” I said again, hurrying fast to catch her.
“It wasn’t like this earlier.”
“When was that?”
“Today. I met Angela here.”
“With all her muscle around to keep you safe from the patrons, I’m sure things were just dandy. It’s always a different story at night. All kinds of creeps are out then.”
“I know,” she said, pausing to give me a pointed look.
“Hey, unfair.”
