The Vampire Files, Volume Three

by P. N. Elrod

  “Come on, kid.”

  He took up a lot of space and Sullivan and his boys had to stand aside as he passed. No one stopped me as I went with him into the hall. Neither of us said anything because Sullivan was right behind us.

  Gordy called orders about the cars to his men downstairs, then turned and led the way to the far end of the hall. The big bedroom there had belonged to his former boss, now deceased, Slick Morelli. His stuff was all cleared out and replaced, different wallpaper, different pictures. The bed looked the same except for Opal being in it. I made a beeline for her.

  She seemed smaller than before. Her face was too white and reminded me of a crushed flower. I was scared to touch her.

  “Here, now, what’s this?” A fussy-looking man in sober dark clothes came out of the bathroom. “Mr. Sullivan, this simply won’t do.”

  “Dr. Balsamo, I presume?” I muttered.

  “And who might you be?” Neatly trimmed beard on his chin, dark features, not old, not young, a slight foreign accent I couldn’t place. When I didn’t answer he went to talk to his boss in hushed, but insistent tones. His theme was that visiting hours were over. Gordy came up next to me to look down at Opal.

  I took the opportunity while I had it. “Did you really do the hit at the hotel?” I asked, barely moving my lips.

  “Nope.”

  “Why say so?”

  “Because it was a good idea at the time.”

  “You know who did do it?”

  “Nope.”

  “The hit car’s out front, a Packard full of holes. You can’t miss it.”

  He made a small grunt of acknowledgment.

  “You know I can get the truth out of you if I have to.”

  “I know, kid. Truth’s what you’re getting now.”

  “What about the fire? Who did that?”

  “Angela, maybe.”

  No time to tell him different, Sullivan came over. “That’s it. We’re going.”

  It wasn’t enough. I wanted her to be awake so I could apologize. Selfish thing to do, robbing her of sleep just to ease my conscience. Managed not to do it, but I did pause on the way out to talk with the doctor.

  “Is she really going to be okay?”

  “She should be, unless she develops an infection from having all of you in here breathing your germs into her air.”

  “She doesn’t look so good. You sure? Why doesn’t she wake up?” No one was being any too quiet.

  “That’s the sedative. She was up earlier and beating me at checkers. Now, everyone get out of here this instant.”

  He was fussy, but I liked that. It meant he was looking after her.

  I said good-bye to her for now. Apologies would have to wait for later.

  We trooped downstairs, Sullivan’s men lording it over Gordy’s, not enough to cause a fight to break out, but sufficient to drive their point home that they were with the winning boss, the man with all the power. I’d seen it before, but it’s usually on a grade-school playground.

  Sullivan’s two cars weren’t enough to hold us all; Gordy sent someone to bring around his Cadillac. He drove and Sullivan sat up front with him. I was in the back between two goons. None of Gordy’s men went with us, which had a funny smell I didn’t like.

  “Where to?” Gordy asked.

  “Flora’s Dance Studio,” I said.

  Sullivan looked ready to choke. “My people went over that place, every inch.”

  “It’s not my fault you’ve got a bunch of dummies on the payroll.”

  “Where are they?”

  I assumed he meant the books, not the dummies. “Upstairs, not too far from the manager’s office.” If Angela hadn’t lied to me, that is. I didn’t think she had, but if so, then I’d have to take the hint from Gordy and disappear. I was planning to anyway. Once I had the books in hand, I’d get scarce and let Sullivan and his boys go chase themselves trying to find me. With any luck, Adkins could start working on their codes before dawn. As for Opal, she was going to stay well clear of the mess from now on if I had anything to do with it. Her part was over.

  Our caravan trundled through the thinning traffic, Gordy holding to a nice comfortable pace, sometimes pausing if one of the cars behind got caught by a stop signal. The drab studio and its neighborhood was on the other side of the world compared to his swanky club, but both were linked tight as twins to the common need of people wanting risky distractions. Rich or poor, it went to all levels. I wondered if the mobs would go out of business if suddenly all the current vices became legal. Probably not; they’d just find a way to take their usual cut, only it’d be aboveboard.

  Not my worry, though; Gordy found a spot across the street to park and slipped in. The other cars cruised forward to the end of the block and made U-turns, stopping in front of the studio. Everyone got out. Some of the bums hanging around the all-night theater stopped trying to panhandle tickets and turned to watch our particular show instead.

  Our group waited until Sullivan’s boys broke the doors open and went through. The building had been boarded up by the cops, but no one was on watch. The place was a dump, so why bother?

  One of them came out and waved, then we started across the street. Way at the far end of it a car rounded the corner, the headlights flashing in the turn, then shutting down. No one else noticed because of the dark, but I recognized the Packard. Something was up, and I didn’t know who was behind it, Gordy or Sullivan. Gordy might have lied to me when I’d asked about the hotel hit, knowing I couldn’t seriously try getting the truth out of him in front of the others. Maybe all he’d wanted was some time to set up another one, and I’d provided a convenient way of having it take place far from his club.

  Talking to him about it was impossible, of course. For the moment.

  With Sullivan’s men on either side like an honor guard, I was ushered through the studio doors with a lot more ceremony than on my last visit. Someone hit the lights, only half of them came on. The place looked cavernous with all the dancing couples gone. Overturned chairs lay here and there by the walls and on the floor were hundreds of torn ticket stubs. We walked over them and went upstairs, leaving most of the goons to cool their heels below. Sullivan must have been comfortable with just the two guarding me.

  I took them down to the manager’s office, passing wrecked rooms on the way. The damage was severe, a lot like the gambling area of the Nightcrawler Club, full of broken machines and similar litter.

  The glass panel on the office door was smashed through. I went in and tried the light so everyone could see the wreckage, too. The bowling trophy still lay on the floor, but it was easy to overlook amid the smashed desk and pulled-out drawers. Not so easy to miss was the manager’s blood. No one had had time to clean it up before the raid.

  I went past it all to open the second door onto the back hall. It was freezing, the fire-escape window still gaped wide. The two goons outflanked me when they saw my interest in it, putting themselves in my way in case I got any ideas about leaving in that direction. It seemed best to ignore them.

  The door to the janitor closet also sagged open. The threadbare rug was rumpled, but still pretty much in place covering the trap. Even the dim light worked. There wasn’t much room for the others, but they crowded together on the threshold to watch as I yanked the rug back and pulled the door up.

  “My boys already searched that place,” Sullivan informed me.

  I ignored him, too, for a closer study of the trapdoor. It was heavy, but not unexpectedly so, and a few inches thick. I ran my fingers along the front edge, looking for some way in. A board shifted under them. I gave it a push and it swiveled, revealing a cavity. Angling the door just right, I could see down inside, glimpsing the thin flat spines of ledger books.

  “Bingo,” I said by way of announcement, and leaned back so they could get a look.

  After the first wave of satisfaction passed, Sullivan seemed disappointed. Now he’d have to let me go. Then again, my influence on him wasn’t so firmly fix
ed that he couldn’t overcome it if he wanted to badly enough.

  “Get them,” he ordered.

  I tried reaching in, but my hands were too big. Not so for little Angela, or even Opal. “Have to fish them out with something unless one of your boys is on the dainty side.”

  “Don’t be smart.”

  “Then have someone turn up a wire coat hanger so I can snag this stuff.”

  He sent one of the goons away and we stood around with our hands in our pockets and not saying anything. There was quite a chilly draft coming from that window. It made the exit door at the bottom of the hidden stairway bump against its latch. I checked down there, but it was empty.

  “Where’s that go?” asked Gordy.

  “Comes out in an alley. Opal and I used it the other night to get away from the raid.” I might use it again once the books were out, just vanish and pop down the rabbit hole with them, leaving Sullivan with one hell of a mystery on his hands. It might be tough for Gordy, but he could take care of himself, probably pretend to be as astonished as the others. If it seemed necessary, I could always dump the books someplace safe, like the roof, then hurry back to help him. The chance might even come up for me to grab Sullivan for a little private talk. Then Maxwell wouldn’t be the only guy telling his life story to Merrill Adkins. Now wouldn’t that be sweet?

  The goon was taking his time. Sullivan snarled at the remaining one to go find out what the holdup was. Another few minutes crawled by with everyone getting colder.

  “They’re not gonna find anything,” he finally concluded. “Here—” He pulled a claw hammer off its peg and gave it to Gordy. “I’ll watch him, you break it open.”

  Gordy shrugged, but the room was too small for both of us, so I eased out to give him space and he went to work on the wood joints, thumping away on them, then trying to pry them apart. It made a lot of noise and at first masked over what was going on below. I was barely aware of it, my concentration being on Gordy. The sound only registered with me as a random banging that might have been a freak echo of Gordy’s hammering coming up the narrow stairs.

  Then Gordy paused and we all heard it, muffled by the many walls between but unmistakable: the sound of a machine gun stuttering.

  It went on for only a second or two and stopped and was answered by some scattered individual shots from semi-autos.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Sullivan must not have spent any time in the streets and didn’t know the universal rule about always running away whenever you hear gunfire, preferably in the opposite direction from its source. He hauled out a shiny new .45 and rushed off toward the ruckus.

  “What is it?” I asked Gordy. “Something of yours?”

  He shook his head. “Damned if I know, kid.” He left off with the hammer and pulled his own gun clear. I followed Sullivan’s path, with Gordy behind me.

  More guns going off, men yelling. Jeez, how they were yelling. The machine gun started up again, getting louder the closer we got—no, there were at least two of them, maybe others.

  Gordy hung back out of sight of the main stairs while I pressed forward. Sullivan crouched at the corner, peering down, not moving.

  “What is it?” I called.

  He jumped and turned like I’d hit him with a live wire. His face was sheet white and his hands shook. He was better at giving orders to send his mugs in for strong-arm work than doing the work himself. “Th-they’re shooting ’em.”

  I’d figured that much. “Who?” I got up next to him and peeked around the corner.

  Couldn’t see a lot, part of the stairs, a man’s very still body on it. He’d fallen forward trying to run up; big bloody holes marred the back of his pale tan coat. Saw another body farther down, also not moving. The rest of what lay below was blocked off by architecture and smoke. Cordite stink filled the air; that and the bloodsmell.

  It was enough for me, I pelted back and grabbed Gordy’s arm, heading for the fire escape. I went through first and retreated just as fast when I spotted a man below. He’d been waiting for someone to try using the window and fired off a couple rounds to cheat us of escape. Didn’t recognize him beyond the fact he was a threat.

  “In here,” I said. But Gordy was way ahead of me, moving for the closet.

  “Tight fit,” he commented as he eased into the stairwell.

  “The door at the bottom just might be watched. Stay in there until you hear from me.”

  “What’re you—”

  “I gotta see what the hell’s going on.”

  “The books—”

  “Screw the books, get ’em later.”

  As soon as his head was below floor level, I lowered the trapdoor on him. The top part of it wouldn’t lie flat because of damage from the hammer, but I threw the rug over it, then pulled a rolling bucket and mop cart over on top of everything. It would survive an initial look-see.

  I went back to the fire-escape window, this time putting only as much eye past the sill as was necessary. The man was still down there. Apparently all he had to do was make sure no one got out. Going invisible, I did exactly that, feeling my way along the metal framework until I reached the ground. I didn’t go solid again until I was well behind him, and then only enough so I could see.

  Alert, he was engrossed with looking up the stairs, gun out and ready to shoot. Not one of Gordy’s men, and I didn’t recognize him as being with Angela’s crowd, but he seemed familiar nonetheless. Whoever he was with, he was dangerous, so I went completely solid and popped him one just as he turned to see who was making the fast footsteps. He dropped and I grabbed at the gun to keep it from landing wrong. A no-nonsense Thompson fitted out with a fifty-round drum. These boys meant business. I shoved it high on the fire stairs out of the way.

  Gunfire. Echoes cracked off the buildings. A few spatters of it, then silence.

  Down the alley, turn two corners, and I was out front. The bullet-pocked Packard was slewed across the path of the other cars, and had company with a year-old Ford, which similarly blocked the Caddie.

  I saw movement at the front entry of the studio, a couple of men, postures tense, looking the street up and down for trouble. One of them held another Thompson at the ready. His gave the area one last look then went into the building, leaving his friend on watch. I ducked back to where I’d come from and slipped up the fire stairs the easy way, going solid once inside.

  Listened. No more shooting, but who could say how long that would last. I worked slowly toward the front stairs. Sullivan was gone, maybe hiding in one of the rooms, or he’d slipped out the escape while I’d been away.

  Couple more steps and look around the last corner. Dead man still sprawled on the stairs, only another man—machine gun in hand—loomed over him, checking him.

  “Adkins?”

  He reacted instantly, bringing the gun around fast enough to give anyone else a heart attack. I conquered my shock enough to put my hands up and told him to hold off a second.

  “It’s me—Jack Fleming! What the—what the hell are you doing here?”

  He waited and two more men joined him, also with Thompsons. There was something strange and bulky about their clothing until I realized they were all wearing bulletproof vests.

  “What is this? Some kind of raid?”

  “Some kind,” Adkins snapped. “Take him below.”

  “Hey, I’m one of the good guys, remember?”

  “Sure, that’s why you’re so cozy with your friend Gordy.”

  One of them came up and grabbed the back of my coat, shoving me downstairs, ignoring my protests. Then I saw what was waiting below and couldn’t talk anymore.

  Cordite and bloodsmell. Lots of both.

  Couldn’t move, could only stare. It was too much to take in.

  Blood flooded the floor. Bodies everywhere, all with that peculiar stillness of death hovering over them. Nearly a dozen men were scattered across the huge room. Dead. Except for the War, I hadn’t seen anything remotely close to it, not even in the news photos of the
garage that made the headlines on St. Valentine’s Day.

  Had to shut my eyes a moment and fight the rising nausea. Gulped it down until I was dizzy, then looked again. The sight hadn’t gotten any better. Noticed one standout from the rest, a smaller man in an expensive dark coat I thought I knew. Walked over on wooden legs, knelt, and turned him over.

  It was Maxwell. Had been Maxwell.

  I looked up at the faces of the other men, of Adkins and the two with him. They stared back, their eyes full of darkness, the souls that should have been there long gone.

  “What have you done?” I whispered.

  “Just made the world a little cleaner,” Adkins answered.

  “You murdered them.”

  “They had guns. It was a fair fight.”

  “And him?” I pointed at Maxwell. “He had a gun?”

  “He will before we’re done here.” He gave an order to the others and they split off to run upstairs.

  I focused hard on Adkins, rage welling fast. Tried to damp it. “Stop them. You hear me? Call them back!”

  He squinted a little like I’d blown smoke in his eyes, then shook his head.

  “Stop them!”

  Too late. I heard Sullivan’s distant panicked shout before machine gun clatter abruptly shut him down.

  Took a step toward Adkins, but his gun was square on me. I held off a moment, tried again to get past his darkness, put on all the pressure I had. I let the rage loose, felt it leaping forward. “You call to them and get them down here. You listen to me and call them back now!”

  But my anger, the same kind that had shattered Frank Paco’s mind, had no effect on this bastard. He was already too far gone for my influence to touch him. “Like hell I will,” he said evenly, and lighted a cigarette.

  I staggered back as if he’d been the one trying to do the hypnosis. Fought the sickness again; this time it was more emotional than physical. I’d heard about such monsters, had done news stories on them, had even met a few, but not like this, not in the middle of their handiwork while the blood was still fresh.

  “You did the hotel hit, didn’t you?”

  Adkins shrugged, puffing.