by P. N. Elrod
“It’s as deadly as any gun,” Escott informed him. “And has the added advantage of being nearly silent.”
“It’s three to one,” said LaCelle cautiously. “And we’ve got more shots.”
“True, but my one shot is aimed at you, and I’m an excellent marksman.”
“He is,” I added. “He practices all the time.”
LaCelle thought hard, then eased back slightly. “Okay, what do you want?”
That was all I needed. “I want you to look at me, and I want you to listen to me.”
“No, Jack,” said Escott, breaking my concentration before I made any kind of progress. “Not that way.”
“It’ll be easier for us.”
“I’m finishing this alone. This is my fight.”
“Where’s—” I bit it off. Maybe Coldfield was working his way around the outside of the house to take them from the front door. No need to reveal anything about having another player in the game.
Escott said, “Gentlemen, I shall get my coat and we will leave. You will take me to see Archy Grant.”
“Charles, they’re not going to do any such thing, they’ll kill you first.”
“I think not. Because of Gordy’s protection, isn’t that correct, Mr. LaCelle?”
Nonplussed at such cooperation, he gave an uncertain nod. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Which is why during the shooting last night you drove the car, but did not actually pull the trigger. You left that for Grant to do, did you not?”
“Sweet, ain’t it? Gordy can’t hold your getting scragged against me.”
I snorted. “I think you’re smart enough to know Gordy won’t fall for any hairsplitting like that.”
“He’ll have to. In the scheme of things Archy’s a lot more valuable property than either of you. Archy’s show’s a gold mine to my bosses and damn near legit. They’re gonna want to keep him around and working. My job is to keep him happy, and he won’t be happy until the both of you are bye-bye.”
“But not until he talks to me?” asked Escott.
“Oh, yeah, he wants that, too.”
Escott looked like he wanted to talk some himself. He had a lot of years of it saved up. Coldfield might need more time, though, for whatever he had planned. “This little job gives you quite a hold over Archy, doesn’t it?” I put in. “Must be nice.”
LaCelle seemed genuinely surprised. “What hold? We’re friends from way back. He helps me, I help him. Tonight I help him clear up an old mess, so tell your friend to put down the fancy Robin Hood gag and you two come along quiet.”
“Okay. You heard the man, Charles. Let’s go for a ride.”
Escott shook his head. “Not both of us. Only myself. I’m going to ask you to arrange things with this fellow so that you stay here.” There was a strange note to his voice that put a chill in my spine. “And I truly mean stay here, Jack. No covert following.”
So he didn’t want me tagging invisibly along. Like hell I wouldn’t. Not when he looked like that. “Grant wants to see both of us. Isn’t that right, LaCelle?”
LaCelle had picked up on the unspoken interplay between Escott and me and was cautious. “That’s what he wants, yeah.”
“Get your coat, Charles.”
“This is my fight.”
There was something seriously wrong going on inside his head. I could see it and even feel it, and it was important enough for me to break my number-one rule concerning friends. “Charles . . . listen to me.”
A change came over his face, and he looked sad. “I cannot. It has to be done my way.”
Oh, hell, I’d forgotten about all the booze still sloshing around in his blood. Of course he’d be able to resist my influence. “You’re not going without me.”
“But I must.” He was blinking a lot, and his voice was thick.
“Charles—”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He suddenly shifted his aim and pulled the trigger on the crossbow.
No—
Too late.
The bolt slammed into my chest, knocking my last draw of breath right out. I fell against the stair banister and dropped, sprawling. Pure fire blossomed through me. My helpless body twitched and spasmed, heels cracking against the floor, arms thrashing from the agony. I heard a terrible strangling, hissing sound and realized I was the one making it.
LaCelle yelped some exclamation of surprise, and I was distantly aware of his hasty backing away.
Bloodsmell. Mine.
I clawed at the thing jutting from my ribs, but couldn’t get my fingers to grasp it, pull it free. The blinding pain slowed me, finally paralyzed me. The convulsions abruptly ceased; my hands slipped down at my sides, and I lay staring at the ceiling, corpse still, but fully conscious.
Burning.
Please God, make it stop!
Burning inside.
“Ike?” Shep’s voice. Scared. “What do we do, Ike?”
“Gimme a minute.” LaCelle. Badly shaken.
“Did you see what he did to him? He’s crazy!”
“I know, I know! Just shuddup an’ lemme think!”
They shut up.
Screaming.
Charles, help me!
Screaming in my head.
No one to hear.
But he knows. He must know!
Escott said, “I’m putting this down now and going to get my coat.” Very calm.
No one moved as he followed through. On the edge of my blurring vision I saw him shrug on his heavy topcoat. He paused by the hall table for a minute.
“What’re you doing?” LaCelle demanded.
“Just writing a little note for anyone who finds him.”
“You lemme see it.”
“Of course.”
Paper rustled as LaCelle grabbed it from him. “‘Please remove bolt as quickly as possible—C.E.’ What is this? Some kinda sick joke?”
“He’s crazy, Ike. Get away from him.” Shep. Nervous.
“My good man, I am not crazy, merely drunk. May I have my note back? Thank you.” Escott knelt by me, his gray, hollow face coming into my line of view, and pushed the paper partway into my shirt between the buttons. “I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but after tonight that won’t matter. Talk to Shoe. He’ll help you understand why.” He brushed his fingers over my eyelids to close them, then stood. “Might I ask where we’ll be going?”
LaCelle gave a brief, sickly laugh. “Someplace cold, dark, and quiet.”
“Sounds like a grave.”
“Yeah, it does. Come on.”
They trooped out, leaving me where I had fallen. My body was inert, but my senses and mind were all too aware. Unable to act or react, but aware and furious. The only thing hotter than my anger at Escott was the searing bolt lodged between my ribs.
He was going off to die, and he knew it.
He was going off to kill.
Himself and one other—if he had the chance.
For when he came into my view he’d been tucking his pen away. It was that damned fat-bodied pen with the hidden hypodermic needle, and God knows what he had in the thing.
NO way to tell the time.
Pain distorts it, slows it down, turns a minute into an hour.
I couldn’t tell how many seeming hours oozed by before I heard a faint groan from the dining room. Other less identifiable noises followed, then a couple of unsteady footsteps.
I knew when Coldfield reached the hall by his sharp intake of breath.
“Sweet Jesus, kid, what did you do?” he choked out.
You’ve got no business blaming me. This is Escott’s fault.
He came closer, cursing softly, and I felt him lift the paper free of my shirt. “What the hell? Is he crazy?”
Yes, very. Now just do what he said to do.
“Aw, shit. God in heaven, this ain’t fair.”
Damn right. I didn’t deserve this.
“Not . . . fair.”
Hurry, goddammit!
The fire
around the bolt, which in a strange way I’d nearly gotten used to, flared white-hot—hotter—all over again. I couldn’t cry out, not until he pulled the thing free, and he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. I thought his hands were shaking. He kept muttering unhappily to himself.
Then he snarled, and I felt something unholy tearing my chest apart, and suddenly the damned thing was out.
The aftershock flattened me like a lead brick. I could move but didn’t want to; the one thing I could do—couldn’t help but do—was vanish.
Surprised, Coldfield cursed loud and at length. He hated, really hated being surprised. This one couldn’t be helped. The damage was too much for me to hold out against; my body did what was best for it and took itself away to an instant release from the pain.
I floated in the comforting bliss of nonfeeling for a while, trying to ignore Coldfield’s increasingly noisy demands that I come back. He sounded angry at first, then apprehensive, not knowing what exactly had become of me. Far too soon for my recovery of spirit, I made myself fade back to solidity again, but took my time.
Coldfield watched, wide of eye, as I gradually reappeared, sitting weary to the bone on the stairs. It felt like a few dozen elephants had been jumping on me, and I hunched forward, hugging myself.
“You doing that slow for dramatic effect?” he asked after a minute.
I laughed once, and was amazed that it didn’t hurt. “Just being careful. I wanted to make sure everything was working.”
“You all right?”
“I think so.” I ventured to straighten and checked myself over. There was a lot of blood on my clothes, but it could have been much, much worse. The one time I’d been truly staked by someone determined to kill, I’d lost too much blood to simply vanish and heal. Tonight had been different, though, because Escott had missed hitting my heart. On purpose. He’d wanted to stop me, but not permanently.
I unbuttoned my shirt. Coldfield stared at the spot where he’d pulled the bolt out. My skin was stained, but the hole was sealed up like new. He next stared at the bolt itself where he’d dropped it on the floor. Spatters of blood radiated out from it.
“What happened to you?” I asked. We both needed our minds to be elsewhere.
“Charles clocked me when he got that crossbow down from the wall.” He shrugged himself away from wherever he’d gone and gingerly touched the back of his head behind one ear. “Not too bad. I’ve had tougher knocks sparring with the boys. But you—how did—”
“He’s on a real bender.” I peeled my ruined and bloody shirt off and told him what happened. I expected him to not want to believe Escott’s shooting of me, but he accepted it quite readily. After all, Escott had cracked his skull without a second’s thought. “He’s off and running on the edge again, only this time he’d going to go right over.”
Coldfield watched as I strode purposefully upstairs, stumbling only once. “You got a plan?”
“No, just a clue and not much of one,” I called back while snagging a fresh shirt from my room. A black one. I pulled it on as I hurried down again. His coat and hat were hanging from the hall tree. I tossed them at him and continued buttoning. “It’s something LaCelle said. I think I know where they’re taking Charles.”
“You think? And if you’re wrong?”
“We both know the answer to that.”
COLDFIELD was still pretty shaken, so I did the driving while he slumped in the passenger seat and tried not to look sick.
“How hard did he hit you?” I asked.
“Enough so he’s going to regret it when I get in swinging distance of him again.”
“Seriously, you got any double vision, ringing ears, stuff like that?”
“It just hurts. Doc Clarson can check me over later. You just step on it.”
I stepped on it, going along the route Shep had driven me earlier. It seemed to take longer this time, or more likely impatience and fear were distorting my perception. I cut through lights and doubled my speed when I could, knowing I could take care of any traffic cop who stopped me. None did, though, and we were soon sailing next to the wire fence of the truck yard.
“This is Dalhauser’s place. Why here?”
“Something he said to me that LaCelle pretty much repeated. It’s isolated and Dalhauser’s off in Cicero making an alibi for himself. Seemed like a good place for them to bring Charles so no one would interrupt.”
“It doesn’t take long to kill a man.”
“I know.” I hit the gas for one last spurt and rounded the corner to the road that ran past the little gatehouse. I pulled into the entry. The gate was shut. The watchman was there, and he was alert. He came out, on guard for trouble, but unprepared for a smile and a fixed gaze from me. Seconds later and he was opening the gate for us. He’d readily told me that two cars had gone in not long ago, but he hadn’t checked inside them. Sometimes it’s best not to notice certain faces. I told him his shift was over and that he should go home. He thanked me and left, whistling as he drove off in a battered Ford. He wouldn’t remember anything of the last few minutes for a long time to come.
“Cripes, I need you to be working for me,” said Coldfield. “I’d have a lot bigger territory and run it more smoothly if I could talk people into things the way you do.”
“You don’t want the headache.” I shifted gears, fed it some gas to get speed, then let the big car coast quietly forward.
“Seems to me it’d be worth it.”
The door to the cavernous garage was shut, and I recalled Shep leaving it open. Above and to the left of it were the wide windows Dalhauser had used to survey the yard, and I discerned the form of a man standing in almost the same place.
“We’ve been made,” I said. “There’s someone up top who must have seen the gate guard pass us in. Maybe we can make them think we’ve got business here, too. Keep them busy while I go in.”
“I’ll ask for Dalhauser.”
“Great, but if they give you trouble, take off.”
“Okay.”
He gave in to that a little too readily, but I didn’t have time to argue. I braked in front of the door, rolled down the car window, hit the horn a few times, then vanished. Unused to it, Coldfield said “shit” in reaction. I flowed out and over, and went right up the side of the building.
It was made of sheet metal, which is damned dense for getting through. I wasn’t even sure I could get through it. In the past there’d always been a convenient crack or an open seam. Now I just kept going until I felt a subtle change in the surface that marked where the windows began. I didn’t like going through glass, but could if I had to.
Just when it seemed like it was about to break, it didn’t, and I was inside. I cast around, trying to locate the man I’d seen, but he wasn’t on the upper landing anymore. That, or I’d miscalculated and drifted the wrong way. Very slowly I took on form, balancing it just right so I had enough of me solid to the point where I could see, but hopefully not be seen. It made me semitransparent, and the result was alarmingly like a Hollywood movie ghost.
I got alarmed myself when I realized I’d risen too high, and was some ten feet above the landing.
I really hate heights.
Easing down to the floor diffused my near panic, then I unexpectedly went solid. There was a fluttering behind my eyes, and a fog of weakness wrapped around me. It was the blood loss, and there’d been no time to stop at the Stockyards and replenish. It was bad, not fatal, but I didn’t like the uncertainty. What if I had to go invisible and suddenly reappeared at an inconvenient moment? What if I couldn’t reappear at all?
The man at the window was neither Shep nor the prizefighter. I’d hoped that LaCelle would hold down the numbers of his goons, but apparently he trusted them to keep their mouths shut. This mug’s mouth was definitely shut when I got through with him. His eyes, too. I dragged him over to a patch of shadow by the outer wall and rolled him face in so he wouldn’t be noticed right away, and relieved him of his gun.
Th
e service lights were out, so there was a whole lot of darkness above and below, and though I could see fairly well, I didn’t like it. It might mean that they’d already killed Escott and no longer needed illumination to work by.
I held still and listened. Outside, Coldfield was arguing with two men, trying to convince them that he had a meeting with Dalhauser. They didn’t sound like they were buying his story, but he stubbornly held to it.
Moving farther inside, I tried to pick up any other voices. Nothing. Not up here, anyway. I tiptoed along the walkway to the other side of the building and used the second set of stairs there, reasoning that everyone’s attention would be focused toward the front.
I had better luck on the ground level and saw two men standing by the entrance, watching the others with Coldfield. They looked like Shep and his boxer friend. Parked near them were two cars, which gave me an idea of the odds. There could be from eight to ten men here, including LaCelle, Grant, and Escott. Four were occupied, one was unconscious, leaving maybe one or two others lurking about.
A line of what looked like offices ran along the right-hand wall beneath the walkway. Lights showed under the closed doors of one. A man paced up and down before it, out of boredom rather than any sense of making rounds, I thought.
If I took him out, it would be noticed by the two up front, but I was reluctant to spend the energy going invisible and staying that way, which I’d have to do once in the room. I thought of a compromise, though. Vanishing, I hurried forward and slipped under the door next to my target. When I came back to solidity the weakness hit me again, but much worse and I nearly made noise stumbling against a table. I was using myself up. Damn Escott for complicating things.
The dim room I stood in was an office with the usual stuff in it. I pressed an ear to the wall it shared with the lighted room.
The first voice I picked out was Ike LaCelle’s. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Some guy came here by mistake. They’ll get rid of him.”
“You sure about that?” Archy Grant.
“It’s fine. Now you gonna finish this or stay here all night?”
“Oh, I’m finishing it, but he’s gotta tell me a few things first. Isn’t that right, Charlie-boy?”
