by B. L. Morgan
Johnny fished his car keys out of his pocket and held them out to me. He tried to sit up and said, “Damn that fucking hurt.” And relaxed back down against Sushi's legs.
I took his car keys.
“Get my sawed off double barrel twelve gauge out of the trunk,” Johnny said. “Tor might laugh at your little pea shooter but that motherfucker will get his attention.”
I got the gun and some shells that were scattered on the floor of the trunk and put them in my pants pocket.
Johnny held his hand up to me and I gripped it. “Do me a favor,” Johnny said.
“What's that?” I asked.
“Blow that sorry bastards head off,” he said, “And get that little girl home to her mother.”
“Definitely,” I said. Then I went down into the underworld.
CHAPTER 22
DOWN IN THE DARK
When I slid the manhole cover completely off the hole, it made a low metallic scraping noise. It was heavy as hell and I realized either Tor was an incredibly strong man to be able to move it as fast as he would have had to, or he set up his escape before he attacked. Either way I didn't like it.
If Tor was incredibly strong then he'd be a dangerous opponent in a hand to hand fight. If he'd planned ahead, Tor would be dangerous in any kind of a confrontation. Now I was entering a world that Tor was far more familiar with than I was.
I had never been down in the sewers beneath East St. Louis. But I was betting that Tor knew these tunnels very well. Even though I'd never admit it to him, I would have felt a lot better if Johnny was going to be with me going down into this hole.
The rain was pouring down and I could barely see as it was, and here I was going down into a pitch black hole with one hand carrying a shot gun and only one hand to hold the steel ladder with. If Tor decided to just wait at the bottom and get me as I came down, I'd be a sitting duck. I couldn't do anything to stop him from stabbing me in the leg, ass, or back, as I came down.
I tried to peer down into the blackness below to see how far down the bottom was. That was no good. All I saw was the swirling dark. The cement floor could be six or sixty feet below me for all I knew.
Time was ticking. I couldn't stop the clock, so I went down the ladder one rung at a time.
The ladder was wet, cold steel. It was slimy and slick as hell. I went down the ladder as quickly as I could but that was painfully slow.
I could see nothing below me. The only thing that I could see was the dim circle of light from above. I climbed down and my heart beat wildly. I tried to crane my head around to see behind me. With my one handed grip I could see nothing at all. At any second I expected to feel that long blade that Tor slashed Johnny with bite into my back.
I continued down one rung at a time. Then my left foot reached down for the next rung and it found only space. I looked down and saw only blackness.
What was it, two feet down to the cement or two hundred? Was the ladder just missing a few rungs and then went on for about twenty feet down? I didn't know.
Tor did know this way out. Of that I was sure. How else had he been able to go down the ladder that quickly?
Maybe he can see in the dark, the thought came to me. Well, maybe. The way he shrugged off those bullets I'd hit him with was downright unnerving. He thinks he can do voodoo. Shit maybe he can.
I couldn't stay there all night on the ladder wondering. If I wasted too much time, Felicia wouldn't live the night out.
So I stepped off the ladder and let myself fall straight down.
My stomach jumped as I went into free fall through the air. I fell about two feet.
I landed on some sort of iron grating that must of been covering a central drain way. I could hear water flowing below the iron grill I was standing on. For a moment I stood there listening, trying to hear anything that might point me in the direction that Tor had gone in.
I heard water dripping and trickling down the walls. From what seemed to be a great distance, I heard the slapping sound of what sounded like running.
I stepped out of my ring of diffused light that leaked down from above and found myself staring into complete and utter blackness. I stuck my left hand out and felt for the wall and found it.
The wall was slimy and cold but it would serve as some sort of guide to at least keep me from running headlong into another wall in the darkness.
As I moved along, I started to see vague shapes and outlines. I realized that I was starting to see a little bit. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the near total absence of light because I could see where small rays of light filtered down from above through other manholes and drainage grates.
I moved in the direction where I heard the sounds of running trying to increase my pace but being very aware of just how blind I was down here.
When I held out the shotgun in my right hand in front of my face, I could only see the dim outline of its three foot long length. If I tried to see the metal grate beneath my feet that I was walking on, I could see only black nothingness. I was only praying that there were no missing sections of grate or anything sitting up on top of the grate that I might trip over.
If I was to break my ankle or break my leg right now, then Felicia was dead. That was certain.
The sounds in front of me were increasing.
I could hear more of the slapping noises but now it didn't sound like running. There was no rhythm to the sound. There'd be a whack-whack then silence for a few seconds. Then another whack-whack.
I could hear low whispering voices and shuffling sounds.
I was moving towards these sounds but I wasn't sure anymore if Tor was making them. There seemed to be more than one voice up a head.
The illumination in the corridor up a head, about a half block away, was a lot brighter than where I was now. Smells came to me that were different from the ones I first smelled when coming down here.
Which was mustiness, rot, and the stale smell of shit and piss. Now I smelled something else. It was like the smell at a barbecue before you've added any sauce or spices to the meat. It was the smell of burning wood and burning flesh.
The light I saw, as I drew closer to it, was coming from a side channel corridor. It was uneven and flickering. I figured it must be some sort of campfire. I'd heard that there were some hobos living down here but of course I'd never come down here and seen them for myself.
This isn't exactly the kind of place you come to just hang out and have fun.
I edged up closely to the entranceway where the light was issuing out of and peered around the corner. After a short tunnel the entrance opened up into a large chamber.
There was a group of men hunched around a fire in the center of the chamber. The firelight showed that there was a domed roof and lines of the grates led to the center where the fire was built. Above ground this must be some kind of major intersection. Down here it was an intersection of drains and it looked like the picnic area for this group of bums.
I walked toward the group around the fire and no one even saw me coming. They were so intent upon the feast they were cooking that no one even looked up. The whack-whack sound that I heard I saw now was made by a short stump of a guy who was whacking with a hatchet on what looked like a side of beef laying on the cement.
I walked right up to the group, cleared my throat and said, “Has any of you seen someone come running through here?”
The whacking stopped. The mumbling and grumbling the others were doing stopped.
They all froze.
I froze.
All of them, I think there was around ten of them, stood up as one and turned toward me.
With them standing I saw between them what was on a spit turning over the fire.
It was a human leg.
They charged me. All of them at once. The ones on the far side of the fire leaped over it and came after me.
I belted the first one with the sawed off shot gun and kicked the second one in the nuts. Then they were on me. The whole pack bore me ba
ckwards and I was slammed into a cement wall by the sheer force of their superior weight and number.
I punched with my left and swung the Twelve Gauge like a club. Their fists struck at me. Their hands tore at me. There were too many arms and fists for me to block them all so I just absorbed a lot of blows as well as I could and struck back however I could with fists or feet or steel.
The mob that was on me stank to high heaven. I'd have to bet that none of them had taken a bath in a year. Add to that the fact that the breath of all of them seemed to smell like rotten meat and I was gagging each time I took a breath.
I was sliding along the wall with my back to it trying to beat them off me as well as I could when suddenly the wall was gone. I went flying backward into space and crashed to my back on some iron grating. On impact my head bounced hard off the steel under me and I saw points of light flash all around me.
He was looming above me. The stump of a man who I had seen hacking the chunks out of what I knew now was a human corpse.
He raised the hatchet in one hand and as I saw the sparks of my near unconsciousness dance around his head he bellowed, “He's mine!”
I don't know how I'd kept hold of the shotgun but I brought it up now.
I pulled the trigger and in a flash of roaring blindness my would-be butcher's head turned to a bowl of well sauced spaghetti that flew from his shoulders and splattered against the ceiling.
The others staggered back and I sent another shot into the spot where the group looked to be the tightest packed. Two more of these derelict cannibals went down screaming.
All of the rest scattered and ran for the openings to other tunnels.
One of them stumbled and went down. I ran to where he was trying to get up and stepped on his back to put him down on his face.
He was so terrified he could hardly talk and I wasn't in much of a talking mood myself. I knelt down on his back with my knees and jerked his head up by the hair.
“Where is he?” I yelled in his ear.
“I-I-I,” he stammered in fright. “I don't know what you’re talking about.”
I wrenched his head up hard by the hair then let it fall back to the cement with a plop.
“If you don't tell me where the one who came before me went, I'll break your fucking neck!” I yelled.
“Over there, the ladder,” he said and worked his arm out and pointed.
I saw the ladder and saw where it led up to the streets.
“OK,” I told him and got up. “You did good.”
Then I kicked him in the face as hard as I could.
“Tell that to your buddies next time you want to have someone for dinner,” I told him, but I don't think he heard me.
CHAPTER 23
A STREET FIGHT
I climbed this ladder up a lot faster than the one I’d come down. At least I could see where I was going. Just before I reached the top, I looked back.
A pack of rats had come out of the darkness and were now feeding on the guy who I'd kicked in the head and the pieces of the corpses that were laying around. Well, I thought, maybe the guy these hobos were chewing on hadn't been dead when they got hungry.
It didn't make any difference anyway. The gang of bums had attacked me without any warning. If I hadn't killed a couple of them to get them off of me, I would of been dessert or maybe breakfast.
I moved the manhole cover back and came out into the street. There was no sign of Tor.
I expected that. It just had taken me too long to get through the tunnel.
I looked at my watch. It was 10:05. In an hour and fifty-five minutes Tor was going to kill Felicia. I didn't know why midnight was important for Tor to have his ceremony but I knew it was. He named midnight as though that was the only time that he could do what he was doing, to get the desired result.
I had to get Felicia away from him before then.
* * *
The rain was still pouring down and I was glad of it. The rain was washing off some of the stink and grime that had rubbed off on me during my fight with the hobos.
I sure as hell didn't have the time to run home and take a shower.
The street sign told me I was at Fifth Street and Vine. That was only two blocks from Roxie’s.
It was back to plan number one. I trotted back to Roxie’s through the pouring rain slipping and sliding through the puddles as I went. At Johnny's car I fished his keys out of my pocket and headed for the little hole in the wall nightclub called the Barbary Coast.
* * *
And so the circle turns. Three nights ago I came here to kill Morris West. He was not the one I should have come after. Tor Ambrose is the one who sends out the Morris West's of the world to do their dirty work. He just sits back and rakes in the profits. Tonight I come here to get information. If someone has to die for me to get that information, oh well, the circle turns now doesn't it?
I made one drive by to see what was going down on that block and to try to cut down on my surprises.
There was a prostitute on the corner huddled in a yellow raincoat. It was a slow night for that kind of thing. She must be pretty desperate.
There weren't many cars outside the Barbary Coast either so everything was real quiet.
My heart skipped a couple beats when I passed the alleyway. I didn't see anyone.
Then I did.
He was standing under the building's overhang back in the dark. It was my Morris West look-a-like in a shiny black raincoat.
I drove down the street, pulled into an alley. Then I backed out and turned around heading back the same way.
Time was short. I didn't want to look at any watch but knew time was passing. It was ten maybe fifteen minutes since I'd come out of the sewer.
I didn't have time to screw around tonight. Straight ahead was the only way I could afford to be with the clock ticking so fast. It was also the quickest way to get killed.
I pulled Johnny's car to the curb directly in front of the alley where the dealer was. I left Johnny's sawed off shotgun in the rider's side floorboard and after opening my door, I got out and came around the front of the car and walked directly to the alley. I walked straight into the darkness to where the dealer stood.
“What the fuck you want?” He demanded, hissing the words out like a pissed off Cobra.
I came right to him. There in the darkness, I jerked my Thirty-Eight out of my holster. I stuck the barrel under his chin.
The dealer froze. He put both of his hands up.
“This is how it is,” I told him. “You're gonna tell me where Tor Ambrose lives. Then you're gonna climb your ass into my trunk. Cause if you're lying to me, I'm going to pump bullets into the trunk.”
The dealer said, “Tor will kill me man.”
I cocked the hammer back on my gun, “I'll save you the wait and do it right now if you don't tell me where Tor lives.”
The dealer glanced over my shoulder at something in back of me.
“That ain't gonna work,” I said. “I'm too close to you to be fucked. . .”
My head exploded from behind. A loud crack and I was thrown foreword. The dealer grabbed the gun out of my hand and hit me a glancing left uppercut as I went to the ground.
“Motherfucker always pulling guns on niggers,” A familiar voice spoke from somewhere in the sky above me. “You ain’t so tough now are ya motherfucker?” The voice said and I recognized it as Jamal. That kid whose nose I had broken a couple days ago.
“Thank you my brother,” I heard the dealer say. “I will pay you back for the help.”
Jamal tried to kick me in the stomach. I was almost unconscious but somehow got my leg up and blocked it.
“Fucker's got a hard head too,” Jamal said, “Broke my board, clean in half.”
“Get him up,” The dealer spoke. Jamal got behind me and locked my arms into his and dragged me to a semi-standing position.
They dragged me out of the alley under the street light.
“I want to see your blood,” the dea
ler said and he had the same fucked up Jamaican accent as all the rest of these assholes.
Jamal held me tight with my arms pinned behind me.
I was recovering real slowly this time. It might have been because I was so damn tired to begin with.
The dealer hit me with a jab square in the teeth and tried a left hook. I instinctively rolled with it and turned my head. He missed me completely.
“Hold him!” The dealer yelled.
“I am,” Jamal said.
I laughed and that really pissed them off.
The dealer stuck my pistol in his pocket and pulled a long gleaming blade out.
He held the blade up for me to see. It was black and shined like glass.
“We kill with these,” he told me with a gleam in his eyes. “Because they suck the soul up and give its power to us.” He laughed loudly and said, “Get ready to die.”
“Stop it!” A woman's voice screamed.
The dealer froze, and then looked over his shoulder at Lisa Rios. That had been her, standing on the corner. I recognized her now because the hood of her raincoat was pulled back. A big black purse swung on a long strap from her hand.
“Leave Mr. Dark alone,” she yelled at them. She drew her purse back as though to strike at them.
“Go home, little girl,” the dealer said and laughed.
“Yeah, bitch,” Jamal said. “What you gonna do, hit us with your purse?”
The dealer turned back to me with a sneer on his lips.
Lisa whipped the purse around in a wide arc. It traveled in a circle around her head. It swung back, then forward. On its forward swing, she stepped forward and the purse smashed into the dealer's head with a loud thunk.
His head was rocked sideways and the dealer staggered.
“Damn,” Jamal gasped and his grip loosened slightly.
I stomped down on his foot hard and felt his toe bones pop under my heel. I smashed the back of my head against Jamal’s already broken nose and he screamed and let go of me.
The dealer staggered blindly and rammed his head against the side of Johnny's car. Lisa followed him and smashed him with another shot from her wicked purse.
