Walking Shadow

by Clifford Royal Johns

We were starting at opposite ends of the field and approaching the center slowly, negotiating each step. In the end, I agreed to provide a small portion of the records in a delivery to be dropped off with the guards the next day as proof and a good faith gesture. JB agreed to meet me at Socko’s the day after that at lunch, should the portion prove interesting. He would have five thousand, I would have the box of records. He would have five minutes to look at the rest of the materials and if he decided they weren’t worth five thousand, he would take his money back and go. I think we both knew that wouldn’t happen.

  He opened the door and called Rela. “Take out this trash and come back here.”

  Carla stood in the hall, waiting. “Hello, Benny. I’m a bit surprised to see you here. Have you been well?”

  I looked into Carla’s eyes trying to see some special recognition there, perhaps an implied nod, or a hidden smile. “I’ve been better,” I said and tried to act nonchalant. I wanted to appear to be in control. Was I playing a part, using a tactic, or was I trying to impress her like a teenage boy who might do something stupid to impress a girl? I didn’t know. Maybe they worked out to be the same thing. “Have you found what you were missing?”

  “Yes, I have. I feel much better now.” She stood looking at me for just a little too long as though she were measuring my steel, deciding. “Good-bye, Benny,” Carla walked into JB’s office and he shut the door. Her good-bye sounded so formal, and so final.

  Rela led me out. At the entrance, I asked her if she’d ever killed anyone. She glared at me and returned into the Warren. In any other state of mind, I might have enjoyed watching her walk away.

  I bought back my roll from the woman at the fire barrel for two, and walked out with it under my arm. I had eighteen hours to find Hero and Laverick and set up for the arrest, and only twelve hours to rescue the gargoyle from Ray’s storage room.

  Chapter 39

  So I had it all set up. Get the gargoyle, select some semi-useful records from the stash I’d put there, give a few to the guard, then talk to Hero and set up an arrest at Socko’s. No big deal.

  But the more I thought about it while walking back to Carbide’s apartment, the less I believed it. If I were JB, I wouldn’t have agreed to leave the Warren at all. Going to a public place would invite arrest, or at the very least, a blink. After all, when he showed up, I could just take the money and run out the door, leaving him with an empty box. It’s not like he could yell for the police.

  He’d asked for evidence to prove that I actually had the stuff, but I still didn’t believe he’d show. Asking for the token records was just a way of obtaining some of them and lulling me into a false sense of security.

  The CAT station was across the street, so I crossed and angled my way through the crowd, making sure no one was following. No one was. I ducked into a bathroom and put my outer clothes back on.

  JB wasn’t stupid. He was mean, and evil, certainly self-centered, but not stupid. He wouldn’t show up for all the same reasons that I wouldn’t show up were I in his shoes.

  But if he wasn’t going to show up, why did he allow me to leave the Warren alive? Again I tried to put myself in his shoes. All I could think was that he still hoped that he could get his hands on Arno’s records. Which meant I needed to look them over more carefully. There was something in there he wanted more than he wanted me.

  When I entered the apartment, it was dark. I turned on a light. Carbide and Hattie were curled up together on the sofa. Their privacy didn’t concern me. I needed their help again, and I would need it quickly. “I need to get the gargoyle out of Ray’s tonight.”

  They sat up. Hattie pushed her hair around until it looked better.

  Carbide pulled himself up out of the cushions and yawned. They’d fallen asleep. “And why do you need to liberate the prisoner at this time of night?”

  “Because I just talked to JB and we set up a meet at Socko’s tomorrow afternoon to exchange the stolen records for five thousand.”

  Carbide looked confused for a moment.

  “You talked to Yoder?” He looked horrified.

  “Yes.“

  “You mean you’re going to sell Arno’s records back to him?”

  “No. It means I set up a meeting to do that. I plan to have JB arrested while he’s at Socko’s making the exchange.”

  “Clever ploy, but I think you’ll need to whistle a more intricate tune than that to get the cobra out of his basket.”

  “Still, I need to have the gargoyle. He wants to see part of the loot, so he knows I can deliver, so he knows I have the records.”

  “Doesn’t he already know you have the records?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why does he need proof?”

  “It’s part of the negotiations, Carbide. It doesn’t matter anyway. I still need to get the gargoyle and tonight is as good a night as any.”

  “Well, we can’t exactly go over the wall with helicopters.”

  “No. We’re going to use the Trojan Horse approach.”

  Hattie went into the kitchen. From there she said, “You’re going to need a very large gargoyle.”

  “I was thinking of a crate, delivered to Ray’s. Something he supposedly bought a few days ago and that you’re just now delivering.”

  “A crate full of you?”

  “Among other things.”

  “How will you get back out?”

  “You’ll come back a half hour later and say you delivered the wrong crate. You take that one out and replace it with another one.”

  Carbide considered that for a while. He went to the bathroom.

  Hattie came back in the room. “You talked to this guy?”

  I said I had.

  “Do you think he’ll actually show up at the exchange?”

  “I don’t know. He might. It depends on what’s in the gargoyle that he wants.”

  I didn’t tell her what I really had in mind. That I didn’t expect to be at the exchange either. JB and I each had our plans. I was hoping I could guess his.

  “You aren’t going to get Carbide hurt are you?”

  “I hope not.” Hattie and Carbide were worried about each other more than they were worried about themselves. “I need you to help too. I don’t want Carbide to have trouble convincing the guards to allow him to dump the crate in the storage room. If you’re there, asking them questions or demanding to talk to the manager or something, maybe they won’t want to deal with too much at one time, and they’ll open the door for Carbide. Can you do that for me?”

  “Well, maybe not for you, but for Carbide.” Her smile took some of the sting out of her words.

  “How about for a hundred?”

  She looked sadly at me. “Benny, I don’t need your money for this. Carbide told me about Jackson Yoder.”

  Carbide came out of the bathroom and they went over and sat down on the sofa.

  “I’m going to use your PAL for a moment. I need to line up a couple crates and a van.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  I sent Hero instructions for the two crates and the van. He mailed back just a few minutes later, saying it would take about four hours to get everything together.

  Four hours of sleep sounded good to me, and I suggested to Hattie and Carbide that they might do the same. They went off to his bedroom. I set the PAL to wake me in three hours, in case Hero pulled things together early, and laid down on the couch.

  Three hours later, I rolled off the couch and onto my feet. It was ten o’clock. The PAL was telling me to wake up, using louder and louder shouts. I turned the alarm off and looked for mail. Hero said where to meet and when. Everything was already set. I sent back a yes and went and pounded on Carbide’s door. “Let’s go.”

  Ten minutes later, we were out the door and walking fast toward the Hack&Hack Meat Market at the corner of Hacker and Hackson. Behind the store, we found a dark green cargo van and climbed in.

  Hero and Laverick were inside. We sat on the crates, which were lying
down and looking vaguely like double-deep coffins, then I made introductions. I asked Hero if the crates were made to order.

  He said yes and introduced Carbide’s temporary assistant, Kim, who would help him move the crates around. She was driving.

  “Take us to the north entrance of Under The River,” I told her.

  She started the engine and pulled out onto Hackson. I explained to everyone my suspicions of JB and why we would be taking extra precautions.

  When we pulled up in front of the north stairs, Hero and I climbed into the larger crate, him first, then we installed a divider, then I climbed in. I sealed the crate with a hasp that I could open from the inside and I waited, breathing tube in my mouth and hearing device in my ear, both courtesy of the Chicago Police Department. Hero had the same gear.

  They pulled us out onto a stair-capable dolly and thumped us down the stairs, at which point I lost my earpiece into the bottom of the crate. It was too tight to reach down and get it. We slid along the lumpy floor and I felt the right turn as we went into the entrance of the Warren. I could vaguely hear Carbide and a guard arguing. I hoped his repeated deliveries over the years would help him persuade the guard to let him put the crate in the back storage room. Then a door banged open. We turned to the right again, meaning that the guard had let us in.

  I waited. Without my earpiece I couldn’t know if they’d left the room or not. Finally, Hero pounded on the woodboard behind my head, so I opened the crate slowly and peered out.

  It was dark in Ray’s storage room. I let out my breath and turned on my flat light. I didn’t hear anything strange, so I stepped out of the crate and looked around. The first thing I noticed was that the gargoyle was missing. The second thing I noticed was Rela and JB sitting in comfortable chairs. Both were smiling at me. Rela had a gun. The second thing I noticed was Carla standing to my right near the door. She had a gun too.

  Chapter 40

  Carla put her hand to the wall and turned on the lights.

  JB leisurely picked up his gun from an end table beside his chair. “Ah, Mr. Khan. So you’ve decided to join us.” Three guns, they weren’t taking any chances. “I was wondering how you were going to get in here to get your cache. It did take some thinking to realize you must have left the records here. The gargoyle. A very good hiding place.”

  “Thanks.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Would you mind clasping your hands behind your head so Rela can search you? I don’t want any surprises.”

  I did as I was told, hoping that Hero hadn’t lost his earpiece too. I also took a small step to the left so I would be farther from Carla and so I no longer stood between them and the crate.

  Carla didn’t take her eyes from me. She was there because Rela might hesitate to kill, she had never used her weapon except as a threat, and JB wouldn’t want to kill anyone if he could pay someone else to do it for him. Carla was focused on the job. Strictly professional. I could have been a sinner or a saint, it wouldn’t have mattered. The Carla I was hoping for wasn’t there. She would not help me.

  Rela gave JB her gun then she frisked me. She found the thatcher and a pocketknife, then went back to stand beside JB. She scowled at me. I think she was hoping to find weapons to prove I was dangerous and should be killed.

  JB returned Rela’s gun to her. “Benny, Benny, Benny. Did you think I was so stupid? I feel ashamed that you would think so. I’ve not gotten where I am today by being stupid. I’m Chief Financial Officer for the River Pirates. A person would not reach this high in the business without some intelligence.”

  “I thought Bonarubi was CFO. Oh yes. That’s right. I killed him. Next would have been Arno, right? Oh yes, I killed him too. So you’re the new one. I guess you owe your success to me don’t you?” Why it was that I thought irritating him would be helpful, I don’t know, but for some reason JB just affected me that way. Poking him with pins felt right, even when he was about to kill me.

  Oddly, the other advantage of poking at JB this way was that if Carla was the one to kill me, I didn’t want her to feel too bad about it. Maybe after she thought about it, she would decide not to forget this one.

  JB stood and took a step toward me. “How did you plan to get out of here? Who are your accomplices in this? Did Chen know? Who else knows?”

  “You mean who else knows you’re really Jackson Yoder? Only Rela and a select few others.” I watched Rela, wondering if she’d already known who JB was.

  But Rela suddenly looked sick. She hadn’t known. The end of her gun drooped a little and wavered. She stared at the back of JB’s head, trembling. Even Carla was looking at JB now, but she appeared more curious than anything else.

  JB took another step toward me. I decided to egg him on a little more. “Why are you worried about Chen, Yoder? Worried he’s interested in your job just like you were interested in Bonarubi’s?”

  A deep breath can have a calming effect, but it didn’t seem to help JB’s disposition much. He tried to ignore my taunt. “You thought you had this all figured out, didn’t you? But you slipped. You said you had a whole box of stuff. That was a stupid thing to say, Benny. When you said that, I knew you couldn’t have gotten out past the guard with it, even with your marvelous distraction. You had to have hidden it in here. I found it the first place I looked.”

  JB relaxed a little. He enjoyed showing me who was smarter and maybe showing the women who was smarter. I thought he must have had a complex. “If you’re so smart,” I said, “why are you standing in front of Rela. I think now that she knows who you really are, she’s going to shoot you.”

  The pinpricks were having a diminishing effect. JB didn’t even waver, much less turn around. I didn’t really expect him to, but it was worth a try. He wasn’t concerned about Rela at all. Her leash led to his hand even when he wasn’t looking, yet her distress was evident.

  “I think I’ll just shoot you,” he said. “I was going to take you out and throw you headfirst in the mud just like Ray. After all, it should have been you that time. You should have been the one sucking mud into your lungs. Ray was guilty only of being stupid. But you might get away, so I think I’ll just shoot you now.”

  Carla said, “Put him the box first, then we can just close up the box and ship it out without any clean up.”

  Carla seemed way too helpful. To JB I said, “You’ll shoot me? You mean you’ll have Carla shoot me.”

  Yoder smiled a little pleased smile. “That would be fitting, wouldn’t it. She would, you know.”

  I looked at Carla. “Yes,” I said. “I know.” I sounded sad, but mostly I was disappointed. Maybe she understood, maybe she didn’t.

  Had he actually just shot me, things would have turned out differently, but, as amateurs are apt to do, he raised the gun instead of shooting from the hip or stepping back. He wanted to intimidate me before he killed me. He wanted me to see down the barrel; see the bullet coming. We were only a bit more than an arm’s length apart now. I slid my fingers around the slapfaint I kept over my right ear. I grabbed it, lunged forward, and whacked him on the forehead with it even as he shot me. His aim was off because of the surprise, never getting his arm up all the way. We both went down.

  Rela was trying to get a shot at me that wouldn’t kill JB too. Her gun was too powerful because the ceramic shatter of the bullet tended to shred anyone in the immediate proximity of the target. When we rolled, I saw Carla had kept her gun up and ready should the opportunity arise to get a good shot. She was patient.

  Hero picked that moment to charge out of the back of the crate, gun out. A noisy, but effective entrance. Rela, startled, turned toward him, and he shot her. Carla must have been pulling the trigger to shoot me at the same moment as Hero burst from his hiding place because her shot hit the inside door of the crate which Hero had just opened, and splintered it. Hero turned on Carla and fired. A guard burst through the door a second later and Hero shot him too. Hero wasn’t an amateur.

  I rolled JB off me and
watched Hero run to the door, move the dead guard’s legs out of the way and push the door closed. JB had shot me in the left side of the stomach. Oddly, it didn’t hurt that much, but I was bleeding a lot. Luckily, it was JB who shot me, not Rela. Her gun would have minced my whole torso.

  I raised myself enough to crawl over to Carla. She was breathing, the shot had grazed her gun hand and entered her right shoulder, and apparently clipped a lung, which made a wet sucking sound as she breathed. I put my hand over the hole and looked over at Rela. She was dead, a perfect shot through the heart. Hero was a marksmen. Rela’s face was calm, less anxious. Even at Arno’s house, where we’d had dinner and talked about saving egrets, she’d seemed nervous. Now her face was more relaxed and she was actually very pretty with her blonde hair loose and splayed out on the floor. Her large green eyes gazed into mine. She hadn’t been sure enough or mean enough to be a killer.

  Ear against the door, Hero listened for more guards. They’d probably been warned that they might hear a gunshot and not to worry about it, but there had been four shots.

  I took the tee shirt off my head and wrapped it around my middle, hoping to keep my insides from coming out and to slow the bleeding, but it wasn’t helping much. Hero came over and looked at the wound. “Not too good. Are you going to be able to get back in the crate?”

  “No, you’ll have to pack us both in, I’m afraid. In fact, I think I’ll be passing out soon. I don’t like the sight of my own blood.”

  “We aren’t taking her. She’s not our objective and we’ve got no room for her.”

  I breathed hard for a moment, trying to stem the nausea. That made me light-headed instead. “Move the bodies away from the door. Throw something over the blood. The next guard is going to want to know what happened to the previous one and might take a quick glance in here.”

  Hero wadded up my tee shirt bandage and used half of JB’s shirt as a wrap to increase the pressure. Now the wound hurt and my fingertips began to tingle. When he twisted the bandage hard to tighten it, I felt woozy for a moment. He let me lay back down. “We’ve got to call someone once we’re out so they know to come get Carla. She’ll die if we don’t.”