The Devil You Know

by P. N. Elrod

  “That smells like a fib. What’re you doing?”

  Inside the house a gun went off.

  “No time to explain, move!”

  I urged her in the general direction where she’d be out of the way. If I told her stay in place, she’d find something else to do. Instead, I’d given her just enough uncertainty to watch and wait for something interesting to happen.

  Of course, my idea was to get in the house and remove Swann from giving orders, which would solve everything. Couldn’t do that with Izzy along.

  There were more shots and yelling.

  Solid as a bull’s eye, I hurried though the front entry, fairly confident that in the dark I’d be taken for one of his soldiers.

  No one noticed.

  Negotiations had taken a bad turn.

  There was a man sprawled before the parlor’s open door, leaking blood from a cut on his head. Swann and his men were out of sight, but I heard frantic yelling and crashing from a room up the hall from the parlor.

  A sudden flat pop and flash of gunfire within it made me jump.

  Cursing, a man bolted from the room and headed right toward me, or rather for the door behind me.

  Another man stepped into the hall. “Get back here, you yellow—”

  The last word was obscured by a second shot.

  Stepping to one side, I avoided the wild-eyed guy’s headlong rush as well as the next bullet. It missed us both, but inspired him to run faster.

  The shooter took careful aim for a third shot, but his target made it outside, leaping from the porch to gallop down the drive. The shooter abruptly noticed me. I faded, leaving enough shadowy form visible to invite him to waste lead—which he did not. Instead, he retreated backwards into the room. Rather abruptly, as though he’d been pulled. I heard a cracking thud as something large connected violently with something hard.

  Almost immediately afterward, a ghost floated through the doorway.

  Man-sized, more or less vertical, and creepy as hell in the dimness, it surged down the hall, a gray, bloated, cloudy thing moving with intent.

  I should be used to it, but it’s not as though I’d gotten much practice.

  “Barrett!” I snapped.

  It paused. I called his name again, louder. He wouldn’t be able to hear well.

  It hung, churning in place a moment, then continued on. Whatever it was couldn’t wait.

  I stopped just outside the parlor and called inside.

  “Fleming?” Clapsaddle answered. “How the blazes did you—”

  “What’s going on? Where’s Swann?”

  “Damned if I know. What—”

  At the other end of the hall, a man screamed in hideous agony, then came a volley of shots, the fast, desperate kind of fire I’d not heard in twenty years since I’d been a doughboy in France.

  “Stay put!” I yelled and ran toward the commotion.

  More shooting. I ducked involuntarily when bullets zipped overhead, nearly colliding with a man lurching away from the fight. He blundered on, limping and oblivious of me until I tripped him. He dropped flat and stayed there. One of his pant legs was ripped and bloody, and a shard of bone poked through the flesh. How the hell had he been able to walk, and why would he even try?

  Another man howled, rage mixed with his pain, until he suddenly went silent. Guns were fired, men cursed and roared, things thumped, glass shattered. It was like listening to an episode of Gangbusters. I rushed through a big dark kitchen, then a mud room, and paused before running outside. A man lay on the threshold, his prone body propping the door open. One of his legs was bent at the knee at an angle God never intended. Just as well he was out cold; he wouldn’t have liked being awake.

  It had gone quiet. I peered around the door frame. The back area had three cars parked haphazardly on the driveway paving. Also haphazardly on the paving were a number of bodies. From the look of things, Brogan would have to hang out a “help wanted” sign. Even if he decided to keep these soldiers on the payroll, none of them would be up and around anytime soon. It might have been funny, but there was too much blood.

  The breaking glass was the result of a man having been thrown through the windshield of one of the cars. He’d hit it back first, caving it in, and was out for the count.

  Another had landed on the car’s roof. He groggily moved and slid off, hitting the ground hard, after which he ceased bothering.

  Shots. Somewhere beyond the cars I heard a truncated volley and impotent clicks. They’d run out of bullets.

  “Cheese it!” someone bawled.

  A few guys stampeded away, running for the woods in flat out panic.

  I charged around the vehicles and stopped, my jaw dragging.

  Barrett and Kaiser were at it again like some twisted version of Popeye and Bluto.

  Kaiser had the fireplace poker in one massive hand. He held his other arm, the one with the shattered wrist, close to his body, but the handicap didn’t slow him. He kept trying to swat Barrett, who dodged with unnatural speed, hardly shifting his feet. Whenever Kaiser missed, Barrett darted in to give a quick one-two, connecting solidly, then retreated to duck again.

  The crazy bastard was grinning, playing with Kaiser.

  “Get out of the way!” a man yelled, anger distorting his voice. It was Swann. He’d lost his frosty calm, dancing this way and that around Kaiser, waving his gun, desperate to get a shot in. Swann fired once, missed, then clicked on an empty chamber.

  “Hey, Swanny! Wanna borrow mine?” I called, holding my semi-auto up.

  That broke Barrett’s concentration. He glanced my way and the poker swept down on his skull.

  Down . . . and harmlessly through. He flickered, going gray, then solid again an instant later. Kaiser had aimed to kill but overbalanced; the poker slammed into the paving, shattering a brick and striking sparks.

  Barrett’s next one-two got Kaiser in the belly and jaw. Any other guy would have thrown in the towel and dropped, but he stayed on his feet, swinging the poker up in a backhand move. He was too sluggish. Barrett yanked it away and socked him again, which still didn’t finish the job.

  I moved in a wide circle past Barrett and Kaiser, intending to inflict some painful payback of my own on Swann. Fleish Brogan was welcome to whatever was left.

  Swann must have seen his bleak future in my face; he broke and ran. If he made it to the woods behind the property he just might be able to get clear of the mess he’d made. A sedentary clerk, he stood no chance. I snagged his collar. He frantically tried to slip clear of his coat, but I hauled him around and—

  Something large and dark, it felt like a wall, hit me all over. Swann, too. As one, we collapsed beneath its weight and force. He gave a short grunting cry that was smothered as the wall squashed us into the hard, snowy ground. The little breath that was in me whooshed out. My ribs creaked from the pressure. It hurt.

  Instinct took over again; I slipped clear of whatever it was, leaving Swann to fend for himself. It didn’t bother me, not even a little.

  Shaken, I re-formed several yards away, convinced that we’d been hit by one of the cars.

  Close enough. It had been Kaiser.

  Barrett had bodily lifted the man and thrown him at us.

  Swann’s legs were sticking out from under Kaiser’s now inert form. Neither man moved.

  Barrett stalked over to glare down at them. He was no longer the dapper, perfectly dressed, high-hatting snoot he’d been at the start of the evening, but you couldn’t tell that from his demeanor. He slowly twirled the poker in one hand like a cane.

  “You could have aimed him better,” I said. I was covered in snow and mud.

  He spared me a brief sideways look. “Complain, complain. How tiresome.”

  “Glad you finally stopped the malingering.”

  He snorted. “Not my choice. One of those ruffians began shooting and caught me flat. The shock wrenched me away from the world for a moment. Next thing I know I’m preventing him and his friends from doing more
damage. I quite lost my temper. Things went a bit fast and confused after that. Where did you hare off to, anyway? I could have used some help.”

  “I was stopping them from setting the place on—”

  “Jonathan!”

  Izzy rushed out of the trees toward Barrett, her arms open. He was more than pleased to catch her.

  “Thank God, I thought you were dead!” she said breathlessly, holding him tight.

  He assured her he was much better.

  “Holy cow, you went through them like a threshing machine. I couldn’t believe my eyes! You moved so fast! And when you threw the big lug, that was amazing!”

  He didn’t disagree with her.

  Oh, brother.

  I must have groaned out loud.

  She partially disengaged from Barrett. “Oh, Fleming, you did okay, too. Good thing you got out of the way or you could have been hurt when the big one landed on Swann.”

  If that’s how she chose to interpret my suddenly not being there, so be it. “We’re not finished yet, there’s bound to be more of—”

  “They’re taken care of,” said Barrett, with unequivocal assurance. “I got them all.”

  “At least one ran past me out the front,” I said. “Not to mention the crowd back here—”

  “I got all those that mattered,” he clarified.

  “Pardon me if I make sure.”

  “Of course.” He made an expansive wave toward the house as though he owned the place and smiled down at Izzy.

  * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * *

  I stepped over the body lying on the mudroom threshold and gave the kitchen a look-see. They’d left a closet door wide open, and that’s where I found the fuse box. I threw four switches and the lights came on.

  It made things easier. When I approached the parlor and called inside, they could see I was alone.

  Brogan didn’t trust that the place had been cleared of trouble any more than I had. He emerged with caution; and wanted to know how I’d gotten out and what I’d done.

  There was no satisfactory answer to either question. “Later. Cover me, would you?”

  Not that I needed his help as I went through the other rooms along the central hall, but it kept him busy.

  Bad guys had holed up in a billiard room; the one who’d made a run for it had been wise. Brass casings littered the floor, evidence that they’d been shooting at something, i.e. Barrett. Bullet holes dotted the walls, high up; even the ceiling was freckled. He must have been flying around, partially visible, scaring the hell out of them.

  An immobile man lay on the table, his face mostly in one of the corner pockets. I thought he might have been the one I’d seen yanked back in. The rest were less alarmingly sprawled where they’d fallen among the casings. I wasted no sympathy on them; no one likes a turn coat.

  The relative quiet lured Clapsaddle from the parlor. He spotted the bloody man in the middle of the hall, then turned. “Give us a few minutes, Naomi, it’s rather a mess out here.” He shut the door and put his back to it.

  Brogan made his own quick circuit. “Where’s Swann?”

  “Out back,” I said, hooking a thumb in the right direction. “Under Kaiser. Barrett’s keeping an eye on them.”

  He scowled and bulled past to see for himself.

  Out of consideration for Mrs. Endicott, I dragged the man in the hall into the billiard room with the rest. He bled heavily from a scalp wound. The business end of that poker had gashed him wide open. He was safe from me; I’d lost my appetite.

  Clapsaddle, still outside the parlor door, lighted a cigarette with a steady hand, giving me the eye. He was back to being a reporter. “How the hell did you do it?”

  I shrugged. “This is Barrett’s work. He said he got mad.”

  “He got shot, you mean,” said Clapsaddle. “I heard him take it and fall. And then—”

  “It couldn’t be. He’s fine. Noise must have woke him out of his daze.” A change of subject was in order. “We found Izzy.”

  “Is she—”

  “She’s fine, I promise, just cold. Barrett’s keeping an eye on her, too.”

  “Thank God for that. I’ll go fetch her.”

  “Hold on, you need to know—”

  “Know what?”

  “She thinks you’ve been taking money from Brogan to keep quiet all these years.”

  He took a long draw on the cigarette. “Well-well, who gave her that idea?”

  “You did. I only said you were here. She’s a smart cookie and figured things for herself. Not her fault she’s drawn the wrong conclusion.”

  “Hell.”

  He left the word hanging in the hall with his exhale of smoke. His shoulders slumped. Clapsaddle had a hide like a rhinoceros, but clearly Izzy’s good opinion mattered to him.

  “Clapsaddle . . . she doesn’t want to believe it. Trust her. Tell her what happened.”

  “She doesn’t need to know such things.”

  “Nobody does, but she’s going to ask questions. If she doesn’t know the truth, it will eat her up inside. You don’t want her to turn out like—” I bit that off a lot too late.

  “Like me?” He seemed unoffended. “Oh, don’t go shamefaced at this juncture, my lad. I know what I am and how I look to people, especially to Isabelle. I’m a dreadful drunken genius. The one thing that’s kept her from falling into wholehearted pity for my tragic downhill slide has been my integrity and the ability to turn a phrase when need demands. But without the former, the latter is worthless.”

  “Trust her.”

  “I do. I have. With my life. But she has no reason to believe me.”

  “The hell with that. Don’t underestimate her.”

  He started to respond, then changed his mind. I hoped that meant something had sunk in.

  Voices from the distant kitchen: Barrett and Izzy had just come inside. Clapsaddle couldn’t hear them, but in the silent house I might as well have been in the same room.

  “—freezing!” she said.

  “Let’s get the stove going and thaw you out,” he suggested. “Perhaps a hot cup of tea. . .?”

  “Yes, please. I’ve never been so—”

  Gunshot.

  “Jeepers!” she yelped. “Are there more?”

  “Stay down,” Barrett ordered.

  She didn’t argue with him. How the hell did he do that?

  “Jonathan?”

  “It’s all right. That fellow—Mr. Brogan I think—flushed a rabbit. Startled them both. His pistol accidentally went off. Nothing to worry about.”

  Damn, he was smooth.

  Substitute Swann for rabbit, and it would have been the truth. Barrett made it sound all right, though, distracting Izzy with an invitation to help him find tea things.