Dig Ten Graves

by Heath Lowrance

  For a few seconds.

  I opened my eyes and saw the hotel looming over me like the winner in a particularly brutal boxing match. I was the guy who took a fall in the first round.

  My ribs hurt. At least one of them was fractured, I felt pretty sure. And my bad leg ached a bit more than usual. By the grace of God or some other deity that looked after boneheaded over-age thugs, I didn’t land on my head and break my neck.

  I sat up without too much trouble. The ribs screamed. Yeah, one of them was fractured, for sure. But so what? I’d had fractured ribs before, and concussions and dislocated shoulders and broken arms. It didn’t matter.

  I stood up, breathing harshly, and looked up at the window I’d just been kicked out of. The curtains blew in and out mockingly and I felt cold rage uncurl from my guts.

  “That cuts it,” I said to the building.

  I set my jaw and limped back into the hotel.

  Graham’s eyes about popped out of his head when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “How’d you… I mean… hey, where’d you come from?”

  I grabbed the bell off the desk and slammed it four or five times against the wood, then threw it on the floor. It broke into several pieces, and the listening device inside skittered across the lobby. I went after it, picked it up, and shouted into it, “Listen up, you pasty bastards! I’m coming for you!”

  I threw it toward Graham, who caught it and stared at me in horror.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Gimme that back.” I grabbed the device from his fingers and shoved it in my inside jacket pocket, then made my way to the stairs and rushed up as fast as my bruised and battered body would allow.

  The two crazy-fighting gunmen met me halfway between the third and fourth floors. One of them swung over the railing from above me, screaming something nonsensical, his foot speeding at my head.

  But I wasn’t having it, not this time. I braced myself and took the blow against my shoulder, caught his ankle and jerked him down so that his body landed hard against the concrete steps. The breath went out of him and I slammed a fist into his gut, and another under his chin.

  The other one, on the landing above me, decided on a more conventional tactic—he pulled his gun.

  I rushed him, roaring like a bear, and that must have alarmed him because his face got even whiter and he took a step back and pulled the trigger without really aiming. The bullet ricocheted off the railing two feet from my head and I barreled into him.

  His gun bounced away and we both tumbled to the hard concrete floor, me on top, and I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pounded his head a few times.

  “Toss me out the window, will you?” I snarled at him. “Who are you guys and where’s the lady?”

  He didn’t answer right away, so I pounded a couple more times. “Answers, boy. I don’t like little guys running around the Carson with loaded guns. And I don’t like being kicked around like a rag doll. And I especially don’t like being tossed out windows! So gimme some answers, pronto!”

  From between bloody teeth, he whimpered, “Okay, okay! We’re… we’re FBI, man! We’re the good guys!”

  That stopped me. I said, “FBI? What?”

  “We’re the good guys, please… get offa me!”

  I frowned at him. Hoover’s boys, at the Carson? Waving guns around?

  I let go and pushed myself off him but didn’t help him up. He managed to get himself into a sitting position against the wall and rubbed the back of his head gingerly. “Jesus, man,” he said. “We’re FBI. You… you’re interfering in official government business.”

  I said, “If you’re FBI, why the hell wouldn’t you identify yourselves? What the hell kinda government business involves knocking out the hotel detective? I don’t care if you’re FBI, OSS, or USDA. What the hell are you doing in my hotel? And where’s the lady?”

  “I… I can’t tell you that. You’ll just have to trust that—“

  “Trust my Aunt Fannie. Lemme see your badge.”

  He reached into his coat, pulled out a wallet and held it out to me. I snatched it from him and looked inside.

  Sure enough, there was the big shiny badge and official identification card of an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It had the guy’s picture and everything.

  I tossed it into his lap. “Fine,” I said. “So you’re FBI. I still wanna know where the lady is.”

  He shook his head. “No can do. Government bus—“

  “If you say government business one more time, I’m gonna re-commence to busting your head.”

  “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. This is a classified operation.”

  His gun had landed on the other side of the landing. I picked it up, waved it at him and said, “Your jurisdiction ended the second you walked into the lobby of this hotel. The Carson is my beat, understand?” I touched the barrel against his cheek. “I’m gonna ask you one more time. Where’s the lady?”

  I must have looked just crazy enough to do it, because his eyes got wide and the confidence that comes with being a ‘government official’ drained out of him. He sputtered, “Okay, okay! Take it easy! She’s downstairs.”

  “Downstairs? Where downstairs?”

  “In the basement of the building. Mr. Beale took her down there, down to the boiler room, for safe-keeping until we could extract the subject.”

  I said, “Extract the subject? What the hell are you talking about?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t say anymore. You big stupid lug, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  I grinned at him and pushed the gun barrel a little harder into his jaw. “Maybe not, boy, but I just bet it’s gonna be a kick. What’s your name?”

  “What?”

  “Your name, bright boy. What’s your damn name?”

  He stuttered, “W-Wilson. Agent Wilson.”

  “Okay, Agent Wilson,” I said. “Come on.”

  I grabbed his lapel and pulled him roughly to his feet. He swayed a bit and almost fell against me, but I shoved him forward, down the stairs, and with the gun at the base of his spine he led the way down.

  The boiler room of the Carson is a gray, depressing space just big enough to house a family of snow-mice, provided the mice are slightly smaller in stature than average. Pipes, alternating hot and cold unpredictably, dangle overhead like the web-work of a large metal spider.

  I tended to avoid the boiler room, because it’s nearly impossible for someone my height to maneuver through it without knocking yourself half-unconscious on those pipes with every third step. It smells like the smelliest hobo to ever stink up God’s green earth died there and rotted right into the concrete floor, and the lighting is bad too—one bare light bulb flickered erratically as I made my way down the wooden steps with my Genuine FBI human shield in front of me.

  They were all there, the whole gang, filling up the only space available, not far from the stairs and practically on top of the big furnace. Mustache and another one of his G-men, the so-called Mrs. Galtry, and a poor skinny little sap I’d never seen before.

  Mustache looked up in poorly concealed surprise as we came down. “What the hell now?” he said. The other G-man held a gun, trained on Mrs. Galtry and the skinny guy, but he looked up briefly, shook his head, and turned his attention back to the sorry-looking prisoners.

  At the bottom of the stairs I paused, making sure to hold tight to Agent Wilson’s collar. I held the gun against his neck and smiled pleasantly. “Hey, fellas,” I said. “Crazy little party you got going on here.”

  Wilson said, “Sorry, Mr. Beale. He got the drop on us. We tried—“

  Mustache said, “Put a sock in it, Wilson. All your training, all those long hours at the goddamn Jap dojo, and some cut-rate hotel dick gets the drop on you? Pathetic.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Wilson was nearly in tears, panic barely held in check. Whether it was the gun barrel against his flesh or his boss’ wrath that panicked him, I didn’t know.

  “Hey,” I s
aid. “The cut-rate hotel dick is standing right here. Let’s not get personal. And by the way, what the hell’s a ‘Jap dojo’?”

  The skinny guy started to say something, but the gunman waved his piece at him and he shut up.

  The stranger was thin and sharp-shouldered in a somber gray suit and dark blue tie. He could have been anywhere between forty and fifty years old. His hair was thinning and blond and combed back tightly to his scalp, as if clinging on for dear life. The over-all effect was of someone in mourning, oblivious to everything except his own emotions, except for his eyes—they were pale blue, as alert as a well-trained watch dog.

  Since it seemed no one was going to answer my question about Jap dojo, I said, “You must be Dr. Vox.”

  He didn’t answer, only looked at me with those strange eyes.

  Mrs. Galtry said, “He is Dr. Vox. At least that’s what they’re calling him now. His real name is—“

  Mustache snapped, “Shut up, Mrs. Galtry.”

  “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

  The gunman said, “It would be a simple matter to shoot you in the back, lady. Tell the judge you were trying to escape. You think they’re gonna go hard on us for killing a stinking spy?”

  Mustache glanced at me but spoke to his subordinate, “For the love of Christ, you moron, shut your stupid mouth.”

  I said, “Spy?” I tightened my grip on Wilson and pushed the gun barrel a little harder against his neck. The guy actually whimpered. “What the hell do you mean, spy?”

  Mustache glared at the other agent. “This is official government business. You’re in way—“

  “Wait a minute, I know this story. It ends with you saying that I’m in way over my head and I should just butt out and let you G-men run around my hotel doing whatever you damn well please. Well, no go, Hoover. You come clean right now or I put a bullet right in Agent Wilson’s head.”

  I’m not sure if Mustache would have called my bluff, but he didn’t have to. Wilson snapped.

  “She’s a damn Commie spy and she wants to kill him! She wants to kill Dr. Vox!”

  I eyed Mustache to gauge how much truth I’d just heard. He grimaced and looked away.

  “A Communist?” I looked at her and she scowled back at me. I’d never actually seen a real life Commie before and I didn’t know what to think. They weren’t supposed to be so damn disconcertingly attractive, were they?

  Mustache said, “Listen, you idiot. You’ve just stumbled into something way too big for you. What you really want to do, trust me, is lower your gun, let Wilson go, and walk out of here.”

  I weighed that, I really did. I’m as patriotic as the next fellow, and if Commie spies were running around, well, hell… I sure didn’t want to stand in the way of Uncle Sam dealing with them.

  But…

  I said, “That’s not the way I see it, Mustache. The way I see it is, you lugs came on a bit too strong. You came into my hotel and didn’t follow the rules. You planted a listening device in my lobby, you knocked me out, you tossed me around like a hot potato, and then you threw me out the goddamn window. So here’s the new plan—“ I pulled back the hammer of the gun and snarled, “You’re gonna tell me who this Vox character is, right now. You’re gonna tell me exactly what you boys are up to. And if I don’t hear a real answer in four seconds, we’re all gonna find out just how far Agent Wilson’s brains can fly.”

  I don’t know what I expected. Would Mustache break down and talk to save his subordinate’s life? Would Wilson himself or the other agent cave in? I was hoping for it, but I knew it was unlikely—as unlikely as me actually pulling the trigger.

  Silence descended on the boiler room, only the vague humming and thumping of pipes overhead and the soft hiss of the furnace. Mustache looked bored, and even Mrs. Galtry and Vox seemed uninterested. My bluff was being called and there was no way in hell I could kill Wilson.

  I was a split second away from letting go of him and giving in when Mrs. Galtry said, in a soft, sad voice, “He’s a Nazi. A Nazi scientist.”

  Mustache rolled his eyes and said, “Now hold on a minute—“

  I said, “Nazi? What?”

  “Hold on a minute, I say. He’s a German, see, that’s all, and he’s—“

  Mrs. Galtry said, “Yes, a German, a German and a Nazi! He’s been working on Germany’s atomic program and these bastards smuggled him out to work for the United States!”

  The disbelief must have shown on my face, because she kept going and this time Mustache and the other one didn’t try to stop her. “It’s all over for Germany now, they’ve lost! They’re dead but still standing. And your government is smuggling them in to work for them. You stupid sap! They’re saving the lives of these worthless Nazi scum to work on America’s atomic program.”

  Mustache said to me, “They’re doing it too, you know. The Soviets.” He sounded almost apologetic.

  My head was reeling. Nazis? In Detroit? At the Carson Hotel?

  I thought of Earle, fighting over there at Aachen, fighting to rid the world of this new evil that threatened to engulf it. For all I knew, Earle could be dead now. He could be one of the thousands. Thousands of Americans, thousands of British and Russian and French and God knew what else, fighting to put an end to Nazi tyranny.

  And here was one, right in front of me, a skinny insignificant little man in somber gray, with a dog’s eyes.

  I let go of Wilson and he stumbled forward. Mustache caught him and shoved him aside. I lowered the gun.

  “I thought they were the enemy,” I said.

  Mustache nodded. “They are. The Nazis are. But see… once it’s over, the Nazis don’t exist anymore. This man, this little man you know as Dr. Vox, is just a scientist. And he can be an American scientist.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to a Russian scientist. Don’t you get it? You think the world is going to be a better place when this damn war is over? You think the Soviets are our friends? A different kind of war is coming, Mr. Hotel Detective, a war of nerves. And our opponent is going to be the damn Soviets.”

  I looked at Mrs. Galtry. She had come to the Carson to commit murder, to find the little man called Dr. Vox and snuff him out before he could be of use to the American government. She had failed, and now she glared at me fiercely.

  Dr. Vox stood in silence and I began to wonder if the little bastard even spoke English.

  I wasn’t sorry that Mrs. Galtry failed.

  But I was sorry as hell that Dr. Vox still lived.

  I said, very softly, “In my breast pocket, right here, I have that little listening device you planted in the lobby bell. The reel-to-reel machine upstairs has recorded this whole conversation, and I guarantee you I can get up there and retrieve it faster than you can. You may be doing the government’s work, but I feel pretty damn certain you don’t want this information to become common knowledge. Would I be right in assuming that?”

  Mustache looked pained and for a moment I almost felt sorry for him. He seemed like a fairly competent guy, but his whole operation was falling to pieces because of everyone else’s mistakes. It’s hard to find good help these days.

  I said, “Here’s what you’re going to do, Mustache. You’re going to arrest Mrs. Galtry here on charges of espionage and take her away. You’re going to pick up your fallen comrades and leave the Carson Hotel and never come back. I’m going to hide that reel-to-reel tape and not play it for anyone, ever, provided I never see you or your people at this establishment ever again. Sound like a plan?”

  Mustache didn’t look resigned to it, but he at least seemed to consider. He said, “And what about Vox?”

  I thought again of Earle, and how he would feel if he knew anything about what was happening here. And I thought of my own disappointment at the enlistment office, my bad leg, my age…

  I said, “Oh, him?” and raised the gun. I pulled the trigger and the bullet hit Vox high in the chest and he dropped like a cement block.

  Th
e echo of the shot reverberated against the metal pipes deafeningly and everyone jumped.

  When the echo died away, I said, “Let’s leave him out of this, shall we?”

  I turned around and headed back up the stairs, taking my time. No one tried to stop me. At the landing, I looked back at them. Wilson and the other agent were staring unbelievingly at Vox’s dead body. Mrs. Galtry looked at no one, just scowled with a strange, sick satisfaction at the floor.

  Only Mustache was looking back at me. He said, “You’re not going to get away with this, you know.”

  I nodded to him and said, “Stay out of the Carson,” before turning around and heading out the door.

  I probably wouldn’t get away with it, yeah. There would be no arrest or court date or prison term, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be repercussions. It was the damn FBI I’d messed with, after all, and I suspected that Hoover’s boys wouldn’t take this sort of thing lying down. It was very likely that my life was about to become a living hell.

  But what can you do? I have a job here and I take it very seriously.

  I can’t join the Army, but hell. Someone’s gotta keep the Carson Hotel respectable and free of riff-raff.

  Heath Lowrance was born in Huntsville, Alabama, spent his early childhood in Calhoun, Tennessee, and went back and forth from there to Michigan, depending on his mother’s fortunes. As an adult, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee for several years before coming back to Michigan yet again, where he currently resides with his wife Kim and a cat that has a name but is commonly referred to as “Cat”. He also has a lovely and strange daughter, Kate, from a previous marriage.

  His first novel, The Bastard Hand, was released by New Pulp Press in March of 2011 and has garnered acclaim from the likes of Allan Guthrie, Megan Abbott, and Vincent Zandri.

  Heath is currently working on his next novel. Visit his blog, www.psychonoir.blogspot.