Dark and Stormy Knights

by P. N. Elord

  Without being too obvious, I put myself between them and the washroom. “If she did, she’d have contacted him by now. He set her up. Guess he thought if she could knock off Gordy, we’d be too distracted to go after him.” I’d purposely included myself in matters. It was time. Any bastard trying to kill a nice gal like Emma deserved my personal attention. “But why would he do that for a lousy eight hundred?”

  “And Gordy put you in charge.” A scornful Desanctis got the second man on his feet. “What does this dump turn that makes that lousy money?”

  I looked at Riordan. “What’d I miss?”

  “Books have been gone over, sums have been added, and stacks of lolly counted and counted again. There’s eight hundred thousand missing from this month’s take, Jacky-lad.”

  It required a long, still moment for me to absorb that large a sum. Such numbers weren’t real. They had to be made up. That kind of money was for governments, not people. I’d known the scale of Gordy’s operation was huge, but not that huge. “Jeeze.”

  “Y’can imagine Gordy’s not in the least amused.”

  He wouldn’t show it. Maybe his pale eyes would be a little harder than normal. If Foxtrot had any sense, he’d be on his way to Outer Mongolia and hoping it would be far enough. So much cash explained why Riordan was hanging around. If there was a chance in hell for him to nab some of it . . .

  “Come on,” said Desanctis. “Let’s get the skirt and—”

  “Take her to Gordy,” I finished. “He’ll want to talk with her. Riordan, bring that grenade pin. I’m going to shove it down Foxtrot’s throat.” I took a step toward the washroom, and my foot caught on something. Emma’s purse. It hadn’t been there before. Myrna again, now in a helpful mood.

  I picked up the little bag and looked in on Emma. She’d set the flashlight on its end on the floor like a candle. She had apparently heard everything and looked anxious.

  “You ready to travel?” I asked, voice low.

  “Guess I have to be. But those men . . .”

  “Are gonna behave. I’ll stick by you. If I have to be someplace, you get next to the Irishman out there named Riordan. He’s crazy, but he’ll look after you. He’s got a soft spot for women.”

  “I know him. He’s kind of scary.”

  “Right now you need scary friends.”

  She gave a brief, blotchy grimace, accepted her handbag, pulled on her gloves, and stood straight. Not much height to her, but plenty of poise. I got the flashlight and backed out like a knight making way for his lady.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, certain none would take exception to the irony, “Miss Emma Dorsey needs a safe escort to the Nightcrawler Club.”

  Riordan’s eyes flickered with amusement as he swept off his hat. “It’s my specialty and privilege to be of service to ye, missy. Shamus Riordan, me name is me game, spell it the same.”

  Desanctis growled under his breath, then spoke aloud. “Where’s your boyfriend, Emma?”

  “I don’t know. That’s God’s honest truth.”

  “He ain’t hiding in your flat, we checked, so where else would he go?”

  She shook her head, glancing at me.

  “The lady doesn’t know,” I said. “You’re familiar with how he does business. Where do you think he’d go?”

  “We checked those places. He ain’t in any of ’em.”

  “Then figure he’s on a train, bus, or car with a hell of a head start. You cover the stations?”

  “In this town and all stops between here and both oceans. With eight hundred grand running loose, we got more eyes than J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “You didn’t tell them about the money, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Foxtrot can buy his way past anyone with it.”

  “That he can,” said Riordan, looking pleased.

  “You’re after the money,” I said, unsurprised.

  “Why, Jacky-lad, on the life of my sainted aunt Murgatroyd, of course I am. A man can go far and live high forever on that much lolly.”

  “Until we find you,” Desanctis pointed out. He didn’t sound worried that Riordan would get anywhere near the cash.

  “Well, life’s uncertain, Gino. I’d live well for as long as I could. That’s all any of us have till Saint Peter whispers in your ear.”

  It was an impossible quest. Foxtrot had time to put himself anywhere, either to hole up until the initial search slacked off or to get as far away as possible. If it had been me, I’d have hired a pilot and flown south to a whole different continent.

  “Been watching Emma’s place?” I asked as we trooped unhurriedly down to the lobby.

  “We went by to see if she’d join up with her boyfriend,” said Desanctis.

  “Why didn’t you talk to her sooner?”

  “Dames are funny when they’re gone on a guy. They clam up no matter what you do to ’em. It was a better bet to have her lead us to him.”

  Emma’s hand, which was on my arm, tightened its grip. I did not ask how Desanctis came by his information about women. I’d already slugged him once tonight and didn’t need a fresh excuse.

  “The delay gave Foxtrot a big head start,” I observed.

  We reached the lobby floor, and Desanctis rounded on me. “What are you saying, Fleming? You think I wanted that bastard to run off? My head’s on the block for this.”

  He might lose his job and get sent somewhere disagreeable as punishment, but Gordy was a fair man—in his own way. He wouldn’t order Desanctis put down without a compelling reason. Good help’s hard to find, and the man was good at his job.

  “Why did she come to you, anyway?” he wanted to know.

  “Emma needed someone to get her in to see the boss.”

  “Maybe you’re helping the two of them lam it out of here.”

  “Yeah, that makes perfect sense what with that grenade nearly killing us.”

  “Neither one of you’s got a scratch. Maybe you set it off on purpose.”

  “Gino, why would I blow up my own office? How could that possibly help either of them escape?”

  He had no answer. While he was good at collections, it was a job that did not require much brain.

  The light behind the lobby bar was still on. I’d had the idea that electricity for the whole building was gone. We took the curved hall into the main room and found the lights on there as well.

  “Who else is here?” Desanctis wanted to know.

  “Just us.”

  “Someone put those on. We didn’t.”

  “The building’s got electrical problems, always has. Ask anyone.”

  The floor tables were stripped of their cloths, with chairs stacked on them upside down. They gave the huge room a forlorn appearance. The fixed tiers of booths arranged in a rising horseshoe shape with the open end toward the stage looked more normal. All they needed were people, but there was no show tonight. The stage was dark, its empty boards thick with sullen shadows. I was aware of every mood of this place, and it didn’t like being closed.

  Our footsteps created hard echoes from the black and white tiles, turned hollow as we crossed the wood dance floor, then resumed hard again. A service door on the other side of the stage took us to a wide hall. It gave access to the basement, backstage dressing rooms, and wide double doors to the alley.

  “Why didn’t you guys come in the front?” I asked.

  “Didn’t want to get noticed,” said Riordan. “We saw the great boom, left a lad on watch for cops, and Gino kindly got the back open.”

  “There’s a guy? I didn’t see him.”

  “He’s in the doorway of the haberdasher’s shop across from ye.”

  I stopped short of pushing forward to the outside. “No, he isn’t.”

  “The streetlight doesn’t reach. Deep shadow.”

  “Riordan, I’d have seen him. I took a look out the office window after the boom. He wasn’t there.”

  Desanctis shoved past. “So what, he moved. Come on.”

&nbs
p; The lights flickered off-on, just the once. Myrna’s communication was limited, but that was her way of sending up the alarm. I stayed put, and Riordan and the others hung back with me, looking uneasy. Desanctis held the back door and watched us watch him for a long moment. He glanced either way in the alley.

  “No one’s here,” he stated.

  I transferred Emma’s hand to Riordan’s arm. “How ’bout I check and make sure?”

  “We’ll both check.” Desanctis took the direction leading to the street, I went toward the parking lot. Two vehicles were there: my still-new Studebaker coupé and next to it what was probably his car, a blue Hudson.

  Both had flat tires: driver’s-side front on mine, passenger front on the Hudson.

  Crap.

  Feeling vulnerable, I ducked between the cars, probably in the same spot where the vandal had crouched with something sharp. He had efficiently cut off our means of escape, barring a footrace out of here. The mental picture of our little group sprinting along in full rout, getting picked off one by one by a pursuer shooting from cover, I could blame on a too-vivid imagination. That was not going to happen, but once the thought crossed my paranoid mind, I couldn’t shake it.

  I didn’t care to attempt changing a flat until long after this party left the neighborhood—which would be soon. We were only temporarily stuck. A phone call to Gordy would bring in transport and as many armed mugs as he deemed appropriate. He wouldn’t mind.

  First, I needed a quick look at the street.

  Back to the wall, I eased along, checking everything in my angle of view, my hand twitching, missing a reassuring weight that should have been there. I kept a gun in my office, hadn’t thought to bring it along, and I should have. Yeah, I know, I’m a big bad vampire, but Chicago’s a rough town. Even the undead need an edge. That damned grenade must have knocked all sense out of my noggin. There were no windows on this side of the club. I could ooze my way through the bricks to get in and raid the top desk drawer, but it would be easier to borrow a gun from Riordan. He always carried more than one.

  The shop doorway was indeed empty. A narrow alley divided the opposite block; the ash cans crowding it would make good cover. Half a dozen other doors and nooks offered shelter and were within shooting range. Until now, I’d never thought about the exterior of my club in terms of attack and defense.

  I put my head around the corner, letting myself fade from full solidity. My sight dimmed, but in this state a bullet would pass harmlessly through my skull. No one fired, but I did spot what looked like a drunk taking a nap in the club’s entry. He was right under the red awning that ran from the door to the curb. I wouldn’t have been able to see him from the office window.

  Still slightly incorporeal, I drifted toward him; my legs were moving, but I was really floating silently over the sidewalk. Reaching the shadow under the canopy, I went solid to check for a pulse. The man was limp as wet laundry, but alive. Someone had coshed him good.

  He wasn’t Foxtrot Joe.

  He was positioned so that when the front door opened, he’d fall back and in, blocking the way and providing a distraction.

  Someone must have thought we’d come out this way. I whipped around, alert to threats, but nothing happened.

  Having completed his half-circuit of the building, Desanctis barreled up, face red with fury, his gun out. I put my finger to my lips and hastily signed for him to get down, but he wasn’t interested. He kept moving, heading toward the parking lot and rounding the corner. His ripe and heartfelt swearing carried, signaling that he’d found the flat tires.

  I had my keys and opened the front door and, with a grim sense of déjà vu, dragged in the casualty. The other time, the guy being dragged had caught a bullet in his leg, so I wasn’t experiencing the same kind of life-and-death panic. I was pissed off.

  “Heads up, Myrna, we got more trouble.” I pulled my burden out of the way so he wouldn’t be stepped on accidentally.

  I’d had an extra phone installed behind the bar, a fancy one. Punch a button you get my office, punch another and you can make an outside call. It was past time to let Gordy know what was going on. If Foxtrot was hanging around, we might have a chance of grabbing him.

  But the phone was dead, its line ripped from the wall.

  That wasn’t Myrna’s style; Foxtrot must have found a way inside. But why? If he had the money, then why risk himself? I checked the lobby’s alcove phone booth and found it had also been sabotaged. The receiver lay on the floor, trailing a short tail of cut wire.

  Drawing a breath to curse, I caught the scent of human blood hanging in the still air. A second breath, mouth open . . . I could almost taste it. Fresh, mixed with sweat, the distinct sour tang of fear, and, above all, immediacy—he’d been here scant moments ago.

  No hiding places in the lobby; I would have noticed anyone taking cover under the naked tables and stacked chairs and had already been behind the bar.

  Going still, I listened, sifting out the breathing of the unconscious man, the distant sounds of city traffic, Riordan holding forth on the other side of the building, the creak as wind played on the awning outside, the clock above the bar ticking, my watch a tiny counterpoint to it . . .

  For the barest second, I caught the rasp of air against vocal cords. It took more effort to pin down a direction for that faintest of whispers . . . but I got him.

  He was in one of the restrooms. The closer of the two, the ladies’ lounge. It was just past the bar, and if you cracked the door, you could see a good section of the front. He’d taken out the front man, left him as a decoy. While we were busy with him, Foxtrot could sneak up behind. The ambush was meant to be inside, not out. So why hadn’t he tried for me? Was he waiting for the others?

  Desanctis barged in, pausing right in the line of fire to snarl something at me, but I launched at him. We hit the hard marble tile in front of the bar with bone-bruising force a hair ahead of the flat crack of a gunshot. The bullet snapped into a wall on the other side of the room but missed us, and that’s all that mattered.

  I was okay, but it knocked out his air. The single-minded idiot tried to bring his gun around. I slammed it fiercely down and clapped a hand over his mouth, hoping he’d take the hint. He couldn’t move, was struggling to breathe. I took my hand away and signed for him to be quiet.

  He wheezed and nodded, finally figuring out more important things were going on and that he’d better pay attention.

  “Foxtrot’s here, hiding in one of the johns,” I murmured.

  A flash of wide-eyed disbelief, then Desanctis looked ready to pop a blood vessel. Teeth showing, he started up, but I grabbed him back.

  “He’s in too good a spot, he’ll scrag us both. There’s a service door for the janitor. I’ll get in that way, come up behind him. You stay put. Make him think we’re both out here.”

  He grunted cooperatively. I hurried toward the curving hall to the main room, while he hunkered down at the end of the bar to cover the lounge door. As soon as he turned from me I vanished, changed course, and floated right past him, a necessity since there was no such service entry. Desanctis might have felt a deadly chill as I went by. Unable to see in this form, I had to bump and bumble along by memory and the awareness of solid shapes between me and my goal. This was a stool, that bulk to the right was the bar, skim along a vertical plain of wall on the left, and for the love of Mike don’t miss the door.

  I found it and slipped quickly under the threshold crack and in. My hearing was limited; I couldn’t locate Foxtrot by sound, so I cast about with what should be my arms, a blind, invisible monster trying to find its prey before anyone else got hurt.

  He was on the floor just inside, right where I’d have been. This close and I could hear his quick, labored breathing. I set myself and went solid, and he was too surprised to react when his gun was suddenly yanked away.

  His back propped against the wall, he held the door open a few inches with one outstretched leg. He shifted and the door shut automatic
ally, cutting off most of the light. There was some glow seeping through the red-tinted windows, enough for me, but he’d be blinkered. Just as well; I didn’t want him noticing how the mirrors here kept missing me.

  I tried a reasonable tone. “All right, Foxtrot, game’s over—”

  He flopped on one side, throwing his right arm wide to grab. I backed away and smelled fresh blood again, a lot of it, mixed with the sharp, sweet odor of cordite from his one shot. The red color of the window glass made it difficult to see, but his middle was soaked. He held his left arm tight there, panting with pain. His voice was slurred and rushed. “Who izzit?”

  “Jack Fleming.”

  He grunted disgust and stopped trying to find me. “Na’ dead.”

  “In so many words, not quite.” I was being strangely polite to him, considering the dirtiness of the grenade trick. His wounding puzzled me, and tardy alarm bells only I could hear went off inside my thick skull. I cursed while pocketing the gun and grabbed him under the arms to drag him out of the way, exactly as I’d done for the fellow in the lobby.

  He did not resist. “ ’f tha’ bas’ard’s hurt her . . .”

  “She’s fine, Joe.” I eased him down flat, got towels from a cupboard under the sinks, and pressed a wad of them to whatever damage he’d taken. “Hold it there, can you do that?”

  He made no reply, responding by dropping a bloody arm over the makeshift dressing. “Emma . . .”

  “Keep quiet.”

  I opened the door and called out to Desanctis, “It’s clear, Gino, I got him.”

  Desanctis was already in the hall, striding forward, gun raised, which I did not expect, which was damned stupid, but I faded just as he fired. It was such a near thing that I felt the sharp passage of the slug tugging with miserable familiarity through my chest, and it was enough to startle me into vanishing completely.

  Dimly, I heard the door thump shut.

  Damnation.

  I went solid, listening. Desanctis was just on the other side, certainly doing the same thing, reluctant to try the door until he was sure he’d gotten me. It was dark for him; the disruptive flash from his gun would have prevented him from seeing me wink out. I shoved hard on the door to knock him silly, but he skipped back and fired three times right through at chest height, and that did the trick.