Casca 25: Halls of Montezuma

by Tony Roberts

  Case grabbed the side table and hurled it through the window which exploded outwards to destruction. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder but ignored it. Now wasn’t the time to worry about something that wouldn’t worry him much longer.

  He stuck his head out into the night air and looked down. The street was perhaps fifteen feet down. Too long to jump for many but maybe he could reduce the drop. He grabbed the nearest youngster, a boy. He screamed in terror but Case thrust him out and dangled him at the end of his arms towards the ground. “Catch the boy!” he yelled to the faces staring in fascination from across the road. The flames were heading their way from the right and the heat was on his face. Clearly there wasn’t much time left. A couple of men ran across, half their bodies illuminated in yellow and red, and reached up to take the boy.

  Case turned and grabbed a second child, a girl, and repeated the action. He took a quick look into the smoky room and guessed there were ten adults and five children. “Get the youngsters out of the window!” He pushed past out into the corridor and was appalled at the wall of flame across the passageway halfway to the staircase. The atmosphere was becoming too thick to breathe, and he turned to look at the wall. He kicked at it and it shuddered. Another hefty kick split one plank and another drove it out, leaving a gap to the outside.

  “The children have all been safely passed through the window!” a voice called.

  “Then get out, women first!” he snapped.

  “The fire’s too close for those outside to get us!” a woman wailed.

  Case swore. He kicked with his heel the planking which, rotten, collapsed outwards. Now he had made a gap. “Come on, here!” The gap was just enough for a small person to squeeze through. It was going to be a close thing to get them all out.

  The others flocked out, coughing, and two of the men helped in smashing a wider gap so it was big enough to pass an adult through. The women were ushered swiftly to the front and dangled out. They were dropped the seven feet or so to the ground one after the other fairly swiftly. The flames were hot on their backs but the diminishing number of them smashed the hole wider and two abreast, the men began climbing out hurriedly. Soon only Case was left, the crackling of flames loud in his ears and the heat almost too much to bear. He turned, looked down, and seeing a gap, jumped.

  Picking himself up he pushed two laggards ahead of him away from the incandescent building which had attracted a number of onlookers from elsewhere. Stumbling to a halt Case turned and surveyed the blazing pyre that had a very short time before been a building. The roof collapsed with a deep roar and the flames shot up even higher, drawing gasps from those in the street.

  Case wiped his sweating forehead and looked for the McGuires. They were stood in a huddle across the street, standing next to a priest dressed in a long black cassock and wide brimmed hat. He came up to them and heard the priest speaking in sorrowful tones. “Ah, what a sad spectacle! I’ve often warned Mrs. O’Rourke about leaving candles and lamps lit at night!”

  “Where is Mrs. O’Rourke?” Mary McGuire queried, looking round worriedly. Others close by began searching the crowd and Case began to fear the worst. He had helped save perhaps twenty people but many more had been in that building. Lives had been lost, it was certain, but how many he wasn’t sure. He turned to the priest who was comforting two of the four children. “What do you know of a man called Whitby, father…?”

  The priest looked up at him guardedly. “I’m Father Lynch, my son. And you?”

  “He’s Case Lonnergan, father,” Ann spoke up, her arms round her brother, “saved our lives back there.”

  “Did he now? Well, Mr. Lonnergan, that makes you a man to thank, saving these poor children’s lives. You wanted to know about the man Whitby? Not a man to associate with, Mr. Lonnergan, if you’re a man of God. He’s the very devil himself.”

  “That I have gathered, Father.” Case looked at the wide eyes of the girls and boy. Crying filled the air behind him and the missing were now being named, including some members of families that had got out. The crying would go on for some time, Case knew. “His place of business is not far, I understand?”

  Father Lynch crossed himself. “A den of iniquity. Drinking, gambling, loose women and all the vices of evil the good Lord teaches against.”

  “Which is where, Father?”

  Father Lynch shook his head. “I shall not direct you to his den of sin. Best you remain here to help these poor people rather than seek solace in the bottom of a bottle. My church can take them all tonight but tomorrow they must all find new places to stay. And with winter on the way the streets are not the place for the weak and young!”

  Case turned away, frustrated. Whitby deserved to die. He’d have to find out from someone else. He had a vague idea where it was but without knowing for sure he’d run the risk of being spotted in time for Whitby to either escape or get reinforcements. None of which was desirable. Mary McGuire came back, her face devastated. “Both the O’Rourkes are not here, father! And others too, including some young children!”

  Case clenched his fists. If Whitby wanted him, then he would go and confront the bastard. No poor child would need to die in that case. Others were running up from all round and plenty of willing volunteers were now helping to shepherd the people along the street towards an impressive church that looked like a Greek temple that lay in the near distance. Also, belatedly, a few of the Department of Fire came running up, carrying long trestles within which rested a number of metal buckets full of water. It would be a waste of time with what water they had but they had to try all the same. Case slipped aside and grabbed one of the onlookers who had turned up. “Whitby? You know where he’s holed up?”

  The man shook his head but Case lifted him by the coat lapels up off his feet. “You know where it is, I know you drink there!” The last was a guess but the man had the look of a drinker and Case could smell alcohol on his breath.

  “Down Church Street, on the left! You can’t miss it, mister. Now, pl-please let me go! The children!! Gotta help the children!!”

  Case dropped the wild-eyed man, not feeling too good about threatening a man who was trying to help. Maybe he had sorrows of his own he tried to drown in drink, and helping these people was a way of forgetting his troubles. Case’s anger grew; partly at his own actions, but more and more against Whitby who had caused all this grief.

  He stepped into the middle of the street and oriented himself. Bunching his fists he began to stride off into the night, away from the dying flames of the collapsed building. He was going to square things with that murderer and his cowardly pals, and if anyone got in his way he’d walk through them!

  CHAPTER THREE

  The place Whitby was holed up in wasn’t that hard to find. Even in the darkness of the night the two men lounging lazily outside attracted attention, and the lights on upstairs drew the eye. Even as Case stood across the street in the shadows and watched, two men left the brick building laughing, doing up the buttons of their coats. Had their satisfaction this evening, he thought savagely.

  Case had no grouse with women who wanted to sell their bodies. Hell he’d enjoyed their company on more than one occasion, but he did object to bastards forcing unwilling women into that profession. More often than not in those cases the women were little more than slaves, earning the money for their masters who did nothing more than beat the shit out of them and keep them prisoner. Whitby was one of those. Filth. Scum.

  Case’s anger rose. No matter where the civilized place was, types like that always flourished. Rome had been the same, particularly towards the end. Case flexed his arms, making sure his shoulder was up to the task, then stepped into the street and strode towards the two bouncers standing by the doorway. The building was of three storeys and looked dirty and uncared for. He doubted it was more than twenty years old but nobody had made any effort to maintain it. No wonder it was used as a brothel.

  “Hey buddy, you goin’ somewhere?” one of the bouncers challenged him
as he strode up to them.

  “Yeah,” Case responded, “inside.”

  “You got money?”

  “No.”

  An arm barred his way to the door. “Then sorry, bud, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “I’m not wanting any of the girls,” Case said softly, “I want to see Whitby.”

  “Mr. Whitby ain’t seeing nobody, mister!” the first bouncer growled. “I ain’t seen you before and I sure believe Mr. Whitby ain’t either.”

  “He has. At the place he burned down tonight.”

  The two men gaped in surprise, then Case smashed his meaty fist into the nearest one’s face, breaking his nose and snapping the head back. The man struck the door jamb and uttered a gasp, his legs buckling. The second snarled and reached for something inside his jacket but Case stepped forward and grabbed the wrist as it withdrew a dark heavy object. He then sank his left fist into the man’s guts and as he bent over in pain, chopped his still bunched hand down onto his neck.

  The man collapsed as though the Liberty Bell had fallen on him.

  The first man tried to kick Case but his aim and timing was awry. His toe grazed Case’s leg and the solidly built eternal mercenary swung his foot up in between the man’s legs and connected heavily with his family jewels. The first bouncer gargled oddly and slowly keeled over into a fetal position, so Case helped him into unconsciousness by stamping on his head. He felt no remorse, as these two would cheerily burn down an entire building filled with children at the behest of their master without a second’s thought. He felt he was being too lenient, but these were relatively unimportant characters. He was after Whitby.

  The door was not locked and he pushed inside, slowly shutting the door behind him, listening to sounds. The passage he was in was half lit by a couple of lamps behind glass, but they were feeble and he couldn’t make out many details. A few voices could be heard and he smelt damp. Another sign of neglect. In a few years this building would need serious attention or demolition. Wallpaper was peeling from the left hand wall, and ahead a small hallway opened up with a staircase at the rear. Cross corridors ran left and right and a booth of some type stood to the right at this point. A man sat behind the counter, two candles flickering beside him, one on each side.

  “Who you come to see?” he growled deeply. His face didn’t encourage hope for any intelligent conversation, as it looked like it had been used to scour barnacles off the keel of a dozen ships and the eyes looked dead behind the ape-like overhang of his forehead.

  “Well, that’s a secret,” Case smiled, beckoning conspiratorially.

  The gorilla-like man frowned with puzzlement and leaned forward, then snapped back in pain as Case’s fists struck him. Case grabbed his collar, pulled him forward and repeated the punishment. The man’s head lolled and Case pushed him back and the man slid off the chair he was sat in out of sight. There came a muffled thud and all was quiet again.

  Flexing his aching knuckles, Case looked up. It was a likely bet Whitby was upstairs, enjoying himself. The gang leaders normally left the lower floors to their minions, and besides, it seemed the girls were up. He climbed the wooden railed staircase, left and then left again up to the landing. The stair carpet was stained heavily and threadbare, and had seen better days. An underlay of sacking protruded from the sides and the frequent holes that Case had to step over. He didn’t want to trip up. The whole place gave off an air of despondency. It had been built with optimism, but reality soon took over and it sank into terminal decline. At least that’s how it appeared to Case.

  The unmistakable noise of some woman being screwed on a creaky bed came from the first room Case passed but he decided against going in. Some things are best left alone. At the end of the corridor stood a door with paneling that had once been varnished but that had long gone, leaving a patched peeling surface that caught on the lamp light in odd ways. The end room would be a likely place to start looking, so he crept up to it and listened.

  He heard nothing save the grunting and creaking from the room back down the corridor, so he turned the dull brass handle and leaned slightly on the door. It opened.

  He slid in fast, closing the door behind him. The room was lit and the first thing he saw was a desk. Scattered on top of this were paperwork and a clutter of objects. A chair stood behind it and in one corner a chaise-longue was situated. This had worn patches on it too and it was this that was occupied. Two people were on it, a woman underneath with her clothing largely off or undone, and a man on top, shirt unbuttoned revealing a fat and hairy gut, and his bracers were off his shoulders. Thankfully, Case noted, he still had his pants on. He recognized the man, the last time he’d seen him was when he’d hit him under the ribs in the street.

  “Ah, one of Whitby’s vermin,” Case said pleasantly.

  “What the fuck you doing in here?” the man demanded, pulling his braces over his shoulder and climbing off the woman who clutched her clothing about her in a reflex action. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  “Sure do, buddy,” Case grinned, “I’m the guy who knocked the shit out of you in the street. Want to tell me where Whitby is?”

  The man snarled and bunched his fists, advancing on Case. “You got lucky in the street,” he said, “but now I’m ready for you.”

  Case laughed briefly and allowed the thug to make his move, a wild swing of the fist that carved through thin air. Case’s counter slammed into the man’s round belly and he sank to the ground, groaning. The woman shrieked.

  “Shut up!” Case snapped. “And get dressed!”

  The woman complied with both, staring fearfully at Case who had dragged the man upright and pinned his face to the desk top. “Where is Whitby you piece of shit?”

  “Ugh! He won’t take kindly to you messing up his place,” the man gasped.

  Case sighed and raised the man’s head, only to slam it into the desk top with such force that the entire desk shook. “I’ll keep on doing this till you talk.”

  The man moaned and waved a feeble arm at the door. “End room.”

  Case cursed. The man who had been enjoying the woman in the first room must have been Whitby. He wondered if the woman’s shriek had alerted anyone, then guessed these sorts of noises went on most of the time and nobody would be coming hollering the place down. Case looked round and decided to use the guy’s belt to tie his hands. The thug was too dazed to offer much resistance and in no time he was tied to the chair, head still lolling. The woman, now dressed, sat dumbly on the chaise longue.

  “Where you from, lady?” Case asked her, thinking how to go get Whitby and not have her raise the alarm.

  “Northern Liberties,” she said truculently. “You new here, ain’t ya?”

  “Sort of,” Case replied absently. He’d been here in Philadelphia before during the Revolutionary War, one of his former campaigns from his long life. During that time he’d been thrown out of New York with the Continental Army of George Washington by the British, but the Americans had gone on to win a few years later. Since then he’d wandered in Europe fighting for and then against Napoleon. He’d gone through a phase of fighting for the revolutionary movements striving to overthrow the royal houses of Europe. He’d figured people ought to have more say in their countries, but when he saw that things hardly changed with the new order, he’d gone back to his old habit of picking the side he thought was more morally right; if ever there was much of a choice!

  Being eighteen centuries old gave him a hell of a lot of experience, and it normally gave him the insight to pick the right side. There were times he found he’d guessed wrong but what did a soldier know of politics? He was a soldier first and foremost, and he took great pride in that.

  The woman, or courtesan as he ought to think of her, sighed deeply to attract his attention. His eyes focused once more on the present and he eyed the woman. She wasn’t very pretty. Her mouth was too big, her hair hung in greasy lank clumps down her back and sides, uncombed. She was very thin and he thought she had some sort o
f ailment; possibly consumption. It was rife and people living in these conditions often got that. Once they started coughing blood that was that. “What?” he snapped

  “What you goin’ to do with me?”

  “Nothing. If you shut up and do as you’re told. You know the church down the road? The one that looks like a Greek Temple?”

  “What’s a Greek Temple? If you mean the one with the huge columns, then that’s St. Peters. Yes I know it. Why?”

  Case found her voice irritating; high and reedy. She could whine for America, he guessed. “Go there and tell them that the guy who burned down the poor house is here.”

  “What? The poor house? Whitby burned it down?” For once she looked genuinely shocked.

  “Why do you think I’m here, sweetheart? To preach at you to end your sinful ways? Hell, I’d sample your wares if I’d the time, money and inclination. None of which I have at the present.”

  She stood up and battled between being disgusted at the news of the poor house and trying to impress this muscled man who exuded strength and power. He appealed to her but she was disciplined enough to recognize he was flat broke and she was here to make money out of her body. “Okay, mister, I’ll go tell them. What you gonna do to Whitby? Don’t kill him; he’s keeping me employed!”

  “You’ll find another pimp, don’t worry; this place is full of them, I’d bet. Whitby has gone too far, burning kids. I won’t spare the bastard, even if he employed a thousand people here. Get out before I start breaking down walls.”

  The woman ran to the door and fled, wide-eyed. Case watched her through the open door as she plunged down out of sight. He turned and looked at the bound man one last time. He was slumped, head down, sat motionless. Satisfied, Case left the room and padded along the corridor to the last door where he’d heard noises. Now all was silent.