Corpses Say the Darndest Things: A Nod Blake Mystery

by Doug Lamoreux

  Okay, I assumed it was Eddie. I couldn't see his face, it was all in shadow, but the shadow was wearing a Stetson and Eddie was the creepy transplanted cow-puncher I'd chased into the building. I could claim I recognized the scream but it was just a scream with a terrifying echo but no discernible Wyoming twang. What I knew for certain was he had the drop on me and was holding some sort of club. I ducked, backed up and ducked again, hearing too clearly for my tastes the repeated swoosh of whatever he was swinging. I wanted to save Gina, to save the day, to save the city from this maniac, just like in the comics; truth, justice, and the American way. Somewhere inside I wanted all of that. But as he attacked and I ducked the blows, as he came on and I retreated, the only real thought in my mind was to avoid, at all costs, letting him whack me in the coconut. My head had had all it could take.

  Still screaming, Eddie swung the bat again (Dave `Kong' Kingman going for a storefront window in Wrigleyville) with all his might. I dodged, tripped backwards, and fell. I landed gracelessly, jarringly atop an air hockey table. Yeah, air hockey; one of those home versions of the game and, if I was seeing right in the dim moonlight, champion Jesse Douty signed, now just garbage in a recycling center. I stole a glance to the side to see that the table, with me on top, was lying flat on a conveyor belt.

  The moonlight brushed him and I saw Love grinning like a circus monkey just beyond my up-raised shoes. Suddenly the floor, the walls, the building shuddered and vibrated, accompanied by the shriek of hell's demons making a jail break. Machinery growled to life. Metal rattled, leather joined in, making enough noise to raise Katherine Delp, rile the brothers Nikitin, and disturb the resting Riaz couple. The conveyor belt rumbled and started to move. It groaned as the rollers turned cruelly beneath the belt, beneath the table, beneath my back. You could forget my escaping. Already winded, I was struggling merely to breathe. In that condition, I was carried up, watching the shadows in the high ceiling bend and stretch as I was lifted. I felt like a Baby Ruth bar, lumpy with nuts, on the way to wrapping. On the way to… It dawned that the last conveyor I'd seen was placed to feed material to a shredder. That thought was followed by the realization I could do nothing about it. Well, at least I'd escaped Love's pummeling. At least he hadn't hit my head.

  But cool air did; bathed my hair. I felt a great punch in the middle of my spine. I realized suddenly that the table had crested the top of the conveyor and I was going over. I shouted (how could I not?). I fell. I landed unceremoniously in a great canvas bin atop a pile of chipped wallboard, under the air hockey table – on my head.

  I couldn't see them for the cloud of dust I'd raised, or hear them for the still-growling conveyor above, but I knew they were there – cartoon bluebirds swooping circles. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. I should have been grateful, I know, that I hadn't broken my neck. But truth be told I was fresh out of gratitude. I shoved the table off, sputtered, rolled painfully to my knees, spitting chalky wallboard and looking like the ghost of a washed-up detective. I grabbed the bin rail for balance but, before extricating myself, looked over the portions of the factory I could see. In the scant moonlight, with plaster dust stinging my eyes, I managed to make out the stacks, piles, and other bins on the wide floor, the lanes between, and the pitch black voids connecting them, but no Love. He'd vanished into the shadows; escaped it seemed with Gina into the depths, no, worse, into the heights.

  I gained the floor, found a metal stairway, and started up only to discover I was still making mistakes. On the third step a shot rang out. I barely heard it, with that conveyor still running in the background, but I saw it as it ricocheted off the railing near my hand. There was an impressive spark in the gloom and the echo sounded louder than the shot had. I had been right, they were above me, and I was a sitting duck. I bit my lower lip and raced for the landing above. I vacated the stairs for cover in the shadows. Everything hurt but I ignored it, sucking wind and scanning the second floor. Other than a few bins and stacked boxes, it looked empty. There was certainly no shooter, meaning the bullet had come from higher still. I called out Eddie's name, good and loud, hoping to find him by drawing his fire, then hurriedly moved to another spot in the dark, hoping to avoid it when it came.

  It didn't come. Outside of the rumbling conveyor, now just a white noise below, the place was a tomb again. I waited, unmoving, hating myself for it but unsure what was next. Then I heard Gina cry out again. I felt like a kid's pull-toy being led around on a string but there was no choice, I had to follow the voices up. This time I raced the stairs, as best I could, from the start. No sense, limping as I was, giving Eddie more time than necessary to find the target. On the third floor, I hit the shadows again and strained to see that it was one big gaping space; empty as my reserve of courage, empty as Wenders' head. I could see little of the fourth floor and nothing of the fifth floor tower but knew they were there, harboring a killer and, if I didn't put it in gear, the soon-to-be-killed. Originally a gravity brewery, the place had been expanded and retooled over the years, the high tanks removed as other means of production took over. There was something else, something lethal, in the dark tower now. Gina screamed again and then, if I understood what I was hearing, was violently made to stop. I heard movement, running feet on the old tile above, and then the scuttling too came to a halt.

  I reached the fourth floor, hit the shadows, sidled up against an outside wall, and repeated the routine of scanning the expanse for any sign of who, what, why, where, and how. It was a big facility with a lot of buildings holding lots of junk but, if I was right, Love and his captive were there, on that floor. They had to be. Moonlight intruded in a stream between stacks of refuse guarding an open door in the north wall, the same outside wall against which I was hiding, and, of course, I was curious where a door over forty feet in the air led. I moved quickly and quietly to a window some distance short and, like the bear going over the mountain, looked out to see what I could see.

  What I saw was space and, four stories below, surrounded by the buildings that made up the complex, an open courtyard. Long bench tables dotted the flagstone floor between stacked totems of dirty cardboard and great snowy mountains for shredded office paper. It looked like a picnic area on a bizarre planet of papier mache. Near one of the towering mounds sat a giant sorting machine, while beside another stood an immense paper baler with yet one more conveyor belt poised to carry debris up to its gaping mouth. A huge magnet, to snag metal scraps before the plunge, dangled like a lifeless chandelier from the top of the rig. On the far side of the open area a faded-yellow front end loader sat quietly at bay; the junkyard's sleeping dog. It seemed a dire venue for the employees’ brown bag lunch breaks. Then again, perhaps I was unaware of the entertainment value in watching old things become new again. I caught my breath as the events of the evening, the last week and a half for that matter, caught up with me. My whole being shook with pain. If only they could recycle old detectives.

  The clouds parted and the moon, which had been playing peek-a-boo all night, shown full. I looked below again taking in the courtyard that was all aglow. The area was accessible from ground floor doors in each of the buildings and from all four floors at one spot or another by an outside set of metal stairs that started in the courtyard's northeastern corner and zig-zagged up to an iron walkway and balcony level with the floor I was on. The door in the wall I reported a moment ago opened onto this balcony. Now that the moon shone on it, I could see to its far end over-hanging the courtyard. When I did, I got a stunner. There lay Gina, half in moonlight, half in the shadow cast down by the old brewery's tower, curled up on the walkway floor.

  But where was Eddie?

  I'll let the history writers decide how it went from there. Some will say I made the next decision with my heart, some will say I used my little head, and others will say I used no head at all. I admit I was careless and probably foolish. But Gina was out there, unmoving, alone. I moved down the moonlit aisle, between the short shadowy gauntlet of bins and rubbish bookending the door, as quietl
y but as quickly as my limp allowed, and peered out at the church secretary face down at the far end. She was as still as death and I can't describe the bottomless feeling that overwhelmed me. With no further thought, I started out after her.

  The beauty of some mistakes is you find out so quickly that you've made them. I was still a good ten feet away from her when I discovered mine. From behind, there came a scream that would have gone swell with a monster movie. I turned and what I saw was right out of a horror flick too; a half-assed cowboy, big black hat, leather shit-kickers, a vest over top of evil-looking wall-to-wall tats and a meat-eating snarl as Eddie Love burst from the shadows of the doorway coming hard at me. He'd been hiding behind one of the stacks and I had, obviously, walked right past him. I deserved whatever the crazy bastard was about to deliver and, if I survived that night, I promised myself a swift kick in my own hind-end. Eddie bulldogged me with a shoulder to my gut and his Stetson in my face. I yelled, grabbed instinctively back at him, and left my feet as we slammed into the rail. If you're worried for Eddie, don't bother; I took the blow with the square of my back. He wasn't hurt a bit.

  I was just thanking the spinning stars that I'd shouted, expelling my wind and leaving him nothing to knock out of me, when I noticed the maniac was trying to bite me. You might think that made me mad but you're wrong. While he'd grown up in the wilds of the Rockies, I'd earned my stripes scraping in Chicago sandlots and, if the psycho jackwagon wanted to forget the Queensberry rules in favor of a good old-fashioned rumble, it was okay by me. I grabbed his ears, leaned right, and drove his face as hard as I could into the balcony rail to my left. Twice. I can't describe my elation as his big cowboy hat came off and kited away.

  Eddie reared back. Spitting blood, with gleaming eyes, he cried, “Be af-raid, for he does nawt bear the sword fer nothin'.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I heard it already.” I slammed a fist into his jaw.

  We fought for what seemed a long time, but must really have been only a scant few seconds, trading blows to the rising sound of approaching sirens. I thought our dance would continue until the cavalry arrived – but it wasn't to be. I tripped over my own feet and fell backwards. Love looked startled, as if he couldn't believe his luck, then made a quick motion to the small of his back. Again, I found myself staring down a cold steel barrel. The homicidal lunatic had pulled a gun.

  He laughed the same laugh that had played earlier from Lisa's answering machine, a cackle straight out of hell. A chill raced up my pain-wracked spine. This was it. The crazy bastard had managed to fulfill the promise he'd made the day of his last sentencing. He was going to kill me then and there. God, it was embarrassing.

  “Freeze, scumbag!”

  It seemed a stupid thing for him to shout with the situation being what it was. He had me dead to rights. Hell, he had me dead. Where was I going? What was I going to do? Then I realized, at the same time Eddie did, that Eddie wasn't the one that had shouted. It had come from behind, from the door to the fourth floor, in a high-pitched, nasally voice. Then, in a near-panic, it came again.

  “I said, Freeze!”

  Eddie turned, and I looked past him, to see a silhouette in the door opening. It was a man in a military crouch, arms extended, hands cupped, presumably around a gun though there was something wrong with the picture. Details were lost in the shadows. He took a half-step forward and moonlight glinted off his chest; a badge. He was pointing at the convict and, by extension, at me. I was both grateful for his arrival and hopeful he was a good shot. I never found out. With no hesitation, Love spun around and fired at him. The cop howled like a kicked dog, grabbed his shoulder, and went down in the dark. So much for the cavalry.

  Still, as I wasn't ready to be dead, I didn't let the interruption go to waste. I was up in that same beat and moving as Eddie spun back. He took a second to bring his gun around. That was enough. I kicked him in the groin as hard as I was able, screaming, “No more fucking guns!”

  His weapon flew into the air. I couldn't believe my luck. A second later, I couldn't believe my bad luck. Doubled-over, clutching himself, Love fell – right between the middle and top bars of the balcony rail.

  I hated Eddie Love. I wanted him dead as much as I'd wanted anything ever. He was a murderer and a psycho and, on top of that, he wanted me dead. But I needed him. He was Delp's hit man. Without him I had nothing but a story to tell at bedtime; no proof of anything. My heart went into my big mouth when he fell because I was watching my case take a header.

  Then I gulped it down. To my amazement, he caught the edge of the catwalk and stopped his fall. Love was dangling by his fingertips forty feet above the courtyard. I saw the ground below, I saw Love, I saw his whitening fingers. Suddenly, in one of those instances that takes you outside of yourself, with Love hanging over eternity, my attention was captured, riveted to the strangest, most inconsequential thing. I saw Love's fingers, only his fingers, and the tattoos he had obviously given himself during the ten years he'd stewed in prison. He'd inked my name, Blake, in blue, from the thumb running across his left hand, one letter on each digit. I couldn't believe it. Without knowing it, I'd gone to prison with him and had been living rent-free in his melon since the minute they slammed the cage on him.

  I shook myself out of it. The tats were fascinating but I also couldn't believe the situation we were in. After I kicked him, I thought Love was a goner. But there he was, there it was, my case against Delp hanging by its fingertips. “Son of a bitch,” I said, under my breath. I had no choice but to pull him back onto the catwalk, so I grabbed his wrists.

  That was all it took. The pain hit like an explosion in my head and the vision followed. I was standing in the middle of Market Street outside of the Riaz house. From the dark a car engine fired and growled. A vehicle, the vehicle, raced from the shadows as it had on that morning. It veered from the curb, across the center of the road, and came straight at me hell-bent for leather. Unlike the real event where everything was just a blur, I now saw all the details with crystal clarity, in a bizarre slow motion as if the scene was an action sequence in a Peckinpah film. I saw Love as I'd seen him in the murkier real-time version of the same mental movie, grinning maniacally through the windshield of the vehicle's… passenger side. The racing car hit me… again.

  I was back on the balcony, shaking myself out of it. I shouted and fought to get my bearings while the marbles rolled to a stop in my skull. In so doing, I turned and saw with delight that Gina was not dead. On the metal walk just out of reach, she'd risen to an elbow and was cringing against the railing bars, crying. I still had a hold of Love. I realized that when he reversed his hands and snatched me, grabbing my wrists. I could have kicked myself. Instead he started the kicking, below me, to get his legs moving and his body swinging. Great, I could barely breathe and he was doing a trapeze act. The motion yanked me forward where I hit the rails and, it dawned, he was trying to pull me off of the balcony. Apparently he didn't mind going if he could take me with.

  Then, somehow, Gina was at my side, reaching down through the rails toward our conjoined hands. I assumed she was trying to help me but, truth be told, I didn't know. I didn't know anything. She grabbed my wrists and – BOOM – I was hit with another mental flash as a new searing pain passed through my head.

  I was on Market Street again. Above it, as I flew up and over the racing black car. My feet cartwheeled over the hood, the roof; my chest brushed the windshield as I went past. I saw Love in the passenger's seat and, turning, I saw the driver.

  I was instantly back on the catwalk, teetering on the edge. Gina had my wrists above, Love below; both were making a wish. All the emotions of that incredible, heartrending case welled up from the pit of my soul, from the pits of despair. “Son of a bitch!” I cried. To hell with the case. To hell with the murdering cowboy trying to pull me to my death.

  Distantly, as if in a dream, Gina was yelling my name. I ignored her. I ignored everything but our connected hands just outside and below the balcony. I s
trained mightily to put distance between me and the rail. I threw my gumshoes against the lowest crossbar for leverage. I sucked in a load of air. I can't say I actually heard the Atlanta Rhythm Section playing Do It Or Die but should have. I shouted and, with everything I had left, yanked my hands free. Gina fell back on the balcony, screaming. Love groped, grabbed nothing but air, then fell, screaming.

  Nothing could have muted my cry either, and didn't. “SON OF A BITCH!”

  The cowboy landed with a dull thud. I caught the rail on the still-vibrating catwalk and pulled myself to safety. Gina was still screaming. I looked past her with unfocused eyes then turned below, found the ground and, half on the flagstones of the courtyard, half in the high grass below the balcony, spotted Love's broken body. He'd reached the end of his trail but wasn't much of a cowboy anymore. I'd gotten my wish and knocked him out from under his hat and, after, he'd only managed to die with one boot on. A cloud sashayed past the moon and Love disappeared in shadow.

  “Blake. Blake!”

  It was Gina. I ignored her and turned instead to the gloomy doorway where the balcony met the fourth floor. I called into the dark, to the crumpled cop lying in a heap, “Willie! What the hell are you doing here?” Holding his wounded shoulder, Willie Banks stirred then struggled to his feet and, smiling weakly through obvious pain, stepped from the old brewery into the moonlight.

  From below, from a thin alley leading from the courtyard to the side of the property between two of the buildings, came the sounds of sirens, the screech of tires, and the red-blue flicker of lights. Then came the sound of shouting voices and the clamor of running boots.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “You been good to ma and me, Blake,” Willie said, through his nose, as he tried to explain his nick-of-time appearance. “I wanted to make it up to you somehow. When I saw you and your sec-r-tary run out, I thought maybe ya'd need some help, so I followed ya.”