Doctor Who - [New Adventure 29] - [Vampire Trilogy 2] - Blood Harvest

by Terrance Dicks

  BLOOD HARVEST by TERRANCE DICKS

  First published in Great Britain in 1994 by Doctor Who Books an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd 332 Ladbroke Grove London W10 5AH Copyright (c) Terrance Dicks 1994 "Doctor Who" series copyright (c) British Broadcasting Corporation 1994 ISBN 0 426 20417 4 Cover illustration by Bill Donohoe Typeset by Intype, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  E-Book version:

  primary scan/proof by Shakaar

  lit file format and build by Wordsmith

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1 THE BIG FELLOW

  2 DOC'S PLACE

  3 CONNECTIONS

  4 THE VILLAGE AND THE TOWER

  5 VAMPIRE

  6 THE INVITATION

  7 THE ATTACK

  8 HIS HONOUR THE MAYOR

  9 THE MEETING

  10 THE REVENANT

  11 RESISTANCE

  12 CONFERENCE

  13 DEATH TRAIL

  14 TRACKDOWN

  15 THE ARREST

  16 SUMMIT OF DEATH

  17 FLIGHT

  18 PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

  19 THE TRAIL

  20 RESCUE

  21 THE BATTLE

  22 SARGON'S CASTLE

  23 VAMPIRE HISTORY

  24 THE QUARRY

  25 CRACK-DOWN

  26 FAREWELL PARTY

  27 ESCAPE TO DANGER

  28 GALLIFREY

  29 THE THREE

  30 RASSILON

  31 SWEET HOME CHICAGO

  EPILOGUE

  Never play cards with a man called Doc

  Never eat out at a place called Mom's

  Never lie down with a woman

  Whose troubles are worse than your own

  PROLOGUE

  The Doctor came hurrying into the TARDIS, curly hair standing on end with excitement, long scarf trailing behind him. K-9 was plugged into the console and lights were flashing furiously.

  As the Doctor entered, K-9 unplugged himself and turned round. "Computations completed, Master! Using information from the Hydrax data banks I have computed an infallible method of entering and leaving E-space at will."

  "Never mind that now!"

  K-9 was hurt. "Leaving E-space matter of highest priority, Master!"

  "So is this! Romana insists on leaving us, K-9. She wants to help Biroc free the Tharils. I can't go with her. Will you?"

  There was a moment's pause.

  "She needs you, K-9," said the Doctor. "She's taken on a huge job and she needs your help. Will you go?"

  K-9 said "Affirmative, Master!"

  The Doctor picked up K-9, hugged him and carried him out of the TARDIS.

  A few moments later he came back in, alone. He went back to the console and re- ran the data K-9 had just loaded, storing it in his Time Lord memory. It was an elegant solution - and very logical. "Of course!" he said. "So simple I couldn't see it! Clever old K-9. We can go back now."

  Somehow the idea didn't seem to give him very much pleasure.

  Things would be very different without Romana and K-9. There was still Adric, of course.

  Then came the explosion.

  The hidden control room, deep in the heart of the Capitol, had long been cleansed, deactivated and sealed. Tarnished by a history of ancient evil, it was a place of unspeakable horror, no longer discussed, or even thought of by the civilization that had created it. Yet now it was in use once again.

  Two black-robed and hooded figures watched a third as he struggled with a complex array of ancient equipment. There was a console, a variety of controls, a monitor screen bordered with elaborate metal scroll-work.

  One of the hooded watchers spoke. "Can it be reactivated?"

  The one at the console said, "It won't be easy. Flavia's lackeys were thorough."

  "But without the Time Scoop - "

  "Visual function at least can be restored. We can observe. When the time comes, we shall find ways to intervene."

  The watcher raised his voice in a ritual incantation.

  "Death to the Doctor!"

  The second watcher joined him:

  "Borusa lives!"

  All three chanted the final, blasphemous line:

  "Rassilon must die!"

  The figure at the console returned to his work.

  On the monitor the swirling mists of space and time cleared to reveal a city.

  A city of towers beside a lake.

  "But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is

  neither tarnished nor afraid ... He is the hero, he is everything ...

  He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

  The story is this man's adventure in search of a hidden truth."

  Raymond Chandler: "The Simple Art of Murder"

  1 THE BIG FELLOW

  It was a bright winter morning, the sun shining with a sharp jab of cold in the wind off the lake. Chicago looked swell - like a beautiful woman with an ice pick in her stocking top.

  I was driving along Lake Shore Drive in my old Buick. I was wearing the new dark-blue pin-stripe with trenchcoat and snap-brim fedora. I was everything the well-dressed private eye ought to be. I was calling on a hundred million dollars.

  The invitation had arrived in my office a few hours earlier. It was my first day in business and I was sitting behind my new desk wondering what the hell to do next. The desk itself wasn't new, it came with the office. The previous occupant was in the insurance business, until someone cancelled his policy with three slugs from a Saturday night special in a South Side speakeasy.

  Suddenly shy a tenant and a month's rent, the landlord had rented me the office at a bargain rate and thrown in the fixtures and fittings for free. I was now the proud owner of a hat-rack, a worn-out carpet, a cigarette-scarred wooden desk, one swivel and two rickety kitchen-type chairs and a beat-up green filing cabinet filled largely with Chicago air.

  The desk was pretty empty too, except for the bottle of bourbon - well, the label said bourbon - in the deep file drawer.

  I was just deciding that it was too early for a drink but I'd go ahead and have one anyway when my first business opportunity arrived.

  It arrived in the shape of two hard-eyed characters in black topcoats and identical pearl-grey felt hats with broad black hatbands. The topcoats hung open to reveal dark suits, white shirts and striped ties. In certain criminal circles, gaudy vests, loud ties and diamond tie-pins were a thing of the past.

  The Big Fellow liked the hired help to look respectable.

  The get-up had changed but the manners were the same as ever. They shoved the door open without knocking and stepped forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, sneering down at me. Both were beefy and blue-jawed, one tall, the other short and stocky.

  "Morning gents," I said cheerfully. "What can I do for you? Lost dogs, missing mothers? You do have mothers?"

  The tall hood said, "They told us you was a wiseguy, Dekker."

  The thickset one said, "We gotta come all the way downtown to this dump to listen to cheap wisecracks from a cheap peeper."

  He spat on the carpet, which needled me more than somewhat.

  "Hang on till I send for a spittoon
," I said. "Try to remember you're not at home."

  "On your feet, shamus," said the tall one. "We're going for a ride."

  "One way?"

  "Someone wants to see you."

  I stood up, hands on the side of the desk.

  "Clients are welcome in office hours," I said. "House calls can be arranged by appointment."

  "Cut the wisecracks, Dekker," said the stocky one. "Move your ass or we'll move it for you."

  I picked up the desk and threw it at them. The desk smashed them apart like ninepins, knocking them to the floor. By the time they made it to their feet I had the .45 out and was covering them both.

  I felt under their arms and took away their guns. I knew they'd both have guns, just as I knew they'd both have permits. I grabbed the thickset one and shoved him down on his knees.

  "Clean up the carpet," I said. "Clean it up, or I'll scrub it with your face."

  He took the display handkerchief from his pocket and scrubbed away at the spittle. I let him up.

  "Get your hats, you're leaving."

  They grabbed their hats, getting the wrong ones in their hurry. The tall one's hat came down over his ears, the stocky guy's hat perched on top of his head.

  "Change hats, boys," I said. "And next time you're sent on an errand, act polite."

  They changed hats and beat it. I heard their feet clattering down the stairs. I picked up the desk and put it back in place. I checked the telephone - it still seemed to be working. I looked in the file drawer and found the booze had survived, although one of the glasses was broken. I poured myself a drink in the remaining glass, set fire to a Camel and sat staring into space in a kind of dream.

  The sunlight printed the lettering from the office window onto the carpet in reverse. "Untermeyer Insurance" it said.

  I ought to get it changed to "Thomas Dekker - Investigations", I thought - but was I going to be around long enough to justify the expense? What seemed like a long time later the phone rang and I grabbed it. "Dekker."

  There was a moment of silence. Then a soft voice said, "They tell me you make house-calls, shamus?"

  "Only for very big clients."

  "Hawthorne Hotel, noon," said the voice. There was another pause, then the voice added, "That polite enough for you, Mister Dekker?"

  "That's just fine, Mr. - ?"

  The voice said, "Ask for Al Brown," and the phone went dead. I hung it back on the stand and poured myself another drink. After all, this was a special occasion. It's not every day you get a call from Al Capone.

  Some people said Capone owned Chicago, which was kind of an exaggeration. He owned the little suburb of Cicero for sure though, lock, stock and cops as well.

  He'd owned it since the last local elections, when so many bombs went off it was christened the Pineapple Primary.

  The bombs and bullets of Capone's hoods had made sure the voting went the right way.

  The Mayor and City Council came with the package. To ram the point home, Capone had dragged the Mayor out of his office and kicked him down the steps of the Town Hall for talking back.

  The Hawthorne Hotel was a three-storey brown brick joint on Twenty-Second Street, just west of Cicero Avenue. It was a high-class hotel that had gone down in the world - and come up again when Mr. Brown picked it for his out-of-town HQ. Now it had all kinds of improvements, like steel shutters at the windows and resident mobsters wall-to-wall.

  I parked the Buick by a fire hydrant and went inside.

  There was only one way into the Hawthorne, along a passageway that led into the lobby. The front desk, cigar stand and all the lobby chairs faced right down that passageway. The lobby was crowded with hard guys - I could feel myself being watched every step of the way.

  I headed for the reception desk. Before I got there a slender, dark man appeared by my side. "Dekker?"

  "That's me."

  "Frank Rio. You're expected. This way."

  He led me across to a row of elevators on the left of the lobby and opened the door with some kind of special key. The lush velvet-lined elevator whisked us up to the top floor. The elevator doors opened onto a thickly carpeted hallway with a mahogany table and a set of double doors on the far side.

  There were two armchairs, one each side of the door, a mobster lounging in each one. They had hats tipped over their eyes and looked to be asleep.

  I headed for the doors but Rio barred my way. "The iron, shamus. No one gets in to see the Big Fellow heeled. Not unless he's on the payroll."

  "What happens if I object? You wake the sleeping beauties?"

  I glanced at the two hoods in the armchairs.

  "Why bother?" said Rio.

  I looked back, and found he was covering me with a Browning automatic.

  I glanced back at the two mobsters and found they were suddenly wide awake and pointing black automatics at me.

  I shrugged and took the Colt .45 from under my arm, slamming it on the table.

  "This one I'd like back."

  I took out the guns that had been weighing down my left and right-hand suit pockets.

  "These belong to your messenger boys."

  Rio slid all three guns into the table drawer and slipped the Browning back under his arm. "Inside."

  I went through the double doors.

  The big room beyond was a combined office and parlour. A dictator-sized desk, overstuffed armchairs and sofas, a drinks cabinet against the wall. Steel shutters were folded back on the big windows, and a massive shape stood gazing down at the bustle of Twenty-Second Street.

  As the door closed behind me he swung round and came towards me. I was looking at a bulky figure in a pearl-grey suit, cut by the best tailor in Chicago. The tailoring wasn't quite good enough to disguise the belly, but I got the feeling there was more muscle there than fat. The body was topped by a big round head with greased-back hair. The plump, jowled baby-face had a big cigar stuck in the middle.

  I was looking at the man who liked to use the alias Al Brown. He was also known as the Big Fellow. He was Scarface Al Capone.

  The thought of the nickname made me look for the scars - I'd never been close enough to get a good look at them before.

  There were three of them: one on the left cheek, one on the jaw, the third on the neck. They'd faded with time and were no more than thin, white lines.

  I must have looked a bit too long. The Big Fellow noticed but he didn't seem to mind.

  "Spoil my beauty, don't they?"

  It was the same soft husky voice I'd heard on the phone.

  "Know how I got "em?"

  I decided to act diplomatic.

  "I read in the paper how you got them in the Big War, heroically saving your platoon from a Mills bomb."

  Capone chuckled. "Those newspaper slobs will print anything. I got 'em in New York when I was a kid, working in Franky Yale's bar on Coney Island. A skinny little guy called Galluchio comes in with his kid sister. She's a real hot little piece and I make some crack about her having a nice ass. I mean it like a compliment, but you know how we Italians are about family. Her brother pulls a knife - little bastard really cut me good. I hadda have about thirty stitches."

  "How did Galluchio make out? Is he still around?"

  "He's fine. I went looking for him when I got outta hospital, but Joe the Boss made us have a sit-down at the bar. He said I was outta line making cracks about the guy's sister, and Galluchio had a right to be sore but he shouldn't have cut me. We both apologized and that was that." Capone sighed. "People had standards in those days, we knew how to behave. These guys today... You're Dekker, right?"

  "Right."

  Suddenly the amiable grin turned to a glare that could curdle bootleg bourbon.

  "You take chances, Dekker, bouncing my boys around."

  "I took the chance that if Mr. Brown wanted a private eye, he'd want one who wasn't too easy to lean on. Consider the bouncing act my references."

  The grin came back and I breathed again. Capone went over to the big drinks ca
binet and fixed himself a brandy in a balloon glass you could have taken a bath in.

  "Drink, Dekker?"

  "Only when I can get it. I'll take bourbon."

  He poured me a slug of Jim Beam - real Jim Beam -and handed it over. He went behind the big desk and sat down in a swivel chair.

  "You were a cop, right Dekker? Till you got canned."

  "Till I quit," I said with dignity.

  "How come? Being on the cops is a good racket in this town."

  "That was my problem. I had this dumb idea about a cop being some kind of public servant."

  "So what happened?"

  "I busted Pete Gusenberg for putting the muscle on a poor little slob of a saloon keeper. The guy wouldn't change suppliers so Pete broke his jaw. I was having a quiet drink, saw the ruckus and pulled Pete in. He got a little damaged in the process."

  "That Gusenberg, he's an animal," said Capone disgustedly. "The times I try to talk sense into him, make a business arrangement, but will he listen? So what happened?"

  "Down at the station Pete has a private chat with Reilly, the Precinct Captain. Then Reilly calls me in and tells me he's dropping the charge. He just happens to have an envelope stuffed with greenbacks which he offers to split with me."

  "What did you do?"

  "I slugged the Captain."

  Capone chuckled wheezily. "So they busted you?"

  "They wanted to, but I threatened to tell the press boys why I slugged him. So we did a deal. They got my resignation, I got a licence to be a shamus."

  Capone took a last puff on his cigar. "I got a job for you, Dekker."

  I drew a deep breath. It was now or never.

  "I may have left the cops, Mr. Capone, but I haven't crossed any lines. So if you want me to drive a beer truck, muscle a saloon keeper or take some guy for a ride..."

  Capone held up a massive paw.

  "Don't insult me, Dekker. For jobs like that I got all the guys I can use. This job's strictly legit. I want you to check someone out for me."

  "Like who?"

  "A guy called Doc."

  "Why, the very guys that make my trade good are the ones that yell the

  loudest about me. Some of the leading judges use the stuff. When I sell