by P. N. Elrod
“He would have met his death sooner or later, for such was his life, and then at the hands of someone with far less conscience. If it is any comfort to you, I’m sure he never knew what hit him.”
“What is the magic word. What have I become? I’m no longer human.”
“That is utter nonsense and for your own good I suggest you put it from your head as quickly as possible. Do you in all truth really believe the biological changes within you have stripped you of humanity? You still possess your mortal clay, you still have emotional needs. I think you are giving far too much credence to a fictional character created out of the imagination of an actor’s manager.”
I gave him a sharp look.
“No, I’m no mind reader, but I can follow your line of reasoning. The character Dracula was a monster. He was also a vampire. You are now a vampire, ergo, you are a monster.”
“What makes you think I’m not? Maybe I should pull over and strangle the kid in the back.”
“If you feel it’s necessary, but you won’t.”
He was right, it’d been a stupid thing to say and said in anger.
“You’re feeling guilty, hence this black reaction. Feel guilty if you must, but leave self-pity out of it, for it is the most destructive of all emotions.”
“What makes you so smart?”
“I read a lot.” He bowed his head in weariness, looking green at the edges.
“You still want to go on after this?” I said, meaning the investigation.
“Oh, yes, but not just this moment.”
I heard something in the back and checked our prisoner from the mirror. “He’s waking up,” I whispered.
Escott nodded, tapping his lips with a finger. We kept silent for the rest of the trip while Georgie played possum in the backseat.
Following gestured directions, I negotiated the streets and pulled into a no-parking zone. We rubbed the interior down for fingerprints, got out, and Escott lifted the hood. He fiddled briefly with something as I kept a nervous lookout. We both jumped as the street was filled with the earsplitting blare of the car’s horn. Escott dropped the hood, swiped at it with his handkerchief, then grabbed my arm, and we hustled out of sight around a corner.
“What was that for?” I asked as we left the area.
“There’s a police station not a hundred feet from the car. Once that horn gets their attention they can take Georgie in at least for disturbing the peace. After they find Sanderson they can become more creative in their charges.”
“Why didn’t you want to question Georgie about this?”
“He wouldn’t have known anything useful. I’m already certain Paco ordered my untimely demise because I was clumsy somewhere in my investigations. I did quite a lot of poking around today and he must have got the wind up, and can only expect more of the same until one or the other of us has been eliminated.”
“You’re pretty cool about it.”
“Only because my head hurts too much at the moment for me to be overly concerned about the future.”
“You can’t go back to your office, they might be watching.”
“I have other places to . . . uh . . . lay low for the time being. However, I do have to return to my office to fetch some paperwork; it’s too important to leave. I’d be most obliged if you accompanied me. I don’t feel well at all.”
“Be glad to, but what if some of Paco’s men are there?”
“I’m inclined to think only Sanderson and Georgie were involved with this job, but we won’t know until we get there, which we won’t do unless we find a cab.”
Taking the hint, I left Escott resting on a bench outside a barbershop and went looking, turned up a cab near a hotel, and returned to pick him up. He gave directions and paid the driver off some two blocks away from our goal. We walked the rest of the way, eyes peeled, and turned onto the street that ran behind his office. He approached the door of a modest tobacco shop, produced a key, and went in, motioning me to follow. It was full of crowded shelves and fragrant smells, the second floor was devoted to storage and full of dusty crates. Escott pulled one away from the back wall and made something go click. A three-foot-tall section fitted between the wall studs popped open like a door. Two inches beyond this opening was another apparent wall. He put his ear to it and listened.
I made a reassuring gesture, then realized he couldn’t see it for we were in almost total darkness. “There’s no one on the other side or I’d hear them,” I murmured.
“Oh,” he said. He pushed on the wall, opening another narrow door, and eased himself through. I followed. We were standing in a small washroom, but only for a moment. Escott went on to the room beyond.
I correctly guessed it to be Escott’s living quarters behind the office. Except for a radio acting as a nightstand next to an army cot and the window blinds, the place was depressingly bare; even a hotel room had more personality. I found myself fidgeting as Escott moved smoothly around in the semidarkness. He pulled a suitcase from under the cot, opened a tiny closet, and was busily packing.
“You dropped a sock,” I observed.
“On purpose. Should they send anyone here later I want them to draw the conclusion that I’ve departed in a great hurry, which is what I am no doubt doing. Besides, it was developing a hole.”
He went to the office. His desk had been searched. He paused and grimaced at the mess, then stopped and grabbed up some scattered papers. “I’ll have to sort this lot out later,” he muttered. The crossbow was still on the desk; he picked it up and took it back to the bedroom. I wondered what his attackers had thought of it.
“This will hardly fit in my bag, I’ll have to leave it in the tobacco shop for the time being. It is a bit too conspicuous to carry right now.”
“How did you happen to have it in the first place?”
“It’s a working prop left over from my acting days. I made it for a small part I had in the Scottish Play.”
“The what?”
“Macbeth,” he said sotto voce. “As a weapon these days it is a little bulky, but it is powerful, lethal, and silent. I have smaller ones, but thought you might be more impressed with something large.”
“You thought right.”
“Then you’re certain wood can harm you?”
“The lady I knew in New York mentioned it.”
“Ah.” Escott returned to the washroom and shoved the suitcase through the doors, along with the crossbow. He paused at the medicine cabinet, dropped some shaving items into his pockets, and then, to my puzzlement, tugged at the frame of the cabinet itself. It swung out, revealing a flat metal box standing on edge in the space behind. He opened it, making sure the papers inside were still intact before taking them away.
“Who did your carpentry?”
“Oh, I did it all myself,” he said with some pride. “I love this sort of thing, don’t you?”
As Escott locked the tobacco shop door, I asked, “Do you own this place?”
“Half of it. The other owner actually runs it. I help him financially through these hard times and he helps me by maintaining a good hiding place and, if necessary, escape route with twenty-four-hour access and egress.”
“Are you rich?”
“Sometimes.” He swayed a little. “Sorry, that bash on the head is making itself felt.”
“Lemme take your bag.”
“Only if you insist.”
“Where to now?”
“I’m not sure. Not knowing just where I slipped up on my investigations, I can’t be certain which of my other places would be safe.”
“Then stay away from them and get a hotel.”
“Mr. Fleming, I don’t think you have grasped the tremendous influence the gangs have on this city. If I show my face at the wrong hostel I am very likely to get it blown off, putting to naught your efforts tonight on my behalf. Within hours, if not already, Paco and his men are going to know of my miraculous escape and be looking for me. It’s very bad for their image when someone thwarts the
m, you see.”
“Then you’ll leave town?”
“I’m . . . not sure.” Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead and his face was gray. He was having some kind of delayed reaction. I caught his arm to support him.
“Hey, you’re really sick. Come on, we’ll sneak you up the backstairs of my hotel, you can flop there.”
“But I really shouldn’t—”
“You can’t think in the shape you’re in now. You’ll be safe enough there under my name.”
He protested mildly once more, but now and then everybody needs a keeper. I appointed myself his and dragged him off.
Once back at the hotel, Escott collapsed with a groan on the bed while I ordered up some ice and poured out a double from Georgie’s permanently borrowed flask. With the whiskey on the inside and the ice on the bump outside, he went into an exhausted but healing sleep. I was stuck with the whole rest of the night and wondering what to do with it when someone knocked at the door. It was the bellhop returning with my change and receipts.
“You wasn’t here when I came on, or I’da brought ’em sooner.”
“That’s all right, I was busy. You got them all?”
He held up a few pounds of newsprint. “Sure do.”
I tipped him and told him I’d want copies of each paper every night and to put it on my bill. He grinned, knowing I’d have to tip him each time he brought them up. I winked back and took the papers inside.
I spent the rest of the evening reading. My notice appeared in the personal columns of them all and by some miracle the wording and spelling was correct.
DEAREST MAUREEN, ARE YOU SAFE YET? JACK
It was the same notice I’d been putting in the papers without a break for the last five years. If she were alive, if she only glanced once at it, she would let me know. After all this time I’d little hope left. Checking the papers for a reply each day and getting none had eroded most of it away. I fended off the inevitable depression of disappointment by sifting through the rest of the pages.
The war in Spain was heating up, FDR was confident the economic crisis was over, and there was an encouraging rumor on the fashion pages that hemlines were going up. The shoe ads reminded me it was high time I did something about my footwear, so I squeaked downstairs to look for my friend the bellhop. I gave him a picture of what I wanted with my size scribbled next to it, five bucks, and a silent blessing for not asking questions.
It was a longer night than usual, with nothing to do but listen to Escott sleep. The papers filled the time up, though, and I kept my eyes and brain focused on them or else I’d be seeing Sanderson’s mangled face instead. Before turning in I wrote a note for Escott, telling him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted and to put any meals on my tab. I opened the window wide, turned on the fan, and took to my trunk for the day.
He was gone when I woke up, but there was a note on the radio stating his intention to return after dark. I was uneasy but let it go and went through my nightly ablutions, dressed, and strolled downstairs to buy something to read. The bellhop had my shoes, and I let him keep the change for his tip. He was making a fortune off his oddball guest, but I didn’t mind; he was honest, incurious, and the shoes more or less fit. We got on so well he loaned me his own copy of Shadow Magazine. When Escott let himself in later, he found me comfortably engrossed in something called “Terror Island.”
“An intriguing title,” he observed. “Here, I borrowed your key.”
“Anytime, I’ve got other ways of getting in.” I marked my place and put the magazine to one side. He cocked an amused eye at it. “I know the writer; I like to keep up with his work,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.
“I have serious doubts that anyone can, he turns them out at an astonishing rate.”
“Well, they usually have more than one guy working on the stuff.”
“Not for this one so far. Certain elements of his style have been constant.”
“You don’t seem the type to go for stuff like this.”
“You are the first person who ever thought so.”
“I take it you’re feeling better?”
“Apart from the slight headache and some bruising, I am quite myself again, thank you.”
“What were you doing out in broad daylight?”
“I was safe enough after I retraced my steps by making a few calls on the phone downstairs—”
“Have a seat”—I dragged a pile of newsprint from the chair—“and tell me all.”
“Thank you, I will. Yesterday I paid a visit to International Freshwater Transport and while enquiring about their rates, took a good look around, especially at the faces of their help. At least three of them had no obvious duties other than to watch me, and the names of the daily work schedule were suspiciously neutral.”
“Neutral?”
“John Smith, John Jones, John—”
“I get it, go on.”
“As I was leaving the warehouse, I spotted Sanderson. With your description of him in mind and the fact that his index finger was still well bandaged, he was impossible to miss. He looked twice at me as well, perhaps for a moment he thought I was you. I left and then spent time researching the business. Several hours and false trails later, I determined that Frank Paco does own the business, but is overly modest about it. IFT is not a growing concern, they seem to make only enough to keep their heads above water—excuse the pun—but not much more. They also do not appear too interested in improving things, either. They were not at all anxious to do business with me, and the rates they quoted were discouragingly high.”
“So you think they have only a few select customers?”
“Yes, and to me that indicates smuggling.”
“What kind?”
“Almost anything: stolen goods, drugs, people wanting in or out of the country . . . Such business can be most profitable if properly organized. Perhaps if we returned to their warehouse and opened a few crates we could discover the source of their profits.”
“I’d be happy to try again.”
“Anyway, after all these labors I was quite starved and stopped in at a little cafe I like, and there made my downfall. It was pure carelessness on my part; that and the fact that Mr. Sanderson was a man very skilled at following people. His young partner Georgie was with him and sat nearby nursing some coffee, while the more noticeable Sanderson remained discreetly in his car. Georgie heard me order my meal sans the American accent I’d used at IFT. He must have mentioned it to Sanderson, then they followed me to my office.”
“How did you find this out?”
He coughed slightly. “One of the waitresses there is somewhat fond of me, I can’t imagine why, and she happened to notice their car tagging behind me when I drove off, and didn’t like the looks of it. From there I can deduce their later movements. Having found my office, Sanderson probably called his boss to inform him of my suspicious activities at the warehouse. Paco is not known for his tolerant attitude toward the curious, so he sent them after me. I think it was Georgie who did the actual violence to my person. His shoes were rubber soled.”
“How could he sneak up behind you in that small area?”
“Sanderson was using his car for a distraction. He was racing the motor with the bonnet up as though there were some problem with it. When I went to the window to see what the noise was about, Georgie coshed me. They went through my desk, as you saw and fortunately for me, waited for darkness before taking me downstairs in the rug. You know the rest.”
“Except what you did today.”
“With that out of the way I went home for a change of clothes and to make more calls. Georgie is still in jail and his friend Paco has never heard of him. I’ve also found out Paco is no longer actively seeking me.”
“Why not?”
“That is a good question. Perhaps he’s under someone else’s orders or something else has him busy.”
“Who or what?”
He shrugged. “It or they have my gratitu
de in the meantime. I think I may have turned up an interesting possibility for you. If you’ve nothing better to do we can look into it more closely tonight.”
“Are you kidding? I’ll get my hat.”
We went down and got into a black Nash that had been a luxury model a few years ago. The outside had some dimples in the metal running in an almost straight line from front to back, but the finish had been well polished and the interior was as clean and blank as his office.
“What are those marks? They look like bullet holes.”
“They’re bullet holes. I had them repaired, as they ruined the paint job.”
“Bullet holes?”
“Bullet dents, actually.”
“How’d they get there?”
“I understand someone took a few shots at the previous owner with a machine gun.” He busied himself with starting the motor.
On the front seat between us was a hat, a brown derby with a red satin band. On one side of the band was a miniature stickpin in the shape of a diamond-trimmed horseshoe. He took his own hat off and put this one on. He was wearing dark gray so it figured he had some good reason to look so mismatched. He saw the question forming on my face and smiled.
“It’s our passport,” he explained, which explained nothing. He liked his mystery game, so I let him enjoy it. He was working on my case and whatever he wanted was fine with me.
We drove to an area he said was called the Bronze Belt, which was Chicago’s version of Harlem. Once there, he cruised the streets slowly, scanning them for something or someone. I asked him which.
“Oh, definitely a person. One has only to make the right contact and one is in.”
I nearly asked in what, but that would have been too obvious and I’d been thinking of something else, anyway. “Have you turned up anything on this Benny Galligar?”
“From my local sources I learned he is considered to be only ‘small time,’ though he specializes in safe-cracking and lately some bodyguard work. No one has seen him for a week or more but I have several inquiries going. He should turn up soon.”
“Hope so, I’d like to know why he called me, if he did call me.”
