“Marcus, no . . . not this . . . please,” I pleaded, taking a step forward. The gun was under my jacket on the chair, but from across the room, it looked a million miles away. “I’m sorry I left you, but please don’t . . . not this . . . not to her.” My heart pounded away in my ears like a bass drum.
The right side of her face was smashed against the desk, looking in my direction. It was tempting to look away, to avoid seeing the strain on her face and how it had turned beet red. The tails of her long shirt barely covered her exposed hip and thigh. I was a witness to her humiliation by Hennemann, and I hated him for it.
The floor creaked as I took another calculated step toward the covered gun in the guest chair.
Her fits of coughing told me that she was struggling to slip free from him, though she’d made no progress. “Kip, stop this son of a bitch,” she begged with a shaky voice on the edge of breaking into a sob. “Please, Kip!”
With his free hand, Hennemann produced his gun and shoved the barrel against Janae’s temple. “You say another word, bitch, and I will end you right here and throw you from the window when I’m done!”
“No!” I screamed, advancing to the chair between us. “Let her go!”
His eye scope turned as bright a red as I’d ever seen it. “What do you care?”
I clutched the back of the guest chair as adrenaline sped through my body. Knowing I’d have to shoot and probably kill him if I couldn’t talk him out of this, I tried to plan my move. Did I dare throw my jacket at his face to distract him while I pulled the gun? Would a stunt like that get Janae killed?
Stealing a quick glance down at the coat, I saw that my knuckles were white as snow. I relaxed my right hand—my pistol hand. With a mouth as dry as cotton, I said, “Marcus, she helped me find him. We found Jason O. He’s downstairs.”
The barrel shifted from Janae’s head to my chest. “He’s downstairs? Why is he down there?”
This was it. I needed to act casual. If I could get him to follow me, nobody would get shot. Though terror raged inside me, I presented the most placid poker face I’d worn in my life. “He’s just down there,” I said, scooping up the weapon in my jacket. It felt as heavy as an anvil. “We tied him to a chair. I knocked him out and didn’t want to lug him upstairs.”
“Stop coughing,” Hennemann ordered Janae. My heart sank when he returned the gun to the side of Janae’s head. At least I had a chance to fall to the floor and dodge a shot if it came to that. There was nowhere for her to go.
“She’s got a condition of some sort—it makes her cough when she exerts herself,” I explained. Hoping to get us back on track, I motioned to him. “Come on, Marcus. Let her go and we’ll go down to see him.”
Judging by the grunt she made, Hennemann pressed harder against her. He sounded unconvinced. “Where did you find him?”
Folding the jacket over my arm as nonchalantly as possible without dropping the gun, I replied, “He was in Club Whiplash. When I went in, he ran out the front, and I chased him down the road. There wasn’t time to get you.”
“That damned shirt lifter in the club said you left by the back door.”
I concealed my shock at the revelation that he’d encountered Garrett Olsen after all. I attempted to play it off. “What? Olsen? Of course he’d lie. He was trying to protect Jason.”
“Well, he won’t be lying to anyone anymore. He’s got a bullet in his sodomite chest.”
My heart sank. If Janae wasn’t in jeopardy, I would’ve drawn on him at that exact moment, but I couldn’t risk it while there was a chance I could lure him away and avoid gunplay.
“Where did she come in?” Hennemann asked.
My head was reeling. “What do you mean?”
Janae’s eyes were as wide as saucers looking back at me in hopelessness.
Hennemann shifted his weight. “You said she helped you find him, but then you told me he made a run for it at the club. If we weren’t such good friends, I’d think you were trying to lie to me, Kip.” He said my name sharply, and I was certain he was on to me.
His voice was humorless. “Now be a good boy and leave Mommy and Daddy alone for a few minutes. We’ve got some business to do here. You can wait in the steam carriage ‘till I’m done.”
I stiffened, bracing for what I was about to do. “I can’t let you do that, Marcus.”
“Can’t let me, eh?”
“No, I can’t.” I pulled the gun from under the jacket. “Let her go or I will drop you where you stand!”
“Do it, Kip!” Janae shrieked, trying to wriggle free. “Shoot him! He can’t shoot us both.”
“Mr. Kipsey, I’m disappointed in you. That’s not very sportsmanlike.” He pressed the barrel into Janae’s skull hard enough to make her eyes close. She coughed.
“I’m serious!” I shouted, trying to keep my arm from shaking. “I’ll put you down.”
He scowled. “You don’t have the sauce, boy.” His expression changed to that wolfish grin I’d grown to despise. “Wait a minute. Where’d you get that gun from?”
“You know where I got it, you bastard. It’s Fitzpatrick’s. Now throw your gun to the side and get off her.” I clicked the trigger back and felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of my neck. “Do it now!”
“Go ahead,” Hennemann said mockingly.
“Do you want to die here?” I shouted.
He was laughing now. “No more than you, but do what you gotta do.”
“Do it, Kip!” Janae yelled, still trapped beneath the massive metal arm. “Shoot him!”
“Last chance, Hennemann.” I’m not a crack shot like some of my former colleagues on the force, but even I couldn’t miss from this distance. Moving to the side to avoid hitting Janae, I braced for the gun’s recoil.
Why was he grinning?
I stiffened and let the hammer fall.
Nothing happened.
I frantically pulled the trigger again and again.
Hennemann roared with laughter. “Did you really think I’d give a functioning weapon to a skivvy stain like you?”
I tore my eyes away from Janae and saw he’d tampered with it. A small, sticky mound blocked the hammer from coming all the way down and hitting the primer. The barrier looked like chewed bits of cigar wrapping and tobacco. There was no time to scrape it out now.
The mocking continued. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to draw on me, but then again, maybe you’re a bit yellow in that way.”
I was furious he’d slipped me an inoperable gun at the supposed shootout at Olsen’s. My mind played back every instance I’d drawn it thinking it was in working order. The mixture of anger and fear flooded my heart as I let the gun slam to the floor.
I looked at Janae, ashamed of myself, but she was concentrating on something else. She’d managed to partially free one of her hands from beneath her breasts. I caught the glint of something shiny in her grasp.
Hennemann aimed his gun back at me. “As much fun as we’ve had today, Kipsey, I can’t let you get away with drawing on me. Even though I made that gun unfireable, you obviously thought it would work.”
His smile transformed into a grimace that displayed all of his nasty looking teeth. “I can’t have that . . . simply can’t allow it. That and I also owe you for roughing up Mr. Montague in the study, and I’ve never been one to welch on a debt. It’s time to settle accounts, Mr. Kipsey.”
I stumbled on Fitzpatrick’s gun as I took a step backward. The sound of Hennemann clicking back the hammer of his Colt single-action pistol had my full attention. I expected it to be the last sound I ever heard . . . but it wasn’t.
A primal roar tore through the office. It took a second for me to realize the gut-wrenching scream came from him. Bright blue light crackled around his metal arm like an electrical vine. He staggered backward, and Janae pulled free.
There was a single shot from his gun, but the bullet ricocheted off the file cabinet to my left. The big man was no longer in control of his fac
ulties, much less able to aim a weapon. Crouched behind the chair, I watched him stiffen and wobble from side to side like a wooden top slowing down. His mechanical arm emitted sparks. The room was bathed in random bursts of eerie blue-white light.
Janae got her trousers up around her hips and faced her assailant. She twisted the dial on the side of Rodger and administered another jolt to his metal arm. For a split second, I grimaced, a small part of me empathizing with his agony. I thought of the snake that Janae had told me about exploding into flames.
Hennemann and I locked eyes for a moment. His mouth quivered as if to say something to me, as if to petition me for mercy, but the words didn’t come. I knew that helpless feeling and was forced to look away. There was a third shock. I didn’t watch it, but I felt it. The hair on my head and arms responded to the electricity in the air. Another hellish scream erupted from him, this one more mournful than the one before, as if he knew this was the end.
I looked up in time to see him collapse in a heap, the look of panic frozen on his face. Janae narrowly escaped being trapped under him as he fell toward the desk. He hit the side of it on his way to the floor, causing the end of it to break off with a sharp crack. The window across the room shook from the impact of his fall, as well as every small object in the place. Loose papers and case files shifted on the floor.
Faint wisps of smoke lingered around his arm, and there was a sickening salty-sweet smell in the air. Let’s just say it’d be a long time before I’d be able to eat ham.
Other than a few bouts of her coughing, Janae and I were stunned to silence.
I moved to help her, but she waved me off as she struggled to fasten her pants with shaking hands. “Don’t touch me . . . I can’t . . . please, just don’t. I don’t want to be touched right now. Dammit, that bastard tore the buttons off. I’m gonna need some thread.”
I pulled a sewing kit from the file cabinet drawer. “Here, use this. Are you all right?”
She was trembling, hot tears of anger on her face. “Do I look all right? No, I’m fairly certain I’m less than all right at the moment.” She coughed as she retrieved a button near Hennemann’s body. “I can’t do this now. I’m too worked up to hold my hand steady.” Clenching her trousers closed with her fist, she reached for Hennemann’s gun.
Alarmed by the notion of her holding Hennemann’s pistol in her unsteady hands, I picked Rodger up from where it’d rolled across the floor. “Here, let’s trade.”
After a tense few seconds, she reluctantly forfeited the weapon for the familiarity of Rodger. She clutched it like a baby’s rattle. “He didn’t know what this was or he would’ve taken it from me.”
“You had it in your hands the entire time?”
“Yeah, but with him . . .” She looked at the ground. “With him on me, I couldn’t get loose to use it until he got distracted by wanting to shoot you.”
“Did you know it would kill him?”
“I had an idea it might, with this metal arm and all.” She rubbed her eyes forcibly as if ashamed of the tears. “I’m so angry! I can’t stand this. I can’t find the other two buttons.”
“Uh . . . I think they may be under . . .” I pointed at Hennemann.
She turned and drove her boot hard into Hennemann’s large torso and then even more forcefully into his crotch. There was no response. The man was definitely dead. She kicked him again, even more violently, as if the impact could transmit the pain into whatever part of the afterlife he now occupied. “How does that feel, you degenerate prall?”
I instinctively reached to comfort her, then pulled away, trying to honor her request to not be touched. “Janae, please have a seat over here, and I’ll brew us some tea.”
She seethed at me. “Tea? Give me that bottle instead!”
I knew the anger wasn’t directed at me and let it go. In the calmest voice possible, I replied, “Yes, you’re right. I think the harder stuff will work better for me too.”
As I moved to the bust of Aristotle, I heard sounds from the hallway. Putting my finger to my lips, I motioned to Janae. She sprang from the chair like a cat and readied Rodger for another round. I crept to the door and listened to the voices in the hallway.
“Reinforcements?” a wide-eyed Janae whispered.
Holding up a hand to silence her, I put my ear to the door. There was a gruff-sounding baritone down the hallway, but I couldn’t make out what the man said. I lifted Hennemann’s still-smoking gun and slowly cocked it.
I was relieved to hear the familiar voice of Miss Talbot as she hobbled down the corridor. “I told you, Mr. Jacobson, I’ll take care of it. Now, please return to your room.”
Ah, that’s who the mystery man’s voice belonged to.
Miss Talbot tapped on my door with her cane.
Though I knew it was her, I asked, “Yes? Who is it?”
“Mr. Kipsey, it’s Miss Talbot. What’s going on in there?”
I lowered the gun. “Sorry for the noise. A champagne bottle went off. I just solved a big case.”
“Well, I’m glad for you, but this is two nights in a row you’ve made a ruckus. I didn’t say anything about it last night, being New Year’s and all, but I can’t let this become a habit. Will you open this door?”
I looked around at the mess, not to mention the large dead body of Marcus Hennemann next to my destroyed desk. There was no way I could let her in. “No, sorry, Miss Talbot. I’m not clothed.”
Across the room, Janae pointed at Rodger and mouthed, “Do you want me to shock her?”
I vehemently shook my head no.
“You’re not clothed?” the voice said from the other side of the door, and I knew what was coming next. “Mr. Kipsey, you’re not celebrating with a woman, are you? Because if you—”
“No, of course not, Miss Talbot. Doing that would be in violation of our agreement. I just spilled champagne on my clothes, and I’m changing out of them.”
“Champagne, huh?”
“Right.” I tried a bluff. “If you’ll wait a few minutes, I’ll change and you can come in and finish what’s left of the bottle with me.”
“No, Mr. Kipsey. You know I don’t give over to drink except for communion wine. You’re sure there’s no one else in there with you?”
I looked across the room at Janae, who had crouched before Hennemann. What was she doing?
“Mr. Kipsey, are you there?”
Janae coughed. I tried to match the sound to make my landlord think it was me. “Uh, yes, Miss Talbot . . . I mean yes, I’m here, but no, there’s no one in here celebrating with me.” It was a partial truth at least—there wasn’t much celebrating happening.
“All right, then. Goodnight to you, and keep it down.”
“Yes, sorry, and goodnight to you as well. Happy New Year.”
“All right, happy New Year.”
I waited with my ear still pressed against the door, knowing she was on the other side doing the same. I would have heard her walking away. Why didn’t she go?
Something was happening with Janae. She sprang to her feet and backed away from Hennemann’s corpse with a shudder. She’d seen something, but what? Miss Talbot would hear me if I asked. Why didn’t the old woman mind her own business and go back downstairs? Not to be insensitive, but I hoped Janae could be quiet about whatever was wrong.
She backed away, only stopping when she hit the file cabinet. She turned to look at me. Horror filled her eyes. She hadn’t even looked this upset when Hennemann tried to rape her. What was going on here?
She coughed again, forcing me to mimic it for the ear that I was certain was still pressed to the other side of the door.
Finally, I heard the rhythmic tap of Miss Talbot’s cane against the floor and her shuffle heading down the hallway.
“She’s gone,” I said softly as I moved to Janae, whose face had gone pale.
“It’s him. He’s the one who . . .” She wedged herself in the corner as if attempting to make herself smaller. Her eyes were filled with
madness.
Despite her earlier request not to be touched, I took her shoulders to keep her from falling. “What do you mean? He’s what one?”
With eyes focused on the dead body, she slid out of my grip and collapsed into a sitting position on the floor. She shook her head violently as she hyperventilated and coughed.
“It’s all right. Try to calm yourself. How do you know him, Janae? Is it something about Jimmy? You can tell me.”
Her words were choppy as she fought for breath. “He . . . he . . . he’s the Charon who killed my father.”
Twenty-Two
“I’m from below the city,” she blurted out in sobs. “And this Charon killed my father.”
I shook my head. It was too much, and I’m certain my face showed it as I stared at my companion open-mouthed. Turning the guest chair to face her, I plopped down in it hard. “Do you realize what you’re saying?” I studied her for any sign that this was a joke in very bad taste. “That would mean you and your brother are—”
“Not Jimmy, just me.” She clamped her gloved hands under her arms with her head down. “I was born in what everybody calls the Under.”
“But you look—”
“Like what? I look like what?” she asked sharply, fixing a defiant gaze upon me. “Just what is someone from below supposed to look like?”
I stroked my forehead with my fingertips.
For many years, I worked to master an expressionless face of stone for gambling halls. Not to boast out of turn, but through hours of practice in front of numerous parlor mirrors, I’ve achieved a reasonably formidable mask. This was too much to conceal.
“It’s just that . . . well . . . you know, scrapes are supposed to be like—”
“Please don’t use that term.”
I sighed. “Sorry, this is a bit overwhelming.” My words stuck in my mouth like molasses. “I was always taught that those who lived under the city were more like . . . I guess like . . . animals. I mean, it’s what everybody says.”
She stood, headed across the room to the near-empty bottle, and took a deep swig. I didn’t mind if it got her talking. I was intrigued now that my sense of repulsion had lifted.
Addleton Heights Page 21
