by P. N. Elrod
“I honestly can’t say I would have, but I might if she’d shown any sign of still being human. Nothing was there, not even an animal was left, just this thing. You can feel sorry for an animal; all I felt toward her was fear and disgust, as one fears a disease. To let her go would be to give it a chance to kill again. I shut her away. For forever, I thought.”
“Why’d you stay on with Nevis?”
“It was a good job, and it might look odd if I suddenly quit so soon upon his precious Lena’s disappearance. He was fair to me, too. He could overlook certain things so long as I showed up on time and did my work well.”
“Why did you come here to me? I should think after finding the body you’d have packed and left.”
“I had some idea that I should be in a position where I could keep an eye on things. I never dreamed you’d give me a job like this. I actually had a hope I could give Norrie a real home, nothing fancy, but better than she’d known before. Back when I first took her away I told her that I was going to be her daddy, and we’d live happily ever after. She believes I’m her real daddy now, and sometimes I can believe it myself.”
There was a world of grief and agony in his eyes. Tears threaded steadily down his cheeks. “Mr. Fleming, I shall never have children. Norrie is the closest I’ll ever get to fathering my own. I love her as though she were my own daughter. She is outside of this. What I have done must not touch her. I don’t care what you do to me, but for God’s sake don’t let her pay for it. You’re a good man. Could you promise me that you will see she’s protected? I’ve no right to ask for myself, but for her sake… ?”
I’d seen this coming. Had known I’d have to eventually stop listening and start doing. Didn’t make it any easier.
And just as I opened my mouth to speak, every light in the place winked out.
A small amount of illumination came through the diamond-shaped windows, enough for me to see, but Malone was quite lost. He stared around, startled and blind.
Lights on. I counted to five.
Off.
Oh, shit.
I didn’t know what was wrong, but instinct told me to assume the worst. At the most, I’d only look foolish, but I could live with embarrassment. Quite easily.
“Come on,” I muttered. I had presence of mind to gather up the money bag.
“Where? What’s going on?”
The lights stayed off. I led him from the booth down to the access door of the tier seating. He stumbled, confused in what to him was absolute blackness. I tried the door, cursing as I remembered it was locked from the inside. I thrust the money bag at him and fumbled out my key ring.
“Mr. Fleming?”
“Shuddup,” I whispered fiercely just before vanishing. I could risk it in this murk. Re-forming on the other side, I opened the padlock, yanked on the door, and grabbed Malone, pulling him in.
“What is it?” he hissed, his alarm at my lunatic behavior overcoming everything else.
“Take this key, and use it on the padlock you’ll find on the door. I don’t know what’s wrong, but it could be something serious. You stay locked in here and keep quiet, unless you want your little girl to be an orphan.”
That turned the trick, instantly cutting off any further questions or protests. He made only a small worry-noise in his throat. His heartbeat seemed to fill the sheltered space with its drumming.
I closed the door softly behind, and was reassured to hear Malone following orders.
The lights came on. Hard to tell if that was a good sign or not. I hoped I was just overreacting, to find out that it was merely a problem with the fuse box. Some practical joker who’d heard about the house ghost might have come back to scare me, say, one of Gordy’s or Coldfield’s bodyguards.
Which didn’t seem likely. Until I knew better, I’d err on the side of caution.
Floating half-visible over the floor, I was able to approach the front silently. I’d heard the snick of a shutting door there. Maybe it was Bobbi wanting to know why I’d not come over yet.
No such luck. Booth Nevis and Tony Upshaw were in my lobby, having apparently just walked in. I went solid half a second before they spotted me. The all-around surprise was almost comical. I might have laughed but for the knowledge that I’d had locked those doors. Had Myrna the ghost’s pranks branched out into a whole new area? Didn’t seem likely, either.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, not unreasonably.
“Glad we caught you,” said Nevis.
My imagination, I firmly told myself, provided the extra emphasis on the word caught. “What’s the problem?” At this hour and under these circumstances, there would always be a problem.
“Nothing we can’t settle in a nice, friendly manner,” he assured me, achieving the opposite effect intended. “Let’s go inside, and if you invite me for a drink, I won’t turn you down.” He looked amiable. Both were still in their tuxedos; Upshaw sported a walking stick in imitation of Fred Astaire. What had they been talking about during the opening to bring them back to the club?
“It’s late, Nevis, just put it on the table.”
Nevis clearly wanted something, but I couldn’t imagine what, unless this was some sort of shakedown for a percentage of tonight’s receipts. If so, then he needed better muscle for the intimidation part.
He crossed the lobby to the bar, motioning for me to come along. I was aware of Upshaw hanging ominously back, but not about to let him get behind me with that stick. Nevis put an arm on the bar, leaning casually, presenting a benign face to me. “It’s about that book of Lena’s,” he began.
“What about it?”
“Not having a club to look after for the moment, I’ve had plenty of free time to study. I’m pretty good with numbers, you know. Guess I’d have to be with what I do. Well, I added up all of the stuff she skimmed, and it came out to a pretty respectable sum. Just over fifty-two grand as a matter of fact.”
“That’s respectable, all right,” I agreed, finally getting an inkling.
“Now seeing as how you had the book for a while, too, I assume you also did a little addition of your own and came up with the same number.”
I gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Which leaves me with the big question of where that money might be.”
“She probably spent it.”
A slow grin lit his gaunt face. “I don’t think so. If Lena spent that much, I’d have noticed.”
I nearly suggested she’d paid blackmail, but changed my mind, picking something else that cost a lot, wanting to see where Nevis was going with this. “Gambled it away, then.”
“I don’t think so. Not when I had her betting on sure things. She could have easily doubled her money, tripled, on the tips she had. That wasn’t it.”
“Sent it home to family.”
“She said she didn’t have any.”
That I could believe. Nevis, too, apparently.
“No, Fleming, I think she hid it. Was saving it for her old age maybe. When she first disappeared, Rita and I looked all over, searched her things for a clue as to where she’d gone. We found no bank accounts or safety deposit keys, nothing like that. She could have buried it in a hole in the ground, but that’s not a wise thing to do in the city, not practical. I think she hid it and in a place Rita would be unlikely to look.”
“Go on, I’m interested.”
“I’m sure you are. You spent some time with Rita the other week. I’m thinking that once she was asleep you went through her flat. I know you help that Escott bird out with his little detective business; you’d have picked up the habit from him. At that time you were trying to get a handle on Lena, trying to find her killer, and I don’t hold it against you.”
“I’m glad,” I said drily.
“But I hold that you found the money.”
“Oh, I did?”
“Hm. In those old books of hers.”
I tried to keep my face deadpan, well aware that it might be a futile effort. “What books?
”
“The ones in that case Rita uses for a bar. I noticed a couple were missing. They used to be jammed in tight, and suddenly there’s spaces between them. I pulled them out and found what you found, minus the money.”
“You’re saying she hid the money in books? Like between the pages?”
His eyes flickered. Was that doubt? Was I actually going to get away with a real lie for once? “Not quite.”
“Then what? Come on, it’s late.”
The flicker was amusement. “It’ll get more late, unless you come across. I know you found the money, that you took it away.”
“Me? Why not Shivvey?”
“Because if he’d got hold of that much, he’d have blown town, not tried to make a grab for my club.”
“Unless he was greedy and wanted both.”
Hesitation. A tiny doubt. Which he squashed. “Maybe, but before I face that calamity, I need to eliminate you from the list.”
“I don’t have that kind of money. I certainly don’t need it.”
“Everyone needs it, you especially. The cost of putting this place together must have shoved you in a very deep hole. That amount of cash would float you out of it with plenty to spare. I’m giving you a chance to return it to me.”
“Return?”
“It was mine to begin with. She stole it from me. I think you’re a basically honest man, Fleming. Do the right thing and give it back.”
This farce had gone on too long. Bobbi was waiting for me, and I still had a hellish problem locked under the seating in the main room. I fixed Nevis with a long steady look. “I want you to listen to me…”
Concentration was the key—if he’d not drunk too much, if I didn’t give him one of those deadly migraines by pushing too hard. But concentration went both ways when it came to eliminating small distractions. I was aware of Upshaw’s close presence; I’d have to get to him next.
But the damned lights went out.
They suddenly came on again, especially the ones inside my head.
Blinding shards of brightness lancing through my closed eyes, burning holes in my brain, shuddering down the length of my body. Something hit me all over. I had the dim idea I’d lain down for a nap on the cold, hard floor.
But I don’t sleep now.
“What the hell?” Nevis. “What’d you do?”
“He was acting fishy, I gave him a tap.” Upshaw.
“Tap, hell, you broke his skull open.”
“He’ll be all right. Throw some water on him.”
They threw water on me. To no effect. It neither eased the pain nor made it worse. I had a whole world to myself, and it was all pain. Their little activities had nothing to do with me.
Something touched me, a hand at my neck. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t react to it.
“Tony. You idiot!”
“What?”
“What do you think, asshole? Look at him!”
“Aw, shit… aw, shit… I didn’t mean to—”
Sound of a scuffle, a fist on flesh, a cry. Sound of Nevis cursing. “You know what you cost me?”
“I’ll make it up, I promise.”
More cursing. It took him a long time to wind down. None of it had to do with me, with the white-hot cocoon that held me fast and unmoving at their feet.
“Let’s get outta here,” Upshaw whined.
“And leave him like this for Gordy to find? Him and Fleming are in each other’s suits. Gordy’s got brains, and I’ll make book Fleming tells him everything. He’ll figure this out, and he’ll come looking for me. As for you, one look and he’ll know whose legs to break to get some talk.”
“Then whatta we do? Hey, that plane of yours—you can take him up. You can get rid of him that way.”
“No I can’t. The guy at the airport won’t talk for the cops, but he would for Gordy. I can’t take that chance. We gotta bury him… we gotta…” He trailed off to a relieved laugh.
“What? You got something?”
“Get his feet. This will cost you a new tux, but if I hear one complaint I’ll put you in the same hole with him.”
Upshaw grabbed my feet, Nevis hooked iron hands under my arms and lifted. My head set up a whole new clamor of agony as it lolled back. They grunted and swung me like old laundry. No reverence for the dead here.
Just wait, some tiny voice within said, shouting thin against the pain. Wait it out and then you can—
But I lost the rest as they lurched clumsily down a flight of steps. Nevis nearly dropped me as he struggled to hit the light switch.
“There, all the way to the back,” he said.
More grunting, but Upshaw was in good shape from his dancing and Nevis was strong for all his leanness of frame. They made it without mishap.
“Here?” asked Upshaw.
“Yeah. Make sure his arms are over his head. It’ll take up less space.”
They dropped me. On something unconscionably hard. It opened up whole new frontiers of awfulness. My flaccid arms were stretched overhead like some Inquisition victim on a rack. I’d have been better off with the rack. It wouldn’t have hurt so much.
“Now what?”
“Now we go to work. Get your coat off and help me drag this thing over.”
“You’re kidding. Are you kidding?”
“No. All the stuff we need is right here. He’s planning to fill it in anyway, I heard. We just do this and they’ll think he jumped the gun on the work. It’ll have all weekend to set.”
“But the mess—”
“I told you, one complaint and you go in next to him. You cost me fifty-two grand, you little shit, so don’t think I won’t. You know how much that woulda helped me getting the Ace back up and flying? So you shut up and pitch in like a good boy, and I might not break your legs myself afterward.”
They left me alone. I missed their argumentative distraction. It kept me from feeling the terrible cavern of ache inside my skull.
I wandered in it, lost and alone as the two of them clattered around, doing God knows what. It was noisy and involved a lot of cursing and grunts of effort. Water splashed, then some mechanical grinding filled the room. They had to shout to each other.
“More water, another bag!” Nevis bellowed.
The grinding built in level so as to be deafening.
Belatedly, my brain came near to surfacing out of its stunned stupor. It shifted snail-like into an actual train of thought separate from the damage. It set up a number of panicked reactions for my body to go into, but for the fact that my body was inert for an unguessable time.
But that wasn’t real panic. The true internal frenzy began when that first ghastly blob of wet cement slapped over my face to forever seal me in pain-suffused darkness.
18
Screaming, screaming, screaming.
I was alive. Trapped inside my body. My dead body.
Alive and aware, as cold cement oozed over it, layer upon layer, the weight crushing me into a stony trough of a grave.
Dead and unresponsive to the danger, absolutely unable to move.
Internal shrieks drowned out all thought. There could be no thought with such gibbering fear tearing me apart.
Caught away from my earth I had such nightmares as this, but those were softened by the innate knowledge that they were only dreams. My daylight paralysis was part of it, unavoidable but acceptable. This was different, to be fully conscious, fully sensible of every inch of my flesh smothering under the pressure.
The stuff flowed thickly, and there was no end to it. My face, then torso, it crept over and encased my raised arms, seeped under my neck, filled in the space under my back, buried my legs. The weight piled up, compressing, burying me alive-not-alive, burying, smashing…
The tiger-growl clamor of the cement mixer became distant as more cement poured in, muffling my hearing.
I had no need to breathe, but the instinct to do so was there, far more potent than any newly acquired supernatural ability, the source of my panic. My brain tried t
o make my body breathe. The lack of response added to the panic, and the cycle began anew.
Screaming. Mindless screaming…
Until…
Shut down.
Not a blessed moment of unconsciousness, but a shutting-down of the mind. It was still aware of the body’s peril, or what was happening to it, but the emotions had cut off as though someone had thrown a switch. Catch a bird, and hold it long enough and it ceases struggling, waiting in blind dread for what comes next, release or death. You can kill a bird just by holding it. The shock is too much for it to live.
But I was able to think, to understand. Only dimly, for tiny instants at a time, yet more than some hapless sparrow dragged down by a cat.
Yes, this was bad. To have the stuff filling your mouth and nose, clogging your eyes and ears. Bad. But it wouldn’t last. It could not last…
A tremor. Very small.
My foot, the beginnings of a movement. Not much. Just the toes.
Fight or flight. The choice was flight. To get away. Toes, feet, legs to take me elsewhere.
I groaned inside. Made a change from screaming.
Too slow. I wanted out. Now.
Focus on… what else? Pain in my head? Was it going away? Was I healed enough to escape?
Felt like an ice pick was jammed into my skull. Maybe I should go back to screaming. Wood did this to me. Upshaw’s Hollywood affectation with the walking stick. Damnation, I should have taken care of him at the start, not wasted time on Nevis’s song-and-dance act. I’d underestimated… everything. God damn it. God damn me.
But not just yet. Not until I broke free of this improvised tomb and kicked their asses up to their earlobes.
That desire began to erode the fear. And the pain. The ice pick feeling, if it was not going away, was at least becoming tolerable. Healing. I was finally healing.
Just wait a little longer, a soothing voice told me. Just a little—
The hell with that.
Trying to vanish so soon after such an injury was like putting your arm in an automatic wringer. Once started, you keep going until the rest of your body stops it or gets squeezed along for the ride.
It was all or nothing this time.
I couldn’t tell right away if I’d vanished. The usual lightness, of floating wasn’t there, only the muffled senses of touch and hearing. But I suffered those in solid form.
