by Kirk Dougal
I noticed a hand waving from one of the booths and headed that way. The man’s barrel chest filled his suit to the limit and the crooked nose said his face had stopped more than a few fists over the years. But the man’s grin appeared genuine as he nodded toward the other seat.
“I couldn’t wait any longer,” he said in between spoonfuls of stew shoveled toward his mouth. “This is the first thing I’ve had to eat since breakfast this morning.”
“You have a tough one today, Dutch?”
He shrugged and dipped his roll in the bowl before taking another bite. “Three of Big C’s men took a permanent rest today over on Pine Street. Gunfire in the streets where regular Joes can catch lead always sets the high pillows in the department on edge. You eatin’?”
I shook my head. “Just coffee.”
Dutch waved at the waitress behind the counter. “Bring us a pot, Bernice, and a piece of cherry.”
She nodded and a minute later put a wide slice of cherry pie down on the table and filled our cups before she walked away, moving to the next table to top off the other cops’ coffee mugs.
“Know who did it?” I asked before raising the cup for a drink.
“Did what? Oh, the killings.” Dutch pushed the empty bowl to one side and pulled the pie closer. “Had to be Rose’s doing. He and Big C have been moving toward a showdown for a while. Booze, dope, extortion, sex—they’re both into everything.” He scooped in a fork loaded with cherries and thick crust. “Not really his style, though. Rose is more of a one-on-one, take out a specific target type. Word is he’s got a button man on the payroll and he’s real good. So good we’ve never been able to get a sniff on any of his snuff jobs. Gets in, kills his mark, and poof, he’s gone.” Another bite of pie followed the first. “But this, this one today looked more like trigger men going after each other, squirting lead all over the street.” He stopped the fork halfway to his mouth. “You heard anything about it?”
I shook my head while I wondered if I should feel guilty about lying to someone I assumed was my friend. “No, but word on the street is someone took down one of Big C’s dope runners. Grabbed a stack of lettuce and a whole pile of bindles.”
Dutch nodded slowly. “I hadn’t heard about that. This might have been a try for payback that went bad. Maybe there’s a new player in town.”
“Is that why you wanted to see me? To ask if I’d heard anything about the shootout?”
“No.” He finished moving the pie the rest of the way to his mouth, but then shuffled a cherry around his plate with the fork, for the first time appearing to be unsure of himself. “You still looking for the scoop on Wheeler?”
The game was trying to bring back in the issue of my missing partner. I had to hand it to the programmers. They put in multiple layers of problems ranging from short term cases to ones that would most likely take a long time to solve. That kind of commitment kept gamers interested. “Yeah. What did you pick up?”
“We’ve got a snitch, usually pretty reliable, who told me he’d seen someone taking a beating down on the docks a little while back. The description fit Wheeler.” He looked up at me. “You want to talk with him?”
I nodded. “Yes, but I’m working on something else right now that’s too big to sit on.”
“Well, Joe-Joe’s not going anywhere.” Dutch put the last bite of pie in his mouth. “What’s got you all tied up?”
“I can’t give you the whole tale,” I said, “but I could use your help on part of it. My case ties in with a murder that took place a couple of months ago. The victim’s name was Ted Roberts. I can’t get any background on it.”
Dutch shook his head. “It’s not one of mine. I’ll ask around at the precinct and see what I can dig up.”
“Thanks, Dutch. I owe you one.”
Dutch stood up, a smile spreading over his face. “Sure. But that means this lunch was on you.” He caught Bernice’s attention and pointed at me before heading for the door, his bass laugh echoing off the walls of the diner.
Chapter 23
I stepped out the front door of my apartment building and took time to fish out a cigarette. The mid-morning sun peeked around broken clouds and promised a warm day without rain. That was a good sign since I still had not had time to replace my ruined overcoat.
I exhaled smoke and watched people walking down the sidewalk. I had done a lot of that last night, as well, after I left the diner. I had considered a trip back to the office but was surprised at the time to discover my thoughts swung back and forth between wanting to see Gretchen and part of me hoping she had already left for the day. So, I had taken the Ford back to the parking lot and walked the streets. I thought of going back to the joint I had eaten at on my first night in the game to see if the cute redhead behind the counter was still friendly, but instead I found a nice restaurant a few blocks away and had a decent steak. Right next door was a bar with a singer who carried a tune well enough to sit through for three or four drinks. After that, a quiet walk home ended up with a good night’s sleep.
A feeling of ordinary washed over the entire evening. I had spent years escaping the demons the games caused, chasing them away with any number of new addictions. My life in the real world was disjointed, frantic, and lonely even in a crowded room. Here, I felt no desperate search to take my mind away from craving the game. Even spending the evening by myself, the experience made me feel like a normal person.
Too bad it was all taking place in a computer.
I turned right and headed away from the parking lot. Walking past the office, I did not bother to glance up in front of the Baxter Building even though the back of my head burned with the thought of Gretchen staring down at me. At the next corner, hacks lined the street in both directions and small groups of cabbies stood near their cars, telling stories and smoking cigarettes. One of the younger men noticed my approach and broke away from his group.
“Needing a ride today, Mr. D?” he asked.
I nodded. “If you’ve got the time.”
“Always do.” He pounded the hood of his taxi and ran around to the driver’s side while I slid onto the back seat. The cabbie closed his door and looked back at me. “Are we bird doggin’ someone, Mr. D, or going some place where you don’t want to be seen?”
I glanced at the dashboard and read the driver’s hack license. “We want to keep our head down, Shea. Do you know the Lansford Suites?”
“Yes, sir. On Washington Avenue.”
“That’s where we’re headed but there is a deli a couple of blocks away. I want to stop there first.”
Shea pulled down the meter arm and looked back at the traffic over his shoulder before easing out into the street. “You got it.”
*****
Shea knew how to treat his passengers. He tried once to drag me into small talk but shut off the effort when I only gave him a grunt in return. The rest of the ride moved in silence, letting my thoughts return to the previous afternoon.
After I ripped around the corner the day before in the Lincoln with Voice sliding across the backseat and bouncing around like a little girl’s rag doll, I had driven for about ten minutes, randomly changing directions and searching in the mirrors for pursuit that never appeared. We ditched the car on a side street and walked for two blocks before hailing a cab that took us to the Lansford Suites.
Voice waited in the side alley while I rented two rooms, one directly across the hall from the other, earning an understanding wink from the desk clerk who thought he knew more than he did. With the young grifter safely smuggled up the back stairway and into one of the rooms with my bottle of rye and orders not to leave under any circumstances, I snagged a cab back for the Ford and returned to the office. Now, with no real starting place in my search for Raven until Dutch came through with some information on the Roberts murder, I decided to bide my time by taking some food to Voice.
“Is this the one?” Shea asked, nodding his head toward a corner deli.
I pulled out of my thoughts and look
ed past his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s it. Just pull in here some place and I’ll hop in for some supplies and be right back.”
Shea slowed, driving into the next block before finding a place to ease the big Chevy sedan next to the curb. “There you go, Mr. D.”
I stepped out to the sidewalk and walked toward the deli. Only a few feet away, I heard Shea telling someone his hack was already taken and I turned to watch a red-faced man in an expensive suit shouting in the window.
That was how I missed the car pulling up.
The space in front of the deli had been empty when we drove by. Now, a black Lincoln with suicide doors parked in front, a fat man with a cigar behind the wheel. I recognized them both right away. Another man in a dark suit climbed out the passenger side and walked inside the deli, a briefcase in his hand.
I pulled the fedora low over my forehead and twisted my head to the side. The driver had not glanced my way but I wondered how Big C’s trigger men had known I would be coming here. Had they already found Hull? Was he lying in a pool of thickening blood, the red turning to a dark, sticky soup in the carpet around him?
An elbow caught me in the arm and I stepped over to avoid the next blow, my hand diving inside my suit for the gun in the shoulder harness. But the knock had only been the red-faced businessman, late and in the kind of rush all of them seemed to be in as they walked the downtown area. He mumbled an apology but never stopped, never looked back to see if I had tumbled into the street in front of a car. I needed to move or risk being spotted, the only rooted body in a stream of people on the sidewalk.
As I turned to walk back to Shea’s cab, ready to give up on the food for now, I noticed the door on another hack across the street open and out climbed the woman from the lobby in the Ashford Hotel. I was not close enough to see her sparkling eyes, feel the way they pierced through the computer coding and grabbed me all the way back in the bed at the nursing home. But it was impossible not to notice her auburn hair, the fair skin of someone wealthy enough to stay indoors when they wanted, and the figure that made one passing man almost walk into a street sign.
Movement at the deli door caught my eye. The man in the suit walked back to the car, a little more pep in his step than when he went inside. He held his fedora down tight with one hand as he opened the door with the other, the Lincoln pulling away from the curb before he slammed the door shut.
His hands had been empty.
I was already running before I spotted the outline of the briefcase inside the doorway of the deli. A car horn blared, its scream echoed by a curse before fading behind me. The next horn rang closer, however, mixing with the screech of brakes. A fender hit my hip, spinning me around and sending me sideways. One, two steps—I staggered before my feet were under me again and I leaped forward the best I could manage.
The woman had noticed me by now, the look of shock changing to one of recognition, her mouth dropping in stunned disbelief. Her hand reached into her purse, frantically grasping for what she wanted.
I stumbled over the curb, my right leg numb and not moving the way I expected, and launched myself toward the woman. Just before my arms wrapped around her body, I saw her hand coming out of the purse, fingers tight around a small pistol. Then she joined me in the flight, screaming as her hat disappeared and her feet flew up in the air. I yanked the woman close, squeezing her into my chest as I twisted sideways.
An explosion rocked the street.
I never saw the flames but I felt the heat lick the back of my body. A blink later, glass pelted me like driving rain, an annoyance where they struck my suit, pain where the shards hit skin. I bounced on the concrete and skidded to a stop.
Sunlight faded in the corners of my eyes, threatening to leave me in the dark. Legs rushed by when the light shined, smudging into blurred colors. What I could see felt frantic and out of control. But everything moved in total silence, the lack of noise making the scene stranger, more disjointed. A face, skin pale and surrounded by an auburn cloak, hovered over me. Just before the darkness won and covered my eyes, I turned my head and saw a man in a black suit and fedora across the street, his face hidden in the shadow of his hat.
*****
“Mr. D! Mr. D!”
The voice pulled at my thoughts, quiet and at the edge of hearing but growing louder with every breath. Noise rushed in behind the words—men shouting, women screaming, children crying. Sirens rose up the scale as fire engines approached. Hands jerked the lapels of my suit and I raised a hand to cover my face from the heat of a hot sun.
“Come on, Mr. D! We’ve got to move you!”
I cracked open one eye and saw Shea crouched over me, his face hidden in the shadow of an orange ball behind him. My head cleared enough to realize the heat was not the sun; fire consumed the deli building and I still lie on the sidewalk beside its front doors. Just past my feet, a man’s body smoldered in a growing red pool while licks of flame burned his coat.
Shea shoved something inside his coat pocket and then used both hands to lever me up. I got a foot underneath me and a second later we lurched away from the growing heat, my arm over his shoulder but my head clearing with every step. By the time we reached the other side of the street, I moved on my own, unsteady, knees shaking, but still trotting away when I remembered my foolhardy rush before the explosion.
“No!” I said, my voice cracking. “The woman…”
“Already over here,” Shea interrupted. “Another fella grabbed her and dragged her across the street and into the bar where they was takin' some others while I was still trying to get you to come around.” He laughed, the chuckle coming out in one forced breath. “Jeepers, Mr. D, I thought you’d gone off your cob when I saw you tackle the dame.” He glanced around before reaching inside his coat and pulling out a small pistol. “This was underneath you on the sidewalk but I could still feel the roscoe in your holster when I picked you up. Is it yours, Mr. D?”
I took the gun and stared at it long enough to notice it was a Mossberg Brownie, a little four-shot .22 caliber derringer small enough to fit inside a lady’s purse with plenty of room to spare. I slipped the gun into my pants pocket. “No, it was hers. I think I startled her and she was pulling it out when the fireworks went off.” I turned to glance back at the deli. “The guy in front of the doors is dead. How many others were hurt?”
I did not hear an answer so I turned to Shea. The young man had his eyes closed and head cocked to one side as if trying to avoid something in his sight. After a few seconds, he finally glanced up at me. “When I ran past the door, I thought I saw… There were people on fire by the counter.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t see anyone make it out of the deli.” His eyes turned red and his mouth opened and closed a couple more times without making a sound.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing his elbow and pulling him into a walk. “Let’s find the woman and get us both a drink. We deserve it.”
I wasn’t the only one close enough to be hurt in the blast and some of the wounded were being treated on the sidewalk. Shop owners and passersby tended to cuts, wiping away blood as the victims sat on the cool sidewalk. Most stared through Shea and me as we walked by, eyes not seeing us, but one young woman kept moaning a single long note, pausing only when she needed a breath.
A few doors down sat a little bar, the type of place where somebody said hello when you walked in every time you stopped for a drink. I waved Shea toward a table near the front window and walked over to the counter. More wounded were inside and everyone looked busy so I moved around the end and grabbed two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. I turned to go back to Shea when I heard someone yell.
“Hey!” The bartender, a big palooka who looked like he might have spent a few rounds in the ring at some point, walked over. He eyed me up one side and down the other and I stared back, wondering if I would even feel the first punch when he hit me. Instead, he gestured toward the side of my face then flipped his bar rag over my arm. “You’re bleeding. One of us’ll come check on yo
u in a couple of minutes.”
I nodded my thanks. Shea continued staring out the window after I returned to the table, but he smiled when I poured him a glass.
“The boss’ll have my hide if he thinks I’ve been rumming all afternoon,” he said.
“I’ll write you an excuse.” I downed half of my drink before I laughed. “To get to me as fast as you did, you must have already been moving toward the deli when the bomb blew. That means you ran through the blast and kept on going. I think he should be more afraid of what you’ll do to him than what he can do to you. I owe you one, Shea.”
The cabbie shook his head. “I wouldn’t have this job without your putting in a good word, Mr. D. When I saw you hot footin’ toward the corner, I hopped out of the car and went after you, just in case you needed help. Then you clobbered the dame and boom! There was all that noise and people screaming and fire…” He jerked his glass up and finished off the drink before looking at me again. “You’re still bleeding, Mr. D. Give me that towel.”
“You’d better pour some of the whiskey on it.”
Shea dumped a couple of shots on the bar rag and stepped behind my chair. He began wiping my neck and the alcohol seeping into the cuts made me sit up straight. “Sorry, Mr. D. I don’t see any glass in your skin but there’s little bits in your coat.”
He wiped for a few more seconds before he stopped and then continued, working his way toward my cheek where the bartender had gestured. I turned to take the rag to wipe my own face but when I looked up I did not see the freckled cheeks and fuzz-ridden beard of the young man staring back. Instead, the woman I had tackled held the cloth.
“Hello,” she said, her smile lifting only one side of her mouth. “The next time you want to give me a hug, try to be a little more gentle.” She dabbed at my cheek. “You certainly know how to introduce yourself to a girl.”
I noticed Shea had moved to the end of the bar, close enough to be at my side in a breath but far enough away to give the woman and me a little privacy.
