by P. N. Elrod
“Thanks for pulling me out, Charles.”
Shows of gratitude always made him uncomfortable. “Well, good help is hard to come by,” he demurred. “I’ve but one request.”
“Anything.”
”Don’t do that again.”
I started to make a light reply, then for the first time noticed how tightly he gripped the steering wheel. His eyelids were jumping around and I could almost feel the nervous energy coming off him. He was putting up a calm front, but it was plain to me that I’d thoroughly scared the shit out of him.
“Scout’s honor,” I said humbly.
He nodded once, to close the subject, and switched to a new one. “You said the river. Do you think she’s getting away via the facilities offered by the IFT warehouse?”
“That’s my best guess. If she’s not there, then I don’t know where she’ll be. And it’s not a getaway or she wouldn’t have questioned him. All she planned to do was to turn over the bracelet, then I showed up and threw a monkey wrench into the works. Hodge had orders to take her out. Since she didn’t know what they’d done to Harry, she was just stupid enough to go with him.”
“So Kyler could sort her out about shooting Doreen?”
“Yeah, only she might not survive the experience.”
“Would he go so far?”
“What do you think?”
For an answer, Escott stepped on the gas.
11
THOUGH it had been a solid and busy six months since his last visit to International Freshwater Transport’s warehouse, Escott’s memory needed no prodding on how to get there. He picked out the fastest possible route, pausing only to chafe at stop signals. At this hour most of the intersections were empty, so the wait was doubly hard, but he wasn’t about to attract attention by running through them. A curious cop was the last thing we wanted.
I was having trouble deciding if the tightness in my gut was due to Marian’s assault or the situation we were walking into. Maybe it was a bit of both. Now that 1 had time to rest and take inventory, more aches stood up to be counted, especially along my spine. My lower legs and head were still the worst; I’d have to tend to them before anything else.
Eyes shut to concentrate, I tried to vanish. Except for a faint shiver miming over my skin, nothing happened. My head throbbed in protest.
Damned wood.
I waited a few more blocks and tried again, failed, and waited some more. Each attempt got me farther down the line; on the fourth try, I finally melted away into the air.
Escott made a choking sound and the car swerved. It startled me hack into solidity.
“What’s going on?” I grabbed the arm rest for balance.
“Would you mind giving a fellow a little warning before you launch into that bloody Cheshire cat routine of yours?” he complained, looking very put out.
He usually held things in, but events were also eating him up from the inside. I couldn’t blame him for letting it show for once. “Sorry. I have to do it again. Consider yourself warned.”
He grunted and kept his eyes on the road.
I faded into a wonderfully numbing nothingness better than any salve, and stayed there. The only problem was trying to hover in one spot: I tended to keep moving forward whenever the car braked. The windshield glass and metal body of the car helped to confine me inside; the- trick was remembering to hold in place on my end of the seat. It wouldn’t do to distract Escott further by bumping into him with an abrupt rush of cold.
“We’re here,” he announced, his voice made distant by my invisibility.
I was reluctant to return, but when I did, things didn’t hurt nearly so much. The skin on my legs had stopped burning and my head felt only slightly tender. A day’s rest, a stop at the Stockyards, and I’d be…
“They’re not exactly secretive, are they?” he commented, drawing my attention to the front of the warehouse.
“The gang’s all here,” I agreed.
Parked along the street were two identical Caddies and my liuick. In this drab neighborhood they stuck out like birthday cakes at a funeral. A light was on in the warehouse office, the rest of the windows were dark. If my heart had still been working, it’d have been trying to thump its way out of my chest.
“Anything wrong?”
I nodded. “Not twenty minutes ago I wanted to kill her; now I’m here to play Douglas Fairbanks and rush to her rescue.”
“After what you’ve been through, your reluctance is understandable.” Escott had one hell of a gift for understatement.
“It’s more than reluctance. I’m ready to say to hell with it and leave her there.”
“And will you?”
That question demanded more thought than I had time to give it. “I want to, but if I stay, then you’ll go in instead, won’t you?”
He said nothing, though for him it made for an eloquent speech. He’d go, all right, with or without me, and I wasn’t about to let him do anything so crazy.
I laughed once, and not because I was happy, then started shrugging out of my overcoat. Escott’s borrowed suit coat went, too. The cold wouldn’t bother me for some time yet, and I wanted to be free to move. I tore off my rumpled tie and tossed it on the pile.
“Are you sure you’re in shape for this?” he asked.
“Why? What do I look like? No, don’t answer that. Let’s just say that I’m in better shape than they think I am. You got a gun?”
“Yes.” In addition to the stolen Webley-Fosbury, he owned a much smaller snub-nosed Colt revolver, which he started to draw from his coat pocket.
“Hang on to it for yourself,” I told him. “If any rats get past me, you’ll need it.”
He saw the logic and kept the gun. “Good hunting.”
“Break a leg.”
We got out at the same time, swinging the doors shut, but not letting them latch. The plan was for me to go in first and scout around for the best opportunity to get Marian out. If it didn’t exist, then I’d have to make one. Escott was to back me up if it became necessary. Knowing how crazy Kyler and his stooges got when crossed, I was going to be damned careful.
Though they looked deserted, I checked each of the cars to make certain of the fact. Escott followed and we ended up crouched in the same patch of shadow cast by one of the Caddies.
“I’d like to cut off their lines of retreat,” he whispered.
“As long as it’s quiet.”
He flashed a rare smile or a rictus grin, I couldn’t really tell, and eased open the driver’s door. He felt under the dashboard a moment and something snapped in his hand. He darted to the other Caddy, performed the same operation, and returned. “That should put them in the shop for a while,” he said.
“What about my car?”
“I’m hoping we may simply drive it out. Have you the keys?”
“Still in my pocket. Hodge must have hot-wired it.”
Ideally, we wanted a clean getaway without any legal fuss. Escott was ready to use his gun, but it’d be better for us if he didn’t. It was up to me to make sure things stayed quiet.
I crept up to the front door of the warehouse, feeling rather vulnerable in the dim light thrown out by its overhead bulb. I listened for some time, my ear pressed to the crack between the door and jamb and heard nothing. Shrugging a negative back at Escott, I pointed to myself and then toward the door. He gave me a thumbs-up in acknowledgment, turned gray, and ceased to exist.
Filtering through the same narrow crack was easy enough, then I made a quick sweep of the small room. It was empty and hadn’t changed much since my last visit, as I discovered after materializing. An extra layer of grime and an oil heater had been added, but nothing more interesting. The second door leading into the warehouse proper was shut. I listened there for a time and eventually caught the faint sound of voices. One of them seemed to be Hodge’s, but I wasn’t sure.
I quietly unlocked the front door for Escott, then slipped through the inner door myself. I stayed invisible and fel
t my way around to what I hoped was a concealed corner and faded in slowly, eyes wide, and ears straining.
The place was vast and dark and the high ceiling caused the voices to echo deceptively, though I eventually pinned down their direction. I took my time approaching, half of it in a semitransparent state to avoid making sound myself. This lasted until I got a third of the way into the warehouse and ran into a familiar obstacle. The place was built well out over the river to expedite the transfer of goods to and from cargo ships. It was fine for the ships, but lousy for me with my inherent problem with running water. I’d be able to vanish easily enough; coming back again was the hard part. To do that, I had to be over land.
I went solid and tiptoed forward, then had to dig my heels in and really work. The resistance was like trying to push a long, heavy curtain back from the bottom, hard to get started and reluctant to keep moving. Once I was well out over the river I was all right, but as they say, the first step’s a lulu. At least now my hearing wouldn’t be handicapped.
They were at the far end of the long line of crates, using only a single work light, the kind with a handle and cord at one end and a hook on the other. They’d hung it awkwardly onto the lip of an open crate. It made a harsh fan of localized glare; odds were, they’d be fairly night blind outside of it. I moved closer.
Chaven was busy digging through the crate; stray drifts of excelsior littered the floor around him. He strained and lifted out a hunk of new-looking metal. I didn’t know what it was beyond the fact that it looked like the internal part of a larger machine and that it was obviously heavy. He tossed it ponderously onto the floor with other, similar parts. The light on the crate shook as he worked. Shadows jostled one another.
“That enough?” he asked, straightening.
Kyler stood just behind the light and was difficult to see. “More.”
“But that’s over a hundred pounds.”
“More. Those things get buoyant. I’m not risking a floater.”
“Have a heart, my back’s killin’ me.” But Chaven began digging again, pulling out piece after piece.
In the floor a couple of yards behind him gaped a trapdoor into darkness. Hodge sat on its edge, his legs resting on steps going down under the warehouse. I heard and smelled water. “You can help,” Chaven said to him. “I’ve done my part.” Hodge patted the spot under his left arm where his gun was holstered. I went very still and cold.
“If you want to stay here all night that’s your business. There, that’s two hundred pounds at least. Okay?”
“Take it down,” said Kyler.
“Huh,” Chaven bent, picked up a part in each hand, and walked up to Hodge Hodge obligingly moved over to give him better access to the steps. Chaven grunted “huh” again and descended. He was gone for about two minutes, then returned empty-handed to take away two more parts.
I slipped back the way I came and made a fast and hopefully quiet round of the stacks. When I moved toward the light once more, I was behind Kyler, all but looking over his shoulder. The work light wasn’t in my eyes so much from this angle. Now I could see Marian, a dark form in her long coat.
She wasn’t moving. She lay on her side, huddled compactly at the foot of a tall packing case. It was the same one they’d backed me up against only last night. A ball of ice formed down in my stomach and rolled a little. Closing my eyes didn’t help. She was still there when I opened them.
Hardly aware of it, I walked up to Kyler and gave him a solid punch in the kidney, one that Escott could appreciate. He dropped almost too fast for me to catch him, but I managed and held him up in front of me.
Hodge was alert enough to notice and react. He drew his gun and jumped to his feet, trying to squint past the light to his boss. Kyler almost jabbed my gut with his elbow, but he didn’t have enough force or follow-through. In return, I slapped the side of his head. Once was all that was needed, then he had to have my full support to stand.
“Boss?” Hodge skirted the trapdoor. He saw me, or part of me. The light was still in his eyes, but he had enough of a target to aim at. He held the gun ready.
I made sure Kyler was entirely in his way. “Put it up, Hodge, not unless you think you can shoot through your boss.”
“Who…?”
“Besides, he said I had until tomorrow…remember?”
The stunned look on his face indicated that he did. “You go to hell,” he said, but there was a crack in his voice. He was plenty scared.
“Not this time.”
I pushed Kyler ahead of me. He tried to fight, but I had a solid grip on his arms and was practically holding him off the floor. Hodge took a better aim at me but Kyler stopped him.
“Get behind him, you jerk! Shoot him from cover!”
Hodge’s reflexes were good. Two fast steps, and he was swallowed up in the shadows between the stacks. I dragged Kyler out of the fan of light and shook him the way a kid shakes a rag doll. He was too dazed to resist as I went through his pockets. Right away I found his gun and pulled it. I didn’t have enough hands to use it and let it drop to the floor. In his inside pocket with his wallet was the black velvet bag. It still seemed to weigh a ton.
He recovered quickly and just enough to be inconvenient. I shoved the bracelet away and threw him toward the trapdoor. Arms flailing, he tumbled right into it with a brief yell. Another yell in another voice matched him for surprise and pain. Chaven must have been coming up the stairs when Kyler fell through onto him. They made a lot more noise rolling and crashing all the way to the bottom, and then they stopped making noise altogether.
I forgot them when Hodge fired his first shot at me. I was nearly deafened by the roar, but felt nothing. Seeing me come back from the dead must have left him with a bad case of the shakes. So much the better, since I wasn’t ready to vanish just yet.
Gray smoke from the gun hung in the motionless air, giving away his hiding place. I went low and scuttled over to Marian. He fired again, missing completely.
“Boss? Chaven? You okay?” He sounded very worried. I didn’t think it was for their skins, but for his own. Armed or not, he didn’t want to face me by himself.
Neither of us heard an answer from the trap.
I turned to Marian, checking for a pulse, but I was way too late. It was harsh to think, but the only honest regret I felt was for her father.
“This is your work, Hodge,” I heard myself shouting. The echoes filled the place, chasing each other into nothing.
“I did what I was told,” he shouted back.
“Kyler gets his turn later.”
Shot.
He’d moved. The bullet creased air next to my left ear and tore into the case behind me.
Shot
But by that time I was moving as well and dropped flat.
Shot
One in Marian’s heart and five embedded in the crates. If he carried a round ready in the chamber, it meant he had at least two more bullets left, maybe a lot more if he had a spare magazine. Not that it mattered much to either of us in the long run. He could be packing a Thompson with a full drum and it wouldn’t help him. But I couldn’t afford to let myself be hit any more than a normal man could, not while I was over water.
No shot. He must have realized he was running short. Good. I didn’t want to have to remind him and possibly tip my own hand.
Silence, except for his breathing, then came a stealthy step and a shifting of cloth. He was on the other side of the stack from me and creeping forward. He stopped for a long time to listen and perhaps puzzle out why I’d left Kyler’s gun behind. I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but now I could see that it was turning into an excellent piece of bait.
At the far end of the warehouse a door creaked open.
That had to be Escott, drawn in by the shooting.
Hodge jumped into the open, intent on Kyler’s gun. I broke away from the stack and went after him.
He heard me charging up, whirled, and got off one more shot.
It went wil
d. Before he could trigger another, I tackled him, and we fell flat.
His head thumped against the floor and the whites of his eyes showed for a few seconds. He gagged, trying to recover his lost breath. He still had the gun, though, and enough presence of mind left not to use it until it could do him some good.
We were matched for weight, but I had him on raw strength and was able to immobilize him easily enough. His reaction was frustration, not surprise, as he kept struggling and got absolutely and utterly nowhere. I had one hand holding fast onto his gun arm. It’d be a simple matter to crush his wrist…
Instead, I bent his hand around, forcing it in the direction I wanted. When he realized what I was doing, he thrashed and yelled, throwing all his desperate energy into a last scrabbling fight for life.
The gun was at half cock and as I found out when I pressed my finger on top of his trigger finger, had one round left. The sound was so loud I didn’t really hear it, the muzzle flash blinded, the smoke burned.
I didn’t know which I’d remember the longest: Hodge’s terrified shriek, or the look on his face as it happened.
Limbs twitching and hands shaking, I stood away from him and swallowed back the laughter that surged up like a rush of bile in my throat. It helped when I turned my back to him. The exit wound was very bad and where most of the bloodsmell came from. Despite the evident and total finality of that wound, he still looked alive.
I will not regret this. If I had to, I’d do it again
A few steps and I was leaning against a crate, hiding my eyes from it all. The laughter hung heavily in the back of my throat, threatening to either choke me or turn into a sob. It wasn’t finished; more work remained to be done. There was yet one more suicide to arrange, maybe two.
First I groaned in protest, then, as though a switch had been thrown, everything shut down at once. The laughter died to nothing; the sickness forming in my gut faded away. I looked around with new eyes and found corners to be just a little sharper than they’d been before, and colors were brighter. The light from the lamp was both harsh and beautiful. I’d turned crazy cold—a mechanical man about to perform an unpleasant but necessary job. This wasn’t vengeance—no more than a butcher is vengeful against the animal he carves up.
