by P. N. Elrod
Sebastian Pierce’s load of grief was proving to be very heavy, indeed.
Some of my own load lifted, though, at the news about Doreen. While Escott lighted a pipe, 1 trotted upstairs and dressed. It didn’t take long and I was coming down again, in my best suit and another pair of shoes. Last night’s clothes were tied up in a bundle under my arm. I’d snipped off the laundry marks and anything else I could think of and had stuffed those into a pocket.
On the way to the hospital I made several stops, twice at gas stations to flush away labels, then I detoured over a bridge to scatter the buttons in the river. The latter was the most difficult because of the water; the physical discomfort reminded me of the warehouse, and the warehouse reminded me of Hodge. I was glad to leave.
It was more luck than looking, but I found an incinerator still going at full blast in a backyard junk pile close to the Stockyards. The air stank of burning rubber and meat, but I was able to slip in and out without being spotted. Invisibility has its advantages. Shoes and clothes safely disposed of, I stopped next at the Stockyards and hoped that the drink I took there would clear away the last of the aches.
Visiting hours weren’t quite over when I reached the hospital, but Doreen was isolated from the other patients and the nurse was reluctant to let me do more than look through a window set in the door. Dr. Rosin-ski was with Doreen and I cornered him as he came out.
“She’s doing as well as can be expected,” he told me, which wasn’t saying much. “So far there’s no infection, which is a very good sign, but it will be awhile before she’s past all the risks.”
“Is she awake?”
“Partially. If you went in there, I doubt that she would really notice.”
“Then it’s all right if I go in?”
He could see that it was important to me, but the casual way he ordered up a mask and gown left me with a bad feeling. Perhaps he was taking all the precautions he could to help her, but he still didn’t think much of her chances. He told me five minutes and repeated the same to the nurse.
Doreen looked smaller, more crushed somehow. Even the color of her hair was muted. I said her name a few times and touched a limp, cold hand. She stirred a little and her eyelids shivered open to half mast.
“Remember me, honey?”
The corner of her mouth curled slightly.
“No need to talk, I just came in to see how you were doing.”
I suddenly felt incredibly awkward. There was no way I could say all I needed to say. I wanted to apologize to her like crazy, to tell her anything that would make it all better again, but it was impossible. The disappointment was a jolt; so much of a jolt that I finally realized why I was there. Sick as she was, I’d come to her to get comfort, not give it; to try to clear my own conscience at her expense.
The self-disgust I felt almost made me turn away, but I sat next to her and held her hand and smiled, though she couldn’t see it through the gauze mask.
I kept up a one-sided conversation for another minute or so. Inane stuff, but she seemed to be listening. That, or I was fooling myself again.
“You …”
Her whisper was so soft I had to bend close.
“… got away.”
“From Leadfoot Sam? Yeah, I got away. He won’t be bothering you, either.”
“Yeah?”
“Promise. He’s leaving you alone now. I made sure of it.”
“Thas’ good.” Her eyes closed and opened. “Cops get her?”
It took me a second to work out that she was referring to Marian. “Yeah, she won’t be causing you any more trouble. You’re home free.” God, I hoped that was true.
“What’s your name again?”
That threw me until I remembered I’d given her one name and Sam another. “Jack.”
“Then thanks, Jack.”
I said you’re welcome and left it at that.
“You got a nice girl home?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
She smiled a little. “Treat her good, huh? You…you’re good people.”
“I’m glad you think so, honey.”
“Don’ tell ’er ’bout us,” she slurred out, her eyelids drifting shut. “You’re the kind to c’fess, you don’ wanna do that. Not to her.”
“Doreen—”
“Lissen to me, I been there m’self. You tell her an’ it’ll change things. I know. If you got somethin’ good, don’ screw it up.”
I wondered just how much she did know or remember about those few moments in her cold studio. Apparently it was a pleasant memory.
“Yeah, honey, I promise. You just rest for now and I’ll take care of things for you.”
And so on, until she was asleep again.
I’d gone in for comfort, decided against seeking it, and got it anyway. Doreen was some woman and I’d keep my promise to her. Not all confessions are good for the soul; some can even tear them apart. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to bring more grief to Bobbi’s life, so I would be silent. I knew now that I could visit her tonight and feel comfortable about it.
The hospital parking lot was fairly empty as I walked out into the brisk air. In a few more minutes I’d trade it for the lot at the Top Hat Club and sneak in once again by the stage entrance to her dressing room. After that I’d try resuming my life again.
I pulled into the street and stepped on the gas. In the rearview mirror, I chanced to look back, and saw a silent Cadillac with smoke-dark windows doing the same.
Snake, I thought, and my hands began to tremble.
BLOOD ON THE WATER
1
IT was war, then. The quiet kind that you notice only as an impersonal paragraph in the paper you read over the morning coffee or in the evening after work. Bold black letters might spell out: SHOOTING VICTIM FOUND, and then go on to give some sparse details of the person’s age, where they lived and died, and that the police were following some promising leads. Most of the time you never learn if they turned up anything or not. Life moves forward and new paragraphs on other casualties appear in the paper. New, but with a dreary similarity to all the others, as in any war.
In my case I might not even get that much of an epitaph. Vaughn Kyler’s enemies tended to simply disappear. Without an inconvenient body to trip over, the cops couldn’t be expected to make an arrest.
I gripped the steering wheel more tightly to control the tremors in my hands and took a second look in the rearview mirror. The Cadillac was still there and following close enough to make it obvious that the men inside wanted me to know about it. The side windows were smoked over, but I could make out four vague figures through the windshield, though little else. Maybe one of them was Kyler but that wasn’t very likely. The wide streets of Chicago, even at night, were far too public for him.
Last August he’d taken control of the Paco gang, and since Frank Paco himself was confined to a lunatic ward and his brothers and cousins were missing and probably dead, no one was around to object. In six months Kyler had doubled the earnings and spread the profits around so his position was that much more secure, but he was always on guard against any threats to his authority, which, unfortunately, included myself.
In no uncertain terms he’d ordered me to leave town or die. His attitude at the time indicated that he didn’t really care about my choice as long as one or the other removed me from his sight. I suppose from his point of view he was giving me a better break than I deserved. That or he was just being careful. Sooner or later he could overstep things enough so that the cops would no longer ignore the situation and be forced to officially notice him.
But last night’s many events had crowded his threat right out of my mind and I hadn’t left, much less even thought of alternatives. On the other hand, he’d had a long full day to recover from that particularly busy evening and decide what to do about me. Sending some of his boys in one of his Caddies to play tag had to be part of it.
I made a few turns just to be sure and the big black car echo
ed my course in a leisurely manner. They had enough power under that hood to make mincemeat of anything my humble Buick could do. If I wanted to get away with a whole skin, it would have to be with brains and not speed. I just wished that I felt smart instead of scared. Kyler had that effect on me.
They didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to push the issue. I could figure that they’d planned out what to do and were only waiting for me to make it easy for them with a wrong move. They didn’t quite hug my back bumper, but kept close enough to edge up my nerves. Not a good idea on their part; a nervous man is liable to do anything. It would have been far better to tail me at a discreet distance until I’d arrived at the Top Hat Club and then pick me off as I left the car. They wanted to frighten me before moving in; Kyler apparently had no reservations against letting his boys have some fun.
Even as the thought occurred, my hands abruptly stopped shaking. I drew a short breath, releasing it as a brief, taut laugh that flushed away my vague fears. I suddenly knew exactly how to handle them and had only to find the right spot for it.
The setup was important. I’d have to let them think they’d succeeded in rattling me. Shifting into the right lane, I cut a sharp turn at the next corner and put my foot down. The Buick had enough in it to accelerate away at a good clip, and I left them behind for a few hopeful seconds.
Traffic was light in the area, which was just as well since I didn’t want any bystanders or cops getting in the way. I hadn’t seen a patrol car yet, not that I was remotely interested in involving the law over this. It the men in the Caddy ran to type they’d have no qualms about bumping off a cop to get to me. I was content to leave Chicago’s finest out of the immediate line of fire and take care of these clowns myself.
I continued the illusion of a chase for several long blocks. At one point I thought I’d genuinely lost them, but the familiar pattern of then-headlights swung into view again and caught up. Losing them without having to try anything fancy would have been just fine, but that kind of luck wasn’t working for me tonight. I took the next corner fast and tight, the wheels squawking until they bit the pavement with a quick lurch. The Cadillac easily kept pace.
The corner coming up was to be my last one. Sooner or later I’d have to run into a traffic stop that I couldn’t beat through, and this was it. The driving lane ahead was blocked with cars waiting for the next signal change. The curb was lined with parked vehicles. Oncoming traffic prevented me from making a U-turn, so I stood on the brake and stopped just short of the guy in front of me. For effect, I tapped the horn, but no one bothered to move out of the way.
Since I was giving the impression of a nerved-up and frantic man, it was time to do something desperate. I cut the motor and launched out of the car on the right-hand side, sparing only one glance back at the Caddy. They’d been ready for that move; the front and rear passenger doors opened and two guys in dark coats bowled out after me.
I slipped between the parked cars and darted a dozen yards along the sidewalk. The street was well-lighted, but that didn’t matter as long as I managed to get out of their sight for a few seconds. I ducked around the corner of a building and vanished. Period.
My forward movement slowed, stopped, and reversed, but by then they’d pounded past and were just starting to wonder what had happened to me. Their puzzlement wouldn’t last all that long, so I whipped back the way I’d come like an invisible cloud, hugging the side of the building for guidance. I couldn’t see at all, which made it hard to gauge distance, but tried my best guess. It worked out. When I re-formed into a solid man again I was twenty feet behind their car and in a position to do myself some good.
Vanishing was one of my more convenient talents—acquired, not inherent—though at first it had taken some practice to get it right. I’m one of the UnDead—a nosferatu—a vampire—pick your own name. Any one of them is close enough to the truth, but I tend to ignore them all because of the dramatically bad press associated with such words. In my own mind, I have a condition; terrible in some ways, great in others, but not something to be lightly dismissed.
I wouldn’t show in their rearview mirror, but crouched anyway as I ran up to their right rear tire. The cold wind blew the exhaust right in my face, but I don’t breathe much except to talk; it was annoying mostly because it made my eyes water.
Fumbling out my pocketknife, I buried the sharp point into the side of the tire with one strong jab. It deflated in a most satisfactory way, getting the immediate attention of the people inside. The guy in the backseat rolled down his window to see what had happened.
He wasn’t Kyler, though it would have been nice. I popped his unfamiliar face once on the chin and he dropped out of sight without a sound. The driver said something, but I missed it when I vanished again and poured through the open window into the car. Just as he turned around to check on his fallen buddy I went solid. There was an even chance that he never knew what hit him. In this case it was my left fist, the punch pulled enough so as not to break his jaw.
The car started to drift forward and I had to scramble over the seatto grab at the hand brake. I killed the engine, yanked the key, and tossed it out the rear window into a pile of gutter trash.
The other two would be coming back any second now. I quit their car for my own, gunned it to life, and made that belated U-turn into the oncoming lane. Happily, no one got in my way, but I was beyond noticing such details, being in too much of a hurry to get back home again to see if Escott was still alive.
We were partners, sort of; he had a small business as a private agent, which meant that he didn’t do divorce work, and I helped him out whenever he needed it. The last case had involved a search for a diamond-and-ruby bracelet worth fifteen grand that sparked off three, almost four murders. Escott and I still had the bracelet. We couldn’t return it to its owner without implicating ourselves in two of the deaths. Escott was innocent; I wasn’t, but he was my friend and doing what he could to protect me.
In essence, Kyler was at the bottom of it all, and Escott was trying to figure a way of pinning things to him. He was planning to use the bracelet in some way, only it looked as if Kyler wasn’t going to give him the chance. As far as Kyler was concerned the bracelet and the money it represented belonged to him now, and too bad for anyone who happened to get in the way.
There’s a deep cold well inside all of us where we keep our blackest fears. Mine had cracked open and was pouring stuff out like Niagara as I turned onto the last street and saw a twin of the Cadillac I’d disabled parked in the alley behind our house. This was a quiet little middle-class neighborhood where such cars are dreams just too good to be true. The smoked windows confirmed its ownership and the threat it represented.
I left my car on the street and tore around the empty Caddy to the back of the house. The narrow yard was silent. The garage was closed tight, but the roof of the Nash was visible through a side window. Escott had been home when they’d come calling. I vanished and seeped through the crack at the bottom of the back door and assumed a more or less vertical position just inside the kitchen.
Unable to see, I concentrated on listening, but heard nothing in the immediate area. I swept the room once to make sure it was empty and cautiously re-formed. Nobody stared back at me.
The place was wrecked. Every drawer and cabinet was open, their contents dumped out. Escott wasn’t too interested in cooking or it might have been worse, but it was bad enough. The refrigerator was open and humming away, trying to keep its stripped insides cold. I shut the door very quietly, my hands shaking again. This time with rage, not fear.
A variety of indistinct sounds were coming from all over the house. There were at least two men on the ground flour and two others upstairs. Nobody talked much. They knew their business.
Peering around the edge of the door, I could look through the dining room to the front parlor, where I’d left Escott listening to his radio. He wasn’t in sight, but I did catch a moving glimpse of a dark hat and coat that didn’t belon
g to either of us. I dropped back.
The bedrooms were on the second floor and my instinctive urge was to take the high ground first. Any other time I’d have used the stairs; now I vanished again and rose straight up through the ceiling. The room I materialized in was my own. I was prepared for a mess and they hadn’t disappointed me. The barely used bed was torn apart, my books and papers and clothes scattered to hell and gone. It was just my good luck and his bad that the thug who’d done the tearing was still there.
With something like joy I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, lifting him away from the bureau he was ransacking. He was too surprised to cry out, and then he didn’t have the chance to as I slammed him face first into the nearest wall. The one time wasn’t satisfying enough, so I did it again, and once more because I was feeling mean. He left a bloody smear on the faded paper as he slid to the floor, a bundle of loose bones held together by his clothes.
It had made enough noise to draw the attention of his partner, whom I could hear in the bathroom next door.
“Arnold, what the hell was that?”
Arnold, being in no condition to answer, said nothing. The man in the bath emerged cautiously into the hall. He could see Arnold’s fallen body from there. I waited behind the bedroom door for him to come in for a better look, only the guy was too wise to try that one. He crossed the hall to the top of the stairs and called down.
“Chaven, something’s wrong.”
Chaven’s voice, familiar to me, answered, “Like what?”
“I dunno, but Arnold’s out cold. The boss said to watch for anything weird and this is it.”
I expected a derisive reply but was disappointed. “Okay, come down.”
“But what about Arnold?”
