by P. N. Elrod
“Oh, yeah?”
“He didn’t like what Kroun did. Letting you off.”
Mitchell had been poker-faced and then some through the whole session. The only time he showed anything was when I refused to display my war wounds. Such as they weren’t. “How could you tell?”
“Used to see him around. Here. Back when Slick Morelli ran the business.”
I did my damnedest not to react. Morelli had been one of the bastards who helped murder me. “How far back was that?”
“Couple years. When Gordy took over, Mitchell left for New York. He didn’t mind being third fiddle when Slick was in charge, but he wouldn’t stand for being second fiddle to Gordy.”
Strome was revealing new depths. I never thought the man was so musically inclined. “He was that high up? Third in line?”
“He was in there, but mostly in his own head.”
“Was Mitchell ever up for Slick’s job?”
“Not that I heard. There was a hell of a mess with Slick and Lebredo suddenly both gone, but Gordy stepped in and kept things smooth, and that’s what the big bosses wanted. No waves. Mitch didn’t like how it turned out, so he moved to greener pastures.”
So there was a very good possibility that Mitchell remembered me from then, which might better explain his initial reaction. It wasn’t my looking young, but that I was the same Fleming who’d been around when Slick Morelli and Lucky Lebredo killed each other.
That’s how we made it look, anyway.
I didn’t specifically remember Mitchell from my encounter with Morelli’s gang. Aside from Gordy, who was too big to ignore, I hadn’t paid much attention to the muscle. The most I could say now was that Mitchell probably hadn’t been one of the guys who actually crowded me at the time, though he might have been on the fringes looking on.
“Gordy can tell you plenty on him,” said Strome. “More than me. He knows the real dirt.”
Gordy could have mentioned something when we’d been talking in the casino. On the other hand he hadn’t been feeling so well. He couldn’t think of everything, and when Mitchell arrived it’d been too late to give me a heads-up. Then again, Gordy might have held back so my attention would be on Kroun, not his lieutenant and bad memories about my own murder.
“So I should keep an eye on Mitchell?”
“I was just sayin’ he didn’t like what happened up there. Don’t see what diff it should make to him. It’s just something to know.”
“You talk like Gordy.”
He took it as a big compliment, nodding. “Thanks. You worked it okay with Kroun. I didn’t think you’d get out alive.”
“Neither did I.”
“Sure you did. You knew before going in you’d walk clear. I could tell. I thought you was wrong, but you knew.”
“The power of positive thinking.”
“Maybe. But you got Kroun on your side pretty fast. He’s seen men hurt before. Looking at what Bristow did to you ain’t gonna bring a guy like him out in hearts and flowers. How’d you do it?”
I gave a minimal shrug like I’d seen Gordy do a hundred times. “There was stuff going on under the talk. I could see Kroun didn’t want me killed. That would create more problems he didn’t want to bother with. He just needed a reasonable way out and took the one I offered.”
“Who’da thought it?”
Me. Just now.
“Radio,” I said, not wanting more questions. “Put it on.”
“Got it.”
Strome turned the knob and fiddled the tuning until I said stop when he found a comedy. We listened to the remaining ten minutes of Jack Benny. The stuff was funny enough that Strome actually smiled once. I thought his skin would buckle and crack under the strain.
I lay back, well out of range of the rearview mirror, and shut my eyes against the growing brightness of Chicago. The jokes and puns and sound effects washed over me, and I didn’t have to think about anything.
I couldn’t sleep, of course, not until sunrise, and then it’s a different kind of sleep, a shutdown of everything, dreamless, silent, too peaceful to last. I longed to be able to voluntarily conk myself out like that whenever I wanted, but the night wouldn’t let me go.
The next program was longhair music, so I had Strome find a station with another comedy going. It was good to hear familiar tinny voices talking about ridiculous situations that had nothing to do with my own personal disasters. I was too isolated inside myself to be able to appreciate the humor just yet, but maybe in a couple weeks…
Or months. A couple years. Maybe never. But could I live with never?
My girlfriend, Bobbi, one of the reasons I was still more or less sane after Bristow’s damage, would have something unsympathetic to say about that kind of thinking. She had plenty of caring for me, but no patience for self-pity. It was sometimes hard to know the difference between it and honest pain. I used Bobbi’s probable response to my unspoken thoughts as a way of keeping the balance. Angst or honesty? Hell, she’d just tell me to flip a coin about it, then walk away from the result without looking.
Sensible gal, my Bobbi.
We were well into Chicago when the comedy ran out, replaced by a weather report. The announcer mentioned sleet, which roused me enough to look outside. Yeah, nice and wet and miserable, cold, but not to the point that the frozen rain glazed the streets yet. The stuff was smaller than rice grains, ticking gently against the windows, clinging for a moment, melting, sliding down, gone. This was a night to be inside next to a fire. I could arrange it, but couldn’t trust that the thoughts keeping me company would be the warm and cozy kind.
I asked Strome to find another radio show. A broadcast of The Shadow was on, so we listened to it. I liked that guy. Life was simple for him. All his troubles could be solved by clouding a man’s mind or shooting him—the kind of stuff I’d fallen into—but Lamont Cranston always made a fresh start with each episode. He didn’t have to think about consequences to himself or others in between or carry them along all the time with him like a lead suitcase full of bricks.
We headed north a few blocks until I directed Strome to go east.
“You wanting Escott’s place?” he asked.
My occasional partner’s office was in the right area. Close enough. It didn’t surprise me that Strome knew the location of the business. “Yeah, there.”
The Caddy had special modifications to support the extra weight of the bulletproof windows and armor, but you could tell from the ride there was something different about the car, especially the heavy way it had of taking corners. That gave a nice feeling of security. Escott’s Nash was similarly smartened up, but not to this degree. I’d have to take him for a ride in this one while the opportunity was available and watch his reaction.
Despite the fact the car was half tank, Strome took short cuts, moving quick enough for the evening traffic because of the powerful engine. It swilled gas and oil like a drunk guzzling cheap hooch, but daily stops at a filling station seemed an even trade for the smooth running and safety.
There seemed to be a lot of stop signals, and they were all against us. Being a man of careful, attention-avoiding habits Strome didn’t miss any of them or go over the speed limit. He braked in midblock before the stairs leading up to the Escott Agency.
This was where my friend ran a business that was a close cousin to private investigation, though Charles W. Escott insisted he was not a detective but a private agent. He sometimes referred to himself as a glorified errand runner, doing odd jobs for people who would rather not touch the chore themselves. The private-agent angle earned him a living, and I helped him out on cases when he needed it.
I got out, walking around to the driver’s side. The sleet dotted my back.
“I’ll be a while,” I told Strome. “Doctor’s appointment.” Whether he believed that excuse or not didn’t matter. The abuse I’d taken tonight certainly justified my going in for treatment.
“You want I should circle the block?”
All the
parking spaces were filled by local residents. “Yeah. Do that. Take your time.”
“Right, Boss.”
“Just a sec—find a phone and call Lowrey. Gordy will want to know how things went with Kroun.”
“He’ll already know.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“One of the boys will have told him by now. Maybe Kroun himself.”
“That’s fine, then.”
“What about telling him about what Hoyle tried with you?”
“It’s not important enough. Derner should know, then maybe tomorrow for Gordy. Let the man rest.”
“Right, Boss.”
Strome took himself away, bits of paper and stray leaves kicking around in the departing Caddy’s exhaust. Midnight was still in the future, but the street was wee-hours empty. The neighborhood was mostly small businesses, marginal manufacturing, and cheap flats. Few of the shops were open much past eight, except for an all-night drugstore in the next block and the nearby Stockyards.
Once the Caddy made its turn at the corner to head north again, I walked south, cutting over a couple streets until the lowing of cattle added a somber note to the night wind. Their accompanying stink made for a whole nasal symphony, though the freezing weather mitigated the worst of that. Breathing wasn’t a habit for me, but I could still take in a potent whiff of concentrated wet barnyard when the motion of walking caused my lungs to pump all on their own.
I went invisible some distance from the first fence, floating purposefully forward and sieving through, holding on to the sweet and easy grayness until I was well inside. My corner teeth were out when I went solid again. After an anxious, dry-mouthed moment to find a likely animal, I ghosted into the holding pen. A last quick look to make sure I was unobserved, then I literally tore into my meal.
I couldn’t feel much of the cold, but I was totally aware of the living heat swarming into me. The cow made a protesting sound but held still. Its blood pulsed fast and strong. Maybe I’d bitten too deeply; it could bleed to death afterward. That hardly mattered since it was headed shortly for slaughter anyway. I was just one more confusing, frightening incident in its horrific trip from pasture to plate.
Feeding doesn’t take me long, even when I’m hungry, but I stretched it out. There seemed a boundless supply in that open vein, so I took more than I needed, filling up forgotten corners until it hurt.
Then I fed some more. Far more. Gulping it down.
Fed. Until it was an agony.
Fed. Until it was past agony.
And then beyond that.
When I finally broke off and reeled away I had to grab the fence to keep my feet. I held on like a drunk, head sagging, brain spinning, as the red stuff billowed through my guts at hurricane force. For a second I teetered close to vomiting, but the urge passed, and my belly gradually settled into sluggish acceptance of the awful glut.
I heard someone groaning nearby and snapped my head around to find him before realizing I was the guilty party. What a terrible sound it was, of pleasure and pain chasing each other in a tightening circle, neither one winning, neither one stopping, both leaving me exhausted and nerved up at the same time.
This, I told myself for the umpteenth time, was not good.
Down in a dark little cavity within, in a sad, chilly place I didn’t like looking into but could never forget about, clanged the weary and terrifying alarm of what was happening.
The blood kept me alive.
And the blood was killing me.
4
NEON lights, streetlights, warm lights from house windows, cold lights hovering meekly in doorways, and no lights at all in some patches, Strome drove us past a myriad of such beacons of city life until we reached the fiery red diamond-shaped windows of Lady Crymsyn, my nightclub. As soon as we paused in front a man was there opening the car door for me. I stepped out, protected from a thin sleet by the entry’s arched red canopy. I greeted the doorman, then bent for a last word to Strome.
“See how things are going with Hoyle and phone me. If I’m not in my office, ring the booth downstairs. I’ll be here the rest of the night.”
“You sure?”
“What d’you mean?”
“You don’t look so good.”
I didn’t expect that. Not from him. “I’m fine.”
Pushing away from the Caddy, I barely gave the doorman time to do the other half of his job. He moved quick, though, ushering me inside, then came in after. Some places insisted on having a guy stand his whole shift out in the cold, but I didn’t see the point. Just as many customers would go out as came in, and so long as he did his job he could decide for himself where he wanted to be.
Wilton was busy at the lobby bar setting drinks before a newly arrived foursome, and nodded a greeting my way. There was a concerned look on his face, too. He’d been getting ready to open when Strome came to take me away.
I tossed the greeting back and asked how things were going so Wilton would know I was none the worse.
“Slow, but a good crowd for the weather,” he replied.
“Any sign of Myrna?” Myrna used to be a bartender here long before I bought the place. Now she was a ghost. I didn’t have anything to do with causing that.
“Not yet.” Wilton was the only guy here who didn’t mind working the front by himself. He liked Myrna even if she did switch the bottles around. “Whoops—spoke too soon.”
“What d’ya mean?”
He pulled out a bowl of book matches and put it on the bar. Instead of being in orderly rows, neatly folded to show red covers with the club’s name in silver letters, they were all opened wide and tossed every which way.
“Guess she got bored,” he said, looking bemused.
“Ask her if she won’t put ’em back right again.”
“If she likes ’em that way, who am I to argue?”
The hatcheck girl came to take my things, but I waved her off, heading for the stairs and my office. I’d left a stack of work there a few ice ages ago.
From the short, curving passage that led into the main room came Bobbi’s clear strong voice. She was doing a better job with “The Touch of Your Lips” than Bing Crosby could ever hope for. I paused next to the easel display for her. It held a large black velvet rectangle where her name glittered from silver cutout letters, surrounded by four stunning pictures of her, none of them doing her justice.
A second, similar display proclaimed the dancing talents of Faustine Petrova and Roland Lambert with an art poster of two stylized dancers locked together. It was surrounded by a half dozen stark black-and-white photos of them frozen in action. Classy stuff.
The third easel had a single dramatic portrait of Teddy Parris, a young guy Bobbi had discovered when he delivered a singing telegram to her. His long face and soft eyes were better suited to comedy, but he’d gone for a serious expression and gotten away with it. Silver stars fanned out around his picture, filling up the blank space since he could only afford to have the one photo done. Along with his name was an additional description identifying him as “Chicago’s greatest new singing sensation!”
Well, most advertising exaggerated one way or another. He was good, though, or Bobbi wouldn’t have given him a break.
Bobbi finished her set for the moment. She would wait backstage while Teddy came out to earn his keep, then join him in a duet they’d worked up.
I wasn’t sure how much to tell her about why I’d missed the first show. Certainly I would let her know what had happened with Kroun, the question was just how detailed to get and if I should mention Hoyle and Ruzzo. Lately I’d been doing too much that I wasn’t proud of; she understood that the rough stuff was often a necessary evil, but she didn’t need to hear about everything.
She would know, though. If even Strome noticed how bad I looked, then Bobbi would see red flags and hear sirens.
I plodded upstairs.
The office lights were on, as they usually were, since they didn’t always stay switched off. Myrna liked to play wit
h them. She used to make me uneasy, but no longer. I had other spooks to wrestle with, truly scary ones. Like what I’d done to myself at the Stockyards. My body still hurt from the excess.
For all the vanishing activity in dealing with Hoyle I had not grown hungry, having fed only the night before. But I’d given in to I didn’t know what demon and gorged myself to the point of sickness. In the hurried walk from Escott’s street to the Stockyards I’d not thought to stop, turn aside, or even consider that feeding like that might be a really bad idea. I did it without thinking, the same as Hoyle when he shot at me. At some past point he must have known that killing me would bring down Gordy’s full wrath, and yet he’d done it anyway.
So what horror would drop on me if I didn’t shape up and get control of myself?
What if it dropped on someone else instead of me? If I…
Inside, the excess blood seemed to churn, thick and heavy.
The radio would help. I wanted other voices besides the nagging ones in my head. Turning the set on, I shed my overcoat, tossing it and the crumpled hat on the long sofa.
Then I paced, impatient for the tubes to warm up, for distraction to intervene. My skin felt like it was on inside out.
An unfortunate picture to conjure, the kind that bunched my shoulders up around my ears. I tried forcing them down. But the thought of blood and pain and screaming and a sadist’s laughter—
Don’t start. No more of this…no more…
I told myself not to listen to the echoes, to ignore, to hold on a little longer, and above all, not to scream. There was no actual pain, but the memory of the agony was enough to shred reason and sheet my eyes with blinding tears. Then I doubled over, hugging myself tight against a wave of uncontrolled shivering. It clamped around me like a giant’s fist, shaking, shaking.
This time I was not cold. Far from it. The blood in me was fever-hot, and there was too much of it. My body seemed bloated to the point of bursting. Crashing just short of the sofa, I lay helpless and praying for the fit to pass, unable to control my limbs twitching and thumping against the floor. As before in the Stockyards I heard an alien noise; this time it was the sad keening whimper of a suffering animal.
