by P. N. Elrod
Any other time, I’d have gotten somewhere a few miles beyond mere anger, but it was late, and I was tired. I should have a revolving door installed so the next wave of housebreakers would have an easier time of it.
Instead of picking a door lock, someone had let himself in the hall window at the back with a brick, smashing out the glass near the top so he could twist the catch, lift, and climb in. The front door looked straight down the hall, and right away I noticed the curtains fluttering. The window was wide open, and glass shards gleamed from the melted snow that had blown in. It overlooked the alley behind the house. The neighbors had missed the noise, else the cops would be waiting.
“Your friends were here again,” I said, disgusted.
Suitcases full of his new clothes in hand, Kroun put them down by the stairs, balancing the box of del Mundo cigars on top of one. He walked to the window and studied smears left by the intruder’s wet shoes. “Don’t think so. Michael can open any door, and Broder would just kick it in. They’re not this sloppy.”
Yeah, maybe. I did a quick search of all three floors, attic, and the basement, but no big bosses from New York lurked in the shadows. Sweeping outside, I looked in the garage, but Escott’s Nash was safe. I found footprints in the snow by the house, but the fresh fall had nearly filled them in—not that I was an expert tracker. The intruder had pushed a garbage can under the window and used it to boost himself up; ignoring the locked doors, he’d left the same way. His prints led toward the alley entry and the street beyond.
“Michael’s got no reason to return,” Kroun said when I came back. “If he wants to know more about you, there’s other ways for him, like talking to Gordy.”
“What if they were here for you?”
“Then they were disappointed, but this doesn’t smell like either of them.”
“They’re trying to shake me up.”
“Why should they bother?” He shut the front door, cutting down on the cold cross draft from the broken window. “Anything missing?”
“Don’t know.” I made a second search of the place. Escott and I didn’t have much in the way of valuables. He had an old gold pocket watch, but kept it in a safe hidden under the basement stairs along with his petty cash. I had a few cigar boxes stuffed with money there, too. Neither of us trusted banks much. The safe hadn’t been broken into, but throughout the house someone had rummaged around in the drawers and closets. Nothing seemed to be gone, though.
“Not a burglar,” said Kroun. “A reporter after dirt? There were plenty of them around when that Russian dame was all over you.”
“Maybe. Faustine wasn’t shy about naming names. But if anyone wanted to know about me, he could ask for an interview. No need to do this.”
“What about the FBI?”
I didn’t like that one. “I’m not important enough for them to bother with.”
“Don’t be so sure. That Hoover is crazy. He tells his boys to do something, and they do it, whether it’s a good idea or not. Like me with Gordy’s bunch.”
“But—” I broke off.
“You think of something?”
“It’s nuts.”
“But worth considering?”
“Gilbert Dugan—that society bum behind the kidnapping I worked on? He was going to send anonymous letters off to a lot of places, the cops, the FBI, the tax people, to let them know that I was a suspicious character they should investigate. I got rid of those letters, but he might have written more.”
“They’d pay attention to mail from some lunatic?”
“Probably not, but it’d only take one guy having a slow day to set a ball rolling. Maybe the G-men would burgle a joint, but this doesn’t make sense. They’d pick me up for questioning first.”
“Who else has it in for you?”
“Hand me a phone book.”
“Don’t stay here then. I’m not.” He went into the kitchen and opened the icebox. He pulled out a brown bottle and yanked the cork. I’d seen drunks guzzle a beer that fast, but not often. As before, it hit him like a jolt of hard booze. “Wow. That’s good stuff you keep there. Thanks for the hospitality.” He left the empty in the sink and went toward the front hall. He looked at his suitcases a moment, shook his head, and walked out the front door without them.
“Hey, I’m supposed to keep an eye on you,” I called from the porch.
“I’ll stay out of trouble, I promise.”
“Where you going?”
“Don’t know yet. Safer that way.”
“You need a ride there?”
“Nope.”
“You coming back?”
“Tomorrow night, first thing. Still need to wind up some business.” He moved briskly down the sidewalk, ignoring the snow.
No point asking what the business might be. He would return, if only to get his clothes.
I shut the door and muttered unkind things about the ass who’d broken the window. The place wasn’t secure for me, not during the day.
My secret room under the kitchen…well, someone had found it.
The heavy kitchen table and the rug under it were slightly out of place. Escott was meticulous about keeping one of the table legs squarely over a small cigarette burn he’d made on the floor. He’d put it there on purpose, claiming it was a kind of burglar alarm, and damned if it hadn’t worked. The burn was visible now. I was seriously spooked.
The intruder had not made it down into the room. A normal human could drop in but needed a ladder to get out. I had a folding one kept out of sight under my cot, and it was still out of sight, unused.
The intruder chose to avoid getting trapped in my basement lair, but he’d still seen it. What had he made of it? I didn’t keep any secret diary or important papers there, just my attempts at writing lurid fiction for dime magazines. One close look, and he’d probably laugh himself silly.
A sense of violation, shaken confidence, and rage—I had the whole list of what it feels like when an unknown threat invades one’s supposedly safe castle. This was far from the first time I’d been through the experience, but you never get used to it. If I found the guy…he wouldn’t be happy. With both arms broken, it’s hard to climb into people’s houses.
I scavenged scrap boards in the basement that were long enough and got the hammer and nails. Fastening the boarding to the sash, I stuffed layers of newspapers in the gap between them and the remaining glass. If anyone wanted to get in again, he could do it; this was just to keep the weather out. As a repair it stank, but I felt better for the effort.
It was too dangerous to sleep the day here, and there wasn’t time to drive to Lady Crymsyn and hide out in its hidden sanctuary—if it was indeed still hidden. The bad guys might have found it as well. I thought of calling the Nightcrawler and having a couple of the bouncers come over to watch the house, but for all I knew they might be in on it. Maybe it had been an overeager reporter looking for dirt. Maybe it had been those two cops, Merrifield and Garza.
Locking the front and back doors—including shoving a chair under each knob—I inspected all the windows, pulling shades, seeing to it the catches caught. It was more habit than expectation of keeping anyone out. I worked my way upstairs.
The clock on my dresser showed I had enough time to take care of some much-needed details so long as I was quick. One scalding-hot shower and a close shave later put me in an improved state of mind. I dressed to be ready for tomorrow night, intending to waste no time getting back to the hospital to see Escott. Yes, he was better, but a relapse could happen. Hope and worry chased themselves around inside my skull, each feeding and exhausting the other turn on turn, no end in sight to their insane race.
Grabbing two spare blankets from a cupboard and an oilcloth packet of my home earth, I went up to the attic.
A determined break-in artist could still get in despite a heavy trunk I’d dragged over the trapdoor, but I wouldn’t be sleeping there. Stooping to avoid rafters, I walked to the far end of the narrow space where a small window with c
loudy glass peered at a similar window across the alley. Vanishing, I sieved through, floated over, and re-formed in the neighbor’s attic.
I got my bearings, went semitransparent, and drifted to a dark corner behind some junk that hadn’t been moved in years. Solid again and moving quietly, I put one blanket on the dusty floor, lay down, and wrapped up in the other. Very cozy. I’d done this before for a little peace of mind. The packet of earth was snug under the small of my back. It was cold, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I’d rest well for the day, as safe as could be improvised, and not too worried the neighbors would find me. Spring cleaning was weeks away.
What arrangements would Kroun make? Perhaps something similar. With those picklocks he could walk through most any door. He could also hypnotize people into forgetting his presence. He’d look after himself well enough, hopefully without hurting anyone along the way.
That gave my conscience a pang. He was supposed to be a bad guy, same as his friends. Michael had specifically warned me to beware of him. But Kroun’s reputation wasn’t matching up to the side he’d shown tonight. If he was that bad, then why had he saved Escott? So that I’d owe him twice over? Maybe, but he had looked genuinely concerned at the time.
Why wouldn’t he talk?
Wh—
Sunrise.
KROUN
COLD town. Damn cold town.
Gabriel felt a lot better with a bellyful of blood, but even that wasn’t enough to take away the heavy weariness that had crept up on him over the last few hours.
He needed rest, the kind he only ever got from sleeping on soil, but that was a luxury he’d just have to put off. Leaving himself open to having the dreams, nightmares, night terrors in the day, whatever they were, was more important.
Mixed in with their horrors was information…memories.
Bad ones, like the bomb ripping through the car, but if they also led to something useful—like how he’d known his blood would help that man—then Gabe would take the bad with the good and get through it.
Fleming was getting too pushy with his questions.
Gabe hadn’t enjoyed busting the kid, but sometimes you have to make a point when the other guy’s playing dumb. Fleming wasn’t dumb, not for damn sure, but he had a hell of an instinct for getting under the skin. No wonder Hog Bristow had…
Gabe’s shoulders jerked. No, better not to be thinking about that mistake just before bedtime. The memories he courted had to be his own, not imaginings about another man’s run of bad luck. He did not need to dream about being skinned alive. How the hell had Fleming survived the ordeal? Even Gordy didn’t have those particulars.
Looking over his shoulder more than a few times, Gabe checked to see if anyone followed. Whoever had gotten into Fleming’s house might have been watching from a distance, waiting to come after one or the other of them.
No one showed himself on foot or in a car; what could be seen of the street through the thick snowfall was clear. Fleming was the target, then. Presumably he would find a safer haven for the day than that drafty brick barn.
Not my problem.
Long strides eating up the pavement and the snow filling in his tracks, Gabe left the rows of houses, entering the beginnings of a business area. This was where the neighborhood wives bought their groceries, where their husbands worked, where their kids ran errands. A good life when you could find it. Gabe’s life before his change had not been so tranquil, he was certain of that.
He found the shop he wanted, one that Fleming had driven past on the way back to the house. On second look it still seemed suitable. The dingy window fronting the street was obscured with sheets of yellowed newspaper to discourage the curious from peering in, and a faded CLOSED sign hung crookedly on the door. The alcove entry was littered with minor trash, indication that no one had been there for months. Make that years. The papers dated from ’33.
Good enough.
The picklocks got him inside.
It might have been some kind of store before things went bust on Wall Street. There were a few long tables, shelving, and a single counter for the clerk and cash register, but no other indication of its history. The dust was thick and the stale air cold, but Gabe had known worse places to spend the day.
He found a small storage closet in the back. Solid door, no windows. Good. No room to lie down…not so good, but he’d live with it. He scrounged around the shop and found a spindly wooden stool that would serve. A few swipes with a forgotten rag cleaned the dirt off the seat. Gabe took it in the closet and positioned it just right. He sat, back against the closed door, legs braced so he wouldn’t fall over. No one could sleep like that, but then his bout of daylight immobility couldn’t really be called sleep. Better this than sitting on the floor in his new clothes.
Gabe let his head droop forward, shut his eyes, and waited for the sun to smother his conscious mind for the day.
The dreams did not disappoint.
THE monsters that had retreated into the shadows hurtled free again. There was no losing them, not when they called the inside of his head home.
His trip through hell began with the exploding car. He felt the fire, the ripping within his chest as the smoke seared him from the inside out. Close, too close. He could have died there. Died again. The changes in his body prevented that, but the awful recovery…
He was swept farther back and heard the wind threading through the pine needles again. How he loved that sound. Peace, pure peace. It did not last. The soothing music cut off as earth, wet and icy cold, was heaped over his inert body.
Yes, it was bad. One of the really bad memories.
He’d been buried and would stay there, deep in his grave.
No ending to this one. Death was like that. It was forever. He was dead and aware of every grinding moment, every second passing him by.
Aware of the loneliness.
Never mind the soul-killing panic, the weight crushing his chest, the dirt clogging his mouth, nose, and ears, the absolute paralysis, the cold; he was completely alone in the blackness. No angelic choir, no hell’s chorus, no afterlife at all, only infinite, unrelieved isolation. He’d go mad from it; anyone would.
No. Not for me.
He had to get free, somehow.
The earth was heavy, but he could shift it if he tried. Maybe.
Some shred of will returned to what was left of his consciousness and transferred to his dead limbs, generating feeble movement.
He struggled and squirmed, gradually working upward. He hoped it was up. There had been stars framed by pine branches above him before that first shovelful hit his face. He just had to dig toward them.
Hard going, though. The hardest thing he’d ever done. Had they heaped rocks atop his body? He pushed at whatever it was, shoving it to one side rather than lifting—
His frozen hands clawed air.
More effort, and he worked his torso free, then his legs, boosting himself upright but dizzily swaying. He grabbed at a tree trunk and held on, spitting dirt, blinking.
Woods. Darkness. A small cabin not fifty feet away through the trees. No lights. No sound but the wind and the soft lap of water. A lake…no, a river. He came here to do his fishing. That, and…and…what was it?
He was filthy, and he stank. Smells were painfully sharp: the clean cold wind, the scent from the pine trees, the muddy earth, the blood. His clothes were soaked with it.
And God in heaven, his head hurt. He pressed palms to his temples and tried not to whimper like a sick dog. Take a lifetime of headaches all at once, triple their pain, and it might come close to what he felt. It rushed over him like a lightning storm.
It hurt the most…there…some kind of bump…no, a ridge, right in the bone. As he touched it, the pain exploded. He dropped in his tracks, unable to bite off the scream. He writhed on the broken earth of his grave and shrieked until his air was gone. Not replacing it seemed to help. Strange as it was to go without breathing, he understood it was all right. He was dead, and things wer
e different now.
Dead. Just not a ghost. Something else.
He’d remember when the agony eased.
Only it didn’t.
After a long, long time he realized it wasn’t going away.
He swiped dirt from his eyes. His vision blurred and failed for a few moments, then returned. Blinding pain: he had the firsthand meaning of that now. He’d just have to get through it. He was in danger from…something…the sun. It would rise soon. He had to find a place to hide from it.
Back under the earth?
His grave? No. Not there again. Not ever.
Besides, there was…no, that couldn’t be right. For a tiny instant he forgot his pain, trading it for curiosity.
Gabe touched an oddly familiar shape half-submerged under the loose clods and rust brown pine needles.
His numbed fingers slid over a layer of grit, brushing it off.
When he realized what it was, he yanked his hand back as though from a fire.
GABRIEL shot awake, one hand twitching up to the left side of his head as though to keep his brain from bursting through the bone.
He had no comparable pain, but remembered what he’d felt then. How the hell had he gotten through it?
Where was that place? Not near Chicago. It was…the cabin…and it was…
Gone now. The sunset took it from him, damn it.
The thing he’d found…what was it? He could almost feel it again under his fingertips…
The sunset took that as well.
Damn.
His raised hand was a fist now, and he considered punching a hole in the wall, then thought better of it. This deserted and forlorn old shop wasn’t his property to damage. He made himself relax and stretched out of his braced posture.
Not too bad, just a little stiff. He’d lose that on the walk back to Fleming’s house. Gabe wasn’t fully rested, but he would make up for it later.
Patience. Another day’s worth of dreaming might get him everything.
In the meantime he’d talk to the old bastard and see if that would help.
7
FLEMING
