P N Elrod Omnibus Read online

  “Oh, my God.” whispered Harpo somewhere behind me. I wasn’t moving and, if necessary, I can lie very, very still indeed. It was a necessity now, if only to allow myself time to get over the worst of the shock. That moment came and thankfully went, but I stayed where I was, straining to listen, trying to figure out some way of helping Harpo that wouldn’t get him killed.

  Someone shifted, his shoe soles crushing and crunching the peanuts on the floor. It was Higgs, walking over to check out Rinky.

  “He’s out cold, Guns,” he reported.

  “Throw water on him.” Thompson snarled nasally. I hoped his nose hurt worse than my bullet wound. It would last him longer.

  Higgs complied, running water in one of the sinks. He cupped his hands together to carry it over to his friend. I could see only that much from the corner of one open eye, having fallen at an inconvenient angle. Higgs never bothered to glance at me. I was just another mess, like the peanuts.

  Someone was having a hard time breathing, probably Harpo. I heard a series of little gasps, then a sudden scrabble of movement. The next thing I heard was him throwing up in one of the stalls.

  Thompson thought it was funny, “The little sheenie shit can’t take it, Higgs.”

  Higgs grunted agreement and made a second trip for water.

  “Jeez, that puke stinks. Flush it, Marx.”

  After a moment, the toilet was flushed.

  Rinky began to revive. He groaned, swatted at the latest delivery of water, and was hauled to his feet by Higgs.

  “Go wait in the car,” Thompson ordered. “I’ll finish here.”

  Rinky made an unsteady exit. Just as he got to the door, someone must have poked his head in.

  “Hey! What’s going on h—”

  “Never you mind, bo’,” said Higgs. He followed Rinky, keeping up a patter of tough talk to convince the newcomer to butt out. It left Thompson alone with Harpo. . .and me.

  “Come outta there, sheenie.”

  Footsteps dragged reluctantly over the floor as Harpo emerged from the stall.

  “You see what happens when I get pissed? You come up with the money, or you end up just like him.”

  “Okay.” Harpo’s voice had dropped lower than a whisper, as though he had no air left.

  “So fork over.”

  “But I—” Harpo broke off.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t have it. You movie people always carry a wad with you.”

  He’d be concentrating on Harpo now, as good a time as any to make a move, the odds were better with Higgs and Rinky out of the way. I stopped being me for an instant, slipping into that non-place where I had no body, no weight, no sight, only mind and will. I sensed the hardness of the floor and, as I drifted over it toward them, could determine just how close they were to each other.

  Close. Thompson had Harpo backed up against the stall doors and I could guess he had his gun square in the poor guy’s face.

  “C’mon, fork over.”

  If Harpo came up short Thompson was crazy enough to scrag him as casually as he’d scragged me. I had to break things up now and figure out how to cover my tracks later.

  Thompson never knew what hit him. I materialized with my hands already reaching, one to push his gun out of the way and the other flowing smoothly into a solid sock to his jaw. He reeled back, eyes rolling up, and careened off a urinal before making friends with the peanuts on the floor.

  I turned to check on Harpo. He was a pale, pale green. If he hadn’t been braced against the stall dividers, his legs might have given out. His eyes were wider than they’d ever been in the movies as his gaze traveled from me to Thompson and back to me again, finally resting on the hole in my shirt and its surrounding bloodstain. It was a mess and it was real. No movie fakery here.

  A hundred questions raced over Harpo’s face, not one of them getting out. He was too damned scared.

  I’d seen the reaction before on others, but like getting shot, the familiarity never made it less painful. Backing away, I said something stupid about taking it easy and that everything was all right. I could hear his heart pounding fit to bust and felt a stab of worry about giving him a heart attack. His green tint turned ashy in a matter of seconds.

  “You okay?” I asked, hoping he’d respond.

  He stared.

  I repeated my question.

  He gulped, grimacing perhaps, on the vomit taste left in his mouth. “I’m . . . fine,” he squeaked.

  “You sure? You don’t look so hot.”

  His mouth twitched. “Dead. I saw. You.”

  I gently put a little more distance between us. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

  Now he seemed to twitch all over. “Sorry?”

  “I don’t mean to scare you. I really don’t.” I’d backed as far as I could. He could run out the door if he wanted. I wouldn’t stop him or try hypnotizing him into forgetting his fear or into accepting me or anything like that. It’s a dangerous thing to mess around inside people’s minds in that way. I never did it unless at the time it seemed more dangerous not to; this wasn’t one of those times. Besides, who’d believe him?

  “Is it some kind of a trick?” He looked so damned hollow and lost.

  “No trick. Houdini I ain’t. Nothing up my sleeve but arm.”

  “Then how?”

  I considered how to answer. Even a short lecture on Romanian folklore and how it differs from actuality would take time to get through, and I couldn’t deliver it in a men’s room with peanuts and Guns Thompson all over the floor.

  I said, “You ever see that Bela Lugosi movie couple of years back? The one where he was a vampire?”

  Maybe Harpo had seen it or not, but he suddenly understood.

  “It’s like that. . .only I’m a. . .a much nicer person.” I gave a little shrug.

  “No kiddin’?”

  “No kiddin’. Except for a couple quirks” —I touched where the wound had been— “I’m just like you. I like movies and hate bullies.”

  Harpo stared, then his gaze flicked to the bank of mirrors on the wall over the sinks. They’d given him his first clue the world was a much stranger place than he’d thought. From where I stood, I could see his reflection. It peered hard at the spot where I should have been, but nothing was there, of course. After a time, it looked down to where Thompson lay.

  Then Harpo straightened to look directly at me. “Yeah, you’re right. You are nicer than some people I could name.”

  Life’s tough, but every now and then it hands you something you want more than anything else, even if you didn’t know you wanted it. Harpo Marx gave me what I’d hoped for, wanted, needed.

  Acceptance.

  Just like that. No fanfare, no conditions.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” he asked, cautiously pointing to my chest.

  I shook my head, too full to talk just yet.

  “What are you going to do with him?” He pointed at Thompson.

  I coughed to clear my clogged throat. “Damned if I know. Got any ideas?”

  Harpo’s face relaxed into more normal lines as the tension melted, and I saw a ghost of his character’s elfin mischief flit past. He walked over to Thompson and studied him, then stepped to one of the sinks, turning on the tap. Cupping his hands like Higgs before him, he slopped water onto Thompson, who jerked and jumped and rumbled an obscene protest.

  Harpo stooped and solicitously helped Thompson to his feet.

  Thompson was awake just enough to see and vaguely understand something was wrong. He was to the point of snarling at his benefactor, but Harpo cut him off by landing as neat and as forceful a gut punch as had ever been my privilege to see. He all but buried his arm to the elbow in Thompson’s middle, and the man immediately folded. His breath whooshed out.

  Harpo stood over him, waiting. After a minute, Thompson, being fairly tough, recovered enough to straighten again. The second he was up, though, Harpo let him have it once more. Thompson grunted a
nd dropped to his knees. It took awhile before he could breathe regularly, and even longer for him to find his feet.

  Harpo helped him.

  Thompson should have known better.

  This time Harpo’s gut punch was followed up by a hard, crisp left with just enough force in it to finish the job. No gasping for air for Thompson. He simply dropped. Next Christmas was about ten months away. Maybe he’d wake up by then.

  Harpo shook his hand, blowing on it, then returned to the sink to let the cold water run over his bruised knuckles.

  He grinned. “I shouldn’t have done that. Any more and I couldn’t play the harp for our show. We’re touring, you know, trying out gags we’re going to use in a new movie.” he explained.

  “We? Your brothers?”

  “They’re back at the hotel.”

  “Where’d you learn to sock like that?” I asked.

  “Benny Leonard.” he answered, dropping the name of the lightweight champion of the world. “We did a tour with him once, used to take turns sparring with him. Great guy. Taught me a lot.” Harpo cut the water and toweled off. “Wish he could have seen this. He’d a been proud of me.”

  I picked up Thompson’s .45 which had fallen when I’d hit him. It probably wouldn’t hurt to call up a homicide cop I knew and ask if he was interested in an easy collar. Lieutenant Blair didn’t like or trust me much, but he wasn’t above accepting a favor when it was offered. Putting the gun in my overcoat pocket to give to him later, I buttoned the front together to hide the bullet hole in my bloodied shirt. I’d have to remember to keep my back to the walls to hide the corresponding entry hole there.

  The first cold tickle of hunger plucked at my belly and throat. It wasn’t critical, but I’d have to make time tonight to stop at the Stockyards to feed, to replace what had been lost. Some of it still smeared the floor. Frowning. I went to a stall, ripped away toilet paper, and swabbed my blood from the tiles, tossing the waste and flushing it away.

  Harpo watched without comment, his face solemn.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot,” I said, “but would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “Anything you want.”

  I got out my notebook and scribbled a name and number on a page and gave it to him. “Could you call this guy for me? Tell him Jack Fleming is babysitting Guns Thompson here and for him to come over right away.”

  He looked dubious. “This a cop?”

  “Yeah, but you can leave your name out of it if you want.” That made him happy.

  “What about his friends?”

  Higgs and Rinky. The ones in the car outside. “Wait back in the theater office until it’s over. They’ll clear out the moment a patrol car pulls up. They’re dumb, but not that dumb.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Let’s call it even if I can have an autograph.”

  Harpo shook his head and laughed in a big way. “How ’bout I take you to meet my brothers?”

  This was almost as much of a shock as catching that bullet, but without the pain. “Really? You mean it?”

  “Yeah. I’d want them to meet the guy who saved my life.”

  I sagged a little. “You won’t tell ’em how, will you?”

  He pulled in his lower lip, considering. “Noooo, I don’t think that would be a good idea. We’ll talk around it somehow.”

  “That’d be great, then. Just great.” I was suddenly grinning.

  He grinned back. “Grouch’ll be there and he might know where Chico is. I think,” he added darkly, “I have to talk with Chico. When we were kids we were always being mistaken for one another, like twins. I never imagined anything like this would happen because of it, though.”

  “Maybe you should wear the wig and raincoat—at least while you’re still in Chicago.”

  He nodded. “There’s an idea. I’ll go make that call. Will the cops take long?”

  “I’ll make sure they don’t.” I promised. “One more thing—”

  He paused at the door.

  “That stuff you were giving me about selling money—is that part of your stage show?”

  His eyes twinkled—they really did. “Nah, that’s just a gag Chico and I do for the hell of it. People try to figure out the catch, only there isn’t one. It drives ’em crazy.”

  “Was I crazy enough for you?”

  He flashed another broad grin. “Brother, you were a pip!”

  I looked at the gently closing door and decided that I’d been handed the privilege of a lifetime. The Marxes worked their butts off to give people like me a good laugh, and the chance had fallen my way to give one back in return.

  And that felt pretty damned good.

  * * * * * * *

  _____________

  THE BREATH OF BAST

  Author’s Note: I’m not cat owner (allergies) but am fond of the beasts. My vampire PI’s human partner was an easy choice to deliver a wholly non-supernatural case for KITTENS CATS AND CRIME from Five Star. My thanks to author, editor, and friend Carole Nelson Douglas for inviting me to write this one!

  Chicago, 1937

  Charles Escott smiled across his uncluttered desk at a potential client. “May I inquire as to who referred you to me, Miss Selk?”

  Cassandra Selk was what his part-time partner in the Escott Agency would have called “a knockout in heels.” Possessed of raven-black hair and expressive eyes so brown as to be black as well, Escott’s first thought when he ushered her into his office was that she was an artist’s model. As it turned out, she was herself an artist, a famous one. He was chagrinned that he’d never heard of her, but she didn’t seem to mind; apparently few outside of certain rarified circles were familiar with her name. Her area of expertise was sculpture; her favorite subject was cats, and she sold them all over the world.

  Miss Selk’s remarkable eyes seemed to shimmer. “Mrs. Wasserman spoke highly of your efficiency and attention to detail—and your sympathy toward animals.”

  Mrs. Wasserman’s business was still fresh in Escott’s mind. He’d agreed to kidnap her dog from her estranged husband. Hardly a case to test one’s intellectual talents, but that sort of mundane job paid the bills. Besides, Escott liked dogs. “Yes, the little canine was a most agreeable travel-companion. Have you a similar task in mind?”

  Miss Selk shook her head. “I require a dropping-off, not a picking-up.”

  “May I have more details?” He hoped she would take her time; he wanted to extend his enjoyment of her altogether entrancing face.

  “Hm?” She blinked. “Yes, of course. I’ve completed a commission for a local collector. I need you to deliver it, then return to tell me her reaction to my work.”

  His smile faltered. “Why not employ a regular delivery service?”

  “I want someone with an eye for detail and a good memory to make a full and complete report.”

  “Of the collector’s reaction? I see.” He didn’t, but would never admit it aloud. “Why not go yourself?”

  Her bewitching smile melted into one of rueful sadness. “It’s impossible because of my severe allergy to cats. This collector has at least a dozen running about her house, and I dare not set foot to the threshold. It’s terrible for me because I absolutely adore them. They’re such beautiful, graceful, noble creatures, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve always thought so. You say they are your specialty? What do you do for models?”

  “I rely on photographs; many artists do so. The difference for me is making a three-dimensional creation from a two-dimensional image. The dynamics are fascinating.”

  “Is it not frustrating being unable to work from a live model?”

  Her eyes shimmered again, as though she’d heard that question many times. “Not really. From conversations I’ve had with photographers, it’s very difficult to get a cat to hold still for anything. On the other hand, I’ve been compared to Beethoven. I’m unable to be in the same room with my favorite animal just as he was unable to hear his own music.”

&
nbsp; “That is ironic.”

  “I’ve had years to consider the irony and concluded that if I did not have this allergy, then I would have a house full of cats and not one piece of sculpture. Without what some would call a defect, I should be leading quite a bit different life, perhaps not as fulfilling.”

  Escott found himself warming nicely to her turn of mind, which he found as interesting as her looks. However, this was a business transaction, so he gently asked a few more questions and said he would be delighted to take on the errand. Miss Selk—she asked him to please call her Cassandra—signed his standard contract and they shook hands.

  “The sculpture is in my car,” she said. “It’s not large, if you. . .”

  He assured her he would be happy to fetch it.

  On this humble Chicago street close to the Stockyards there was no question about which car was hers. The 1937 Cadillacs were barely off the assembly line, but she had one. That, combined with Cassandra’s expensive fur coat and silk dress, belied any doubt Escott harbored about whether she could afford his standard fee. He retrieved a small, heavy wooden box and carried it up to his second floor office, placing it carefully on his desk.

  “Would you like to see it?” she asked, eyes bright with pride.

  “Very much.” After she left he’d planned to open it to answer his own curiosity and as a precaution. In his line of business, which required that he undertake odd and frequently unpleasant errands between parties in disagreement, it was only prudent. So far he’d not been employed to deliver a bomb for some crazed anarchist, but there was a first time for everything.

  The box was just over a foot tall, the top not nailed in place, but fitting snugly like a humidor lid. Cassandra lifted it off, revealing a tangled nest of excelsior.

  “I’m afraid it will make a mess,” she said.

  “Easily cleaned.” He pulled out handfuls of the stuff until encountering something hard. Cold metal, with dulled points, he thought.

  “Just take it out by the head. It won’t break.”

  He did so, brushing away more excelsior. “My heavens.”