A Song In The Dark Page 5

  Strome? Sure, he was a killer, but he had no reason to lay me flat. Unless he had special orders from Kroun. But I’d neutralized the threat.

  Hoyle. Much more likely. He wasn’t the forgiving type, not that I’d have apologized to him for busting him one over the dancer. He and Ruzzo were shoulder-to-shoulder apparently. Against me. Despite Gordy. Despite Kroun.

  Oh, hell. This crap I didn’t need.

  3

  I BLINKED against blackness. Very little light filtered through the painted-over rear door window, just enough for me to ascertain I was alone in the back of the panel truck that had shared the alley with Gordy’s Cadillac. No one had bothered tying me up. Chances were, after clobbering me they noticed I wasn’t breathing and assumed I’d been killed. Which would leave them with a body on their hands. Better to get rid of me and delay the news of my death than have someone from the Nightcrawler’s kitchen staff stumbling over the corpse a few minutes later.

  Feeling queasy, I thought of how Strome had sunk Bristow and his boys in the water to lose them. Nope. That wasn’t going to happen to me. I’d had too much of that damned lake already.

  When I felt steady enough to get up I damn near cracked my head on the low ceiling. Not much space in here for a tall guy. On hands and knees I worked over to the windows, finding my hat along the way. My head wasn’t to the point of supporting that much weight yet. Hell, even my hair was too heavy. I folded the thing and stuffed it in a pocket, glad it wasn’t one of my fancier fedoras. Lately I’d taken to wearing only my second- and even third-best clothes, fearing (rightly) that something like this situation might drop itself on me like a net. If I didn’t take things in hand with these mugs, I’d end up with a pawnshop wardrobe.

  I pulled out my keys, using one to scrape away paint from a corner of the window. When I had a peephole I looked through.

  Not a lot to see. Flat, snow-crusted fields. Farm country. How long had I been out? I held my watch up to the feeble light. An hour? The way I felt it had to be more than that. The watch still ticked, though, the time correct. No one at my club would miss me until closing, which was in the wee hours. It was still well on the right side of midnight, though to me it felt much later.

  The rumbling changed in tone as the driver made a sharp turn. The truck shook like an earthquake, indicating unpaved road. I braced, holding on to a length of wood bolted to the metal side. Damned wood. Why couldn’t they have just shot me? It’d have ruined a suit, but I could have taken care of them back in town. Idiots. Both of them. And Hoyle.

  I deliberated about vanishing and sieving through to the front compartment to surprise the driver.

  Not at this speed. The peephole showed an undistinguished country lane of frozen churned mud that made the truck bounce and skid erratically. This kind of road at this time of year tolerated sturdy vehicles going no more than ten miles an hour, if that much. We were moving considerably faster. I didn’t care to be in a crash and have to walk home.

  And if we were an hour’s drive from Chicago, meaning a long walk, then I wouldn’t be seeping my way out the back to escape, either. If my luck ran bad—and lately I had no reason to expect different—I’d have to improvise shelter from the sun. That meant spending the day away from my home earth, which meant I’d be a prisoner of whatever nightmares my brain threw out. After Bristow’s work on me, it’d have plenty of horrors to draw upon. No, I wouldn’t put myself through that. Better to wait until we stopped, then hijack the truck, leaving them stranded.

  And roughed up. A lot. Yeah, I liked that idea.

  We slowed somewhat. I took another look out the back. Lots of snowy acreage, twin furrows of tire tracks leading back the way we’d come and . . . headlights in the distance. Someone following? Maybe it was Hoyle in his own car, taking it easy to keep from breaking an axle. I’d break his head given the chance.

  A shift in the gears and the truck’s voice. Slowing even more, then finally coasting to a stop.

  We were in an open yard by a low metal barn. A single electric light burned bluely against the dark. It was on a tall, lonely pole under a shade shaped like a Chinese hat. The cone of light from the oversized bulb covered a wide area before the barn. A car was already there, and four men emerged from it. One of them opened the trunk and handed out . . . what? . . . baseball bats? . . . to the others.

  The truck doors in front slammed shut almost in unison, and Ruzzo joined their friends getting something swingable. They must have thought I was still alive, then, or they’d have been hauling me out instead.

  I’d heard about this kind of send-off. Find a deserted spot for some batting practice on some poor son of a bitch, then either leave what’s left in the cornfield for Farmer Jones to find come harvest, or make a shallow grave in the stalks. It was too late in the season for that; harvest was long over and the ground frozen, but they might not care. Just leaving me under a drift of snow would be enough until spring. Scavenging animals would do what they were best at and . . .

  Shut the hell up, it’s not going to happen.

  The star-filled gray sky layered the surrounding landscape in a silvery sheen, turning it to day for me. In that soft dream-glow the electric light sparked brighter than a diamond. So, just how would I take out half a dozen guys armed with something that could actually stop me? One at a time? Sounded good.

  A car horn blared in the distance. The six men all looked back the way we’d come, their attention on the approaching headlights I’d seen. Just how big a party was this?

  Well, since they were distracted . . .

  I vanished and slipped out under the door. A smooth, invisible tearing over open ground to the count of five, then I slowed to wash gently against the very solid side of the tin barn. Jeez, this was perfect. I glided on, keeping the flat surface of the barn’s wall on my left, reaching an opening, and going in. An instant later I was solid again, standing upright in brisk freezing air I barely felt. I was in time to take in the show.

  Hoyle, Ruzzo, and four other guys I knew by sight were less than twenty feet away. The start of a nice little gang.

  The second car was Gordy’s Cadillac. It braked majestically; the motor cut. Strome got out. He didn’t look too good, seemed to carry himself gingerly. Though he wasn’t obviously showing it, I got the impression he was pissed off.

  “Hoyle,” he said, by way of greeting.

  Along with a baseball bat, Hoyle had a gun ready in his other hand. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  Strome would be armed, but made no move for his shoulder holster and the semiauto .45 he kept there. He looked around the yard, probably for me. My broken body was not lying out in the snow. Was he in on this? When Gordy got shot Strome had been more than ready to leave for greener pastures, but I couldn’t think why he’d throw in with Hoyle.

  Hoyle repeated the question. He tossed the bat to one of his men, who caught it neatly and held it ready to use.

  Strome was able to summon some cold-eyed threat to pass around, enough so four of the mugs backed off a few steps. He was still one of Gordy’s lieutenants, after all. “Whatever you’re doing here, you stop.”

  “Not doing nothing, Strome. Just a little batting practice.” Hoyle’s smile was ugly. There was nothing specifically wrong with it, and that’s why it made my back hairs rise.

  “You boys pack it up and go back, and I won’t say nothing to the boss.”

  “Which boss? Gordy or Fleming?”

  “The boss what’s in charge. The boss who will see you here next if you cross him.” He nodded toward the group in general.

  Hoyle and some others snorted. “Fleming, then. We don’t take orders from that punk bastard.”

  Strome went patient, reverting to ingrained habit. “Gordy put him in charge. Every one of you knows that. Ain’t for us to argue with Gordy.”

  “Yeah-yeah. If we can believe that it was Gordy who said so. All we know is what you and Derner let drop, and you guys got plenty reason not to rock the boat.”

  “So do you. You mess up on this—”

  “Aw, screw it. You wanna run errands for that punk creep, fine, but we got regular business to do, an’ it’s gonna get done. Gordy’ll agree with me on this, and the hell with Fleming.”

  They’d formed a rough half circle around Strome, but it was ragged, with four of the guys having drifted outward. Their collective attention was on him. I hoped he was deadpan enough to not react as I stepped clear of the barn.

  If he did, I got too busy to notice, swiftly coming up behind the nearest man holding a baseball bat. I pulled it casually from his hand, slammed a left into his jaw as he turned, then swung the bat smartly into the next guy’s gut. Both men dropped just that fast, and I rounded on another, giving him a low and mean bunt just under his rib cage. Half the opposition now lay on the snow, either unconscious or gasping for air. Hoyle had been alert for trouble, though, and spun with his gun raised. A joyous sneer lit up his narrow mug as he recognized me. I had a perfect view directly up the short barrel of his gun. At ten feet it was a cannon.

  He immediately fired, point-blank. Three shots as quick as he could pull the trigger.

  He had good aim, holding the muzzle steady on my unmoving form, the sound sharp yet toylike under the wide sky. The smoke was swept away by the icy wind, and for a few crucial seconds I had to fight its force to keep from being carried off as well. I’d surrendered just enough solidity so the bullets passed right through my near-ghostly body, spanging hollow into the barn’s tin walls behind. Being just outside the nimbus of the light, I gambled that I could get away with such a risky stunt in front of witnesses.

  Strome belatedly grabbed Hoyle’s arm, and they wrestled and danced, cursing. The remaining two guys, Ruzzo, stared at me, probably because I should have been falling down and wasn’t. Instead, I charged them, yelling and swinging the bat and moving a hell of a lot faster than anything they’d ever remotely experienced. Then they were also on the ground with their friends, not being any further problem.

  I stepped into Strome and Hoyle’s rumba and plucked the gun clear before Hoyle could shoot either of them. That didn’t stop his fighting. My cracking one of his legs with the bat did. He broke off fast with a high scream, clutching his shin. It wasn’t broken, but the bone would be bruised. I’d felt the impact through the length of the bat and judged he’d be limping for a week. Good payback for the knock he must have landed on me earlier.

  “You summabitch, you busted—ah, Jesus God!”

  He went on like that for a while, loudly expressing pain and outrage. Strome, huffing to get his breath back, kept an eye on him while I made the rounds of the others. One of them was recovered enough to fumble for his gun, but I whacked his wrist with the bat, then tapped him lightly on the forehead. Lightly for me, anyway. He hit the snow and stayed there. It was obvious they were in no condition for a counterattack.

  I shoved Hoyle’s gun into my belt. The barrel was hot. It struck me then just how quick he’d been to shoot. There’d been no hesitation, no thought of the consequences to hold him back from killing me. He either had a grudge on that was beyond restraint or must have done his thinking beforehand and made up his mind then what to do if we ever crossed. I barely knew the guy, so it was disturbing to have inspired such a reaction in a stranger, but not unexpected given this kind of work.

  Hoyle sat flat in the snow, clutching his leg, still cursing, but in a lower, more dangerous voice. Having passed through the initial agony, his invective was for me, not his pain. His threats were basic and brutal and nothing I’d not heard before from other guys. He was a rangy, long-boned specimen whose loose-jointed manner of walking might be mistaken for clumsiness, but he was one of the rare ones who could instantly pull himself in quick and tight to surprise an overconfident opponent. I’d heard from Gordy that Hoyle had been in the ring about ten years back, but got thrown out because of a betting scandal. It left him soured on boxing, but he’d never forgotten his training and still looked fit and granite-solid. Strome had taken a hell of a chance mixing with him.

  I looked down at Hoyle. He shot pure hatred right back. I grabbed hunks of his overcoat and hauled him up. He piled an iron fist into me. It was a short swing; he didn’t have enough room to really get behind it, but sheer muscle made the blow sufficiently powerful to send anyone else reeling. I took the impact like a heavy workout bag, swaying a little, but not really moved. Before he could go for a second punch I lifted him right off his feet and thumped him bodily against the truck. Several times. I’m tall, but on the lean side. I don’t look to have the kind of muscle to deal so easily with a 200-pound man. It stole the fight out of him and, once he shook his head clear, had obviously surprised him. Apparently Hoyle wasn’t used to being thrown around.

  He smothered his shock with glowering resentment but didn’t attempt any more punches.

  “You,” I said, holding him upright, “are annoying me. Which means you are annoying Gordy.”

  “Go ahead and tell ’em, I ain’t afraid of Gordy.”

  “Then you damn well better be afraid of me.” I emphasized my words by smacking the side of his head with the flat of my hand. It must have made his ears ring, for his eyes went dull for a few seconds. I waited until he was able to pay attention again. “Gordy put me in charge for a reason. He knew I’d be able to squash bugs like you with no problem if there’s a good enough excuse. You’ve given me a hell of an excuse with this stunt.”

  “You are screwing up business! That singer shit owes me money!”

  “So beating him to death will get it for you?”

  “It’s to learn others!”

  I cracked him again. “School’s out. Gordy put me in charge to hold things, and I am holding things until he’s back full-time. Everyone else is clear on that except you and these gutter bums. Your second mistake was going after me. You got one chance to stay alive. Get clear of town by morning.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I take you and all your apes apart like a Sunday chicken, only slower, and they’ll be finding your bones over these fields from now until next year’s harvest.”

  He held to a snarling expression, but his eyes flickered. He must have picked up from my voice that I was being literal.

  “You got lucky, Hoyle. You didn’t kill anyone, so I don’t have to kill you. But I am annoyed. If I get even a hint that you’re only just thinking about being stupid again, you will be walking on stumps. Now pick these saps off the mat and stay outta my way.”

  “Or what, you tell Gordy?” He’d reduced serious business down to schoolyard-level snitching.

  Logic would never work on him, only pain. I knew a lot about pain. I hit him again, plowing tough into the hard shell of his middle. A strike from a bare fist is different from the boxing gloves he’d been used to; the force is more concentrated. Some men hold back to spare their hands. That wasn’t anything I needed to worry about. I stopped short of rupturing his insides, but only just.

  “Or,” I said, talking quietly right into his ear, “I will kill you, Hoyle.”

  He was doubled down, and when he managed to suck in air, it came out again as profanity. Weak-sounding, though. No breath for it.

  Couldn’t let him get away with even that much. I dragged him up again and pulled his gun from my belt. He favored a revolver. I clapped it against the side of his skull to get his attention, then shoved the muzzle into his nose.

  “I will kill you, Hoyle. Same as you just tried on me—only I won’t miss.”

  To drive the point home, I threw him on the ground and quick-fired close to his head, using up the remaining three bullets. The gun didn’t seem to make any sound at all, but for Hoyle it must have been a hell of a roar. Arms up, he convulsed away from where the lead struck snow inches from his face, then held still, staring at the gun, not me. He must have known it was empty, but a jolt like that is not easily shrugged off.

  “What will I do, Hoyle?”

  Trembling, he looked up blankly.

  “What will I do?”

  “Y-you’ll kill me,” he whispered.

  “You’re gonna remember that every time you think of me, every time you say my name, every time you hear my name, that’s what you will remember. I will kill you.”

  I broke the gun open, tipping the cylinder clear. Shell casings rained out. Grasping it in one hand and the frame in the other I gave them each an opposing twist that hurt even my hands, but it was worth it. The metal held for a second, then abruptly snapped. I dropped both pieces on either side of the astonished Hoyle.

  “Every time.”

  I slouched across the Caddy’s backseat for the return trip to Chicago, a strange reprise of how the evening had started, just a different mood. Playing tough was getting easier the more I did it, but afterward the reaction would set in, leaving me surly and almost as torn up inside as the people I’d leaned on. Of course, I couldn’t show any of that to Strome. My breaking the gun in two had breached even his expressionless reserve, and I didn’t want to lose what awed respect had been gained. Not that I didn’t already have it in spades.

  I wanted Gordy on his feet again real soon. Some number of the boys in the gang were like Hoyle, resenting an outsider giving them orders, but they’d behaved themselves out of respect for Gordy. That Hoyle had a grudge against me for taking the big chair wasn’t news, but he’d given no hint till now about making an open challenge. It wasn’t only against me but Gordy as well, which was a few miles past stupid, but brains were in short supply for some of them. Hoyle had thrown down the glove, mob style, and I’d beaten him silly with it. Would that and my promise of death be enough to hold him in place?

  “Is Hoyle going to be smart?” I asked Strome, interrupting the long silence of the drive.