A Song In The Dark (29 page)

When we reached the right floor I knocked twice and pushed slowly on the service door. A guy a little shorter than Isham stood with a revolver in his fist. He knew me by sight but didn't put the gun away. I slowly emerged, my arms out a little. Kroun did the same.

One of Gordy's boys, Lowrey, came up and said we were okay. The other man nodded and retreated a few steps, watchful.

Lowrey and another trusted man had taken turns standing watch since all this began. Strome might have been here to help, but he wasn't much of a mixer with color. Lowrey didn't give a damn one way or another, it was just a job. Most of the real guardianship was done by Shoe Coldfield's people.

Lowrey took us along the length of the hotel hall and up another flight. This floor had rooms with open doors, plush carpeting, and people, but nothing noisy. It was almost like a library. So long as it didn't turn into a funeral parlor.

Adelle Taylor emerged from one of the rooms, apparently expecting us. She was soberly dressed, not in her usual film-actress style, but everything looked nice. She gave me a smile.

I bent a little and bussed her cheek, then gave her a good looking over. “Woman, you have him get on his feet pretty soon, or I'm gonna start asking you out.”

She reacted well. “Is that a promise or a threat?”

“Both.”

At the sight of her Kroun underwent an amazing transformation. He dropped the dour face and blazed out with his charm once more. “A pleasure again, Miss Taylor. You're looking very fine tonight.”

“Thank you, Whitey. It's so much better here. Like a weight's been lifted.”

“I'm glad to hear it. If you need anything, absolutely anything at all, I'll make sure you have it.”

“You're very kind.” She beamed, and I could tell that made Kroun's whole week.

I was on her side—whatever put him in a good humor was good in turn for her boyfriend.

“The doctor's with Gordy now,” she said. “We can wait in the hall.”

She led us a little farther, pausing just short of an open door halfway down. A table outside was stacked with medical-looking junk and a food tray. I ventured a whiff of air and got the unmistakable scent of chicken soup.

Within the room I heard Dr. Clarson asking a question, then responding to the murmured answer with a heavy sigh.

“Well, Gordy,” he said sadly, “you're going to die. Just not today.”

Adelle shifted next to me, gaze raised toward the ceiling. She was not an aficionada of the doc's sense of humor.

“Fine by me,” came Gordy's reply. There was a hint that his usual low rumble was returning.

“And you don't go waking me up for the rest of the night. I've had a tough day like you wouldn't believe and need my sleep.”

“No problem.”

Clarson emerged, wearing the white coat of his craft, the sterile white in sharp contrast to his dark skin. A similarly clad and dark-toned nurse came out, carrying a tray that she put on the table. Clarson looked us over.

“You may have two minutes,” he said. “I'll be out here with my watch.”

“That'll be fine, Doc,” I answered for Kroun. I put my head around the door. “Hi, Gordy.”

He was in bed, propped up on a lot of pillows, with the sheet and blankets pulled high, almost to his chin. One bare arm was out, the other tucked under the coverings. He was pale, but that awful hollowness looked more filled out than before. “ 'Lo, Fleming.”

“You better?”

“I'm better.”

This time I believed him. “Mr. Kroun's here.”

“Send 'm in.”

Adelle moved off to another room, by now well schooled to be scarce when business was afoot. I would have liked to have heard what Kroun wanted to say to Gordy; but if it concerned me, I'd find out later, and if it didn't, then I didn't give a damn. Instead, I asked Clarson for a verdict on Gordy. He didn't want to get optimistic about his patient, having seen too many others carried off.

“He's much better, and that's as far as I'll say, 'cause I don't want to jinx him.”

“If there's anything I can do . . .”

“Have that fine little lady of yours come up and visit Miss Taylor tomorrow. She'd do better for some company. Everyone else keep clear so Gordy can rest.”

“I'll see to it.”

“Then that's all right.”

Something about the arrangement of the bed coverings nagged at me. A familiar outline . . .

“Doc? Is Gordy's sleeping with a .45 in his fist part of your remedy?”

He snorted. “Not really. He usually has it on the nightstand, but that company you brought in . . . he felt better having some heat close.”

Hell of a world,
I thought.

“Out the way we came in,” I told Kroun when he emerged two minutes later.

He hesitated, looking past me toward Adelle's room.

“What, you want her autograph?”

He continued to hesitate. “We can come back later, right?”

This guy was a pip. “When she's not as distracted.”

We retraced our steps without escort, but in the alley between the buildings Kroun paused. “You know what that was about?”

“You'll tell me if I need to.”

Kroun snorted. “Smart boy. I can see why Gordy likes you. He looked like hell. I thought he'd be better than he was.”

“He'll be fine,” I said.

“If he isn't, there's gonna be changes. He asked you to step in for him as a temporary thing. You say you don't want the job, which means somebody else takes over.”

“Derner.”

“Uh-uh, Mitchell.”

A flare of real anger rose in me. “Mitchell?”

“If the worst happens, Mitchell's taking over. He knows
the ropes. The boys won't object to him the way they've been doing with you.”

“They won't, but I might. You pulling another Bristow here?”

For a second I thought he was going to slug me. His dark eyes blazed a moment. “Listen up, Fleming. You say you don't want to be boss, but you sure as hell don't mind throwing your weight around when it's convenient. You handled yourself okay dealing with that Alan Caine mess, and you got lucky surviving those hits from Hoyle; but when all that clears away and you're standing in the sweet spot, you still don't have what it takes to be a boss.”

I kept my anger belted down tight. I had to hear him out. There had to be some way of getting Mitchell off the list of replacements. Gordy was improving, but next week he could be hit by a bus. “What am I missing?”

“The guts to kill and to order a killing. That's not in you. Mitchell can do a piece of work and not think twice about it—but you think too much. You're a stand-up guy, but not for this kind of job.”

On one hand I agreed with him. I'd killed before, but I didn't like it. Some nights I carried those souls around on my shoulders like a flock of carrion crows. Kroun must have seen it. He was the kind to read people. “What about Derner? Why not him? He and Strome are both made.”

“They follow. They don't lead. Not enough imagination.”

“And Mitchell's got that?”

“You don't know him. If you're worried about him making trouble with your girl or you, I can get him to lay off, and that's a promise.”

I didn't have much confidence that Mitchell would obey, though.

“He was supposed to have Chicago in the first place.”

“That's what he told you when Morelli died?”

“Yeah. But Gordy moved in faster. He turned out to be good at the business, so we kept him.”

“Mitchell didn't like that?”

“Nope.”

“He got a grudge on?”

“Not that I've seen.”

Hardly a reassuring answer. But I nodded like it meant something. “But all this is just so much eyewash. Gordy's better. You and Mitchell will eventually go home, and we all settle back to business as usual.”

“Yeah. But if that changes . . .”

On our return the small grocer's was empty except for one very large man in a custom-tailored overcoat. He threw a dark, impersonal glance at me, then pretended to study a stack of canned goods. I walked outside with Kroun and Isham, getting partway to the car, then excusing myself.

“Just remembered I forgot something,” I said, and motioned for Kroun to go on to the car. He shrugged and kept going, opening the front passenger door, but not getting in. He leaned against the body of the car and watched the guys in the street who were watching him.

I turned back to the shop, but Shoe Coldfield was already emerging, filling the doorway a moment. The building seemed smaller with him in front of it.

“So that's the man,” he rumbled in his deep voice. “He ever on the stage?”

“Don't think so.”

“It's a wonder he's doing what he does. It's too easy to pick someone like him from a lineup. Makes an impression.”

“Unless you got a lot of intimidation going for you.”

“That's true. I expect he's one of that type. Knew a few, but they were all onstage. Could play meek and mild, then open up and cut you in half with it. Good actors they were, the ones who knew how to control it.”

“I don't think Kroun's in the meek-and-mild club.”

“No he is not. I've done some checking around since getting his name, and he can be damn dangerous if you don't watch yourself.”

“He's leashed.” Sort of. I'd come to think the suggestion on friendship was wearing off faster than it should.

Coldfield approved. “You're just playing with him?”

“Not for long. I'm hoping he and his boy go back to New York tomorrow. Soon as I get them clear I've got other things to work on.”

“Like that singer who got the noose?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry about that. I saw Caine perform once. Hell of a talent.”

“It's less for him than for his ex-wife, Jewel. She's got the blame for his death, and she didn't do it. That's not right.”

“Yeah, Charles filled me in today about all the trouble. Said you were looking dangerous.”

“Only to the killer.”

“That's what's bothering our mutual friend. You're planning to kill the killer.”

“I haven't decided yet.”

“Charles thinks you have. He's on your side for it.”

“I thought he might be.”

“Well, the fewer criminals walking around, the better is how he likes it. Of course, I'm the exception to the rule.”

“I've wondered about that.”

“So have I,” he admitted.

“If Charles likes the idea, why's he bothered?”

“It's not over the killing, it's you. He's not been too happy about your state of mind. He's worried what it'll do to you. He doesn't say it like that. He dresses it up in a hell of a lot more words, but that's what it is boiled down.”

Escott had a valid point. “I've been shoved against the wall on this kind of business before, and I've learned I can live with it.”

“Uh-huh. But not too happily.”

“Shoe, I know you want to help, but what's going to work best is for me to find the bastard who killed Jewel and make him pay for it. No, I won't be happy afterward, but it'll be better for me than if I did nothing at all.”

“I know what that's like. On the other hand . . .”

“What?”

“Have I told you lately how I really
hate
scraping you off sidewalks?”

“I'm on the lookout. I know who I'm after, and so far they don't know I'm after them.”

“Who would that be?”

“A troublemaker named Hoyle is the odds-on favorite, two idiots named Ruzzo—”

“Oh, God,
them?
”

“You've met 'em?”

“Yeah. Two brains and not a mind between them. They're stupid, but cunning and faster than rats when they need to be.”

“I won't turn my back on any of them. Hoyle's the favorite for this job. I gotta find him, ask a few questions, then make a decision.”

“As in just how to bump him?”

“You reading minds?”

He shrugged. “I've been doing this a while.”

“With any luck I'll settle it tonight, then we can try
and”—I almost said “forget it” but that wasn't going to happen—“get back to what passes for normal around here.”

“Yeah, my guys are getting their noses out of joint for all the extra marching around in the weather.”

“Listen, I don't want you putting yourself out—”

“Forget it, it's good for them. Walk some of the fat off their shanks. They're keeping a sharp watch on Gordy. There's no white people come within a hundred yards of this neighborhood we don't know about. He'll stay safe.”

“I appreciate it, Shoe.”

“It's good for business to look out for him,” he said.

I didn't gainsay. If that's what Coldfield had to put about to seem to have a tough, practical front for his troops, then I was all for it.

“That movie star mutt of yours looks like he's tugging at the leash.”

Kroun had begun to pace up and down a few times, looking my way impatiently.

“If he's cold, why doesn't he get in the damn car?” Coldfield asked.

“Probably thinks I'll forget him if he's out of sight. I better go.”

“All right, but watch yourself. I'm fresh out of brooms and scrapers.”

I walked toward the car, the wind picking up and pushing at my back. Kroun saw my approach, putting on an “it's about damn time” face. He dropped into the front seat and hauled the passenger door smartly shut.

It made a hell of a lot louder noise than it should have. Rather than a metallic bang, there was a deafening
krump
, then it was like the sound itself slammed me in the chest. I was hurled backward, right off my feet, not understanding why. I glimpsed smoke suddenly blacking the windows of
the Caddy on the
inside
before I hit the pavement. Some instinct told me to keep rolling. Each time I saw the car a different view presented itself.