A Song In The Dark (31 page)

Then he straightened to answer, saw me, and froze.

After the first yelp, no cursing, no nothing, just pure shock on his face. Couldn't tell if it was from dismay or guilt, then it slipped suddenly into genuine relief.

“You-you're okay!”

I nodded, keeping a sober and somber mask on. “What did you hear?”

“One of the boys . . . said a bomb, the car blew up. Took you and Kroun . . .” He looked around. “Where is . . . ?”

The phone continued ringing. “Get that,” I said. “I'm still dead. Understand?”

He answered. It was someone else relaying the same bad news. He said he'd heard already and told them to leave the area, then hung up. “Was that what you want?”

“That's fine. Take the phone off the hook.”

He did so.

“Kroun's dead. I was there.”

“How'd you get away?”

“I wasn't in the car when it happened.”

“But you—” He just now noticed my appearance.

“Stuff hit me. I'm not hurt much. Listen, I think Mitchell might have arranged it.”

Derner seemed to hold his breath. He let it out, picked up his water glass, and finished what was left, not looking well.

“Who in this town knows how to rig a bomb?”

The man visibly winced.

“Well?”

“You ain't gonna like it.”

“Aw, don't you be telling me—”

“ 'Fraid so, Boss. Hoyle.”

I didn't quite hit the ceiling. “Oh, that's great! That's just
peachy!
I thought that son of a bitch was a boxer!”

“He was. But before that he did mining. Out West. He learned how to set charges as a kid. He learned boxing in the mining camp, and that was his ticket out.”

“And in the good old days did he used to run around with Mitchell?”

He shrugged. “I donno. Could have.”

“So how is it Mitchell's able to find Hoyle when no one else can?”

“Maybe Hoyle found him. It's no secret him and Kroun came to town. Coulda looked him up, they got to talkin' . . .”

“Yeah, then decide to kill two birds with one boom.” Which didn't explain Alan Caine's death. Maybe he'd overheard something he shouldn't.

“He ain't getting out of Chicago alive.” said Derner. “None of them.”

“Make sure New York knows what really happened. I want them to hear it from you first, not Mitchell.”

“Right.” He reached for an index book with phone numbers, then slapped his hand on it. “Damn! I got some good news for you! Ruzzo—they been found. That two-grand reward tipped things. One of the guys phoned in with the name of a hotel and a room number. Not five minutes back. They probably been there under some other name this whole time. I can send some guys to get them now.”

“No, I'll do it.”

He looked me up and down. “But you need a doctor.”

“The address.”

He gave me what he'd scribbled on notepaper.

“I'm going now. You go on and do what you've been
doing and play the angle that me and Kroun are
both
dead. You don't tell anyone different. Make sure New York understands they have to play along with the act, too, in case Mitchell calls them. If he comes in, pretend go along with whatever he says, find out all you can of what he's up to. Don't let him kill you, though.”

“No, Boss.”

“Protect yourself, but we need Mitchell alive to tell us what he's been doing.” The last thing I wanted was Mitchell catching lead before I had the chance to take him apart myself.

“Right, Boss.”

I hurried to a smaller room off that one. It had once been Bobbi's bedroom when she'd been with Slick. Completely redone, the stark white walls were partially hidden by gray metal file cabinets, a five-foot-tall map of Chicago, a large neon beer sign meant for outside display, and a desk too ugly for any place public. As depessing as an army barracks, no fond memory of our first encounter stirred in these surroundings.

It did have a fire escape, though. I opened the window and climbed out, thereby giving Derner a plausable explanation for how I'd gotten in in the first place.

Outside, I shut the window, vanished, and, holding close to the side of the building, slipped down to terra firma, then glided over the sidewalk until reasonably sure I was out of sight of the club.

The street where I materialized was busy with early-evening traffic. I walked quickly toward an intersection and waited, palming some dollar bills. I used those to hail a cab, figuring my now-scruffy clothes were not something to inspire trust in any driver. On the third try I got one to pull over and gave him the street for Ruzzo's hotel.

It was west of the Loop. A good place twenty years ago, less so now. They couldn't charge the pre-Crash fancy prices to travelers anymore, so they switched to bringing in long-term tenants who didn't mind that service wasn't what it used to be. I paid off the driver and sauntered in the opposite direction, circling the block to see what the back alley looked like.

Pretty much what I expected, but the loading-dock area was taking a laundry delivery and full of busy men in work clothes. I blended with them, waving a familiar and confident hello to complete strangers who nodded in return. You can get away with nearly everything doing that. Obligingly I shouldered two paper-wrapped bundles and took them in. I dropped them onto a flat trolley cart with other bundles and, without looking back, kept going down a short hall until I found the service elevator. There was no operator at the moment; he might have been on a coffee break or helping with the delivery. I stepped in and took myself up to the sixth floor.

The inside layout was in a squared off U-shape with the elevators in the middle. I went down the wrong branch, retraced, and found the right door. Ruzzo's room was at the very end, next to the window that opened to the metal framework of a fire escape. I wondered if they'd chosen it on purpose to have an extra exit or just naturally got lucky.

As I bent down for a look and listen at the keyhole the air in my dormant lungs shifted from the motion, and I got the first whiff of bloodsmell.

Quickly I backed from the door, hands out defensively.

As though the damn thing would break off from its hinges and jump me.

It didn't.

After a moment, I pulled together enough to think twice about entering. Both times the decision was to go; I just couldn't bring myself to move.

Never mind peering through the keyhole, just get it over with. Before I could think a third time, I vanished, streamed through the crack above the doorsill, and re-formed just inside, but taking it easy.

No lights on, but the blinds were up on the window across the room; plenty of glow came in for me to use.

Nothing fancy about this place. A bathroom opened on my immediate left, an alcove served for a closet on the right, then the entry widened to a larger area with a sofa along the right-hand wall. Two beds were at the far end on either side of the window, and a couple chairs and a table, as normal as could be except for the bodies.

The Ruzzo brothers were collapsed, loose-boned in the chairs, having fallen forward across the table. Their heads were wrong, strangely misshapen. One had his face toward me, and his eyeballs were half out of their sockets, his tongue protruding, like a cartoon mocking surprise. The realization finally came that their heads had been bashed to pulp, and exactly in the middle of the table between them was a bloodied baseball bat.

The light changed, went suddenly gray, and I thought Myrna must have been acting up, only she wouldn't be here, she was at Lady Crymsyn.

I blinked, looking around. I was in the hall again, my back to the Ruzzo door, with my guts about to turn inside out.

Oh, hell, not now . . .

Drew a steadying breath. Wrong thing to do with bloodsmell filling every crevice of this place, and the scent of it and death hovering so close was too much, and it dropped
fast and hard, and I doubled over, hitting the floor like I'd been shot.

My own blood seemed to hammer the top of my skull, and for a second it felt like I was once more swinging upside down in that meat locker, then I was creeping purposefully over the red-washed cement floor seeking life from another's death, and after all that I still thirsted for more human-red fire to pour down my throat . . .

The memory of pain and the nightmare of failure left me curled, stifling the urge to vomit, and clutching my sides where the cold, taut lines of the scars prickled along new-healed flesh. My eyes rolled up, and I shivered and held back the rising wail and hung on, hating, hating,
hating
this weakness and not wanting to give in to it. If I vanished, it would mean surrender. This stuff had power over me, and it had to stop. I had to
stop
it, I just didn't know how.

But gradually . . . gradually, the seizure passed.

Exhausted, I couldn't move for a while. No one came down the hall, and, even if someone had, I'd have not been able to do anything for myself. This was soul-weariness, and I couldn't control it.

When I thought I could start to trust my coordination, I pushed up, one stage at a time, eventually gaining my feet. The tension left over in my muscles was bad, but beginning to ease. I stretched cautiously, and you could have heard the pops and cracks at fifty feet.

I regarded the Ruzzo's door with bleak and chill thoughts. They were long dead, I was sure. Going in for a second look wouldn't change that or help me. I couldn't go in there. They were dead, and that's all there was to it, leave them and get out.

I was five steps toward the elevator, then turned around
and went back and went in, because that was what bosses had to do.

The second visit was less bad because I was careful to not breathe and not look at them, letting my gaze skip over the bits that threatened to add to my internal library of evil memories. With enough practice anyone can learn to create temporary blind spots in their sight.

The baseball bat placed so neatly in the center of the butcher's chaos could have been one from the party in the cornfield. I checked the alcove closet and found a cache of other bats standing in a corner, a bonanza for sandlot kids. Someone had reached in and lifted one away, then turned to where Ruzzo sat having a drink at the table—there were two unbroken glasses on it. He'd perhaps playfully hefted it, making a couple practice swings, having a laugh. Then the next two swings were utterly serious, and he'd kept on swinging, just to be sure.

No one would have heard any of it even through these walls. What were a couple of dull cracks, followed by meaty thumps to this place? Just another sound effect on a radio show and who wants to bother Ruzzo, anyway? Surly pair, just stay outta their way and hope they shut up. This wasn't the kind of place where people wanted to notice things, so I'd leave questioning the tenants and staff to others. As easily as I got in, the killer could have gotten out. Hell, he might have taken the fire escape stairs easy as pie or hijacked the freight elevator as I'd done.

Blood splatters generously freckled the walls and ceiling, long dried out. Several hours at least had passed since their creation. Ruzzo had been killed long before Kroun and I had driven away from the Nightcrawler.

Why, though?

If they were helping Mitchell, wouldn't he want to have them around? They might have been dumb, but extra muscle could be useful. Unless he couldn't trust them to keep their mouths shut. If they knew Hoyle had readied a bomb for Kroun, it wouldn't do having them running loose.

I went through the rest of the room, not touching anything, fists stuffed in my jacket pockets. Just looking was enough. They didn't have much: some clothes, a radio, old racing forms, a scatter of magazines you had to ask for special so the druggist would pull them from under the counter.

The two beds were unmade, and there was a tangle of blankets and a pillow discarded on the long sofa. I suspected that I'd at last found where Hoyle had been staying. Was he the killer here? With all three sharing a common hatred of me, they might have stuck together until Ruzzo became a liability.

If not himself the killer, Hoyle could well be a target, too. Only it didn't fit what I knew of the man.

A very quick sideways glance toward the table. It would take a hell of a lot of strength to do that kind of damage, and to be able to do it cold, without working yourself up into a muscle-charged rage. Hoyle was big enough for the work. The punches he'd landed on me in that snowy field were meant to disable and might have succeeded on anyone else. I'd felt killing force behind them, seen it in his face.

Last on my way out was the bathroom. Someone had rinsed off using the tub tap and slopped around, leaving diluted red stains all over. Those were also long dried. In the sink were two wallets, empty of cash. Well, the killer had been practical. When you're on the run you need money,
and whatever had been there would serve to give the cops a motive, however flimsy, for the crime.

Nothing left to discover here, but I had more questions. I'd have to return to the Nightcrawler and wait for the answers to straggle in. Unless he was already on his way back to New York where I couldn't get to him right away, Mitchell would have to show himself sometime to put in his claim for the boss's chair. It would give him a chance to bitch at the locals for not having enough protection for Kroun. Of course, Mitchell could be blameless and been off having a fine time at another club while Kroun was blown to bits. The whole business with the passenger-door trigger could easily be a misinterpretation. Not my first one.

But first a stop at Lady Crymsyn. Escott should know this latest.

I ghosted through the door, materialized, and found myself staring Strome square in the face.

H
E
was surprised enough for three, rocking back on his heels with a sharp yelp. I almost did the same, but the door was directly behind and wouldn't allow the movement. Instinct took over. I struck out fast, popped him one, and he dropped.

I stared down at him, considering my situation.

Two dead guys in the room and an unconscious one out here in the hall.

Who had seen me appear out of thin air.

A simple problem to solve—if I could still hypnotize without risk of killing myself. No. Couldn't chance it.

Damnation.

Well, first I had to get Strome out of here, then I'd deal with what he'd seen. I hauled him up on one shoulder and took the freight elevator. The area below was clear, though there were three flat trolleys piled high with paper-wrapped goods parked along the hall. People were talking around a
corner, coming our way. I hurried toward the exit and pushed awkwardly through, Strome's weight throwing my balance off. The cold air didn't wake him.

We were in an unused part of a blind alley. Not much sun could get in between the buildings, so the last snowfall, glazed over by a layer of sleet, was still in thick drifts. I braced Strome against a wall, scooped up some mostly clean snow, and rubbed it in his face.

“Strome? Hey, c'mon!”

His eyes flickered, then he came shooting awake, staggering and staring around, his hand automatically going for the gun in his shoulder rig.

“What the . . . ?” he focused on me.

I glared right back. “Did you do it?”

Confusion. Just what I wanted. “Do what? Where am I?”

“Outside the Ruzzo's hotel. Did you kill them?”

“What? I—” He felt his jaw and froze. “Ruzzo's
dead?
”

“Since earlier today. Someone bashed their heads in Capone-style with a baseball bat. That's why I popped you one. Was it you?”

“No!” He was outraged and perhaps a little scared. I was scared myself.

I was used to his stone face as the norm, but this reaction rang true. Besides, it took his mind off other matters. A clout strong enough to send you unconscious was usually enough to scramble your memory. You could lose the last half hour or the last month, or even the whole works of a lifetime. All I wanted gone were the last ten minutes. So far he wasn't asking inconvenient questions. That was
my
job.

“Why were you at the hotel then?” I asked.

“Looking for Ruzzo. I got a line they were hiding there. Thought they might be hiding Hoyle, too.”

“Sure you didn't kill them?”

“Never! I never went near 'em! No!”

I took him off my suspect list for the moment; even if he'd changed clothes and washed, I'd have picked up the bloodsmell on him. Plenty of other crimes to check out, though. “Did you put a bomb in Gordy's car?”

His reaction to that one was also convincing. “A bomb? What the hell you talking about?”

I told him, and he didn't believe it. I stood back so he could get a look at me. “Believe it,” I said. “Kroun's dead. I think Hoyle teamed with Mitchell, and I need to know which side of the fence you're on.”

“With you and Gordy!”

“What about Mitchell?”

“I hate that weasel-eyed son of a bitch. He ain't stand-up. Never was.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“What about Hoyle? You know where Hoyle is now?”

“Yeah . . . I got a line. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“If he wasn't with Ruzzo, I was gonna check on it. Word's out on that reward, but the guy I talked to don't have the stones to go after him. I promised him a hundred for the news, but only if it was solid.”

Interesting. “Why didn't you tell me that before?”

Strome looked at me like I was being unfair. Which was true. He'd hardly had time to work up to it. “Listen, I was gonna call Derner, get some boys, and go in. Hoyle ain't the sort to come quiet.”

“Where is he, then?”

“The garage where he keeps his car.”

That made sense. Wish I'd thought of it.

“You wanna check out Hoyle's garage, Boss?” he asked.

“Lead the way.”

Strome was plenty shaken to judge by the backward glances coming my way as I followed him from the alley. I must have been giving him the creeps. Not my problem. He took us to where he'd parked his car, and we got in. I thought about phoning Lady Crymsyn. Escott would be in by now, but there was no telling how long Hoyle might stay in this garage or if he was even still around. If he had brains, he'd be putting distance between himself and the murders.

If he
really
had brains, he'd have never crossed me from the start.

“Ruzzo's murder,” I said. “If Hoyle didn't do it, who else would?”

“Anybody who met them.”

“Seriously. What about Mitchell?”

“Yeah, he could do it. Donno why he would. You just covering the bases, Boss?”

Considering how the murders had been accomplished, his choice of phrase was unfortunate. “Yeah. Can you think of any reason why Mitchell would want to kill me?” So far as I knew, Strome was unaware of the run-in I'd had with Mitchell at Crymsyn.

“He'd only do it if Kroun told him to.”

“That's what I thought. Kroun must have been the real target from the first, but they rigged things to take me, too. The trigger was on the passenger door. It was meant to go off when he had company. Derner said Hoyle knows explosives.”

“Yeah, learned 'em in a mining camp out West. So Mitchell got him to make one? But why should Mitchell kill his boss?”

“With Kroun gone, Mitchell moves into his spot with New York, while Chicago gets the blame for the death. He's keeping his own backyard clean doing it here. Sound reasonable to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Ruzzo becomes inconvenient to Hoyle for some reason, and they die. What you bet maybe Hoyle becomes inconvenient to Mitchell?”

“Because he don't want Hoyle to talk about the bomb?”

“All he has to do to get away with bumping Hoyle is say it was payback for Kroun's death.”

“Smart stuff, Boss.”

“Would it fool New York?”

He shrugged. “Depends whether they
want
to believe him or not. Could be Kroun's got pals back there who don't like him much, and they have Mitchell here to bump him. We get the blame. You will, anyway. Far as New York goes, they don't know you and don't want you.”

“The feeling's mutual, I'm sure. We gotta find out one way or another from Hoyle.”

“Not easy. I might have a chance to talk with him, but otherwise he'll start shooting. He's got a grudge on for you, and I never heard of him holding back ever on one of those.”

“He'll just have to take his chances. I'm not feeling too damned kindhearted toward him, either.”

The area Strome drove to was one of those little pockets of the city where the deep-night creeps could make themselves very much at home. During the day it was a place of cheap shops and small factories with obscure names turning out God-knows-what for who-knows-why. The grimy building fronts indicated business wasn't good, but struggling along. At noon the workers could descend upon the corner bar at the end of the street for a quick beer, sop up the sports scores, and lay bets down for the next event with their friendly local bookie. It was very likely part of Gordy's operation, and if I troubled to walk down there and give my name, I'd have his same level of respect.

Or be shot at. Territorial concerns were ongoing and strong in this town.

Strome parked the car and pointed. At the other end of the block from the bar was a low, one-storied structure. It looked like it had started out to be one thing, then changed to another halfway through, then no one finished the job. Brick and mortar with blackened windows, the roof was sheet tin that cracked and rattled as the wind passed over it. Part of one wall had been cut wide enough for cars to roll inside. There was no real driveway into it, someone had simply smashed the curb down and hauled off the rubble, so the change from street level was fairly abrupt. A faded sign next to it offered rates and a number to call.

We crossed the street, looking both ways a lot.

No watchman seemed to be on duty; the place was purely to park a car under shelter and good luck to you if it was still there in the morning. Actually, they just might be very safe there. Organized thieves would know better than to go after anything belonging to the mobs, and wiseguy stink was all over this block.

Nothing much to see, about twenty cars parked nose to the wall, ten to a side, all berths full. No lights. There was a string of bulbs hanging from a wire running down the middle length of the building, but a thrifty landlord had switched off the juice.

The racket from the stage-thunder tin roof was first nerve-racking, then annoying. The pops and bangs were irregular, and if anything else made a noise, I might not hear it.

The far end wall had been likewise cut open for a wide entry, but one of the berths was empty. I thought that might have been Hoyle's space and he'd long cleared out, but there was his car right next to it. I remembered the color from when he'd run the shooting gallery in front of
my club. Good news at last. I hoped he'd be close to his transportation.

Right against the wall next to the entry were cement stairs leading down. The steel door at the bottom had a serious-looking bolt-type lock. Strome said Hoyle might be hiding out down there. I don't know how Strome thought he'd be able to talk his way in. When I gently tried the knob, it turned, but the door remained fast shut.

Strome produced a skeleton key and got the lock open, then shot me a sideways look. “Better let me go in first.”

“I'm boss. It's my job. You watch my back and come if I yell. Get up top and keep your eyes open, he might not be in, and I don't want him surprising me.”

He didn't much like that, but went up the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, so was I. The gap at the bottom of the door was more than wide enough, sparing me from having to sieve through the bricks. I hated that.

I very slowly re-formed on the other side.

The pessimist in me expected to find pitch-darkness, but light there was, electric, its source at the other end of a cellar that was as wide and long as the building above. It strongly reminded me of Lady Crymsyn's basement before we changed everything. This one didn't look like any amount of new paint and lights would ever chase away the shadows.

The rough ceiling was low and, from where I stood, only a bare inch above my head. A long passage flanked by walls and support columns led the way to what might be a partitioned-off room; there was a blanket hanging across the opening. I breathed to get a scent of the place; the thin vapor hung miserably in the air. Cozy. The smell was of damp cement, oil, gasoline, with a strong hint of urine and sewer stink.

No bloodsmell. Encouraging. Quite a huge relief, too. I'd been mentally sweating about what might be down there.

Breathe in, sort out the flavors . . .

And there . . . very faint . . . human sweat.

It acquires a truly distinctive tang after reaching a certain age. This sample wasn't quite to the level of workhouse bum, that would take another couple weeks; so someone else was using the place for shelter. A dump like this was for emergencies only. Hoyle's circumstances must have qualified.

I also picked up cigarette smoke and . . . perfume?

The crazy thought that Hoyle had gotten lonely and hired some company to help pass the time danced through my head. Then a far more insane idea cropped up: Evie Montana.

If he'd killed Alan Caine, too . . . oh, hell. Had to get down to the end, see if she was still alive.

I'd been right about the noisy tin ceiling; it almost covered a humming sound coming from the direction of the light. Partially transparent, I moved cautiously forward for several yards, floating silent over the uneven floor. Coming to rest just short of the source of the light, I went solid, hugging the wall, and listened.

And son of a bitch, he was
behind
me.

Began to turn, began going transparent again.

“Hold it!” Hoyle's voice boomed in the confined space.

I halted the turn and the change. If he shot me, it wouldn't kill, but it'd hurt like hell. Hoyle thought he was in charge, but that could be a valuable advantage.

Half-turned, I glimpsed his revolver aimed square on me, and the muzzle was for at least a .32. Of course, from my angle it gave the illusion of being much larger. He was
ten or twelve feet away. He could hit me if he wanted to, and he was right on the edge for it.

“Hands up! Stay right like that.”

No problem. I raised my arms up and out, mostly out.

“How the hell did you get in?” he asked.

I thought his first question would be how the hell had I made myself float around half-invisible. The light was pretty bad in the alcove, though. He'd seen me come in, but perhaps only as a shape in the darkness, and could have missed the real fun. He might not even know it was me. One way to find out.

“I bought tickets. There's a bunch more of us on the way to take in the show.”

“Fleming?”

“Yeah.” I went semi again, expecting him to shoot. Counted to five. Nothing. Wanted to see his face. Solidified, I turned a little more.

“I said hold still!”

I cooperated.

“Out there. March.”

I assumed he meant go to the end of the line where the light was and ducked under the hanging blanket. Since he didn't fire when I did that, I must have called it right.

He had more space than my walled-up sanctuary, but that was all the nice you could say about it. A mechanic's light hung from a nail, casting harsh shadows. There were bits of debris on the floor, empty tin cans, a lot of beer bottles. In one far area were some relatively clean boxes with warning and danger signs painted all over them. Next to those, spools of wire and less identifiable things, and tools. I knew just enough about bomb-making to be uneasy.