Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (85 page)

Lewis shook his head and got into line, Mitch on his other side. Henry would come around. Probably.

"Let's have a shot of the big winners," the cameraman said. "Smile." Flash.

T
he mellow sounds of Mood Indigo floated across the terrace from the bandstand under the trees. Strings of electric lights hung from the branches of the live oaks, a glittering fairyland that half-illuminated the elegant crowd enjoying hors d'oeuvres and dancing on the terrace. It was a pretty good band. Mood Indigo sounded about right. To the left one of the canals was overhung with picturesque palm trees bending toward the water under the light of the enormous golden moon. The moonbeams made a path across the water, just like they always did in movies.

Mitch leaned against the rail at the top of the steps down to the little boat house on the canal — just a couple of steps down, really. There wasn't any actual high ground around here, not two blocks from where the canal let into a little lagoon and a sandbar. Beyond was nothing but the Atlantic Ocean, just rolling water from here to the coast of Africa. Maybe someday there would be planes that could do that flight in one hop. No refueling in Newfoundland, no flying south to Rio and then across. Just spread your wings and take the whole Atlantic in one swoop, like the airship
Independence
had.

Of course the
Independence
had crashed. Which was always the problem with high flying fantasies. There was no sense in wanting things you couldn't have.

Was that what had started the whole thing in New Orleans? What
had
happened in New Orleans, anyway? It's a hell of a thing not to be sure if you're an axe murderer or not.

Mitch supposed the best move was to go turn himself in. Maybe the police in New Orleans would be able to figure it out. Maybe they could check his fingerprints against something. Or maybe there wouldn't be any evidence one way or another, not after eleven years. Maybe they'd put him on trial and he'd go to the electric chair. If he had done it, he owed the victims that much. Or maybe they'd find him not guilty by reason of insanity. He was certainly insane. Normal guys don't forget a year of their lives.

It was just cowardice that he hadn't done it, gone and taken responsibility and confessed. That and not being sure. But Jeff sounded sure. What had Jeff seen? Not the murders, surely. But maybe Mitch sneaking home, bloody and guilty. He hadn't gone to the police or Mitch would have been arrested. Had he thrown him out? Was that what had happened?

Mitch leaned against the rail and closed his eyes. If only he could remember.

…Eden, and a hazy summer night, the darkened hall, the stairs to the second floor in shadow. He stood by the door looking out at the night. Jasmine blossoms had fallen on the porch, on the porch steps, crushed by someone coming up, giving off their scent. Jasmine and blood. There were drops of blood on every step, dark against the white petals.

He went to wash the steps, bringing a bucket from the kitchen and cleaning each one. The help would come in the morning. But the blood would be gone. He'd wash it all off and none of it would have ever happened, swept off the steps like the crushed flowers…

"Don't tell me you're going to jump in the canal."

Mitch opened his eyes. Stasi was standing against the rail beside him.

"It can't be more than four feet deep, darling. It would simply be ridiculous."

"I think I killed those women," Mitch said. His throat was dry. “All those people.”

"We could find out," Stasi said. She lifted her chin thoughtfully. "I have to go back to New Orleans anyway because I made a promise to the Dead. We could find a victim and ask if you're the killer." She glanced down toward the waterway. "No sense in doing anything silly until you know for certain."

"I suppose." Mitch nodded shortly. "It doesn’t bother you that I might be a killer?"

"Darling, I already know that," Stasi said. "Real live ace, remember? That means you get a prize for killing at least five men. Only you did that with a license. If it's official they give you a medal and if it's not…" Stasi shrugged. "Lots of things happen in war, don't they? Men get decorated and women just have to do what they have to do. And lots and lots and lots of things happen that nobody brags about when they get home."

Mitch just stood there. Words deserted him.

"Besides," she said contemplatively, "I don't think you're that type of lunatic. Not the psycho-sexual axe murderer type at all. I did a little asking around with some of the reporter boys. Did you know the Axeman killed men too? And the whole story about how he just killed Storyville prostitutes? Not true, darling. That charming man, Billy Beaufort, used to work for the Picayune. He said that was just popular twaddle, New Orleans' own Jack the Ripper. He thought it was about the Mob, that most of the people killed were connected to the Mob or were related. That the whole story about an insane copycat killer was made up to cover Mob hits." Stasi leaned on the rail. "I don't think there was actually an insane killer at all. Often the truth is a lot more prosaic than the story."

Mitch shook his head regretfully. "I wish I could believe that," he said. "But there was something. There was something that happened that was so bad that I forgot the whole thing. And I have no idea what it could have been if it wasn't…" He swallowed hard. "I can even think of a motive, kind of."

"For killing Italian grocers? You once had a horrible experience with an eggplant?" Stasi crossed her ankles. "No, darling. No insane killer. Just an enterprising mobster who sent a letter to the paper to throw the police off the scent."

"As charming as Miss Ivanova's theory is, unfortunately it's wrong," said a friendly voice. At the bottom of the steps beside the boat house stood Jeff Lanier. He gave Stasi a gentlemanly nod. "I'm sorry to say, Miss Ivanova, that there really was a New Orleans Axeman, and Mitchell Sorley knows perfectly well who he is." He glanced up, smiling. "Don't you, Mitch?"

Mitch didn't move. He stood stock still while Jeff pulled the revolver out of his pocket and pointed it at Stasi.

"I suggest you come on down here so we can talk," he said cheerfully. "I'm sure you could run or do something else foolhardy, but I have this gun aimed at Miss Ivanova. I don't think there's anything you can do that will prevent the first bullet from hitting her. I suppose you could throw yourself in front of it or something, but then you'd be shot and the second one would be for her, so…" He shrugged.

"I thought you had nothing against me," Stasi said.

"I don't," Jeff said. "But you make a good hostage." He gestured with the gun again. "Come on down here, Mitch."

He didn't see an alternative. He could yell and someone at the party would hear, but not faster than Jeff could shoot Stasi. So instead he started down the steps, Stasi ahead of him.

"There's a flaw in your logic," Jeff said to Stasi. "The Mob doesn't hit women and children. It's against the code. Women and children are off limits. And that’s where this story starts — with a mobster who wanted to kill his wife."

"So he hired a hit man to make it look like an insane serial killer?" Stasi asked, walking out on the boat dock. She looked as calm as if she did this every day, no hysterics, no sobbing. She was as glacial as a dame in Black Mask, the gun moll who's been around the block more times than you can count.

"Another fascinating story!" Jeff said. "You do spin them, don't you? I bet you'd like to be on the other end of this gun. How many men have you killed?"

Her face was deadly calm. "Probably more than you."

Jeff laughed. "Oh, I doubt that," he said. "Mitch and I are natural born killers, aren't we, Mitch? That's what they said about us. Natural born killers. They never did find out what happened to that girl in Venice, did they? Who did it? I don't expect the Italian police ever made an arrest."

Mitch swallowed. "Are you saying…?" He couldn't finish, not with the taste of bile in his mouth.

"That it was the Axeman? Oh yes. That was the Axeman's first murder, in Italy in 1918. They never linked it. But you were there, weren't you? Just like you were in New Orleans — a freak with an axe to grind, no pun intended."

Stasi lifted her chin. "What does that have to do with the mobster using the necklace to kill his wife?"

Mitch blinked. "What?"

Jeff laughed. "She's a smart cookie, Mitch. A lot faster on the uptake than you." He gestured for them to precede him down the dock. "There was a mobster who wanted to kill his wife. Only it had to look like an accident. They don't kill women and children, remember? He could kill fifty men, but if he'd killed his wife he would have been out of the club, a pariah. That’s how it works, Mitch. Kill five men and they give you a medal. Kill five women and they lock you up. And keep your hands where I can see them."

Jeff was behind them, probably not with a clear shot at Stasi. But the barrel of the gun poked firmly at the middle of his back. Not good odds, Mitch thought.

"He had one of his guys offer Milly a thousand dollars for the necklace! He'd heard about it, you see. Any woman who wore it died by violence. Just buy the necklace, give it to his wife, and let the curse work. And Milly… She was a spoiled little brat, Mitch. That necklace had been in our family for a hundred years and she knew perfectly well what it did, but offer her a grand and she just passed it over! She sold it without even telling me. But I knew. I knew." He edged them toward a motor launch moored at the end of the dock. "The wife died, all right. There was a hit. A bunch of rival mobsters with Tommy guns shot up the car. She was killed alongside her husband who'd given her the necklace. And I knew what had happened. I got it out of Milly then. She was upset because it had killed and I asked what she'd thought it would do? Do you remember that, Mitch? Do you remember?"

"No," Mitch said. There was something, something vague, an argument between Milly and Jeff, something he said wasn't hers to sell… And that was it. It all washed away like bloodstains in water.

"I had to get it back. It was mine. It should never have gone anywhere. And so…"

"And so you killed everyone connected with it," Stasi said, turning around just short of the launch. "Starting with Joseph Maggio, who had been the mobster's bodyguard. Maggio and his wife were the first victims. Louis Besumer was the next, who presumably was also connected."

Jeff grinned. "Oh you have done your homework, Miss Ivanova! You've got all the victims in order! I wonder which press boy gave you that."

Stasi didn't answer. Instead her eyes were on Mitch, trying to communicate something, though he was damned if he knew what.

And then it sunk in. "What?" Mitch turned around. "You killed all those people?"

Jeff gave Stasi a little bow. "Well played, Miss! He didn't suspect until the night Sarah Laumann was killed. And then I'm afraid it became all too clear. She spattered too much."

Mitch closed his eyes.

…blood on the steps, crushed jasmine flowers. Jeff had just come in and gone upstairs. Mitch could hear him in the bathroom, hear the sound of the water running. The blood drops led right to the door, blood and a few scraps of flesh, a mat of long blond hairs. They glittered like gold when he washed the blood off them, roots and all. It took him with cold horror and he sat there looking at them, smoothing them on his knee, until Milly came out…

"She sent you to a sanitarium," Mitch said quietly. "And the killings stopped."

"Damn her!" Jeff shouted, and Mitch opened his eyes. Jeff was waving the gun wildly. "She called the doctor, called the judge who'd been our father's friend, told them what happened. There was a court order that I was criminally insane, all hushed up nicely. A good boy, the judge said. A good boy who went to war and went off his rocker. Not a bad boy. Just insane. He needs to be locked up for his own good and that of other people. The police would never get a conviction. Best to just handle this ourselves, a court order and a quiet sanitarium."

"You killed all those people," Mitch said. "It had to be." A strange peace was settling over him.

"It did not! I'm no worse than you! No worse than anyone else!" Jeff gestured with the gun again. "No worse than those mob hit men I killed."

"Sarah Laumann was no mobster," Mitch said. "She didn't do anything except go with a boy who worked for them. You liked it. You liked killing and you didn’t want to stop, even when it was women who had nothing to do with your necklace."

"She put it on!" Jeff shouted. "She had it coming! I'm nothing but an instrument of the curse." He waved the gun again, and Mitch didn't even see it coming, didn't expect it until it connected with the corner of his mouth, pistol whipping him across the face.

Pain and clarity. They had to end this or someone was going to die. He thought that as he reeled back tasting blood in his mouth.

The same instant that Stasi hit Jeff's forearm square on, her other arm hitting his wrist from the opposite direction and sending the gun flying. There was a very satisfying splash as it landed in the canal.

"Help! Help! Help!" Stasi screamed. "Help! He's trying to kill us!" They probably heard her on the other side of the Atlantic.

There was nothing to do except stagger up and tackle Jeff. Unfortunately, Jeff wasn't such a bad fighter, and he rolled to the right just as Mitch grappled. Mitch hung on, his head still spinning. Crap, he thought, as they rolled together off the dock into the canal.

Chapter Twenty Three

S
tasi looked around for a weapon. Unfortunately the gun was in the dark water, and even if she could find it, it wouldn't fire. There was the sound of shouts above, but they would probably be too late. Lanier would have drowned Mitch by then. They were pitching around in the water, but it looked like Lanier was generally on top.

An oar. There was a pair of oars on the wall of the boathouse. Stasi grabbed one and hauled back and gave Lanier a whack. At least she thought it was Lanier. It was a bit hard to tell who was who, given two identically clad men in black suits who both had brown hair and the same build struggling in the dark in four feet of water.