The Shadow (16 page)

“Weakling,” he snarled, plunging the
phurba
into the man’s chest and withdrawing it.

Cranston shot to his feet and took aim, in what amounted to a duelist’s stance. Across the room, Khan mirrored the pose. And at the same moment, they fired.

The two bullets raced from the barrels, spiraling toward their destinations—which happened to be the hearts of Cranston and Shiwan Khan—but instead of hitting either, they collided in midair, the combined force of their kinetic energy fusing them into a disk three inches around, which dropped to the tile floor and spun there for a moment, like a top, before flattening itself.

Cranston alone was awed by the event. Khan was already on his way out of the room. And why settle for the stairs when, with little more than a gaze, you could blow out an entire window?

On the busy street below, waiting with hands thrust into the pockets of his peacoat, Moe Shrevnitz heard glass shatter and feared for a moment that another Mongol warrior might be plummeting toward him. Then he realized that the sound had come from the Sun Yet Kitchen, which Cranston had entered several minutes earlier, and that just now a suited figure was executing a near perfect front layout through what remained of a blown-to-pieces double-hung window.

Fleeing shards of flying glass, a knot of Asians and tourists were scattering, dropping sacks, baskets, tools, and trays of food, intent on clearing a space for the figure that was dropping into their midst.

Clutching a bayonetlike dagger in one hand, the figure landed neatly on his feet. Shrevnitz saw that it wasn’t Cranston but someone of comparable acrobatic grace. And more than that, someone with a network of agents comparable to that of The Shadow. For even as the hackie watched, a motorcycle with an attached sidecar was roaring onto the scene, another one of those Mongol warriors in the driver’s saddle.

The bike was a big-engined, maroon BMW, with gold dragon detailing on the fenders and the filigreed head and backrests. What appeared to be machine guns were mounted under the chariot and low down on the right-hand side of the engine.

No sooner had the jumper settled into the sidecar than the driver stomped the machine into gear and sped off, slaloming through skidding left and right turns. But by then, Shrevnitz was already running for the Cord, which was parked at the end of the short block, just beyond the arch.

Cranston was waiting outside the Sun Yet Kitchen when the hackie pulled up. He slid into the back seat. Shrevnitz dropped the front-wheel-drive cab into gear and squealed into the same rain-slicked turns the motorcycle had taken. Once on the straightaway, he stomped on the gas pedal.

Up ahead, the Mongol was maneuvering his machine through Chinatown’s narrow streets with little concern for pedestrians. Some were lucky enough to leap to the safety of sidewalks or the roofs of parked cars, but some weren’t and they were tossed into the air like rag dolls.

Shrevnitz, in operative mode, had both eyes on the road, both hands viced on the wheel, and was doing his best to gain on the bike without adding to the body count. But there were things a bike could do and places it could go that a sedan couldn’t—even one in the hands of a skilled driver.

“Ten to one that driver’s from Jersey,” Shrevnitz told Cranston.

Determined to catch up, Shrevnitz leaned over the wheel and sent the gas pedal to the floor, only to see a couple of winos come staggering into the street from between two parked cars.

Shrevnitz pounced on the brake and managed to bring the Cord to a shuddering stop just short of the bum holding the bottle. Swaying in the middle of the street, oblivious to any danger, the wino glanced at the car, then passed the bottle to his chum, who took a slug and passed it back. The guy then offered it to Shrevnitz, who shook his head in anger and motioned them to move out of the street. Which they did, in their own good time, waving the Cord by, with gallant bows and a sweep of their arms.

It was a loss now, and both Shrevnitz and Cranston knew it. Regardless, the hackie took up the chase. But there was nothing but dark, empty street, illuminated by blobs of yellow light. Luncheonettes, flophouses, and converted speakeasys on either side, except for a stretch of vacant lot on the northeast corner of Second and Houston.

The rubble-strewn lot was a block behind them when Cranston told Shrevnitz to turn the Cord around. Shrevnitz thought that maybe he’d caught a glimpse of the cycle on one of the side streets, but after he’d completed the U-turn, Cranston told him to pull up across the street from the lot itself.

Cranston climbed out and went to the wire mesh that surrounded the lot, and stared at the masonry debris and trash as if something didn’t add up. But damned if Shrevnitz could figure it out; to him, it was just a place where a building had been. After a while, Cranston returned to the rear seat, but he didn’t talk about what he’d been thinking, and Shrevnitz didn’t ask.

The mansion was dark, but someone had built a fire in the den’s fireplace. One of the servants, perhaps, anticipating that his employer might opt to sleep on the couch, as was often his habit. Cranston, in fact, had it in mind to do just that, but when he arrived at the couch he found it already occupied.

Margo was asleep on her back, her face turned away from the fire. Sensing him standing there, she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“I can’t help what I know about you,” she said before he could say anything. “But I can’t forget it, either. My father is all I have in the world, and right now, you’re all he has.”

Cranston’s emotions were mixed. While he wanted to turn on her for ignoring his demands, he couldn’t deny being mildly relieved at discovering her there, safe, and, more importantly,
unarmed.
“I’ll do what I can,” he told her. “But alone.”

“Why? Just because that’s always been your way of operating? You have to admit we have a connection of some kind. So why can’t I help you?”

He shook his head, wanting to say that she’d only be in the way. But what he said was, “You wouldn’t be safe with me.” Which was certainly true, in any case. “You could be hurt.”

She seemed almost entertained by the idea. “By you? I don’t think you’re capable of that.”

His eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.” He swung away from her and stepped up onto the brick hearth. When he turned to face her, the firelight caught the planes and angles of his face.

“I was thirteen years old the first time it happened. One morning at school a cousin of mine—from the good side of the family, the one with money—divulged that I’d cheated on a test. I had cheated, but his betrayal infuriated me. I didn’t say anything when he talked, but I caught up with him after school, in the bathroom, figuring I’d teach him a lesson.”

Cranston took a few steps toward her, acting out the part now. “I remember it vividly. I grabbed hold of him, and I knocked him to the floor. Then I put my hands around his throat, and I started choking the life out him. His face began to turn purple. His arms were waving—hard at first, then hardly at all. I could see the fear in his eyes and I could smell it coming off him like a scent.”

He threw Margo a glimlet glance, realizing from her curled posture that he was getting to her. “I found his panic . . . extraordinary. The fact is, I’d never felt power like that before—the power of life and death.” He returned to the fire, his expression darkening, contorting his entire face. “I knew that something inside me had revealed itself. Some beastlike thing that fed on violence. An ugly, diabolic thing that was trying to claw its way to the surface and take control.”

He glanced at Margo again. “No, I didn’t kill him. The beast was controllable then. I left my handsome, blond cousin gasping for breath on the floor of the bathroom. But I left him alive. I went to the sink and splashed water on my face. And when I happened to look in the mirror it was as if I could see the face of the thing inside me, the thing that was sharing my body . . .”

“As I got older, I tried to run from it—from myself—but it was no good. I enlisted so I could fight in the war, thinking I could appease the thing. But war only made matters worse. Afterward . . . Well, eventually I ended up in the Far East, and what I became there I don’t want you or anyone else to know about. But there was someone there who could see both my faces, and with his help I retrieved the face I’d been born with. He helped me redirect the beast’s power—or at least he helped me harness its power so that the beast and I could both have our way.”

Cranston loosed a sardonic laugh. “Don’t get the wrong idea. My teacher didn’t see me as some kind of holy reincarnation of a dead lama. He saw me for just what I was—a malevolent force that could be redeemed and made to do good.” He looked hard at Margo. “Tonight I learned that my teacher was murdered by the same man who abducted your father and sent you here to kill me.”

He didn’t dare tell her the truth: that she’d been sent to
be
killed.

Margo started to speak, but he cut her off.

“I’m no different from the malefactors I bring to justice. What I do is done to placate the evil in me, because it hasn’t left me. Some part of it is still here—in my heart—waiting for an opportunity to take control again. Ready and willing to hurt people. Maybe even the ones I love.”

After a long moment of waiting for him to continue, Margo asked, “Is there someone you love?”

Cranston stared coldly at her, resistant as steel. “No.”

“Then how do you know those close to you are in jeopardy?”

She got up off the divan and began to move toward him, cautiously. Cranston held his ground. She moved closer, raising her arms, reaching out to him—

He grabbed hold of her hands and held her away from him. The fire crackled, its flames reflected in the red stone of his ring.

“It’s late,” he said. “Sleep here if you want, but there are plenty of guest rooms upstairs. Either way, I don’t want to see you here in the morning.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said bravely.

Cranston’s eyes clouded over. “That’s all right. I’m afraid enough for both for us.”

C
ranston lay awake in bed, fully clothed.

Restless for something he couldn’t discern, he climbed from bed, leaving the master bedroom and stealing down the darkened hallway to the guest room Margo Lane had selected. Finding the door unlocked, he let himself in. The room was warm, and Margo’s sleeping form was loosely tangled in the bed clothes, one shapely, naked leg revealed. Gazing at her, he found himself torn, but between what he couldn’t decide. And so, instead, he crossed the room to a bureau, over which hung a large mirror. A shaded lamp on the bureau illuminated his reflection.

He stood regarding himself for a long moment, before becoming aware of a smudge on his cheek, the sort that might have been left by one’s finger after reading a newspaper. But when he tried to erase the smudge it didn’t fade. Not even when he wet his thumb and rubbed at the spot. Rather, it began to increase in size and change from ink black to irritated red.

He went after the spot with a vengeance now, really rubbing at it and, at the same time, growing vaguely apprehensive. To his horror, he realized that he had rubbed away a patch of skin!

He held the bloody strip in his hand, sickened by the sight of it. But that was only the beginning. Gazing at himself once more, he discovered that the rubbing had revealed a glimpse of something adhering to the bone beneath the patch. With growing dismay, he started to peel away the skin, slipping his fingers underneath the edges, determined to expose the scope of what was hidden. His bloody fingers attacked his face with increasing speed, wedging themselves into places they had no right being, yanking off his nose, his lips and eyelids, as if extricating himself from a flesh mask . . . Until at last there was no skin remaining, save for that belonging to the face that underlaid his own.

That of Shiwan Khan—

A terrified scream from Margo brought him about-face. She was sitting upright, staring at him, pulling the sheets to her neck. Driven by some vague compulsion, his hands reached for the dagger he hadn’t noticed on the bureau until just then. It was, of course, the
phurba.
Raising it, he took aim at her heart and hurled it—

The nightmare had the mercy to release Cranston before the blade struck its target.

In bed once more, the dreamer raised himself on his elbows until he was sitting up, bathed in sweat and panting with dread.

Sunlight streaming through French windows woke her. The unfamiliarity of her surroundings troubled her until her mind put things in proper order: she was in one of the mansion’s guest rooms, having given up on getting a good night’s rest on the couch in the den. She was in her slip on an ornate four-poster, and some time during the night had worked her way out from under a burgundy satin comforter. The comforter matched the carpet, the window drapes, and a silk chair near the fireplace. The bed had a dust ruffle, and at its foot sat a brocaded bench. There were candlesticks, bibelots, and a brass clock on the mantel, and, above it, an oil portrait of a stern-faced woman of sixty or so. Off to the right of the bed stood a bird’s-eye maple wardrobe; the linen lace showing in the doors was repeated in the panels of a nearby dressing screen. A vanity with an oval mirror, a Louis XV commode, a chiffonier red and white flowers atop tall pedestals . . .

The room’s fin-de-siècle elegance brought to mind the house in Chicago she had lived in until her mother had died . . . Renewed concern for her father crowded into her thoughts; then the late-night conversation with Lamont Cranston
—The Shadow.
She recalled the cruel look in his eye, his warning that she shouldn’t overstay her welcome. She rolled over on her left side and fluffed the pillows under her head. An unfinished dream lulled her back to sleep while she was deciding just what she should do about Cranston.

She couldn’t have been asleep more than a minute when her eyes opened. Cranston, dressed in a dark blue chalk-striped suit, was standing by the bed. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning to you,” she told him, encouraged by his pleasant tone. She yawned, stretched, and pushed her hair from her face, making no move to cover herself. “God, did I dream.”