"Nan, we might get blood all over us takin" him to the river."
"We could carry him in the rug."
"Georgie," came the patient reply, "we would then have to throw it in with him.
The boss don"t like wasting a good gimmick, he"ll want to use the rug again someday, and then where would we be? Come on and get the legs."
They grunted and lifted their burden. Before they"d gotten ten feet, I darted in and punched Sanderson for all I was worth. I felt and heard bones give under my fist.
The big man"s head snapped back, and he shot straight away from me and smashed against a tree.
His partner had little time to react, but he was fast. He dropped Escott"s legs and clawing for his gun when I knocked the wind out of him with a gut punch. He doubled over with a whoosh and was made unconscious by a more restrained tap on the head.
I tore my mask away and knelt by Escott, checking him over. There was a swelling behind his left ear and a little blood from a cut lip, but he seemed otherwise uninjured. On a hunch, I searched Georgie and found a whiskey flask. I sniffed to make sure it was drinkable and dribbled a little into Escott"s sagging mouth. I was surprised at my own enormous relief when he coughed violently and opened his eyes.
He was understandably dazed; it took a few more minutes and another swallow before he was up to asking questions.
"Dear me, how ever did we get out here?"
"By way of the Fred Sanderson taxi service."
"They caught me like a b.l.o.o.d.y amateur," he complained, painfully probing his lump. "Did they get you, too?"
"Hardly. I hitched a ride when I saw them load you into the car. Neither of them looked like carpet layers." I indicated the discarded rug.Escott was unsteady, but made a game effort to get to his feet. I helped him. "I am very much in your debt, Mr. Fleming. I hope that I may somehow-"
"Don"t worry about it," I interrupted. "You could have aced me with a hammer and stake anytime today, but you didn"t. We"re even."
"But, my dear fellow, such an action never occurred to me." Escott was truly shocked.
"But I thought of it. The way I am now I gotta be careful who I trust, but I know you"re gonna be square with me. Now before we get all maudlin, let"s pack these two mugs in the car and get back home."
I left the flashlight with Escott and got busy manhandling Georgie into the backseat. Having had some practice at it, I removed his tie and secured his hands together behind him, then went back for Sanderson.
Neither of us had to venture very close to know something was seriously wrong.
Sanderson"s utterly loose posture was enough to alert Escott, who gingerly felt for a pulse. I already knew that to be a futile effort.
Escott turned the body face up into the light and his breath hissed sharply. I looked quickly away, sickened by what I"d done.
Twenty minutes later we were almost back in Chicago. Sanderson"s body was in the trunk, wrapped in the rug. Occasionally Escott would check the backseat to make sure the now-blindfolded Georgie was quiet. I"d been silent, driving carefully to avoid the unwelcome attention of any cop with a quota to fill.
"You"ve got to understand," I finally said, "this is scaring the h.e.l.l out of me."
"I do understand. A healthy dose of fear will certainly temper your actions from now on."
"That"s not it. I"m afraid of what I"ve become. What I did back there-I knew what would happen if I hit him like that, and I did it anyway."
"Good."
I glanced at him, surprised. His face showed a dour expression that must have matched my own. "Good?"
"Mm. Do you honestly think I harbor any regret or pity for a man who would have been the agent of my death and was by your own guess responsible for yours? Your feeling of guilt is misplaced. Were our positions reversed I should give no more thought to the matter than a soldier does when he must shoot at the enemy."
Half a lifetime ago I had shot at the enemy. I hadn"t liked it then, either.
"He would have met his death sooner or later, for such was his life, and then at the hands of someone with far less conscience. If it is any comfort to you, I"m sure he never knew what hit him."
" What is the magic word. What have I become? I"m no longer human."
"That is utter nonsense and for your own good I suggest you put it from your head as quickly as possible. Do you in all truth really believe the biological changes within you have stripped you of humanity? You still possess your mortal clay, you still have emotional needs. I think you are giving far too much credence to a fictional character created out of the imagination of an actor"s manager."
I gave him a sharp look.
"No, I"m no mind reader, but I can follow your line of reasoning. The character Dracula was a monster. He was also a vampire. You are now a vampire, ergo, you are a monster."
"What makes you think I"m not? Maybe I should pull over and strangle the kid in the back."
"If you feel it"s necessary, but you won"t."
He was right, it"d been a stupid thing to say and said in anger.
"You"re feeling guilty, hence this black reaction. Feel guilty if you must, but leave self-pity out of it, for it is the most destructive of all emotions."
"What makes you so smart?"
"I read a lot." He bowed his head in weariness, looking green at the edges.
"You still want to go on after this?" I said, meaning the investigation.
"Oh, yes, but not just this moment."
I heard something in the back and checked our prisoner from the mirror. "He"s waking up," I whispered.
Escott nodded, tapping his lips with a finger. We kept silent for the rest of the trip while Georgie played possum in the backseat.
Following gestured directions, I negotiated the streets and pulled into a no- parking zone. We rubbed the interior down for fingerprints, got out, and Escott lifted the hood. He fiddled briefly with something as I kept a nervous lookout. We both jumped as the street was filled with the earsplitting blare of the car"s horn. Escott dropped the hood, swiped at it with his handkerchief, then grabbed my arm, and we hustled out of sight around a corner.
"What was that for?" I asked as we left the area.
"There"s a police station not a hundred feet from the car. Once that horn gets their attention they can take Georgie in at least for disturbing the peace. After they find Sanderson they can become more creative in their charges."
"Why didn"t you want to question Georgie about this?"
"He wouldn"t have known anything useful. I"m already certain Paco ordered my untimely demise because I was clumsy somewhere in my investigations. I did quite a lot of poking around today and he must have got the wind up, and can only expect more of the same until one or the other of us has been eliminated."
"You"re pretty cool about it."
"Only because my head hurts too much at the moment for me to be overly concerned about the future."
"You can"t go back to your office, they might be watching."
"I have other places to... uh... lay low for the time being. However, I do have to return to my office to fetch some paperwork; it"s too important to leave. I"d be most obliged if you accompanied me. I don"t feel well at all."
"Be glad to, but what if some of Pace"s men are there?"
"I"m inclined to think only Sanderson and Georgie were involved with this job, but we won"t know until we get there, which we won"t do unless we find a cab."
Taking the hint, I left Escott resting on a bench outside a barbershop and went looking, turned up a cab near a hotel, and returned to pick him up. He gave directions and paid the driver off some two blocks away from our goal. We walked the rest of the way, eyes peeled, and turned onto the street that ran behind his office.
He approached the door of a modest tobacco shop, produced a key, and went in, motioning me to follow. It was full of crowded shelves and fragrant smells, the second floor was devoted to storage and full of dusty crates. Escott pulled one away from the back wall and made something go click. A three-foot-tall section fined between the wall studs popped open like a door. Two inches beyond this opening was another apparent wall. He put his ear to it and listened.
I made a rea.s.suring gesture, then realized he couldn"t see it, for we were in almost total darkness. "There"s no one on the other side or I"d hear them," I murmured.
"Oh," he said. He pushed on the wall, opening another narrow door, and eased himself through. I followed. We were standing in a small washroom, but only for a moment. Escott went on to the room beyond.
I correctly guessed it to be Escott"s living quarters behind the office. Except for a radio acting as a nightstand next to an army cot and the window blinds, the place was depressingly bare; even a hotel room had more personality. I found myself fidgeting as Escott moved smoothly around in the semidarkness. He"d pulled a suitcase from under the cot, opened a tiny closet, and was busily packing.
"You dropped a sock," I observed."On purpose. Should they send anyone here later I want them to draw the conclusion that I"ve departed in a great hurry, which is what I am no doubt doing.
Besides, it was developing a hole."
He went to the office. His desk had been searched. He paused and grimaced at the mess, then stopped and grabbed up some scattered papers. "I"ll have to sort this lot out later," he muttered. The crossbow was still on the desk; he picked it up and took it back to the bedroom. I wondered what his attackers had thought of it.
"This will hardly fit in my bag, I"ll have to leave it in the tobacco shop for the time being. It is a bit too conspicuous to carry right now."
"How did you happen to have it in the first place?"
"It"s a working prop left over from my acting days. I made it for a small part I had in the Scottish Play.""
"The what?"
"Macbeth," he said sotto voce. "As a weapon these days it"s a little bulky, but it is powerful, lethal, and silent. I have smaller ones, but thought you might be more impressed with something large."
"You thought right."
"Then you"re certain wood can harm you?"
"The lady I knew in New York mentioned it."
"Ah." Escott returned to the washroom and shoved the suitcase through the doors, along with the crossbow. He paused at the medicine cabinet, dropped some shaving items into his pockets, and then, to my puzzlement, tugged at the frame of the cabinet itself. It swung out, revealing a flat metal box standing on edge in the s.p.a.ce behind. He opened it, making sure the papers inside were still intact before taking them away.
"Who did your carpentry?"
"Oh, I did it all myself," he said with some pride. "I love this sort of thing, don"t you?"
As Escott locked the tobacco shop door, I asked, "Do you own this place?"
"Half of it. The other owner actually runs it. I help him financially through these hard times and he helps me by maintaining a good hiding place and, if necessary, escape route with twenty-four-hour access and egress."
"Are you rich?"
"Sometimes." He swayed a little. "Sorry, that bash on the head is making itself felt.""Lemme take your bag."
"Only if you insist."
"Where to now?"
"I"m not sure. Not knowing just where I slipped up on my investigations, I can"t be certain which of my other places would be safe."
"Then stay away from them and get a hotel."
"Mr. Fleming, I don"t think you have grasped the tremendous influence the gangs have on this city. If I show my face at the wrong hostel I am very likely to get it blown off, putting to naught your efforts tonight on my behalf. Within hours, if not already, Paco and his men are going to know of my miraculous escape and be looking for me.
It"s very bad for their image when someone thwarts them, you see."
"Then you"ll leave town?"
"I"m... not sure." Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead and his face was gray. He was having some kind of delayed reaction. I caught his arm to support him.
"Hey, you"re really sick. Come on, we"ll sneak you up the backstairs of my hotel, you can flop there."
"But I really shouldn"t-"
"You can"t think in the shape you"re in now. You"ll be safe enough there under my name."
He protested mildly once more, but now and then everybody needs a keeper. I appointed myself his and dragged him off.
Once back at the hotel, Escott collapsed with a groan on the bed while I ordered up some ice and poured out a double from Georgie"s permanently borrowed flask.
With the whiskey on the inside and the ice on the b.u.mp outside, he went into an exhausted but healing sleep. I was stuck with the whole rest of the night and wondering what to do with it when someone knocked at the door. It was the bellhop returning with my change and receipts.
"You wasn"t here when I came on, or I"da brought "em sooner."
"That"s all right, I was busy. You got them all?"
He held up a few pounds of newsprint. "Sure do."
I tipped him and told him I"d want copies of each paper every night and to put it on my bill. He grinned, knowing I"d have to tip him each time he brought them up. I winked back and took the papers inside.I spent the rest of the evening reading. My notice appeared in the personal columns of them all and by some miracle the wording and spelling was correct.
DEAREST MAUREEN, ARE YOU SAFE YET? JACK.
It was the same notice I"d been putting in the papers without a break for the last five years. If she were alive, if she only glanced once at it, she would let me know.
After all this time I"d little hope left. Checking the papers for a reply each day and getting none had eroded most of it away. I fended off the inevitable depression of disappointment by sifting through the rest of the pages.
The war in Spain was heating up, FDR was confident the economic crisis was over, and there was an encouraging rumor on the fashion pages that hemlines were going up. The shoe ads reminded me it was high time I did something about my footwear, so I squeaked downstairs to look for my friend the bellhop. I gave him a picture of what I wanted with my size scribbled next to it, five bucks, and a silent blessing for not asking questions.
It was a longer night than usual, with nothing to do but listen to Escott sleep. The papers filled the time up, though, and I kept my eyes and brain focused on them or else I"d be seeing Sanderson"s mangled face instead. Before turning in I wrote a note for Escott, telling him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted and to put any meals on my tab. I opened the window wide, turned on the fan, and took to my trunk for the day.