I started for the door, then thought better of it. "You"re comin" with me," I told him. "Where?"
"Mitch.e.l.l"s got my girlfriend. You want proof? Come on." I hauled him out the door, pulling it closed behind, and going left. "Into that Nash."
Kroun was limping, his left trouser leg was crusted brown from dried blood. He wheezed badly. I gunned the motor, shifted, and shot us away.
"What"s with you?" I asked.
"Got some smoke. Coughed most of it out by now, but jeez."
"What else?"
"Some burns, the concussion from the boom was the worst. Like someone hit me all over with a building."
"How the h.e.l.l did you survive?"
"Gordy"s car."
"What about it?"
"The d.a.m.ned thing"s built like a safe. There"s so much metal in it I"m guessing most of the blast went down and sideways, not up and out. The bomb was bad, but not enough to get around all that armor. It bought me a few seconds. I didn"t know what I was doing, only that I was doing it. The whole thing was smoke inside, and I couldn"t see, but I found the door handle and rolled clear and kept rolling. My eyes were watering, but there was another boom, and I just kept going. There were some trash cans on the street, and I hid behind them. They were full and didn"t go flying like everything else, so I stayed there."
"And you didn"t show yourself thinking I"d done that?"
"I was too d.a.m.ned hurt to think much of anything. The whole street was fulla stinkin" smoke, so I just got out of there before something else dropped on me."
"Where did you go?"
"Found an empty building. Picked the lock, went in, and coughed my guts out for a few hours."
"You couldn"t call anyone? Even New York?"
"I was thinking again by then, and it didn"t seem like such a good idea. With my looks I"d be too easy to spot walking around, and I don"t know who"s who in this town, so I sat tight and rested up. I thought I"d give it a day, then go after you for answers, but your G.o.dd.a.m.ned club was closed."
"Yet you came in."
"I saw you and the guys with the ambulance. What the h.e.l.l was that?"
"Me being stupid. Forget about it."
"How do you know Mitch is with your girl?"
"I think he made her phone me to get me to her place."
"She that singer, the blond?"
"Yeah. She tipped me off something was wrong, but I gotta get there fast in case she didn"t get away with it."
"G.o.d, I hate this business," said Kroun, between clenched teeth.
I parked on the side of the hotel opposite Bobbi"s flat. Mitch.e.l.l could be watching from her windows and even from that high up might recognize me walking in. If he saw Kroun, it would be a disaster.
We went in through a smaller entry that led to the lobby and the elevators. There was still an operator on duty; I gave him the floor just above Bobbi"s. He stared at Kroun, got a red-eyed stare in return then focused on his job. When he opened the doors again I waited until he descended before heading for the stairs at the end of the hall.
"What"s this?" Kroun asked. He was gray of face as we hurried along.
"I don"t want Mitch.e.l.l hearing the elevator stop on her floor." At the service door, I listened, then cautiously opened it. The hall, identical to the one we"d left, was empty. "Okay, here"s the deal: There"s a servants entrance to her flat, and I"ve got the key. I can sneak in that way, but I need you to knock on the front door to get his attention." "Then what?"
"Just knock. He might think it"s me, so do it from the side in case he shoots through the door."
"Yeah, okay. Hand me back my piece."
"You won"t need it."
"I sure as h.e.l.l will. Don"t worry, I"ll only shoot him, not your girl."
I didn"t want to trust him on that.
"I get my gun or you get no help. Come on."
Dammit. I gave it over. "But no shooting. You won"t need to, anyway. I just need you to distract his attention.
Stay here, count to a hundred, then knock loud."
He went into "one, two, three, four," and I counted along with him to match his pace. Kept counting softly as I slipped out, vanished, and sped forward, going solid just long enough to find Bobbi"s door. Gone again, I sieved under it and listened as best I could in the grayness.
No one talking. d.a.m.n.
Nineteen, twenty...
Made a sweep of the front room and didn"t encounter anyone. Tried the small kitchen. No one here, either. Decided to risk going solid.
Lights out, except for some spill from the living room. More than enough to see by. Listened. Would have held my breath if I"d had any.
Twenty-nine, thirty...
It took a few seconds to get it, like tuning in to a hard-to-find radio station. Vague movements, a heartbeat. More than one...
Invisible again, I floated toward her bedroom. Very much on purpose I wasn"t thinking about certain things. If he"d touched her I would rip him apart. Literally.
No sound in this room. My m.u.f.fled hearing worked against me. Swept through, located one person sitting on the bed, the second in a chair next to the telephone table. Another extravagant convenience of her very modern apartment was having two phones, one in the living room, the other just steps away, next to the bed. She usually kept that one in the bath so she could talk while soaking in the tub. Were they waiting for my call? And who was who? I could tell general shapes in this form, but nothing more specific. If one of them would just make a noise, I"d know who to tackle.
I drifted close to the one on the bed, brushing as light as I dared.
Unbelievable relief when Bobbi shivered and went brrrrr.
"What"s the matter?" Mitch.e.l.l asked from his seat by the phone.
"I"m cold. Can"t I turn up the heat?"
"No. Pull on a blanket. Why is it you dames are always so d.a.m.n cold all the time?"
Apparently recognizing a rhetorical question, she didn"t reply.
Where the h.e.l.l was Kroun? He should be knocking by now. Had he mistakenly gone to the other end of the hall? I could go solid and jump Mitch.e.l.l, but I wanted Bobbi in the clear. He"d be armed and too many things could go wrong. I wanted them both-especially her-alive and safe.
"I know a way to warm you up," he said. "We got time."
Of course, he didn"t absolutely have to be undamaged.
"Oh, puh-lease." A tone of voice like that always went with a rolling of the eyes.
"You turned into a real snot, didn"t you? Slick had the right idea keeping you on a leash. You weren"t too good for me then. You were plenty hot for me. I remember."
"I"d have been hot for a baboon if he coulda gotten me out of there."
"Well, you got a close second with Fleming. When the h.e.l.l did he get to be such a big noise?" "Just happened."
"I"ll bet. You smelled the money and-What"s that clicking?" he snapped.
Clicking? Then I remembered Kroun was an expert with picklocks. He wasn"t going to wait or follow instructions...
Mitch.e.l.l left the room. I went solid.
Bobbi suppressed her gasp of surprise, but it was enough to alert the nervous Mitch.e.l.l. He stood in the living room facing the front door, but swung his gun at me.
"Fleming?" He was flat-footed for only an instant, then squared up the gun, Bobbi came forward; I shoved her back hard so she fell across the bed, then I started toward him. "Freeze!" he yelled.
I froze in the bedroom doorway, arms out. The .45 he carried would put holes through walls, and Bobbi was very much still in range. No shooting. Please.
The front door swung open. Kroun didn"t show himself.
"Who is it?" Mitch.e.l.l asked me.
I was within tackling distance, but wanted him distracted from me. "Your boss. It"s payback time."
"What d"ya mean?"
"You missed with the bomb. Kroun"s alive."
Mitch.e.l.l laughed once. "No way. He"s dead meat. Hoyle said-"
"Yeah, he did. He"s dead, too, by the way."
"You"re lying."
"Thought you"d be happy about it. You b.u.mped Ruzzo, so of course you had to b.u.mp Hoyle. Can"t leave witnesses to screw up you taking over Kroun"s spot. That"s what you"re after, right? With Gordy still alive, you might never get a chance at this town, but there"s no reason why you can"t take Kroun"s job if he"s gone-only he ain"t."
"Kroun"s dead."
"Not so much," said Kroun. He eased around the front doorway, gun in hand, aimed at Mitch.e.l.l. "So what"s the story, Mitch? Anything to it?"
Mitch.e.l.l didn"t know how to handle failure and just stood there blank-faced a moment. Then he slowly went a deep, ugly red. I didn"t read that as shame for what he"d done; this was sheer humiliation for having gotten caught. "How could you have... Hoyle said he"d-"
"Said what? Is that how it ran? You boys b.u.mp me to move up?"
"No! Hoyle was on his own. I didn"t have nothing to do with-" Mitch.e.l.l choked. It had to be impossible for him to think straight with a dead man asking such questions.
"C"mon, Mitch. You can tell me." Kroun"s eyes seemed darker than ever, bottomless and h.e.l.l-black.
Mitch.e.l.l shook his head, abruptly recovering his internal balance. He wouldn"t have time to aim the gun at Kroun, so he held fast on me. "Stand still, or I kill him," he said.
Kroun shrugged. "Go ahead. He"s just another mug."
"I thought he was your new best pal."
"You would."
Mitch.e.l.l went dead white, then red again. "Shaddup."
"With this in the picture some other stuff"s making sense."
"What stuff?" I asked, drawing attention back to me. If we could keep him distracted enough...
"Alan Caine"s murder," said Kroun. "Check Mitch"s hands."
I"d seen. Gouges and scratching from Caine"s nails as he tried, in a very few seconds, to fight his killer off. "Heh.
Guess you could call that "the mark of Caine." "
Kroun wheezed a short, unpleasant laugh. "Ya think?" Mitch.e.l.l told us to shut up, face getting redder.
I didn"t listen. "So why did you do it? Did Caine overhear you and Hoyle? Did Jewel Caine see you running away?"
Sweat, lots of sweat pouring from him. The stink of cigarettes.
"I"ll tell you why," Bobbi called. She"d rolled off the other side of the bed and was on the floor in the far corner against the wall. There was a full bookcase between her and harm. Sensible girl. "He had to shut Jewel up, too. Jewel would have guessed."
"Guessed what?" Kroun asked, his thick voice still fighting against the smoke damage.
"What Mitch.e.l.l-"
"Shaddup!" Mitch.e.l.l practically screamed it. "Shaddup or your boyfriend gets it!"
But Bobbi could count on me being mostly bulletproof. "Mitch and Alan Caine got drunk one night. Real drunk. I heard it from Jewel. Alan bragged about it to her to hurt her, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
"Shaddup, you lying b.i.t.c.h!"