A Song In The Dark (30 page)

Smoke flooding from under it, thick and black.

Another explosion, the boom too loud to hear, only feel.

The rear end suspended five feet in the air and nothing holding it up.

The heavy body abruptly crashing down on all fours, flames engulfing the back.

The tires ablaze, adding smoke and stink to the picture.

Pieces of metal shooting by like hot hail.

A tumbling wall of fire and blackness roaring toward me like a train—

I
NSISTENT
, annoying things plucked at me, at my clothes. I waved them off, but they made a solid grab, pulled strong, and dragged me over a rough, hard surface. A man yelled in my ear, but it was muffled, as though I'd vanished. He might have been cursing.

Fire rained down. It was almost leisurely. Fat drops floated confetti-like or struck the cement, bouncing to scatter yellow-and-blue flames. A second look, and they proved to be attached to dark bits of burning things. It seemed a good idea to get out of their way, so I got my feet under me and working together. Hours later we reached the cover of a building and ducked in. Someone had broken the front window, and the lights were out. When I chanced to breathe, the air reeked of gasoline, burned rubber, and hot metal.

Doubled over, coughed it clear. Two other men were with me, Coldfield and Isham, also coughing.

Eyes stinging, I looked through the window—the shattered glass had blown inside—and saw the big Cadillac's shell engulfed in a fast and furious inferno. Smoke roiled from its stricken, blackened carcass in a wide, twisting cloud that was fortunately blowing away from us. Even at this distance the heat warmed my face, but I couldn't hear anything from what should have been a blast-furnace bellow. Touched one ear. Came away blood. A lot of it. My face, too. Damn. Without thinking, I vanished and returned. My hearing popped back to normal and other hurts that were starting to make themselves felt ceased altogether.

“Jack?”

Turned. Coldfield stared at me, concerned. So did Isham, but with a different expression. He rubbed his watering eyes, shook his head, looking puzzled.

“Jack? You hear me?” Coldfield again.

“Yeah.” What the hell had happened?

“You okay?”

“Think so.”

“That makes one of you. Your friend out there's gone.”

I didn't get him. “What? Something happen to Gordy?”

“The guy you came with. Kroun.”

“What? No . . .” Looked again at the wreck. Too much smoke to see inside the car, but that was just as well. For some things you don't want details.

“There was no way to help him.”

“Oh, goddamn.”

“Yeah. This puts everybody up shit creek. Gonna be hell to pay.” He wiped his streaming eyes with a handkerchief.

Someone touched my shoulder. The woman who always stood behind the counter offered me a damp towel. “You're hurt, Mister. Your face.”

I accepted the gift and used it. My ears no longer streamed blood, but the leftover gore must have been an alarming sight. “Thank you.”

“Come in back, we'll get you cleaned up.”

Back, meaning a bathroom or kitchen, meaning mirrors at some point. I pulled enough of my scrambled thoughts together to thank her again. “This is more than enough.”

“We gotta get him out of here,” Coldfield told her. “We gotta all get moving.”

“The hotel,” said Isham.

“Farther than that.”

“The club.” He'd mean Coldfield's place, the Shoebox. But we had to check another place first.

“Call Lady Crymsyn,” I said. “Charles is there by now. If there's other bombs . . .” It finally got through that I'd seen one going off.

“Jeez.” Coldfield, moving with astonishing speed for his size, threaded past dark aisle displays toward a door, where presumably he would find a phone. I hoped Escott would answer.

“The lobby number,” I called after. “Try that one. Let it ring.”

The fire rain of blown-up car pieces had stopped, but not the smoke. The wreckage lay all over the street, shattered windows gaped, their stares blank and cold. Most were ground floor, though a few second-story ones were gone. I hoped to God no one had been in front of any of them.

Isham left the grocers for a look-see, keeping a healthy distance from the car and moving fast. I went as well, standing just clear of the door. No other casualties were in view, but people were cautiously emerging, Coldfield's soldiers. Isham talked to some of them, and they began to melt away
from the attraction. By the time I heard the first fire-engine siren, the street was empty except for civilian types. Other cars rolled up, full of vultures who'd come to view the burning body. The smoke forced most of them upwind. A white man came over and asked if I was all right.

I swabbed the towel around, hoping to get the telltale blood off my face and neck. “Yeah, I'm fine, got cut by flying glass. Did you see what happened?”

“Was gonna ask you. Looks like the gas tank blew. Must have been a humdinger. Anyone in it?”

“I donno. Hope not.”

“Anyone else see?” He pulled out a notebook and a chewed pencil, and I recognized yet another of my own kind. What used to be, anyway.

“I don't think so.”

“Hey, I know you, don't I?” He gave me a squint. “You got that fancy nightclub. The one what had the body in the basement—”

“I gotta go.” I retreated into the grocery. People on the sidewalk parted for me, but closed up for him. He shrugged and looked for other witnesses.

It hadn't really sunk in yet about Kroun. Hard to think beyond the burning car. The flames were less now, running out of fuel.

Coldfield returned. “Charles is fine. He'll keep his eyes open and not be driving. You and me, this way.” He headed to the back.

He was in a hurry, but I paused long enough to leave the stained towel on the counter and fish out my wallet. I pressed five twenties into the woman's hand.

She backed a step. “No, we couldn't . . .”

“For the window.”

“It's too much!”

“I'm apologizing, as well, ma'am.”

I rushed after Coldfield, who had cut left down the alley and was waiting impatiently by a row of trash cans. As he turned I only then noticed his coat was smeared with street dirt. Apparently the blast had knocked him down, too. I'd been much closer. There was a singed patch on my jacket and holes torn in my shirt. It was black so no staining showed, but I could smell my own blood on the fabric, along with the smoke.

With me half a step behind him, he led us down a much more narrow alley that opened to the next street. Just as we emerged Isham pulled up in Coldfield's Nash, barely braking, and we dove into the back.

This car was also armored, for all the good it would do.

I looked when we had enough distance and saw the smoke rising over the buildings, thundering fast and black against what for me was pale gray sky.

“No one's gonna follow,” said Coldfield, misinterpreting.

“Where we going?”

“My club.”

“Drop me at the Nightcrawler.”

“You joking?”

“I got things to do or there really will be hell to pay. Kroun comes to Chicago, gets killed, and, if I don't get the blame, it will drop like a ton of bricks on Gordy. I gotta steer that away.”

“Seems to me you should be keeping your head a lot lower. I give you a talking-to, then
bang-boom
, there you are on the damn sidewalk being another damn mess.”

“Thanks for pulling me clear.”

“Thought you were a goner when that hit. Isham, who the hell got close enough to the car to rig that thing?”

“No one, Shoe. We watched it good.”

“It didn't happen here,” I said. “Someone had to have done it earlier. The guys know Gordy's car and that Kroun and I have been using it. Anyone could have wired it up at any time.”

“Why didn't it go off sooner, then?”

“The trigger might have been on the passenger door. Kroun didn't get in on that side when we left. It was pure chance. It was supposed to take me and Kroun out together.” I'd survived a hell of a lot, but being blown to pieces might have done the trick for real.

“So who did it?”

“Mitchell. Kroun's lieutenant.”

“You sure?”

I spread my hands. “If that was meant just for me, then I'd have other names to give you. But if Kroun was supposed to go, too . . . the passenger door trigger changes things. A lot of people might know I'd be driving him and that he'd probably sit in the front. Mitchell's the only one I can think of who'd stand to gain by Kroun's death. He might be set to take over Kroun's job if anything happens to his boss. With Kroun getting killed here, the Chicago outfit gets the blame, and Mitchell is clear to walk in. He wouldn't be the first mug in the world trying to improve himself by knocking off his boss.”

“It worked great for Cassius. Didn't last. He bought it later.”

“Hah?”

“In
Julius Caesar
? Cassius got a bunch of other guys to go in with him for the hit on Caesar. Dropping you at the Nightcrawler strikes me as being a really stupid thing to do. You don't know who could be on Mitchell's side.”

“I got an edge.”

“Yeah. Sure was helpful against that bomb.”

Actually it had kept me alive and had certainly cured a couple of busted eardrums if not more, but Coldfield needed to grouse and grumble and get it out of his system. He was shaken by the business, and this was his way of handling it.

When he ran down, I said, “I still have to go there and deal with him. I can't let Gordy catch hell for something I didn't do.”

Coldfield managed not to heave a huge sigh, just most of one. “All right. Isham, drive this guy to the lion's den.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Uh-uh, I'm not taking the responsibility.”

“No problem.”

“You're certain Mitchell's the guy?”

“At this point he's the likeliest, but there might be stuff going on I've missed or never knew about. I wasn't exactly tailor-made for these kinds of fun and games.”

“The hell you're not.” He gave me a look that was meant to include my supernatural condition.

“Maybe now, yeah, but I never wanted this job. That's why I don't get all the stuff happening. Too damned trusting. Soon as Gordy's better I step clear.”

“Amen, brother. This shit's bad for business.”

“The cops are going to be all over that wreck once it's cooled down. They'll eventually trace it to Gordy and want to question him. You got the name of his lawyer so he can run interference?”

“Yeah, Adelle's had to deal with him. That's covered.”

“You sure about this trip to the den?”

“I'll go very carefully.” I checked my watch, but the crystal was cracked right across, the time stopped at the
moment I'd been flung backward. It could probably be fixed, even the damaged innards, but I would replace it, buy something with a different face to it so it wouldn't be constantly reminding me. “You wanna do me a real favor, you and Isham run over to Crymsyn and help Charles stay out of trouble. They might target there next.”

“I told him to get out, go to my club, and I'd put him up, but he said he was staying put.”

“Playing lieutenant,” I said, saying it with an “f.”

Isham dropped me a block from the Nightcrawler and drove off. I ghosted the rest of the way in, brushing quick between pedestrians on the walks, giving them a brief, intense chill that had nothing to do with the weather. When I encountered the uncompromising solidity of a building, I rose high, found a window shape, and sieved in. Men were in the room and a radio was on, tuned to some fights, but they didn't pay much attention, talking over the commentator. I identified a couple of the voices as being regulars who worked the gaming tables below. They were expecting some local politicos tonight, and the pickings would be good except for one guy who was to “win” his weekly payoff. There was a discussion going on over the best way to make it seem like a genuine game.

Shifted from that room to the hall and floated along, counting doors until reaching Gordy's office. I eased through to the other side and listened, handicapped by this form's cottonlike muffling. No one seemed to be in. That wasn't too likely. I pushed on, finally going solid in the bathroom. I kept quiet and waited. Derner was on the phone, and he was pissed.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you get your ass moving and
find
him!
The boss is raising hell over this. If we don't find Hoyle tonight, tomorrow there's gonna be fresh food in the lake for the damn fish.”

Since the phone was probably tapped I hoped he meant that threat for effect and wasn't planning to carry it through. On the other hand, the FBI would like nothing better than for the wiseguys to knock each other off. Less work for them.

Derner hung up. I peered around the door. He was consulting a book for the next number. He dialed, let it ring a long time, then hung up in disgust. Before he could find another to try the phone rang.

“Yeah?” He sounded impatient. There was a glass of water on the desk and a toppled-over bottle of aspirin. He'd been busy. And frustrated.

Silence as he listened. So did I. I could almost make out the speaker's words on the other end of the line.

“What? What'd you say?” His voice lost its decisive force, like the air had been sucked right from his lungs.

The caller repeated, his tones emphatic.

“Th-that's impossible. I was just on the phone with him tonight. You sure?” Now he sounded uneasy. I could guess what the bad news must be. “
Both
of 'em? Where? You
sure?
Are you? Okay. Stick around, keep an eye on what the cops do. Call me again. I know it's been busy, you just keep calling!” He slammed the receiver down, staring at the opposite wall with its pastoral painting and probably not seeing it.

After a moment, with elbows on the desk, he slumped until his head was between the heels of his hands. He let out a long low groan, gently rubbing his temples.

“Ahh, jeez. This is too much,” he whispered, eyes shut.

I went semitransparent, floating noiselessly over the floor. Stood right in front of him, going solid. Waited.

He must have had a really bad headache; he didn't look up. He gave a sluggish jump when the phone rang and muttered a curse.