A Song In The Dark (7 page)

I got out, walking around to the driver's side. The sleet dotted my back.

“I'll be a while,” I told Strome. “Doctor's appointment.” Whether he believed that excuse or not didn't matter. The abuse I'd taken tonight certainly justified my going in for treatment.

“You want I should circle the block?”

All the parking spaces were filled by local residents. “Yeah. Do that. Take your time.”

“Right, Boss.”

“Just a sec—find a phone and call Lowrey. Gordy will want to know how things went with Kroun.”

“He'll already know.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“One of the boys will have told him by now. Maybe Kroun himself.”

“That's fine, then.”

“What about telling him about what Hoyle tried with you?”

“It's not important enough. Derner should know, then maybe tomorrow for Gordy. Let the man rest.”

“Right, Boss.”

Strome took himself away, bits of paper and stray leaves
kicking around in the departing Caddy's exhaust. Midnight was still in the future, but the street was wee-hours empty. The neighborhood was mostly small businesses, marginal manufacturing, and cheap flats. Few of the shops were open much past eight, except for an all-night drugstore in the next block and the nearby Stockyards.

Once the Caddy made its turn at the corner to head north again, I walked south, cutting over a couple streets until the lowing of cattle added a somber note to the night wind. Their accompanying stink made for a whole nasal symphony, though the freezing weather mitigated the worst of that. Breathing wasn't a habit for me, but I could still take in a potent whiff of concentrated wet barnyard when the motion of walking caused my lungs to pump all on their own.

I went invisible some distance from the first fence, floating purposefully forward and sieving through, holding on to the sweet and easy grayness until I was well inside. My corner teeth were out when I went solid again. After an anxious, dry-mouthed moment to find a likely animal, I ghosted into the holding pen. A last quick look to make sure I was unobserved, then I literally tore into my meal.

I couldn't feel much of the cold, but I was totally aware of the living heat swarming into me. The cow made a protesting sound but held still. Its blood pulsed fast and strong. Maybe I'd bitten too deeply; it could bleed to death afterward. That hardly mattered since it was headed shortly for slaughter anyway. I was just one more confusing, frightening incident in its horrific trip from pasture to plate.

Feeding doesn't take me long, even when I'm hungry, but I stretched it out. There seemed a boundless supply in that open vein, so I took more than I needed, filling up forgotten corners until it hurt.

Then I fed some more. Far more. Gulping it down.

Fed. Until it was an agony.

Fed. Until it was
past
agony.

And then beyond that.

When I finally broke off and reeled away I had to grab the fence to keep my feet. I held on like a drunk, head sagging, brain spinning, as the red stuff billowed through my guts at hurricane force. For a second I teetered close to vomiting, but the urge passed, and my belly gradually settled into sluggish acceptance of the awful glut.

I heard someone groaning nearby and snapped my head around to find him before realizing I was the guilty party. What a terrible sound it was, of pleasure and pain chasing each other in a tightening circle, neither one winning, neither one stopping, both leaving me exhausted and nerved up at the same time.

This, I told myself for the umpteenth time, was not good.

Down in a dark little cavity within, in a sad, chilly place I didn't like looking into but could never forget about, clanged the weary and terrifying alarm of what was happening.

The blood kept me alive.

And the blood was
killing
me.

N
EON
lights, streetlights, warm lights from house windows, cold lights hovering meekly in doorways, and no lights at all in some patches, Strome drove us past a myriad of such beacons of city life until we reached the fiery red diamond-shaped windows of Lady Crymsyn, my nightclub. As soon as we paused in front a man was there opening the car door for me. I stepped out, protected from a thin sleet by the entry's arched red canopy. I greeted the doorman, then bent for a last word to Strome.

“See how things are going with Hoyle and phone me. If I'm not in my office, ring the booth downstairs. I'll be here the rest of the night.”

“You sure?”

“What d'you mean?”

“You don't look so good.”

I didn't expect that. Not from him. “I'm fine.”

Pushing away from the Caddy, I barely gave the doorman
time to do the other half of his job. He moved quick, though, ushering me inside, then came in after. Some places insisted on having a guy stand his whole shift out in the cold, but I didn't see the point. Just as many customers would go out as came in, and so long as he did his job he could decide for himself where he wanted to be.

Wilton was busy at the lobby bar setting drinks before a newly arrived foursome, and nodded a greeting my way. There was a concerned look on his face, too. He'd been getting ready to open when Strome came to take me away.

I tossed the greeting back and asked how things were going so Wilton would know I was none the worse.

“Slow, but a good crowd for the weather,” he replied.

“Any sign of Myrna?” Myrna used to be a bartender here long before I bought the place. Now she was a ghost. I didn't have anything to do with causing that.

“Not yet.” Wilton was the only guy here who didn't mind working the front by himself. He liked Myrna even if she did switch the bottles around. “Whoops—spoke too soon.”

“What d'ya mean?”

He pulled out a bowl of book matches and put it on the bar. Instead of being in orderly rows, neatly folded to show red covers with the club's name in silver letters, they were all opened wide and tossed every which way.

“Guess she got bored,” he said, looking bemused.

“Ask her if she won't put 'em back right again.”

“If she likes 'em that way, who am I to argue?”

The hatcheck girl came to take my things, but I waved her off, heading for the stairs and my office. I'd left a stack of work there a few ice ages ago.

From the short, curving passage that led into the main room came Bobbi's clear strong voice. She was doing a
better job with “The Touch of Your Lips” than Bing Crosby could ever hope for. I paused next to the easel display for her. It held a large black velvet rectangle where her name glittered from silver cutout letters, surrounded by four stunning pictures of her, none of them doing her justice.

A second, similar display proclaimed the dancing talents of Faustine Petrova and Roland Lambert with an art poster of two stylized dancers locked together. It was surrounded by a half dozen stark black-and-white photos of them frozen in action. Classy stuff.

The third easel had a single dramatic portrait of Teddy Parris, a young guy Bobbi had discovered when he delivered a singing telegram to her. His long face and soft eyes were better suited to comedy, but he'd gone for a serious expression and gotten away with it. Silver stars fanned out around his picture, filling up the blank space since he could only afford to have the one photo done. Along with his name was an additional description identifying him as “Chicago's greatest new singing sensation!”

Well, most advertising exaggerated one way or another. He was good, though, or Bobbi wouldn't have given him a break.

Bobbi finished her set for the moment. She would wait backstage while Teddy came out to earn his keep, then join him in a duet they'd worked up.

I wasn't sure how much to tell her about why I'd missed the first show. Certainly I would let her know what had happened with Kroun, the question was just how detailed to get and if I should mention Hoyle and Ruzzo. Lately I'd been doing too much that I wasn't proud of; she understood that the rough stuff was often a necessary evil, but she didn't need to hear about everything.

She would know, though. If even Strome noticed how bad I looked, then Bobbi would see red flags and hear sirens.

I plodded upstairs.

The office lights were on, as they usually were, since they didn't always stay switched off. Myrna liked to play with them. She used to make me uneasy, but no longer. I had other spooks to wrestle with, truly scary ones. Like what I'd done to myself at the Stockyards. My body still hurt from the excess.

For all the vanishing activity in dealing with Hoyle I had not grown hungry, having fed only the night before. But I'd given in to I didn't know what demon and gorged myself to the point of sickness. In the hurried walk from Escott's street to the Stockyards I'd not thought to stop, turn aside, or even consider that feeding like that might be a really bad idea. I did it without thinking, the same as Hoyle when he shot at me. At some past point he must have known that killing me would bring down Gordy's full wrath, and yet he'd done it anyway.

So what horror would drop on me if I didn't shape up and get control of myself?

What if it dropped on someone else instead of me? If I . . .

Inside, the excess blood seemed to churn, thick and heavy.

The radio would help. I wanted other voices besides the nagging ones in my head. Turning the set on, I shed my overcoat, tossing it and the crumpled hat on the long sofa.

Then I paced, impatient for the tubes to warm up, for distraction to intervene. My skin felt like it was on inside out.

An unfortunate picture to conjure, the kind that bunched my shoulders up around my ears. I tried forcing
them down. But the thought of blood and pain and screaming and a sadist's laughter—

Don't start. No more of this . . . no more . . .

I told myself not to listen to the echoes, to ignore, to hold on a little longer, and above all, not to scream. There was no actual pain, but the memory of the agony was enough to shred reason and sheet my eyes with blinding tears. Then I doubled over, hugging myself tight against a wave of uncontrolled shivering. It clamped around me like a giant's fist, shaking, shaking.

This time I was not cold. Far from it. The blood in me was fever-hot, and there was too much of it. My body seemed bloated to the point of bursting. Crashing just short of the sofa, I lay helpless and praying for the fit to pass, unable to control my limbs twitching and thumping against the floor. As before in the Stockyards I heard an alien noise; this time it was the sad keening whimper of a suffering animal.

And as before it was me, myself, and I.

Gulping air I didn't need, I wheezed and puffed like a living man and labored through the worst as it slowly passed. At least I'd not given in to the urge to scream. Knowing that there were people downstairs who could hear and come running might have tipped things. I must not be too crazy then, not wanting them to see me like this. Crazy enough, though.

Scared, too. Scared sick.

The radio had warmed up, and dance music filled the room. I didn't know the name of the song, but seized on it, listening closely to the melody, following the rise and fall of the notes. The knots in my muscles eased, and eventually I was able to pull together enough to stand up again as though nothing had happened.

Then I swiped at my damp eyes and came away bloody.
Damn
.

In the washroom across the hall I scrubbed off the red evidence of my latest fit, convulsion, seizure—I didn't know what to call it. Once it had a name it might gain more power. The one I'd had earlier at the Nightcrawler had been far more mild, but this kind of bloodshed . . .

There was too much in me. My eyes might still be flushed from feeding; maybe that's what Strome had noticed. Too much, and it had simply seeped out under the strain.

I took care not to look at the empty mirror over the sink. Since my big change well over a year ago, I had grown mostly used to not reflecting. This avoidance was in case I did see something. Me. Like when I'd really been out of my mind that night when everything changed. I'd seen me smiling ruefully and shaking my head over myself. Not anything I wanted to repeat. Too creepy.

Back in the office I ran a damp hand through my hair, grimacing to take the starch out of my too-tight jaw.

“So . . . when's this gonna stop?” I'd asked the general air, which never offered an answer.

But the lamp on my big desk abruptly dimmed out and came on again. It flared brighter than it should have for the wattage, then settled into normal.

I untensed from my initial startlement. “Hello, Myrna.”

Of course, someone downstairs might have been working the light panel for the stage, and the load on the circuits could account for what had just occurred, but I knew better. The club's ghost was here somewhere, as invisible to me as I was to others after going incorporeal. Maybe she'd seen the whole sorry show.

I read that ghosts tend to haunt the places where they died. Myrna's regular stamping ground was behind the lobby bar. About five years back when the place was under different, much wilder, management the poor girl caught some grenade shrapnel in the throat and bled to death. The floor tiles there had a dark stain marking the spot. It was pointless trying to replace them, the new ones stained up just the same. Even in death, Myrna still seemed to like tending bar, frequently shifting bottles around for a joke. She also liked Wilton, but lately she preferred hanging around me. Maybe she knew what I'd been through and was worried, like my other friends. But I didn't feel as though I had to put up a front for Myrna.

The lamp flickered, almost too fast and subtle to notice.

“I really look that bad, honey?”

Steady burning.

“Yeah. It stinks, don't it—doesn't it? Aw, hell. Look what they're doing to me. I'm talking like 'em even on my own time.”

She was on the ball tonight for responding. Usually she wasn't so overtly active. I took a breath to say something more, then forgot what it was. A strong scent of roses was suddenly in the air. Instant distraction.

For a second I thought it might be Bobbi's favorite perfume; she favored something like it, but this was different in a way I couldn't pin down. It also made gooseflesh flare over me like I'd not felt since I was a kid listening to ghost stories by a campfire. There was a reason for that feeling, and she was right here with me.

Roses. A message from the dead. I'd said things stank; she fixed it.

I rubbed my arms, working out the tightness. Who could be afraid of roses?

“Trying to tell me something, sweetheart?”

Silence, steady lights, the smell of roses in a room with no flowers.

Silence . . . ? But I'd turned the radio on, had been listening to the music. The volume was all the way down now. When had that happened? I turned it up again, just enough to hear the chatter of a sales pitch for something I'd never buy.

Myrna was branching out. How far would that go? Hopefully she'd remain harmless. She'd always been a good egg, even helped me and Escott out of a jam once. I had nothing to worry about from Myrna. Myself was someone else again.

I stared without interest at the paper mess on the desk, the mechanical pencil for ledger entries right where I'd dropped it the night before. That stuff used to be important; Lady Crymsyn was my own business, a source of pleasure and pride. Now it all seemed so damned
futile
.

Pacing around once, I inspected the walls, then peered through the window blinds at the dark street below. Because of the thickness of the bulletproof glass, the world without had a sick green tint to it and was slightly warped. I had the feeling it would look like that to me no matter what window I might use, maybe with no windows at all.

Enough of that crap. I needed a change quick before I swamped myself in more of the same and brought on another paralyzing bout of bad memory. The radio wasn't enough.

Vanishing, I sank right into the floor. Not a particularly pleasant feeling; but it doesn't last, and I'd known worse. In a second or three I sensed myself clear of solid construction, flowing forward to and then through a wall. Though muffled, there was a change in the level of sound. Teddy Parris
was singing. From the direction of his voice I was above him in the lighting grid over the stage. I went back to the wall again, following it until bumping into another wall, then eased straight down. It was just like swimming underwater with your eyes closed, and this pond was very familiar. I knew exactly how to get to my corner booth on the topmost tier of the main room.

But it was occupied, dammit. This seat was my usual spot to watch over things, and the staff always kept it reserved unless there was a really big crowd. No chance of that in midweek, so what was going on?

I brushed close to count how many. Just the one, but he was a paying customer and entitled. I guess. Nose out of joint, I'd just have to settle for the next booth over.

Then Charles Escott said, “Hello, Jack. Won't you sit down?”

The voice and precise British accent were unmistakable. If I'd had solidity, I might have snorted.

I lowered into the booth on the opposite side of the round table and slowly took on form. From the grayness emerged the soft light from the table's tiny lamp. Its glow fell on the lean features of my sometime partner in business, strife, and well-intentioned crime. Shadows lent a sardonic cast to his expression, but they didn't have to work too hard to bring it out. Escott's bony face and big beak of a nose were the kind that could easily shape themselves into a villainous look. Years back when he'd been on the stage in a Canadian repertory company, young as he'd been, he was always given the lead in
Richard III
. I'd have paid money to see that.