The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (24 page)

I knew their names, but rarely had occasion to use them, and had taken to thinking of them as Mutt and Jeff. Mutt, as you might expect, was lanky and slope-shouldered, while Jeff had stubby legs and no more hair than a billiard ball. They might have been good detectives once, but their time with Abernathy—five and eight years respectively—had taken its toll. Mutt spent afternoons snoring on a bench in the Greyhound station, while Jeff could usually be found holding up a stool at Kelly's Saloon. I'd never been able to decide if they were on the take with Abernathy or just rotten on their own hooks.

In any case, I'd never trusted them, and wasn't starting now. If the Old Man wanted them clued in, he could clue them himself.

Knuckles on the door announced the arrival of a big-eared, wide-mouthed young man with a notebook in his pocket and a camera in his hand. This was my old pal Harvey, now penning obits and lost-dog stories for the
Oregonian.

“This had better pan out,” he told me. “I cancelled a date with Loose Lucy Morrelli to join this shindig.”

We were still commiserating over this misfortune when Mike, Alec, Rufus, and Bob ambled in, and Abernathy called a council of war.

“Pete has to leave,” he told the crowd, “so we'll start with him.” He tossed me a smug look. “Your part is simple, kid. When both of Mickey's hands point straight up, take the gun out of your pocket and persuade Hung Lo's lackeys to answer the knock at their door.”

Averting my red face, I slipped out into the hall.

And tripped over the Old Man, who was listening at the keyhole.

We both went down, but he bobbed up none the worse, while I lay stunned. The old guy might be shaped like a teddy bear, but he was tough as a grizzly.

He helped me up, saying, “Keep your wits handy tonight.”

“Should I expect surprises?” I tried to adopt the look of someone worth confiding in.

“Always.”

“What are your plans for Zartell?”

He did that horrible thing with his lips.

“You remind me of your father,” he said.

“Is that good or bad?”

He remained as inscrutable as the Sphinx.

“With any luck,” he said, “our problems should be over tonight.”

“I don't believe in luck.”

“It happens,” he said. “But not as often as people like to think.”

It was probably nerves talking, but the fisheye Hung Lo's doorman hung on me seemed fishier than usual, and the .38 felt like a Tommy gun in my pocket.

Reclined on my moldy mattress, I tried to convince myself all was swell. Tonight's doings would expose Abernathy for the snake he was, and he'd soon be residing in the state pen. The agency's honor would be restored, and I'd be the shining knight who made it all possible.

But a niggly little feeling kept after me, telling me all was less than swell. There was something the Old Man wasn't telling, and there had to be a reason. Maybe he didn't trust me to keep my mouth clamped. Maybe he thought I'd disapprove. Maybe he even thought I'd gum the works.

What was that chubby codger up to?

Time went so slowly I feared my watch had stopped and held it close to my ear. It was still ticking, but I was certain whole generations were born and died between each tick.

By the time midnight arrived I was lost in a secondhand opium dream and thought the pounding I heard was some sinner banging on the gates of heaven. But men shouting unheavenly things in two languages brought me out of my bunk with my pistol in my hand.

My big moment had arrived.

The Chinese half of the shouting came from the reception area, so no one bothered me as I cat-footed down the hall and peered out at the shouters.

Four celestials in gaudy pajamas clustered about the door, debating matters with their hands as much as their mouths.

I followed my gun into the room, tried to point it at all four at once, and said, “Hoist 'em!”

They might not have understood my words, but they understood my gun. They hoisted 'em.

The pounding on the door continued apace, accompanied by English demands for admittance.

I edged to one side, bared my teeth to show I meant business, and herded my hosts away from the door. While they jeered and jabbered, I fumbled with the locks and tossed aside the two-by-four barring the entrance. Then I flicked the latch and stood aside to admit the troops.

Alec and Rufus entered first, followed by Bob and Mike. They stepped aside two by two as Mutt, Jeff, and Abernathy paraded in, leading Harvey the boy reporter.

Abernathy set fire to a Cuban cigar and let the Chinese get a look at him.

“You boys,” he told them, “are screwed.”

While they goggled, he clarified: “You savvy screwed? Pinched. Busted. Behind the eight ball. Up the Yangtze without a paddle.”

They goggled some more.

“Somebody put the nippers on 'em,” Abernathy ordered. “The rest of you start gathering evidence.” He raised a hand, rubbed thumb across fingertips. “Especially the folding kind.” Then he strode down the hallway toward the office.

Mutt and Jeff were on the move when Bob and Rufus clamped hands on their shoulders, drew them close, and started whispering. Alec did the same to Harvey.

I looked a question at Mike.

“Time to amscray,” he said softly. “Zartell and his goons are on the way.”

My niggly feeling grew into a full-body funk. My mother's face rose before me, scowling.

No promises,
I told it.

“Who invited Zartell?” I demanded.

“Answers later,” he said. “Time to go.”

Mutt, Jeff, and Harvey were already convinced and retreating out the door after Alec, Rufus, and Bob. I followed far enough to see them scatter into every tunnel but the one leading back to the Gilded Duck. That one was full of bobbing flashlights and tramping feet.

Mike made to slip past me, but I swung a hip and pinned him to the door frame.

“Answers now,” I said, “or we greet the goons.”

He struggled against me, swore like a stevedore, and said, “We gave Jablonsky a message for Zartell. Told him Abernathy and Hung Lo had gathered evidence against him and stored it here in a safe. He's coming for it.”

I tried to digest that. It gave me a bellyache.

“There's more,” Mike said. “The Old Man tipped Hung Lo that Abernathy and Zartell were staging a raid. This place is about to become a war zone.”

The flashlights came closer. I could now make out shapes among the shadows.

“And what happens to Abernathy?”

Mike swore some more. “What do you care? You're the one put the evil eye on him.”

The bellyache spread through my body. He was right, and maybe that's why I cared. I wanted the bastard canned—or maybe caged—but trussing him up for slaughter was out of my line.

Shouts from the Zartell crowd announced they'd seen us. Their steps quickened.

Mike said, “Happy? Now we're dead too.”

The four Chinese had done a disappearing act. I grabbed Mike's lapel and hurried after them. He growled, but offered little resistance. The approach of Zartell's army was loud behind us.

Down the hall we went. The smoking lounge looked much the same, except that several beautiful dreamers had stumbled out of their bunks.

I kicked the secret panel open, pushed Mike through, and said, “Tell the Old Man I wish him a short and sour life.” Then the wall clicked shut and I went in search of Abernathy.

Gunfire erupted in the outer room. Above the din, a high-pitched voice screamed orders in Chinese. Hung Lo's troops had arrived.

I found Abernathy in the small office, rifling a desk. One hand clutched a wad of greenbacks.

“There's more here,” he said. “There must be. Help me look.”

I lunged across the desk, grabbed his tie, and hauled him toward the doorway.

The hall was full of men—Zartell's men, firing back toward the entrance. They blocked our route to the secret exit.

Abernathy kicked my shins, tried to bite my hand.

“Behave!” I batted his nose with my gun barrel. “In case you don't know it yet, both sides want to boil you in oil.”

Bullets zipped up and down the hall. Muzzle fire illuminated passing hatchets and knives. Men yelped, grunted, screamed, swore.

Abernathy quivered so hard he made my teeth rattle.

“We have to surrender!” he cried.

“Be your age. They're taking no prisoners.”

But the idea stuck in my skull. Maybe he had something.

I put my lips close to the doorway and shouted, “Wait! Hold it!”

The barrage slowed to half its fury, a mere ten shots per second.

“We give up!” I roared. “We surrender!”

My reasoning, such as it was, went like this: the Chinese would think the Zartell faction was folding, and Zartell's men would think the surrender had come from one of their own.

The shooting dwindled to single pops and bangs. While everyone's brains were scrambled, I yanked Abernathy into the hall, pushing through the gangsters in search of the exit.

Gangsters, as a rule, don't like to be pushed. They pushed back, cursing as they did, and Hung Lo's men assumed the cursing was meant for them. We were still a yard and a half from the panel when the battle resumed.

Gunpowder scorched my cheek. A knife blade stole my hat. Lead thwacked into meat all around us. Abernathy squalled like a baby. A bullet slammed into my hindquarters, and I felt like squalling too, but I kicked and clawed my way through the dead and dying, bruised my shoulder on the secret panel, and shoved Abernathy through.

The only sensible thing was to follow. I wasn't Zartell's keeper. I'd resented him my entire life, and for all I knew, he may have been responsible for my father's death. The world would be a better place without him. The only sensible thing was to let him die.

I stood there telling myself these things until my mother's face swam up again.

No promises,
I repeated.

But I kicked the panel shut and bawled, “Nick! Where the hell are you?”

A flying tomahawk took away part of my ear. Before I could check how much was left, a heavy slug tore through my leg. I sat down hard, damning Zartell, my mother, the Old Man, and half of mankind.

When I tried to get up, it was no-go. I damned the rest of mankind and had progressed to the animals and little fishes when a dark shape loomed above me.

“Hello, Pete,” the shape said. “You rang?”

I thumped the wall with my foot. “Secret panel.”

Zartell leaned against it, trying twice more before he found the sweet spot. The air buzzed with lead and cutlery, but nothing touched him. He bent, grabbed my ankles, and dragged me through. The door clicked shut behind us.

“I suppose I should be grateful,” I said.

“You should at that, but I know it's against your nature.”

He hauled me up and duck-walked me down the passageway. Muffled explosions hurried us on our way. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought it was Chinese New Year.

I awoke with a head full of visions and a snootful of disinfectant. In the visions, I saw myself stagger into the basement of the Chinese laundry, saw the astonished face of an old woman boiling shirts, and collapsed as Zartell scurried away. The disinfectant represented the here and now, where I lay sidesaddle on a hospital bed.

My leg and hindquarters hurt like hell.

From a chair beside the bed, the Old Man studied me as if measuring my neck for a noose.

I broke the silence. “My ass hurts.”

“Thanks to you,” he said, “so does mine.”

Lacking a suitable reply, I said, “Where's Abernathy?”

“In the wind. Trying to outrun Zartell's bounty hunters and Hung Lo's hatchet men.”

I did my best to look displeased.

“Feeling pretty full of yourself, are you? I wouldn't. When they catch him, he'll wish he'd died in the opium den.”

“If they catch him.”

“When. And you may have won a reprieve for Zartell, but his time is coming too.”

I had no more argument in me. “What about Mutt and Jeff?”

“They have their walking papers. They'll never work for the agency again.”

I felt the noose slip around my neck.

“And what about me?”

The Old Man tugged the pack of Fatimas from his pocket, shook one free, scowled at the
NO SMOKING
sign above my bed, scowled at me, and lit the cigarette anyway.

A shape darkened the doorway and a man strode in.

I said, “Hello, Mike.”

He grinned at the Old Man. “You tell him yet?”

“No.” The old guy scowled at me some more.

The noose tightened.

“I saw three alternatives,” the Old Man said. He ticked them off on his fingers. “One—fire Abernathy and let him leave unpunished. Two—have him arrested and drag the agency's name through the muck. Or three—make the problem go away permanently.” He grimaced as if the words pained him. “You saw a fourth option, and acted on it.”

My ears stretched. This resembled the beginning of a compliment.

“Disobeying orders was rash,” the Old Man went on, “and it was stupid. But you caught a break, and your stupidity paid off, at least in the Abernathy matter. Saving Zartell was something else entirely.”

So much for the compliment.

“What he's trying to say,” Mike put in, “is that you remind him of himself when he was a fine young hellion. And if the worst that happens to you is getting shot in the ass, you might live long enough to become a decent Continental op.”

“I'm already a decent op,” I told him, “but I'm nothing like old Beelzebub here, and never will be. If he has an ounce of human feeling in him I'll butter my hat and eat it.”

The Old Man did that terrible thing with his lips.

“Your hat is safe enough,” he said. “As to how different we are, it may interest you to know I once had a mother. She even tried to tell me how to do my job.”