The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  “I was halfway there on my own.”

  “Do you want to tell me why you had two meals, but you were sitting alone at that table?”

  “No.”

  “All right.” He squeezed her hand. “Well, to be honest with you, tonight has been lovely. More than I could have hoped for with a woman like you. But I didn’t come here for this. I came here because I need your help.”

  “My help? Are you sure you aren’t thinking of someone else?”

  “Yes, your help, Irene.” Patrick paused, and suddenly there was something incredibly vulnerable in his expression. He dropped her hand and paced to the other side of the room. “You remember—that night, when I found, you remember that I told you I wasn’t looking for you. I was out for my own reasons.”

  Irene shivered. The fire under her skin had gone out, as though she had jumped in the Mississippi. “You told me about the binding. You saved me from whatever it was that had been following me.”

  “Yes, but only by chance. You see, Irene, I’m in trouble.” He swallowed. The color had left his cheeks. He dropped onto the chaise, and he might as well have been on a train, growing more and more distant by the moment. “I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them.”

  Through the wine, Irene’s brain began to click like an engine trying to start.

  The revolver. Where had she put her revolver?

  Patrick looked up and shock crossed his face. “God, Irene. You look frightened half to death. I—my God, I’m so sorry. I’ll leave you.”

  “No, Patrick. Wait. I was surprised. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a long story, and the central message is that I’m a stupid, shortsighted fool. I run my bar, you know? It’s not legal, and it wasn’t the best business even before the Volstead Act. I know that, I know the kind of trouble it brings. But once the city went dry, it was a good way to make money. My parents are dead, and I’m the oldest of eight children. I needed to put food on the table for those kids.” He paused, tried for a smile, but it slid off like hot grease. “I’m making myself sound like a saint, and that’s not the truth at all. Anyway, I got into business with some men who could bring in the booze. At first, things were smooth. I paid, they provided the drink, and everyone was happy.

  “Then things started to change. Someone else took over their operations. Prices went higher. Seamus and his boys got upset and tried to do something about it, but they came back like whipped dogs, and Seamus wasn’t ever right again. Then, they started demanding more. Not just money. Help. These men that were bringing in the liquor, they wanted to bring in other things too. They wanted to use Seamus’s rig.”

  “Guns?”

  “Sometimes. Other stuff too. I don’t know. Sometimes it would be crates and crates that would disappear. Sometimes it would be one or two small boxes that they handled as though they were made of glass. They never told me what was in them. But I handled most of them because they would hide the stuff inside the casks of booze, or in the crates of whiskey, always mixed in with something else. They used me to bring things into the city without telling Seamus about it. Maybe they thought Seamus would want more money. Maybe they just wanted fewer people to know about it.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I got greedy. I knew they needed me. I knew they didn’t want Seamus to know. Hell, I knew they didn’t want anybody to know. When I took the next delivery, I only paid half, and I told them they wouldn’t be getting any more from me. I was paying for the booze with my silence. That’s what I told them. They didn’t argue. They didn’t threaten me.” His voice cracked. He stood up and turned to the window. It was a pair of minutes before he spoke again. “I came home three nights later. My sister Anna was gone. The other kids didn’t know where she was. She’s only sixteen years old.”

  Irene kept silent.

  Patrick turned around and wiped his cheeks. “They showed up a week later. They didn’t ask for anything. They didn’t say anything. They just sat at a table at the bar, drinking and laughing. I paid them the rest of the money right then. They took it. They still never said a word about Anna.”

  “Patrick.”

  “She’s not dead. I kept looking. I found her. I don’t know why they didn’t kill her. Maybe to use against me if I screwed up again. Maybe they just didn’t think it was worth the trouble.”

  “Where is she?”

  “A brothel. A damn whorehouse on the south side of the city. It belongs to the Dane. I tried to get in there once, after I found out. The Dane’s got men there. They knew who I was and knocked the shit out of me. They told me if I tried to go back, they’d kill her.”

  “I am so sorry, Patrick.”

  “Be sorry for Anna. I deserve this—I got myself into it. Anna, though. Anna didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “Truly? Irene, I can’t thank you enough. You have no idea—I’ve tried and tried.”

  Irene felt a flush of warmth. He wanted her. He needed her. She could help him when nobody else could. “What can I do?”

  “The Dane has contacts up and down the city, and he’s bought off enough people in the mayor’s office that the police aren’t going to make a stink about that brothel. But if someone with enough clout were to say something, if someone started putting pressure on the police in public, talking to the papers about the corruption in the south city, that sort of thing—they’d have to do something. They’d close that place down, take Anna away from there. She might be in jail for a while, but that’s better than where she is now.”

  “Patrick, I’m flattered that you think I have that kind of influence, but I’ve been gone from St. Louis for years. A few people will remember me, but not many. I could speak to the Women’s League—”

  He was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t speak clearly. It’s your father, Irene. I need you to speak to him on my behalf.”

  As they climbed into the back of the police van, Cian stumbled. Harper caught him.

  “These aren’t necessary, you know,” Cian said, glancing at the handcuffs.

  “Just a precaution.”

  Harper urged him up into the van and climbed onto the opposite bench. A policeman shut the doors, and a moment later the van grumbled forward. Harper didn’t look any different. Same stained suit and coat. Same bulldog jowls with heavy stubble. Same hard eyes. Sleepless eyes. He stared at Cian like a man watching paint dry.

  Cian shivered as the cold settled into him. He regretted leaving his good, heavy coat at the hotel. He regretted the fight with Irene. He regretted, in particular, having walked right into Irving Harper’s waiting arms.

  In general, he regretted a lot of things.

  Harper hadn’t moved. He slouched on the far bench like a disreputable statue.

  “Don’t suppose you have a blanket?” Cian asked. “I forgot my coat.”

  Harper didn’t even blink.

  Cian sighed. “I didn’t think so.”

  After that, the only sound was the tires scraping slush off the pavement, and Cian’s teeth clicking together, and the occasional metallic thud when the van found a bump. Cian settled back as best he could, but the bench was hard, the wall of the van freezing, and his hands starting to lose feeling. Harper had put the cuffs on tight. Much tighter than necessary.

  “You knew him,” Cian said. “Dunn. What did you say? Were you friends?”

  “Keep talking and I’ll break your jaw.”

  “No, not friends. No offense, Captain Harper, but you’ve got all the charm and grace of trench-foot. Harley wasn’t like that. He was all smiles and laughter and sunshine. Besides, you’re too old.”

  Harper’s eyes were dark beads.

  “Not family,” Cian said. “I doubt they would have sent someone from his family. What then? One of his officers who took a shine to him? Or maybe you just knew him from a distance, maybe you liked to think about crawling into his bunk at night, finding out what all those French girls were so happy about.” Cian gave a h
ard, tight grin. “Is that it, Captain? You should have seen the last girl. The one he was with when I shot his fucking head off. Her name was Corinne. If you knew how happy he made her—”

  The blocky form of Captain Irving Harper moved much faster than Cian expected. One moment, the captain was slumped on the bench. The next, he stood over Cian, twisting Cian’s head back with one hand, bringing his other hand down in a fist.

  Right before the captain’s blow landed, something struck the van. The vehicle tilted to the side, one set of wheels leaving the ground. The captain’s blow grazed Cian’s chin, snapping his head to the side. Bells rang behind Cian’s eyes. Through the tumult, he had the sudden sensation of weightlessness, as though he’d been thrown from a horse.

  Then a crash. The screech of metal. A shower of sparks, the only light in the darkness. Harper’s weight on top of Cian. The smell of pipe smoke and old wool. The van slid for a few moments more and came to a jarring halt.

  The van lay on its side. Cian was on his back, pinned to the ground by Harper. The man’s weight and the heavy, stinking wool suffocated Cian. He grunted, gasped for breath, and kicked and twisted until he freed himself form beneath Harper.

  The captain dropped to the ground. Still.

  Then silence. Only the rasp of Cian’s harsh breathing. He clamped his teeth shut, blinked his eyes clear. Tried to listen.

  From the front of the van, the sound of a door opening. Then a gunshot and a scream.

  Shit. Holy shit.

  Harper still wasn’t moving.

  Cian turned to face the doors. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, he fumbled through Harper’s pockets, searching for the key. He found a pipe that spilled crumbling tobacco into his hands, and a stick of gum, a ball of lint big enough to make a sweater. Cian inched backwards, reaching for the other pocket.

  Something scraped through the ice outside the van.

  Fingers numb, prickling with trapped blood, Cian searched through Harper’s other pocket. A handful of change, a box of matches, and then—the tiny key. Cian pulled it from Harper’s pocket.

  The dragging, scraping steps came closer. Something dragged along the bottom of the van with a screech.

  Cian searched for the keyhole. He slid the key inside. Turned.

  The key slipped from his fingers and dropped from the keyhole.

  God and Mary and Michael and St. fucking Patrick.

  The screech of metal on metal ended. The silence was worse.

  Cian dragged his hands along the side of the van, searching for the key. One of the doors bent, as though gripped by a massive hand, crumpling inwards. Moonlight and gaslight filtered into the back of the van.

  Metal glittered.

  Cian swept up the key and jammed it into the keyhole. This time, the right cuff popped open. He reached back, trying to find Harper’s gun.

  The van door ripped free with a whine.

  Against the relative darkness of the street, Cian could make out few details. A gas streetlight two blocks away, a few single-story buildings, the stink of hot metal. Framed in the ruined doorway of the van stood a massive figure, and the distant gaslight left iridescent ripples across scales.

  Cian’s throat closed. He’d seen this kind of thing before.

  It was the same as the monster that had almost gutted him in the alley.

  The monster slid into the van, crawling over the benches. Cian scooted backwards. The monster pinned him against the wall of the van. Harper’s body was right next to Cian.

  Light caught and kindled in the monster’s amber eyes. Vertical slits widened and narrowed. The creature sniffed. One clawed hand pressed Cian against the wall.

  “Where is he?” the creature asked.

  The words were distorted, barely intelligible, and drawn out with a hiss.

  Harper’s jacket had fallen open. In the holster under his arm, the butt of a revolver showed.

  The creature pressed harder against Cian’s chest. Pain exploded through Cian.

  “Where is he? We know you have him.”

  “Who?” Cian gasped.

  The pressure eased. Stars danced in front of Cian’s eyes.

  He wondered how many ribs were broken.

  “The thief.”

  Cian grabbed the revolver, swept it up, and pressed the barrel against the side of the creature’s head. He pulled the trigger.

  At the last moment, the creature tried to pull away. The shell still took off the top half of its scaly head.

  Slime and bit of brain and scales spattered Cian’s face. He shoved the dying abomination off of him. For a moment, the creature writhed on the floor of the van. Then it was still.

  Cian slumped against the wall of the van. Just a minute. Just long enough to wipe his face, catch his breath, and feel his heart settle somewhere back into his chest. Then he pulled the matches from Harper’s pocket and struck one.

  Harper had a gash across his forehead and blood across his face, but his pulse was strong and his breathing even. Tucked into the back of the man’s trousers was the Colt, which Cian took. He returned Harper’s revolver.

  Then he climbed out of the ruined van. They sat on a quiet street that Cian didn’t recognize. Businesses that were shut for the night, an abandoned lot. The perfect place to knock over a police van and do some killing.

  In the middle of the street lay the shredded remains of the policeman who had been driving. Cian thought he would vomit. His stomach flipped and heaved.

  But after a minute, nothing came out, so Cian wiped his lips and his forehead.

  The creature had scented him. It had known to ask about Sam.

  Cian started for the Louisiana Grand.

  Nothing had changed at the hotel. That was the thing about rich people, Cian figured. The world might be burning to ash around them, but as long as the wine and the veal and the music kept coming, they wouldn’t bat an eye. Nero. He’d heard something like that, about Nero. A Roman something. Emperor.

  In the lobby of the hotel, the green slime from the dead monster was more obvious. It dried to a crusty green-brown, staining the new suit. Irene would be furious. It would be another fight he would lose.

  If she were alive, if she were all right, he’d lose that fight gladly.

  The elevator crawled up the building. When the doors opened on Irene’s floor, Cian sprinted for her room, dodging a dark-haired maid with an armful of towels and a tuxedoed waiter rolling an empty cart.

  Maid and waiter both stared at him. Cian realized he already had the Colt out.

  He didn’t care. When he reached Irene’s door, he pounded on it.

  “Irene, open up. You’re in danger.” Another staccato of pounding. “Irene!”

  The door swung open, and Cian pushed into the room.

  And then he realized Patrick Hannafy was standing in the doorway. In his shirtsleeves.

  Irene appeared in the sitting room. She was flushed, a smile on her face, looking alive and beautiful and happy. When she saw Cian, the smile went out like a cheap light.

  “What the hell is this?” Cian asked, looking from her to Patrick.

  “What are you doing here?” Irene said.

  A sound came from the hallway. Cian glanced back the way he had come.

  Two men in trench coats marched down the hall. They were huge men. With their collars turned up and their hats pulled low, their features were hidden from sight. One saw Cian, and the two broke into a run. The floor trembled under their weight.

  “Golems,” Cian said, shoving Patrick into the room.

  He shut and locked the door. Patrick was already trying to lift the sideboard, and together the two of them hauled it into place in front of the door. A moment later there was a crash, and cracks rippled through the door. Cian motioned Patrick and Irene back into the bedroom. Another blow shook the door. Shards of wood fell into the room, exposing the bulk of one of the golems. Its hat had slipped back, exposing the lumpy, misshapen face.

  Irene swore.

  �
��That’s about right,” Cian said.

  They shut the bedroom door and hauled the dresser into place. From the sitting room came a series of loud crashes.

  “This won’t hold them,” Patrick said.

  “I know that,” Cian said. He moved to the window. Threw it open. Winter air rushed into the room. Below, the amber light of the city lay like a bed of broken glass. The street was a long way down. Long enough for a good scream and a quick death.

  A blow shook the bedroom door.

  “Irene, grab your coat,” Cian said. “And mine too. Patrick, get over here.” When Patrick joined him at the window, Cian gestured outside and said, “There.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Do you want to try killing those things?”

  “It can be done.”

  “Do you know how?” Cian asked.

  After a moment, Patrick shook his head.

  “Then out we go.”

  “Out there?” Irene asked, joining them at the window. She was already bundled in her heavy fur coat and she handed Cian his coat. He slipped it on.

  Behind them, broken wood sprayed the carpet.

  “Out there,” Cian asked. He glanced out again. The Louisiana Grand was a relatively new building, with the clean, straight lines that everyone favored. Rather than a single, straight column though, the building had three distinct tiers that dropped away as the building rose. Perhaps twenty feet below Irene’s window was the upper-most tier. It was nothing but a patch of cement and darkness.

  “It’s wider than it looks,” Irene said, her voice bright. “Perspective, you know. It’s all about perspective.”

  “Perspective,” Patrick breathed. It sounded like a prayer.

  To Cian, the slat of cement didn’t look much wider than a game of hopscotch, but he kept his opinion to himself.

  “I’ll need help up onto the window, of course,” Irene said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Cian said. “Patrick, go.”

  With a nod and a last look at the splintered door, Patrick crawled out the window and began lowering himself down the face of the building.

  The sudden silence between Cian and Irene made every hair on Cian’s body stand straight up. He tried to tell himself it was just the cold.