Reset: The Dowland Cases - One

by Kirk Dougal

  “Are you going to use that on me or can I come in?” she asked, gesturing toward the gun.

  Heat rose in my cheeks and I stepped aside.

  “Is that the way you always answer the door?” She turned a slow circle, taking in the apartment in with a long glance. “No wonder you don’t have a lot of friends hanging around.”

  “It’s not a friendly building and I scare easy.” The blonde next door moaned several times and then a man laughed, coarse and loud. Evelyn turned to me and raised an eyebrow, a smile touching her lips. “It’s friendlier for some than others,” I said.

  “Obviously. Perhaps you should work on your small talk.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I shut the door and put the gun back in the holster. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “You’re an interesting fellow, Mr. Dowland. Perhaps I wanted to see how interesting you can be.”

  “Now that you’ve seen my extravagant abode, maybe you should call me Rick.” My heart skipped a beat at the thought of what her banter might mean. “Can I get you a drink?”

  She shook her head. “Do you have a decent suit, Rick?”

  “Decent enough for me.”

  “Put it on and we’ll try having another drink together. We might even see some people you want to meet.” Another moan eased its way through the wall. “That is, if you can pull yourself away from the entertainment.”

  *****

  The big band music rolled out the door as I handed the wrap and my hat to the check girl. Evelyn waited for me by the maitre d’ who gave me the once over before leading us into the room beyond, wandering between full tables until we reached an empty one near the dance floor. I barely noticed. My eyes stayed glued to Evelyn’s bare back where the evening gown dipped low. She turned as the man pulled out a seat for her and caught my stare, raising an eyebrow again. I plopped down into my chair. A waiter appeared before the maitre d’ walked away and Evelyn said something to him I could not hear over the music.

  “Is this the first time you have visited The Eagle Club, Rick?” she said, leaning in close to be heard.

  I nodded. I had expected something special after we walked out of my apartment and stepped into a waiting Duesenberg LaGrande Phaeton. But now, when I glanced around, I was amazed. Crystal chandeliers and silver place settings held nothing over the people in the room. Pearls and rare gems were the norm here and the larger the better, apparently. A woman two tables from us wore a diamond necklace so big I thought her back would be sore in the morning from the weight. I experienced a lot of big spending in my days when The Kindred made money hand-over-fist, but this display was an overload of opulence.

  “Not exactly a beer and a shot joint.”

  She laughed. “No, but I hope you enjoy it regardless. Miss DeMarini is singing tonight and she has a lovely voice. You will not find her hard to watch perform, either.”

  I stared Evelyn in the eyes. “I already know who I’ll be watching.”

  For the first time since I met her, Evelyn blushed, bright red climbing her cheeks, but she smiled as she leaned back in her chair.

  We listened to the music for a few minutes and watched the couples on the dance floor. Two waiters approached the table, one carrying champagne on ice and the other a tray of finger foods, including a small bowl of caviar.

  “This is a little more than a shamus is used to,” I said.

  Evelyn laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Rick. It’s all been taken care of.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant but an older couple stopped at the table and the woman bent down to talk to Evelyn. The gentleman stared at me, his gaze traveling from my head, down to my shoes, and up again. He gave me a thin smile and a tilt of the head, but his eyes remained cold pockets of gray. He did not offer his name and I turned back to the band. It didn’t bother me that I so obviously had not passed muster because I couldn’t have cared less what he thought. A moment later, they walked to their table.

  “Don’t let Ramsford Worthington bother you.” Evelyn’s voice blew soft in my ear, a gentle breath against my neck. “He could buy most of the people in this room with his pocket money but Daddy always thought he was something of a pompous ass. Millicent was one of mother’s best friends, though.” I took a gulp of champagne and shrugged. “Come on,” she continued, “do you dance?”

  I started to protest, but then I realized if I said no I would be passing up a chance to hold her close. I wasn’t that jingle-brained. “I’m no Fred Astaire but I promise I won’t step on your toes.” She grinned and took my hand.

  We worked our way toward the middle of the dance floor, swaying into an open spot. I noticed more than one of the men around us flash me a smile and a quick nod, including one or two who danced with women several times their age. Their companions invariably wore evening gowns revealing nearly as much skin as Evelyn with faces coated in makeup. One of the women raised her head off her date’s chest long enough to look me over, an appraisal of a piece of meat at the butcher’s shop. She smiled before resting her head again.

  “You’re paying more attention to the people around us than to me,” Evelyn said.

  My hand rested in the small of her back, my palm against her skin. I flexed my fingers slowly and she breathed deep before somehow melting closer. The song ended too soon and we walked back to our table.

  I held Evelyn’s chair for her and moved mine a few inches closer before sitting. She smiled when she noticed the move, but then her eyes drew together.

  “Rick, look at the row of booths, the third one from the right end.”

  I turned my head to the side. On the dance floor level, the tables were spread out, creating a labyrinth of pathways. However, a second row of tables sat down each side of the building, on a separate level a few feet above the ground. These tables were sectioned off into their own areas, private booths for the obscenely powerful among the ultra-rich.

  In the third booth, an obese man sat with a stunning woman by his side. His thinning, platinum blond hair stood out against his bronze skin. Five other men also occupied the booth, four standing at the corners while the fifth stood a step behind the fat man, ready to be beckoned forward. I recognized his face.

  “Yeah, I see it.” I leaned closer to Evelyn but never stopped staring at the booth.

  “That’s Big C.” She spit the words out.

  “Who is that behind him?”

  “His right hand man, Jimmy Color.”

  I hopped to my feet and moved, ignoring Evelyn’s grasp as she tried to hold me back. I crossed half the distance before the Bruno closest to the stairs noticed me. He met me part of the way down, his hand diving inside his suit jacket. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and twisted as hard as I could manage, my left hand gripping his elbow. The man’s face contorted in pain and I shoved him up the last few steps in front of me until we stood in the booth, his body between myself and the others. Three of the body guards stepped forward but the fat man hissed, sharp and shrill, on the verge of a whistle.

  “That’s enough,” Big C said to his men. “Mr. Dowland obviously wants to speak to me so we should let him have his say.” He cut a slice off his steak and shoved the chunk in his mouth, blood dripping onto the table cloth from the rare meat. “Mr. Dowland, there is no need for theatrics. People are watching us so perhaps you could unhand Mr. Pagini.”

  I let go of the man’s wrist and he stood up, glaring at me with no question of what he would like to do. But he backed off, rubbing his arm as he moved away.

  “So, Mr. Dowland, I see you’re here with the widow Borget. Terrible, just terrible how she is all alone now that her parents and husband are gone.”

  “Not completely alone.” The words were even but clipped as I said them.

  Big C pursed his lips and nodded. “I see. Well done, Mr. Dowland. She’s a lovely woman and quite the reach up for you. But I also understand the allure of the beautiful things in life.” He glanced at the woman by his side.

  I lo
oked at her as well. Young and pretty, her flawless hair and makeup surrounded eyes glassed over from drugs.

  “I came to give you a tip,” I said. The man froze, another gargantuan piece of steak left dripping in midair. “The next time you send your boy,” I nodded toward Jimmy Color, “to pull a Camel Turn on someone, tell him not to breathe in the person’s face so they can tell he’s drinking water and not gin. You might get what you want instead of coming up empty handed.”

  The meat made the rest of the trip to Big C’s mouth and he chewed before leaning back. “So, your beef is with my use of Mr. Color as a ruse. If you feel I wasted your time, I am happy to make up for your expenses…to a point.”

  “You’ll get no bill from me,” I said. “I made your boy the first time we met. Maybe he should go back to pinching nickels from kids.”

  Jimmy took a step forward, his neck purple with rage. Big C tapped him with the back of his hand and the man returned to where he started.

  “Thank you for the advice, Mr. Dowland. And in return, I will give you a piece of advice of my own. If a person walks down one side of the street, they are relatively safe. If they walk down the other side, also safe.” Big C leaned forward, his jowls swinging under his chin as he moved. “But if a man walks down the center of the road, eventually the traffic will run him down.”

  I nodded. “You’re telling me to pick a side.”

  “That’s what a smart man would do.” Big C attacked the steak again. “Good night, Mr. Dowland.”

  I left the booth and picked my way through the crowd to Evelyn, ignoring the stares from the surrounding tables. Still seated in her chair, her face matched the white table cloth. I waved at the waiter as I sat down. “Whiskey.” The man trotted away.

  “Interesting. You are very interesting indeed.” Evelyn laughed as she spoke but the chuckle sounded forced.

  “Is that why you brought me here? To see him?”

  “Yes.” Her hand dropped to my arm and she squeezed, firm and familiar. “But that wasn’t the only reason.”

  I stared at the back of her hand. I wanted to believe her, wanted to think there could be something more between us. But then the memory of Roberts and his frozen avatar popped into my thoughts and I wondered if she had also promised more to him, too.

  “Your drink, sir.” The waiter sat down a snifter. “Compliments of Mr. Worthington. He suggested a particularly good brandy.”

  Evelyn leaned around the waiter to wave her thanks to the Worthingtons.

  I caught the first gunshot between notes from the band, the second barking clearly as the horn section stopped playing. The wood on the back of Evelyn’s chair sprayed splinters into the air. A woman screamed behind us and all hell broke loose. More shots rang out. I pushed the waiter out of the way and grabbed Evelyn, jerking her to the floor while I tipped over the table with my other hand. Men and women rushed past the makeshift barricade, tripping over each other in their panic. Bullets flew over and into the crowd. Our table quivered under the impact of lead. I watched one of the dandies from the dance floor leave his “date” behind and leap over a chair, only to go down when a bullet bit into his shoulder. Another woman fell a few feet away.

  “Millicent!” Evelyn screamed.

  I reached out to her friend and dragged the woman to relative safety behind our wooden wall. Her hair fell over one side of her face and she had lost a shoe in the excitement.

  “Ram?” she cried. “Ram!” Another round of firing drowned out the rest of what she yelled.

  Evelyn looked at me, her eyes welling with tears.

  “Ah, hell!” I said. Evelyn had frowned at me in my apartment when I started to put on the .45 and shoulder holster so it remained on the back of the chair in my living room. I pulled up my pant leg and grabbed the snub-nosed .32 strapped to my ankle. The revolver wasn’t worth a damn more than thirty feet from a target but a few shots might provide me some cover.

  I peeked around the edge of the table. A few seconds later I spotted Ramsford on the floor, a chair lying over his legs. His eyes were closed but he appeared to be alive. Firing started again as I ran toward the man but I did not hear bullets landing around me. I paused under a table and peeked out from under the spread. One of Big C’s Brunos bent over the railing, his legs dangling off the floor. The young woman lie face down on the stairs and I could tell from the blood flowing on the steps she did not need to worry about her next bindle. At least two men fired from the shadows in the booth but Big C and Jimmy Color had disappeared.

  Answering fire came from a booth on the far side of the room. I could not tell how many shooters were there but I was certain the area had been empty before.

  Neither booth appeared to be firing at me so I inched toward the elderly Worthington. As soon as I touched his arm, his eyes flew open. “Are you hit?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I do not believe so. One of those fancy boys pushed me to one side and I became entangled with this bloody chair.” He blinked and sucked in a breath. “Millicent…”

  “She’s fine,” I said as I pulled his legs out from between the chair’s stretchers. “I’ve got her stashed behind the table with Evelyn.” I pushed the chair away. “Now, let’s get you there, too.”

  The old man leaned into me and we ran, hunched over in a lurching sprint that moved us behind the table within a few seconds that only felt like half a lifetime. Millicent cried out in relief and threw her arms around her husband. Another round of gunfire echoed across the dance floor.

  “Who has the booth directly across from Big C?” I asked Evelyn. I cringed down when I felt the table take a bullet.

  “Rose,” she answered. “But he was the one who suggested I bring you here tonight.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he did.” Two more shudders from the table. “That’s enough of this shit.”

  The last two shots had definitely come from the left so I when I stood, my gun already aimed in that direction. I waited, patiently searching the dark of Rose’s booth for the shooter.

  There! A black fedora appeared at the edge of the sectioning wall and I squeezed off two rounds. The hat disappeared and I heard the sound of running feet.

  “Wait here until the police arrive and then make sure she gets home,” I said to Worthington, pointing to Evelyn. He nodded.

  I ran across the dance floor, ignoring Evelyn’s cry. Speed was my friend as I tried to reach cover as quickly as possible. Three leaps up the stairs and I threw myself on the floor in Rose’s booth. No one remained in the area, the table still set and unused. However, a door in the back wall stood open a few inches. I crept to one side and kicked it open.

  Nothing happened. I ran into the hallway beyond, searching for the person in the black fedora, the same black hat I had noticed on the man outside the deli, the one who tried to take Evelyn’s watch. The same man in black who had been watching from the corner when I escaped with Voice in the Lincoln.

  A door loomed up at the end of the hall and I charged forward. Ignoring caution, I threw myself into the wood and it burst open, cracking beneath my weight. My shoulder aching, I lurched into the alley.

  The concrete valley was dark, only the street lamps at the far end offering me light. Empty boxes and trash cans rose on both sides, adding to the shadows. My prey could be hiding anywhere in the alley, waiting for me to pass by, or he could be long gone, sprinting down the street before the police arrived.

  I inched forward, speed turning to stealth. Step, search. Step, search. The alley stretched before me, somehow growing in length. Seconds turned into minutes before I reached the end, the wail of police cars screaming nearby. I stepped under the light of the lamp and looked down the street.

  Three men stood beneath the next pool of light. I locked eyes with the one in the middle.

  The one standing in a black suit.

  The man I had not seen for more than a decade in the real world.

  The man who had said he would kill me the next time he saw me.

  Ghos
t and I’s old partner, Riley Gardener, stared back at me.

  I knew at once that Gardener was Rose.

  Gardener was the killer.

  Chapter 32

  I kept the fedora low over my eyes, protecting me from the lights in the building as the brim had the morning sun outside.

  After I made eye contact with Gardener the previous evening, he had jumped into a waiting car with the two gunsels and roared down the street before I crossed half the distance between us. When I returned to The Eagle Club, the bulls were already on the scene so I faded. Alone and still stunned at the sight of my old nemesis, I grabbed a cab and returned to my apartment where I opened up a fresh bottle of whiskey and climbed inside.

  Sometime just before dawn, the answer to all my questions appeared through a drunken haze. Gardener needed to die. I was thinking, of course, about his dying inside the game so we could use the IP tag to find him outside.

  But I would not have flinched about putting a bullet in his head in the real world, either.

  His death made sense when I passed out and the decision still felt right when I winced at the first sunlight streaming through the window of my apartment. As one of the two most powerful underworld figures in The City, Gardener had access to all of the information he needed to know who was a sleeper. Choosing the ultra-rich would be easy. From there, he played the percentages, simply killing them and slipping out to the world where he could perform the deed for real.

  Gardener had been the accountant when The Kindred hit it big; the man who made sure we all had plenty of money to blow on big boy toys. But he had loved the green stuff a little too much and when I threw him out of the company because he felt he deserved more than an equal share, along with Ghost’s squeaky-voiced agreement, Gardener lost his mind, screaming obscenities and threats even as the security detail removed him from the building. The resulting lawsuit had cost a lot to win, but by the time the civil case was over, I had already slipped down the DIOD path and no longer cared as long as I slept inside.