by Tom Epperson
“It’s me. Danny.”
“Danny? Open the door!”
“I will. Just hold on.”
Dulwich was bent over Mousie and going through his pockets. He found a revolver and put it in his own pocket then held up a key and I unlocked the door then Darla was in my arms.
“Oh Danny,” she said, “I was scared you weren’t coming.”
“Darla, this is Dulwich—”
“Hello,” said Dulwich. “I suggest we move rather quickly now.”
As Darla grabbed a suitcase and her purse the sock on my left foot became wet and warm, and I looked down and saw I was standing in Mousie’s blood. It seemed like the poker had been hardly less lethal than a knife, though he was still snoring as we hurried away. I left a fading trail of bloody sockprints down the hall.
I was hoping the racket we’d made silencing Mousie hadn’t awakened his brother under the balcony. Dulwich and I put our shoes back on and I took the suitcase from Darla and then the three of us scurried down the staircase then through the dark house. I felt elated. In a moment we would be out the door, then nothing remained but a breathless dash down the driveway to my Packard and then out the gate.
Dulwich moved to a window and twitched back the curtain and checked out front. Then he went out the door, and Darla and I followed.
We’d taken only a few steps away from the house when I saw down the hill through the foliage the glitter of headlights.
“Somebody’s coming!” I said.
“Go back!” said Dulwich, and we raced back into the house and shut the door.
We went to the window. Two cars were pulling up out front: Bud’s black Lincoln and Bo Spiller’s red Ford.
“Shit,” I said.
“Who are they?” said Dulwich.
“Bud. And the guys.”
“What are they doing back already?” wailed Darla.
Bud and Nucky and Nello got out of the Lincoln, and Bo and Willie got out of the Ford. They began removing some luggage; I saw Bo taking his shotgun out.
“Let’s go out the back,” said Darla.
“No, Freddie’s there,” I said.
“Oh God,” said Darla, “we’re trapped!”
Dulwich was regarding the Bud Seitz gang with a look of no more than mild concern, as if they were rowdy interlopers at a genteel family picnic.
“We’re not trapped, Darla,” he said. “But it’s important that we all keep a cool head and that you and Danny do exactly as I say.”
Bud was looking especially spiffy tonight, in a silvery three-piece suit with a red carnation in his buttonhole. His face was scratched up like Nucky’s. He was looking unhappily at the house. “Where the fuck is everybody?” he said, then he leaned inside the Lincoln and started honking the horn. “Dick! Freddie! Mousie!” he yelled.
In a few moments, Freddie came wandering around the side of the house with a confused look on his face.
“Hey, fellas,” he said.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Dulwich shook his head. “Not yet. As they enter the house, we’ll exit. That way we can proceed unobserved down the hill to the car.”
“What are you doing back already?” said Freddie, yawning and scratching his neck.
“Ah, them Chicago cocksuckers was coming in like they was trying to take over,” said Nucky. “So Bud told ’em to go fuck their-selves.”
“How come there ain’t nobody down by the gate?” said Bud. “What the hell’s going on here, Freddie?”
“Dick ain’t down there? He was down there just a minute ago.”
“Yeah, and I don’t see his car no place neither,” said Nello.
“That’s funny. It was here a minute ago.”
Bud glowered at Freddie. Took a Kleenex out of his pocket and wiped off his hands. “Where’s Mousie?”
“Upstairs. Outside Darla’s room. Just like you said.”
I saw Bud looking at the house suspiciously again; in fact, he seemed to be looking through the crack in the curtains right into my own blinking, terrified eye.
“Let’s go check on Darla,” he said, as Dulwich announced cheerfully: “All right, chums. It’s time to leg it!”
Chapter 18
WE MADE FOR the back of the house, for the dining room, for the French doors beyond the glimmering chandelier. The house seemed to have gotten twice as big and twice as dark, and then in the living room I tripped over a footstool and took a tumble and Darla’s suitcase went sliding over the floor. Dulwich grabbed the suitcase and Darla helped me up. “Hurry, Danny!” hissed Dulwich, then we were through the dining room door and moving around the big mahogany table.
We could see the floodlamped patio through the glass panes of the doors. Dulwich opened one of the doors and started to step through it then suddenly slammed it shut and flung himself backwards into Darla and me as the door exploded in front of us, glass shattering and wood splintering. Darla screamed, and as we fell back into the darkness of the dining room, I saw Bo Spiller and Willie the Coon out on the patio. Spiller’s disfigured face was smiling as he pumped his shotgun, ejecting a red shell casing, and then there was a flash of orange light as he fired again into the room. Dulwich and I dived behind the table. I heard Darla screaming no, stop, then Spiller and Willie were advancing into the room like unstoppable forces of nature, Spiller pumping and firing his shotgun and Willie shooting his pistol. I could see under the table through the legs of the chairs their legs coming toward us, silhouetted against the outer brightness. Dulwich saw them too. He fired twice, and one of the bullets struck Willie in the kneecap. He hollered and clutched his knee and fell down as Dulwich popped up and put four quick slugs into Spiller’s chest. As he was going down, virtually dead already, his finger jerked the trigger again; unfortunately for Willie, he was on the floor in front of the barrel and took the blast in his stomach. It didn’t kill him outright. He howled and moaned and blabbered. Till Dulwich walked around the table and, as casually as if he were stubbing out a cigarette under his shoe, shot him in the head.
My ears were ringing, and the air smelt of gunsmoke. Dulwich took a fresh clip out of his jacket and shoved it in his .38. It wasn’t necessary for me to reload since I hadn’t fired a shot.
“You all right, Danny?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Darla?”
I looked around.
“I don’t know. I guess she ran out.”
“Oh bloody hell,” he growled, then he raised his gun and seeming to point it directly at my head as if he’d had enough of my incompetence, he fired. I heard the bullet whistle past my ear like the time I’d nearly been killed by Janet Van der Eb, although it wasn’t really a whistle, it was more like the air was being ripped. Then I heard a second bang and another bullet zipped past, but this time headed in the opposite direction.
I dove once more to my friend the floor. I saw a shadowy form in the doorway firing at Dulwich, Dulwich continued to fire back, then the guy at the door began to stumble forward like a man who was trying to keep his balance on ice, his arms swinging more and more wildly, till finally he took a nosedive and skidded to a stop just a couple of feet from me.
It was Freddie Kornblum. Blood, black in the dark, was pouring out of his mouth.
“Mousie,” he croaked. “Where’s Mousie?”
Then that Vera Vermillion stillness settled down upon him.
“I’m afraid I’m hit, old man.”
Dulwich was holding his left side. I hurried around the table, stepping over Bo’s body and slipping in Willie’s blood. I helped Dulwich sit down on one of the dining room chairs. I saw a spreading dark blotch on his white shirt.
“Is it bad?” I said.
“I rather think not. Perhaps a broken rib. But it hurts a bit.”
“I have to go find Darla.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Beware, Danny. Three are left.”
Bud, Nucky, and Nello. I didn’t know whether they were
creeping around in the dark like me, or were still outside, waiting for us to leave so they could cut us down.
I felt like I knew what had happened to Darla. I felt like she had run away from the guns as she’d run away as a kid from her lunatic father in frozen Nebraska, and now she’d hid herself away in some nook or cranny of the big house. But how should I find her? Should I call out to her? But then mightn’t someone other than Darla hear me calling out? And then shoot me dead as a doornail? Dead as a Willie, a Bo, or a Freddie? Their corpses stank and I knew now that’s how it was, you pissed and shat yourself and squealed like a pig and died. The truth was, I had no idea what I was doing. The unshot gun hung heavy in my hand, and I was shaking all over and my heart was beating violently and I couldn’t catch my breath. But whatever I was doing, I needed to do it fast, before Dulwich bled to death in the dining room.
I moved down a narrow hallway that led to the kitchen. I passed a closed door. It was Anatoly’s room. I supposed he was in there now, listening to the madness, hoping it would pass him by.
I entered the kitchen. It was spacious, with lots of cabinets and cupboards, and a long counter in the middle, with pots and pans hanging above it on hooks.
“Darla?” I whispered.
Light jumped out of the darkness and there was the thunderous clang of a bullet striking a copper pot not far from my head. I crouched behind the counter, fired toward where the light had been. Now by the flashes of their pistols I saw two dark shapes near the door on the other side of the room. Their bullets ripped and whipped and whanged all around me, and one plucked at the sleeve of my jacket as if trying to get my attention, and it was like I was walking through a hailstorm but not getting hit by any of the hail. I emptied my revolver at them, and must have got lucky with one of my shots as the shooter on the left cried out and crumpled.
I ducked out of the kitchen and ran back down the hall. I shouted: “Darla, goddamn you, come out!”
I’d followed Dulwich’s advice and brought extra ammo, and I could feel the cartridges rattling in my pocket like loose change. I reached the end of the hall and turned toward the front of the house, yelling: “Darla, come on!”
I saw the door to the billiard room and dodged through it. I shut the door and moved over to the pool table so I was facing the door and popped out the cylinder of my revolver and shook out the empty brass casings and went in my pocket and dropped a handful of cartridges on the table and then tried to reload. But my hands were shaking and as in a banal nightmare I couldn’t seem to get the bullets into the gun, then the door opened and the light came on.
It was Nucky. He had his gun pointed at me. He was splattered with blood but didn’t seem to be hit himself. “Put it down on the table,” he said, talking about my gun. I did so.
Nucky edged down the room, keeping his gun on me, till he was standing across the table. He was smiling at me in a way I didn’t completely like.
“I been waiting for this, asshole. I been waiting a long time.”
And then I saw Bud. He had his own gun up as he came through the door. But when he saw me he stopped dead in his tracks and his gun dropped to his side. On his face was a look of shock, and it was clear he hadn’t known till now who it was that had been rampaging through his house shooting down his men and clobbering them with pokers.
“Danny,” he said.
“Yeah, fucking Danny,” sneered Nucky. “I could hear him running around hollering for Darla. I told you you couldn’t fucking trust him.”
Bud saw the look on Nucky’s face.
“Take it easy, Nucky.”
“You kidding me? He just killed Nello. Plugged him right through the fucking heart.”
“I said take it easy,” Bud said more sharply.
I was looking back and forth between them, a fascinated spectator at my own life or death. Nucky seemed to waver a little, his gun lowering; then suddenly and swiftly he lifted the gun back up.
“Fuck it,” he said.
Bud shot Nucky through the cheek. The bullet went out the other cheek in a spray of blood and flesh and a couple of Nucky’s teeth went tumbling over the floor. It didn’t knock Nucky down though, he was swinging his gun around toward Bud, but now Bud shot him several times, the bullets hitting him all over.
Nucky lay quivering on the floor; then a long, poignant-sounding sigh came out of him, and the story of Nucky Williams ended.
Bud turned back toward me. He gave me a puzzled half smile.
“Danny?” he said softly. “What’s the deal?”
Out of the shadows of the hallway, Darla appeared in the doorway behind him. Something gleamed in her hand as she lifted it up. There was maybe one second where I could have said something like Bud look out but instead Darla fired and he pitched forward facedown on the red carpet, blood spurting up out of the back of his skull.
She was holding a little silver gun hardly bigger than the palm of her hand. She was looking blankly down at Bud. Now she looked blankly up at me.
We went to get Dulwich. Found him outside the dining room leaning against the wall.
“It’s us,” I said so he wouldn’t shoot us. I turned on a light. I didn’t like the way he looked. Chalk white, with bluish lips.
“I was trying to come, Danny. What happened?”
“They’re all dead. Let’s get you to a hospital. Can you walk?”
“I’ll give it a go.”
I took his gun from him and pocketed it as Darla retrieved her suitcase. Then he walked along slowly like a very old man as Darla and I guided him along by his elbows like his two grown grandchildren. We passed through the carnage we’d made and out the front door of the house.
I saw Anatoly by the swimming pool. He was fully dressed now. He was untethering the seagull. It perched on his arm and flapped its wings as he talked to it.
We walked by the Pontiac and the Lincoln and the Ford, all in need of new owners now.
“Why don’t you wait here?” I said to Dulwich. “I’ll walk down and get the car and drive back up.”
“All right, Danny,” he said, then a bullet hit the back of his neck and passed through and blew a hole in his throat.
Both his hands went to his throat and he looked like he was trying to choke himself.
I heard more shots, and looked around and saw Mousie Kornblum staggering toward us. It looked like somebody had dumped a pail of red paint over his head. Dulwich had taken his gun but now there were plenty of other guns lying around that nobody was using anymore and he must have picked up one of them. Or maybe he’d had two guns all along. Two Gun Mousie Kornblum.
I fired at Mousie with Dulwich’s gun. I fired as many times as there were bullets in the clip and Mousie went down, for good this time.
When I turned back around, Dulwich was sitting next to the driveway with his back propped up against the trunk of a palm tree. His hands were still on his throat, and he was making choking noises. Darla was bending over him, looking as though she was about to burst into hysterical screams.
“What do we do?” she said.
“Gotta stop the bleeding,” and I knelt in front of him and pried loose his hands. I was immediately hit by rhythmic jets of his blood. I took out my handkerchief and tried to cram it into the hole in his throat.
“You’re gonna be all right, Dulwich,” I said.
He couldn’t talk. But I could feel his hazel eyes burning into me.
“We’ll get the bleeding stopped. Then we’ll call a hospital, and they’ll send an ambulance. You’ll be all right.”
But the bleeding wouldn’t stop, and the handkerchief was soaked through, and my fingers were slippery with the blood.
“You’ll be all right,” I said, and I could feel his burning eyes. Then he smiled a little, and reached for my hand and squeezed it, and then his eyes went dead and he was dead.
Darla said that we had to go. Said that we couldn’t do Dulwich any good by staying here any longer.
She was right. We went down the hill to my ca
r.
Chapter 19
I DROVE SOUTH through the empty, dreamless streets. Darla said: “I forgot something.”
“What?”
“My lamb. The one Mr. Bruff gave me.”
“Well, we’re not going back.”
After that, we could have been department store dummies for all the talking we did to each other. It didn’t take long to get to La Vista Lane. I pulled over and parked. Darla looked around like she was coming out of a trance.
“Why are we stopping? Where are we?”
“This is where I live.”
Now I saw Sophie with a suitcase coming down the steps.
“Who’s that?” said Darla.
“Sophie. She’s my neighbor. She’s coming with us.”
Darla looked at me. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
I got out. Sophie’s smile faded as I walked toward her.
“What’s that on your clothes?” she said.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Sophie. Listen to me. Something terrible has happened.”
Her eyes got scared. “What?”
“Mr. Dulwich went with me. To pick up Darla. Some men tried to stop her from leaving. Bad men. They—they shot Mr. Dulwich.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yeah. But you and me and Darla—we’re gonna be just fine. I don’t want you worrying about anything. Okay?”
Sophie looked over at Darla in the car, then back at me. She nodded.
“Here, I’ll put that in the trunk,” I said, taking her suitcase. It was little, and light. I took mine and Darla’s suitcases out of the trunk.
“Darla? We need to wash up and change clothes.”
Darla had blood on her too. She nodded, and got out. She and Sophie looked each other over.
“Hello,” said Darla.
“Hi.”
“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said to Sophie. “You wanna just wait here for us?”
“Okay.” But then as Darla and I started away, she said: “Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“What about Tinker Bell?”
“Who’s Tinker Bell?” said Darla.