“Yeah, thanks. So what the hell are you? You the same kind of thing?”
“No, I’m something else. There’s only one of me.”
The fundamentals of incubus/succubus reproduction are pretty simple. Succubi can’t get pregnant regardless of whether they are mating with a human or an incubus. They don’t want to have anything to do with incubi either way though, largely due to a massive, species-wide Daddy-issue thing. Basically, in order to make an incubus or a succubus, an adult incubus needs to impregnate a human woman. Since incubi hold no particular interest in sticking around and raising a family, what they do instead is seduce women in enviable situations. This means rich women, or women with rich husbands, or some combination of those two. That way the offspring are taken care of, and the incubus can be free to grift his way around to another advantageous arrangement.
Nobody liked incubi, including other incubi, who after all were fathered via the same arrangement. I’d met a few and thought they were raging jerks, but in their defense they almost had to be or the species would end up extinct. Unless that’s a huge rationalization, in which case forgive me.
It made for a lot of unhappy childhoods, is my point. And if I were the “same kind of thing” as her it would have meant I was an incubus, and then she probably would have shot me.
“You’re the only one, huh?” she said. “Until about two minutes ago I was pretty sure I was the only one of me, so how can you be so sure of that?”
Succubi also tend to steer clear of each other, mostly for territorial reasons, but usually there’s some sort of mentoring program. I was surprised she’d never met another, but I didn’t say so.
“I saw the only other immortal I knew about die in a fire about fifteen years ago. Beyond that, you’re going to have to take my word.”
“Yeah I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Immortal, huh?” Her bravado returned somewhat. I’d knocked her off-balance with the questions about her upbringing, but it wasn’t enough. “What I think, I think maybe you met someone like me before and now you’re trying to flim-flam your way out of trouble.”
“Well I’m not your guy. I never kept any of those napkins, and I’m telling you everybody else in the bar heard the same stuff I did. Maybe one of them’s playing dumb. I’m also a whole lot older than you are, which is why I don’t have a last name or a legal record. I’m not an American because I’m older than this country. And the reason I know German, and Italian, and French and Spanish and damn near every other tongue you can name off the top of your head is that I was there when they became languages. But I have met your kind before all right, and I know your storyline because you all have the same one. I might even know more about you than you do about yourself.”
Uncertainty flickered across her face again as she let all of that sink in. Then she pulled a cigarette case from one of her inside pockets and lit a new smoke for herself. It was something that involved putting the gun down on the bar first, so it felt almost like a decision on her part to take me seriously. I stepped behind the bar and had new shots poured for both of us before she had a chance to recognize that I’d gone where she told me not to.
“Let’s pretend all that is true,” she said. “Tell me something. You can’t get sick and it sounds like you’re saying you don’t get any older than you’re looking right now. Are you also bullet-proof?”
“That I’m not.”
“Can you fly?”
“No.”
“And you ain’t working for nobody, nobody’s working for you, and you have no idea what this business with the napkins is about?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
We both heard the sound of a car driving up in the lot. It wasn’t a tough thing to pick out because it was all gravel out there. The headlights went across the front of the bar from right to left as the driver parked, and then they went out.
Lucy slid off the stool and took two steps toward the door.
“Yeah, if all that’s true then we got a problem,” she said.
“Those aren’t your g-men?”
“Nope. Thing is I did a lot of talking earlier to see if I could flush out your contacts. I figured they answered to you.” There was a loud click-click sound near the front door. “Oh geez. Duck.”
I dropped to the floor behind the bar at around the same time Lucy managed, in those heels, to spin around and vault over it, landing next to me smoothly and untouched by the hot lead that was by then tearing through the thin wall separating us from the parking lot. She even grabbed her gun on her way over. It was pretty damn sexy.
Me, I managed to save the whiskey bottle but that was about it.
“So these guys, they ain’t with you?” she asked.
There was one person firing a Tommy gun into the front door, and a second one shooting through the wall next to the door. I could hear the place being turned into splintered remains around us, with about the only thing in our favor the fact that I’d put away the glassware and locked up most of the alcohol already. The liquor was kept in a wood cabinet above us, and while the wood wasn’t keeping any bullets out it was keeping shattered glass in. More importantly, the bar we were hiding behind was the heaviest and thickest thing in the place and it was doing a fine job of keeping the bullets away from us. It was so sturdy I had a theory that the place was built around it.
“I don’t even know what’s going on,” I shouted. Who’s out there?”
“I’m guessing they’re the guys that actually sold Al’s notes. You got a phone back here?”
“Why don’t you push your magic button?”
“Right, I made that up to keep you trying for the gun. How about that phone?”
I crawled over her and to the far end of the bar, reached up and pulled down the house phone. I handed it over.
“Try and call some real g-men, not someone you made up,” I said.
She was still dialing when the shooting stopped. If I’d known any better at the time I’d have cursed how long it took to get a number completed on a rotary phone.
“Frankie,” she whispered into the receiver. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m at the place, and I’m pretty sure I got our guys but I’m gonna need a white horse or three… Yeah, I’m serious.” She looked at me. “I never needed a rescue before, he’s laughin’.”
“You want me to tell him we’re about to die? Maybe he’ll believe me.”
“Yeah, get some guys down here, before local P.D. finds our bodies… Never mind who’s here with me, just do it.”
She hung up. “We gotta buy about forty minutes, I think.”
It was possible the local cops she was talking about would show up before that forty minutes, but that was unlikely. Jimmy’s was still a mob bar, even if only just barely, and the cops knew better than to show up while the shooting was still going on. Better to turn up an hour or two later to see who didn’t make it and sweep up the broken glass.
I heard the door get kicked open. “How do you feel about thirty seconds?” I asked her.
Someone had just walked into the bar, with at least one other someone behind them.
“Too bad you don’t have a gun back here, huh?” she whispered.
“It’d have to be a bigger gun than the ones they have.” I whispered back. “Who’d you get me tangled up with?” It probably wasn’t all that necessary, the whispering, since the guys inside had been firing really loud guns for a little while. That’ll wreck your hearing.
She shrugged. “I talked to a lot of fellas earlier, and I knew someone followed me here but I figured they were with you.”
“Except they’re not with me, so I can’t exactly order them to stand down.”
“I get that. If it helps, I think I might believe you now.”
At the edge of the bar was a white dishtowel, which with a little work I was able to grab and wave in the air in sight of the armed guys. “Hey fellas, no guns back here, just me. I’m gonna stand, all right?”
No answer. I stood anyway, and saw two
men I didn’t recognize. Admittedly the lighting was now even worse due to all the dust and gun smoke kicking around the room, but I was pretty good with faces and names at the time, because that was half the job. These two had on nicer suits than most of the guys who came around the bar, and the guns weren’t the sort of thing that showed up there too often either.
“What can I do for you fellas?” I asked. They both had their barrels trained on me but neither started shooting, which was nice. After a five count, the one nearest the door knocked on it, and two more men walked in. I only knew one of them.
“Rocky, I’m real sorry about all this.”
“Hiya, Vinnie. Looks like you know some folks with guns.”
Vinnie looked like he always did, which was to say he didn’t look like much more than a bruiser of the sort you hired to shake down people smaller than him. He was someone I never really wanted to run into outside of Jimmy’s, figuring if I did it was for a bad reason. We were still in Jimmy’s, but this encounter certainly qualified.
The guy next to Vinnie, who I’d never seen before, took a good look around the place. “What a dump,” he said. He was a squat little guy, the least physically impressive of the four of them, which made him most likely to be the guy in charge. He was balding, and had an unpleasant scar on the side of his face.
“It looked a lot nicer about five minutes ago,” I said. “Who are you?”
“I’m nobody you need to know, except if I say so these guys here finish you off.”
“Do you have a name?”
He eyeballed Vinnie, who shrugged.
“No,” he said to me, “I don’t have a name.”
“This is my employer, Rock,” Vin said. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Maybe you’re right, Vin, and I don’t need to know his name. But just maybe he needs to know whose bar he just shot all to hell.”
This was a dangerous play on my part, but I didn’t have many other options. My only secret weapon was the succubus with the pistol under the bar, and I didn’t think she could shoot or screw us out of this. Maybe if there were fewer guys.
Vinnie’s employer still looked annoyed about the state of the bar. “You aren’t Jimmy?”
“No I told you,” Vin said. “This is Rocky. I never met no Jimmy.”
“Jimmy doesn’t come around all that much, mister, except to collect the register and check on whose bar tab needs some personal attention. Couple of times a month he runs a poker game out back, but you’re probably not invited seeing as you don’t have a name and I don’t recognize your mug. His last name’s Ricca. Maybe that rings a bell or two.”
It should have rung a whole orchestra of bells. Ricca was the surname of the family that ran the Chicago Outfit, which was the local syndicate.
Vinnie and his boss both went a little paler than they started out. “You saying this shop is owned by Jimmy Ricca?” the boss asked.
“That’s what I’m saying. But I’m sure you fellas didn’t mean to wreck his place. You can just call him up and apologize and I’m sure he’d understand.”
The boss looked deeply displeased. “I think maybe we’ve got ourselves a big problem,” he said. “Wouldn’t you say, Vinnie?”
“Yeah…” Vinnie’s expression made it clear he was pretty sure he was in a heap of trouble. I was nearly positive Vin knew who owned the bar, and just didn’t think about it until right then.
“Tell you what,” I said. “You four walk on out of here right now, I’ll make up something and leave you out of it.”
“You’d do that for us, Rocky?” Vinnie asked.
“Of course I would.”
“No, no that’s not gonna work,” the boss said, shaking his head. “Vinnie might be a damn idiot, but he tells me he overheard you and some dame talking about going to the feds, and we’re not okay with that. Granted, we could have perhaps approached the matter with more subtlety, but that don’t change things all that much in my mind. So where are you hiding the girl, Mr. Rocky? And don’t tell me she ran out the back because we were watching.”
I looked down. It seemed inappropriate, having her stand wearing only that coat, like she was showing up at the door in a negligee. But she gave me a little nod, so I figured it was okay.
“You got her rattled with all the shooting. Can’t blame her. Come on honey.” I extended my hand for her to stand. She gave me a private eye-roll before getting to her feet.
“What’s going on, Rocky? What do these fellas want?” She slid in with my arm around her like it was the most natural thing in the world. Felt good too, having her there.
Lucy gave them the doe-iest doe-eyes anybody had ever seen. You’d have sworn she was the most innocent girl on the face of the earth, regardless of how nearly naked she was. But it was clear nobody was buying the act. Problem was, most people—regardless of gender—would have been in hysterics after that show of gunfire, and she came off like we’d just met an encyclopedia salesman.
“I don’t know, baby,” I said. “I think these guys are just confused.”
“She’s the one,” Vin said. “Asking too many questions.”
“Well…” the boss said. He looked her up and down in a way that made me want to punch him in the jaw. “Ain’t you a sight?”
“Aww, thanks, mister. But I don’t know what you boys are talking about. I just stopped by here for a little nightcap with Rocky. What kinda questions you mean?”
“A nightcap, huh?” The boss eyed what she wasn’t wearing.
“Maybe a little more than a nightcap, but what’s it to ya? That’s no reason to go around shooting up a place.”
“No, it isn’t. But you see miss, we procured some items from this establishment, and then sold those items and made a little money from them, and we’d rather nobody knew about that little arrangement. Vincent, who I think you met earlier this evening, helped with the procurement. He’s a suspicious guy who doesn’t want to go to jail for trying to make an honest buck, as I’m sure you understand, so when you started whispering in his ear he got to thinking maybe we had a problem. He heard a similar bunch of disturbing details just before running down the street and placing a call to me. Now we have a different kind of problem, because even if Vincent here was completely wrong about everything else, it turns out—according to your boyfriend here—I’m standing in a bar owned by the Outfit, with two witnesses what don’t work for me that have seen my face.”
He took a look at his two gunners. I’d been keeping an eye on them myself because it’s never a bad idea to keep track of the guns in the room. Their expressions hadn’t changed at all. I was pretty sure they were either stone deaf or didn’t speak the language.
“I’m sorry, you seem like a classy dame and I’m sure this Rocky here is a stand-up guy, but my boys here are gonna have to shoot you. Then I figure we’ll have to torch the whole place and work on our alibis. If Jimmy Ricca owns the dive it’ll get chalked up as a hit on him, that’s how I’m seein’ this.”
Something about me, and bars and Chicago always seem to add up to mobs, guns and fires eventually. It made me think I should choose a different city, provided I figured out a way to walk out of this one on my own, which was a tall order under the circumstances. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to convince Vinnie or his boss that I was immortal and didn’t give a goddamn who he was.
Fortunately, Lucy took the information like it was nothing. She smiled and laughed like he’d just made the best joke she’d heard all year, and dammit if he didn’t smile a little.
“You’re funny!” she exclaimed. She stepped out from under my arm and leaned forward The boss had his hands on the bar, so she took one of them and started rubbing his wrist. I couldn’t see the front of her from the angle I was at, but I knew exactly how much cleavage she was showing off when she did this.
“I’m serious, honey,” he said, patting her hands. “Sorry it’s gotta be this way.”
“Ah, you! I tell ya what,” she said, shooting him a comical
ly perplexed expression that was adorable and not at all appropriate when contrasted with the news of her imminent demise. She reached behind the bar and revealed the half-empty bottle of whiskey we’d been draining all night. “As it turns out the only bottle your boys didn’t shoot is the best one in the house. How ‘bout you and Vinnie here join us for a shot and then we can talk about what to do about this little mess of ours. We got a little time, right Rock?”
“Yeah, plenty,” I said, although what made anybody think I was an expert on this I couldn’t say.
“There see? C’mon, you fellas have been all worried about this little secret of yours the whole night I bet you could use a stiff one.”
* * *
A stiff one was exactly what they needed, and the drug in the alcohol was exactly what we needed. Ten minutes later Vinnie and his boss—whose name we quickly learned, was Echols—were feeling a lot better about everything in their lives. At Lucy’s suggestion Echols ordered the two guys with the big guns to stand outside, which made relaxed the situation considerably. They would undoubtedly remain standing out there until her g-men backup arrived, and that was maybe bad news for the feds, but it wasn’t my problem. My problem was either Vinnie and Echols, or Lucy. I couldn’t be sure.
“Seems to me, you guys have a bigger concern than Jimmy Ricca,” Lucy was saying, as she fed them their third or fourth shot apiece.
By this time the drug had settled in nicely and I was beginning to understand why she was so surprised when I didn’t react to it. These hardened criminals had already confessed to selling the contents of the napkins, not knowing until later it was going to end up in the hands of the Germans. Once they learned this they did everything they could to erase any connection between them and the sale, which meant following the overly inquisitive Lucy and shooting up what they were afraid was a barroom full of federal agents. They felt awful about this, and agreed they had not acted particularly rationally, and now were panicking about the whole thing.
They were also ready to do whatever she said.
“What do you mean, sweetie?” Echols asked.
Hard-Boiled Immortal (The Immortal Chronicles) Page 4