Waiting

by Stephen Jones

  “Do I have your assurance that Miss Billie Bernard suffers no harm?”

  “You do, but she stays in my keeping until Micky Angel gets his ass over here and starts talking business. And no FBI in on the act. Capeesh?”

  Brady, who was a linguist, indicated his understanding with a nod and was released.

  March 7, 1937 (later that morning)

  It was fortunate, Brady reflected, that Mr. Hoover had been at the first night of Zip Ahoy!, because it might mean that he was still in New York. This proved to be the case. A phone call gave him the information that he was at the New York FBI building in downtown Manhattan, and by ten o’clock Brady was standing opposite him in the director’s office. With Hoover was his assistant, Clyde Tolson, watchful, enigmatic, and cold.

  Brady gave them an edited, but, he hoped, credible account of the events of the night before, leaving out some of the more outré aspects of his adventures in the subterranean tunnels beneath the Theater District. He was listened to in silence.

  “Well, young man,” said Hoover, “we have ourselves a situation. Mr. Buonarotti is as far as I know a man of good standing in this city—”

  “I understand that you and Mr. Tolson enjoyed his hospitality last night.”

  Hoover stiffened; Tolson glared. Brady had taken a risk, but he had wanted to gauge their reactions. Vinci’s remark about Buonarotti’s “hold” on Hoover had impressed him.

  “Mr. Brady,” said Hoover, “I did not ask you to interrupt while I was speaking.” The coldness was evident, but he was clearly on the defensive. “A lot of nonsense in this city is talked about so-called mafias and organized crime. There is no such thing. There are just criminals. There is no organized crime. There is no ‘mob.’ Do you understand, Brady?”

  “I’ll bear that in mind, Mr. Hoover.”

  “Mr. Buonarotti is a businessman in good standing; he owns a theater which is under threat from these communist rats. There is your organized crime, if you like. Now, I know nothing of this dispute he has with Mr. Vinci. That is not FBI business, but this dispute should be resolved. After all, Mr. Vinci is also a businessman, though I am not personally acquainted with him. Your task, Mr. Brady, is to give Mr. Buonarotti every assistance in ridding himself of these commie bums. I do not want to know how you do it, but you will do it. It will be a test for you. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Hoover. I have your permission to act on my own initiative then?”

  “You do, Brady. You may hit your approach shot any way you like, so long as you get your ball in the hole. Do you have a plan?”

  “I believe I do, Mr. Hoover.”

  “Well, don’t tell me about it, just get going and kick some ass. And, Brady—?”

  “Sir?”

  “By the time you get back to your hotel room, a parcel should have arrived for you. Special delivery from Sing Sing. Via our laboratories. Understood?”

  “Understood, Mr. Hoover,” said Brady. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Tolson look enquiringly at the director. Evidently he had not understood; there were some things that Hoover kept even from his closest associate.

  The rest of that morning and afternoon Brady spent mainly with Mr. Buonarotti who, after an initial explosiveness, proved most accommodating. Brady also made other arrangements. The last task on his list, and not the least important in his eyes, was to see Miss Ellie Jackson, who took the news he had to give her with a kind of sober level-headedness, neither fearful nor exultant, which only enhanced his admiration for her. Then she, too, had her preparations to make.

  They met again only shortly before curtain-up on the second night of Zip Ahoy!, in which Miss Ellie was to take over the leading role of Ruby Emerald owing to the indisposition and absence of Miss Billie Bernard. As the overture was playing, they stood together in the wings.

  “Miss Ellie,” said Brady looking into those wonderful eyes, “I want you to go out there and come back a star.”

  “You honestly think I can do it, Nathan?”

  “I know you can, doll.”

  “Oh, Nathan! You called me doll! How thrillingly ungentlemanly of you!”

  “I am now going to do something ungentlemanly,” he said and kissed her full on her soft lips. “Now go out there, Miss Ellie, and knock ’em dead!”

  And she did. Watching from the back of the stalls, Brady felt immense pride, but also something else: something deeper, more primitive, and, somehow, purer. Hoover would not have approved; but to hell with Hoover. Miss Ellie Jackson came back a star.

  Later that night, having congratulated Miss Ellie on her superb performance, Brady went down to the basement beneath the stage, where he was presently joined by Micky “the Angel” Buonarotti and what seemed at first like a dozen musicians, for they were all carrying instrument cases. However, their pin-striped suits and two-toned shoes were not particularly musicianly, and their features would not have suggested to a casual observer the subtlety and sensitivity of the musical mind. Brady was hardly surprised, when the men began to open their cases, that none of them contained a violin, or even so much as a trombone.

  “Okay, you guys, listen up,” said Micky Angel. “This dude here is Mr. Nathan Brady. He is a G-Man—” There were murmurs of faint disapproval as Brady stepped forward, revealing himself to the assembled hoods. “But don’t you give him no lip, see. I can vouch for him. He is a regular guy, and he is on a special mission from my very good friend, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, to help us get that sonofabitch Leo the Artichoke who has nabbed my doll and done other goddamn lousy things that no decent guy like you gentlemen here would speak of, let alone do.” At this, the assembled men looked at each other with a surprised complacency, and some began to burnish the barrels of their Thompson submachine guns and sawed-offs with handkerchiefs.

  “Now we are going to conduct a raid on this lousy sonofabitch and teach him a lesson in honor, because this roach is also trying to muscle in on my territory by building a tunnel under the Roxy and hiring a lot of bums to scare the pants off my employees. Mr. Brady here tells me that Leo the Artichoke has got these lousy bums up in some goddamn scary costumes, like fish or some such, so don’t you go running off saying you seen a ghost or any of that crapola. Hell, you are Americans, and proud of it, so just go right ahead, do your duty as citizens of the Land of the Free, and fill their lousy guts with a bucketful of lead. Gentlemen, let’s go down there and kick some ass!”

  This rousing speech received a muted cheer. Then Brady said: “This way, gentlemen, but tread carefully!”—and led the way down into the subterranean chambers.

  Micky Angel and his army of mercenaries followed, and if he was a little surprised that Brady did not advise his men to keep silent and stop flashing their flashlights around, he did not voice his misgivings. During their long and complex interview, Brady had managed to inspire confidence: it was one of his gifts.

  The men could not help looking around and wondering at the monumental architecture that surrounded them. Brady explained that the galleries in which they were walking had probably been built as water conduits by some of New York’s very earliest inhabitants.

  “You mean, like redskins?” asked one of the men incredulously.

  “Very likely,” said Brady shortly. He was becoming increasingly nervous. The plan he had devised was beginning to look more and more foolhardy. He held up his hand for silence.

  Faintly at first, but becoming louder by the second, they heard a rhythmical booming sound that echoed through the underground chamber like the throb of a heartbeat. This began to be accompanied by strange half-human cries that even Brady, who had heard them before, found troubling. He could just make out the words—if they can be called words.

  “Rghyyeloi fo Xhon! Rghyyeloi fo Xhon!”

  “Forward, but steady as we go, gentlemen,” said Brady who surprised himself by not sounding fearful or hesitant. They had come almost to the vaulted circular chamber with its numerous passageways leading off it and, as they did so, th
e tension increased. No one spoke, and all the men were checking their ammunition. Brady’s flashlight began to make out vague shapes waving and shaking in the distance. He told the men to dip their flashlights until they got to the opening. Confident as he sounded, he realized that from now on he must rely on improvisation. A faint gray-green light came from the lichen, which bearded the slabs of masonry that lined the gallery walls. Brady drew his automatic from its holster and felt for the other weapons at his disposal.

  The booming became louder, as did the slap and rustle of great wet feet. Now they were in the vaulted space. Brady flashed his flashlight around it and the others followed suit.

  Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw. A great roiling mass of organic life stood before them. The shapes were a grotesque parody of the human, the skin glaucous and scaly, the eyes saucerlike, while the gaping mouths crammed with needle teeth embedded in gray flesh with mucous strings of slime hanging from them were beyond hideous. The beasts stared at their human adversaries. There was a moment of motionless stunned silence as each side contemplated the other. Brady saw the men recoil, not least at the appallingly corrupt stench the creatures gave off, but they steadied themselves and began to aim their weapons. Micky Angel was the one to break the silence.

  “Hell! Those are some crazy costumes, all right! I always knew the Artichoke was one mean sonofabitch, but this is booby-hatch time!” There was another short pause during which everyone considered this profound reflection, then Micky said: “Okay! Let ’em have it, guys! Right in their ugly kissers!”

  The sound of gunfire in that vaulted, confined space, was all but deafening. The whole cavern was ablaze with the flare of tommy guns and the angry flash of the double-barreled sawed-offs, no sooner discharged than reloaded and blasted again. Brady shot off a clip from his automatic, and then withdrew from the front line to observe better and decide on tactics.

  The ichthyoid creatures were falling under the storm of bullets, it was true, and they seemed to have no weapons with which to retaliate, but there were so many of them, and they seemed curiously, flabbily resilient. Even when they had fallen, a part of them seemed to stir and grope forward toward their killers. But the men did not falter once they had begun. The scaly monstrosities seemed to react slowly, but they were staggering toward the line of firing men, stumbling over their fallen comrades, dull but undeterred. Micky’s line of defense did not break, but it began to fall back.

  Meanwhile, Brady was reloading and considering his next step, when he felt a touch on his arm. He started violently and spun around to find himself staring into the lovely shadowed face of Miss Ellie Jackson.

  “Good God what are you doing here, Ellie? Go back at once! This is no place for you!”

  “Hell, no! And what gives you the right to tell me what to do, Mr. Brady? I came here to help rescue Miss Billie and that is what I will do, and the hell with you!”

  “Okay, Miss Ellie, but, as you may have noticed, things are getting kind of hairy around here. Are you armed in any way? Have you packed a rod?”

  “Have I packed a rod? Is the Chief Rabbi Jewish? You bet your sweet ass I’ve packed a rod, and I can shoot straight. I come from Harlem, remember?” The automatic she removed from her stocking top was an elegant piece, and so was her stocking top, but there was no time for that. “Very well, Miss Ellie. Keep close to me and watch your back.”

  “What the hell are those?”

  “The Armies of the Night. I’ll explain later.”

  Micky Angel’s men were still firing and still bringing down the creatures, but there were so many of them and they kept coming, scrambling over the bodies of their kind whose limbs still twitched and struggled. Two of Micky’s men had exhausted the supply of ammunition for their sawed-off shotguns and were using knives.

  “You see that passageway opposite you, Miss Ellie? That’s what we need to aim at to rescue Billie.”

  “My God! You mean we have to climb over those bodies?”

  “You don’t have to. You can leave now.”

  “I don’t quit.”

  “Then keep up with me, and make every bullet count.”

  “Nathan! Behind you!”

  Brady turned and saw a group of the mutant creatures shambling toward them from the long gallery. If there were more of them, Micky and his men would be surrounded and that would be the end, however many they killed. There was only one thing for it.

  “Okay, Ellie,” said Brady. “You hold them off with your rod while I do this.” From the inside of his pocket he drew a thin object wrapped in brown paper, about the size and shape of the baguettes they sold at the French boulangerie on Spring Street.

  “If this doesn’t work, we’re sunk. Aim for their eyes,” Brady told Ellie.

  Ellie began firing and made every shot count. As the creatures fell, they made a strange hissing sound as if air was escaping from their bodies, but still they twitched. Brady tore the brown paper off to reveal the object.

  “Christ! What is that?” said Ellie, as she plugged another assailant.

  “The hand and forearm of Obadiah Willums, wife-murderer,” said Brady. It was indeed, a withered hideous thing, rigid and stiff as if desiccated, but it was an authentic Hand of Glory as stipulated by the Necronomicon. “It is a traditional magical instrument which makes any person or persons who hold it invisible.”

  “Baloney!”

  “Quite possibly, but it’s our only hope just now. I need a steady hand, so I am going to hold this up and give you my lighter. Now all you have to do is light each of the fingers. They have been prepared with a mixture of tallow and human fat, so they should light easily.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Please! Just do as I say! This is our last chance!”

  Without further discussion, Ellie took the lighter and applied the flame to the top of each finger in turn, as if to a candelabrum. From each finger shot a pure flame of bright emerald green. Brady made Ellie grasp the withered arm with him and held it aloft.

  “Behold!” he shouted. “The Hand of Glory!”

  The effect was almost instant. The creatures that had been advancing on Ellie and Brady stopped in their tracks with something that looked like bafflement on their subhuman faces. Brady and Ellie had the sense of being surrounded by a slight mist through which they could see, but which formed a barrier between them and the outer world. One of the creatures, more enterprising than the others, began to grope its way through the mist. He had almost touched the hem of Ellie’s skirt when, with her free hand, she raised her automatic up to the beast’s head and fired. The head exploded into a starburst of glaucous slime. The other creatures immediately turned tail and ran off howling.

  Meanwhile, Micky’s men were slowly being overwhelmed. Two men were down and one was struggling to hold off a mass of sharp claws. The sawed-off shotguns had been abandoned as firing pieces due to lack of ammunition and were being used as clubs. The men with tommy guns were eking out their last rounds sparingly. Micky’s depleted mercenaries were on the retreat.

  Then, suddenly, came a burst of gunfire. Out of one of the tunnels brandishing Thompson submachine guns came six men who immediately began firing on the mutant multitude. They were followed by Leo Vinci, languidly holding his pearl-handled revolver in his right hand, while with the left he occasionally fed his mouth with a Havana cigar.

  This sudden incursion with new ammunition was too much, even for the subterranean hordes. With strange grunts and exhalations they began to retreat down various tunnels. Brady heaved a sigh of relief. His plan had succeeded, and his message to Leo the Artichoke that Micky Angel was planning to invade his territory with a whole lot of his actors dressed up as fishlike creatures to scare him had got through.

  The last of the wholly alive members of the Armies of the Night were gone and the firing ceased. Across the vaulted hall, in which lay a sprawling, hideous mass of quivering subhumanity, two groups of men faced each other. Micky, with his ten still-able me
n, though seriously short of ammunition, against Leo Vinci with his six, slightly more adequately equipped.

  “So,” said Vinci, “Mr. Buonarotti. We meet again.” In his mouth, Vinci’s cigar glowed and faded, glowed and faded, like a wicked winking eye.

  Micky said: “Where’s Billie, you punk? You’ve got my doll, and I want her back.”

  “Not so fast, lunkhead. What are you doing dressing bums up in stupid fish costumes and coming on my territory?”

  “Your territory! Baloney! And don’t pretend that those fish-men are my bums, because they’re your bums. I don’t need no fish costumes to protect myself.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, you sonofabitch?”

  “You bet your ass I’m calling you a goddamn liar, Artichoke!” There was an audible gasp from Vinci’s associates, and a similar reaction from Micky’s. This was followed by an impressive silence before Vinci spoke.

  “You just called me Artichoke.”

  “Sure I did . . . Artichoke!” Another gasp.

  “Nobody calls me Artichoke and lives. The last guy who did that is asleep in the East River with a very big rope around his guzzle.”

  “Well, Mr. Ar-ti-choke,” said Micky very deliberately. “I am about to prove the exception.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that, Micky Angel, you big fat sonofabitch!”

  Then it all happened in what seemed to Brady and Ellie like a split-second. Vinci had begun to raise his pearl-handled revolver rather languidly, but Micky, who was holding his automatic in his jacket pocket, fired from the hip four times into Vinci’s torso. Vinci collapsed, then Micky took the gun out of his pocket (now pretty much destroyed by the blast) and emptied the last two rounds into Vinci’s convulsing body.

  Vinci’s men looked at him in astonishment, then one of them started firing, missing Micky, who had dodged behind his men to reload, but hitting one of the foot soldiers. Then a battle began between Micky’s ten men and Vinci’s six. Vinci’s had the advantage at first because they had more ammunition and firepower, but soon this position was reversed when Micky’s men charged their opponents and the struggle became hand-to-hand. Fists flew; knives flashed.