The serpents got closer, and there wasn’t anywhere to run. We couldn’t make it to the stairs, not without getting enough bites to kill an elephant. One cobra reared up, displaying its frill as it prepared to strike. I fired my automatic, blasting it in half. But the rest of the snakes were closing in. Weatherby stood up on his chair and Elkins did the same.
“Hold on, Mort!” Weatherby cried. “I may have just the means of dealing with these serpentine attackers!” He reached into his coat, fiddling with all the strange devices he held in its large pockets. “My father spent a small time among the Thuggee Death Cult of India. They knew how to handle snakes.”
“Mind sharing it with me, kiddo?” I asked. A rattlesnake’s tail started crackling away, an inch from my leg. I kicked it, driving the tip of my boot into its long neck and knocking it back.
I risked a glance at Weatherby and saw him holding out a thin clay flute. He raised it to his lips and started playing, his pale face going red with exertion as he coaxed out thin, reedy notes. It sounded like he was strangling a howler monkey, but the snakes liked it. Weatherby weaved back and forth on the chair and the snakes did the same, hypnotized by the noise and the movement. He gave me a quick nod and hopped down from the chairs. Elkins and I walked carefully through the snakes, along with Weatherby. We didn’t step on them, and they didn’t bite us. It worked out fine for everyone.
We reached the stairwell, and Weatherby let go of the flute and breathed in a long gasp of air. “Well,” he said. “I think I was a little out of tune, but it sufficed.”
“Strap me to a saddle and send me off a cliff!” Elkins laughed. “You are one smart cookie, Weatherby, and that’s a fact!”
Weatherby went bashful at the compliment. The guys in the platoon that had saved him were his heroes, and he saw them as something more than human. “Well, it wasn’t that much, Mr. Elkins,” he said. “I just used the proper techniques, passed down from Hindu snake-charmers for generations.”
“And it saved our behinds,” I said. But I had spoken too soon. A rifle shot blasted into the stairwell at my side. The bullet burned past my leg, knocking me onto the railing, over the side – and down into the alligator pool.
I splashed down hard, and filthy, pungent water filled my eyes and nostrils as I came to the surface of the shallow pool. I emerged and spat out a stream of green water, then remembered who else was sharing my tub. The alligators floated lazily around, watching me with wary green eyes. Weatherby and Elkins ran down to the ground floor and hurried to the edge of the floor.
“Easy, Mort!” Elkins cried. “I’ve seen these gators gobble down a whole cow carcass in two seconds flat!”
“Thanks for the comforting words, Elkins” I said. “You know just what to say to a guy who’s down on his luck.” I raised my arms and started wading to the edge of the pool. My trench coat was soaked, and my pistols would need to be stripped, cleaned and reassembled, but that didn’t matter at the moment. I took step after step, drawing to the edge as close as I could. One of the alligators slowly paddled in my direction, looking more like he was swimming over to visit the other side of the pool than to take a bite out of me.
But as soon as he drew clear enough, he lunged for me, nearly leaping out of the water with jaws open, big enough to munch my head in a single bite. I leapt out of the way, sending ripples through the water as the jaws snapped, inches from my face.
I slugged the alligator, driving the length of my fist into the underside of its jaw. It may have been big and scaly, but a good uppercut will give anyone pause. The alligator reared back and I punched it again, feeling my knuckles burn against the rough scales. Then I gripped the edge of the pool and pulled myself out, slamming both boots on the tiled floor.
Our waiter looked down at us from the upper story, while some of the other workers were capturing the snakes and putting them back in their cages. “Um, I’m gonna go ahead and waive the price for those onion rings!” he said.
“Thanks a bunch,” I told him. I looked back to Elkins and Weatherby. “No sign of the attacker?”
“He was using a long range rifle, after he let the snakes out,” Elkins explained. “Bet he skedaddled by now.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Besides, I can probably guess. You got a place I can get dried off and lay low for a while?”
Elkins nodded. “You got it, Sergeant. I got a room at the Prairie Castle. It’s just down the road a ways.”
“Great. Lead on. This swamp water ain’t as comfortable as it looks.” I let the green water drip from my trench coat as we walked to the door. I had a feeling things were gonna get dirtier before the case was through. As usual, I was dead right.
I drove Elkins and Weatherby to the Prairie Castle, a rundown flophouse overlooking the winding road. Elkins led us up to his room. He had done okay for himself, with a refrigerator, a radio blasting Grand Ole Opry tunes, and a well-stocked cabinet for drinks. In the corner of his bedroom, I noted a dozen rifles leaning against the wall, ammunition stocked neatly by their side. Elkins always tried to be prepared. After a long shower, and giving my trench coat a quick wash, I felt a bit better. I joined Elkins and Weatherby in the living room and had a beer while I waited for it to get dark.
“So, what’s our plan of attack now, Mort?” Weatherby asked. He sat stiffly on Elkins’ couch, determined not to be a burden. “If you suspect it was Inky Abrams who attacked us, perhaps we can pay him a violent visit?”
“I need more evidence. I gotta get to the bottom of this thing,” I said, reaching for a cigarette. “I’ll wait until nightfall before I go snoop around Big Daddy’s trailer. Even his circus freaks can’t see in the dark.”
“And you believe you can sneak past any guards?” Weatherby asked. “It seems a difficult feat, Mort.”
“Hell, Weatherby, back in Germany, the sergeant here went under lengths of barbed wire, right next to some sandbagged machine gun emplacements, and past a whole mess of Hitler’s crack troops, just to get behind them so we could strike from both sides. They didn’t suspect a thing.” Elkins smiled as he reminisced.
“Better days?” I asked.
“Nope. They were goddamn horrible. Smoke and fire, like you wouldn’t believe. And the real horror, the absolute worst that man can do to his fellows, waiting for us in those camps. But I still miss them. Things were simpler then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m gonna get some rest, Elkins. Keep Weatherby company. Wake me up when it gets dark.” I headed to the bedroom and slumped onto Elkins’ cot. I was asleep in seconds. I dreamed a little of the war, but mostly of the Wild Man. I didn’t fear him, even though he had lugged a car at me. I just felt sorry for the poor bastard. He was just another dumb lug, trying to do what he could to make a life for himself. And now he had a death sentence hanging over him.
Weatherby woke me up after a while, and I saw that the sky was dark outside. “Okay,” I said. “Time for me to leave, kiddo.” I slid into my shoulder-holsters and trench coat, grabbed my fedora, and walked into the living room. “Elkins, you give me a ride to the trailer park. I’ll go the rest of the way on foot. I’ll make my way back here around morning.”
“You know what you’re doing, Mort?” Elkins asked, standing up from the couch.
I shrugged. “No more than any of us did in Europe. And that worked out all right.”
“Not for some fellows.”
“Don’t remind me.” I put my hat on my head and looked down at Weatherby. “Try not to burn the joint down, kiddo. Me and Elkins will be back.”
“Good luck, Mort,” Weatherby said, in utter earnest. I gave him a quick smile, and followed Elkins out of the room.
We headed down the stairs and then to my Roadmaster. After we were speeding off down the darkened road, watching the pavement vanish under our hood in the small circle of light cast by the headlights, Elkins turned to me. “Why you going around with that kid anyhow?” he asked. “This ain’t the right kind of life for him.”
“He li
kes me,” I replied. “Even if he won’t admit it. And all that knowledge in his skull would mean a hell of a lot to the CIA, or any other intelligence or occult circle. I don’t want those damn spooks getting their hands on him.”
“It’s something more,” Elkins said. He smiled as he pointed at me. “I always figured you for the hardest of hard cases, sergeant. I figured you killed Germans, swallowed MREs, slept in weekends and not much else. But I think that’s not exactly true.”
“Sure it is,” I said. “And now it’s not just Germans I kill.” I looked out of the window, my eyes adjusting as best they could to the darkness. We passed the sign for the trailer park and I saw the tall fences surrounding it. “All right,” I said. “Cut the engine. This is where we part ways.”
“And you don’t want me to wait?” Elkins asked as he slowed, drove off the road and came to a stop. “You don’t need no getaway driver?”
“I don’t want to get away.” I opened the door and tipped the brim of my fedora to him. “I’ll just have a quick look around and head right back. I’m betting Big Daddy won’t expect any nighttime visitors, not when he’s so sure he controls every inch of the Roadside Line. Watch over Weatherby. He’s a good kid. But he’s got problems, just like any of us.”
“You got it, Mort,” Elkins agreed. He waited while I walked off towards the fences of the trailer park. After a while, I heard the light rumble of the engine as he started the Roadmaster again and began driving back.
I stayed still for a while, hugging the darkness as I did a little recon. There was a tall fence, and a pair of guards. Both were drunk, ambling back and forth like puppets with cut strings. This would be cake. I walked forward, staying low and sticking to the shadows. I made it to the fence and started climbing. It was tall, but with no barbed wire at the top, it was easy. After dropping quietly down, I started going to the middle of the trailer park.
The trailers were well furnished, clearly well-used to being stationary. Pink flamingos, bright faux gardens, plastic palm trees, and lawn chairs sprouted before each trailer. I spotted the middle mobile home. It was a dull pink, and had Big Daddy’s name scrawled above the entrance. I smiled as I started moving to the doors. He sure was confident.
I reached into my trench coat as I neared the small steps leading up to Big Daddy’s door. If he was inside, or had any bodyguards with him, I figured I could trounce them, get them to spill everything they knew, and be home before midnight. But as I was nearing the door, I heard footsteps to my side. I turned around slowly, letting some moonlight flash on my pistol.
“Drop the heater, buster!” ordered a harsh feminine voice. I turned around and saw a tall woman with hair like steel wool and a nose like a vulture’s beak. She had been pretty, a long time ago, and a little of that stayed with her. She carried a double-barreled shotgun under the crook of her arm. I lowered my pistol. I had no need to tangle with angry grandmothers.
“I’m just looking around,” I said. “You live here?”
“In this dump? I don’t think so, pal.” She gestured with her gun to Big Daddy’s trailer. “What you doing snooping around Big Daddy’s place of residence?”
“Easy, sister. I just want to ask him some questions.” I looked back at the trailer. “What’s he to you, anyway?”
“Nothing now. But way back when? Before the war? We was everything.” She lowered her shotgun. “Name’s Rose Rowan. What’s your handle?”
“Mort Candle. I’m a private eye.”
“Well, how’d you like to hear a little story, private eye? My car’s back there. I know a little place, just down the way, where the walls ain’t got ears. Care to accompany me?”
“You’ll go with a guy waving around a gun?” I wondered.
“I gotta tell my story,” Rose said simply. “You coming or not?”
I nodded. Rose knew something about Big Daddy. If my instincts were right, she was a former lover. That meant she had all the right information on the local crime lord, and most importantly, she was willing to talk. That meant I was willing to listen. “Lead on, Miss Rowan.”
“Please, Morton,” she said, giving me a quick smile. “Call me Rose.”
I followed her out of the trailer park. She had bribed the guards at the gate, who gave her a nod as she walked outside. She had a neat corvette, a two-seater painted electric blue. She slid into the driver’s seat and I joined her. Rose Rowan started the engine and we sped off into the night. “Want a cigarette?” she asked.
“I brought my own pack,” I said, pulling the deck from my coat and fishing out a coffin nail.
“Good. Give me one. I’m gonna need some smoke in my lungs before I start talking.” I complied, and she seemed a bit happier now that she was telling me what to do. She kept on driving and didn’t say another word.
Soon enough, we arrived at the diner, a little greasy spoon that stayed open all night, though it looked as if it didn’t get many customers. We walked inside, our shoes clicking on the linoleum. Rose nodded to the tired cook at the counter and we slid into one of the many unoccupied booths.
“I know Big Daddy from way back,” she said. “We met in the Depression, when the Dust Bowl hit. He was knocking over banks and I drove his getaway car. I was his best friend – but he never loved me. Funny, how that can happen.” She rested her withered hands on the table and looked at her long nails. “But I loved him – and one night, just as that war was starting, I got him good and drunk.”
“I don’t need the details,” I said. “Did you go your separate ways after that?”
“Big Daddy was investing his money, building up a syndicate. I didn’t want no part of that,” Rose explained. “That’s when he changed his name, you know. Thought it sounded nice. ‘A father to his men,’ and all. I bet the brainless Okies he lords over don’t even get it.” She glared up at me. “But he is a father, Morton. He’s the father and I’m the mother.”
“And the son?” I asked.
Rose’s eyes widened. “Is the ’66 Wild Man.”
That was more than a little surprising. “What happened?”
“Well, when I left Big Daddy – pregnant with a kid he didn’t want – I decided to take a sizeable chunk of his fortune with me. He sent his goons after me, but I outran them – and straight into a nuclear missile test range. I got a big whiff of that radiated dust. It went right through me, to the baby growing inside. Soon as little Billy was old enough, I handed him back to Big Daddy, who said he knew just what to do with the kid.”
“Putting him in a roadside show?” I asked.
“What else could he do, huh? You city slickers never realize that some folks just ain’t meant for great things. That they are what they are, and there’s no changing it.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “You’re a detective, Morton. A killer to the manner born. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Is the Wild Man?” I corrected myself. “Is Billy?”
“No. He may be built like a tank, but he’s gentle as a kitten. Despite his size, despite his strength, he’s still a good and kind kid, Morton. And he’s smart. He doesn’t show it, but he is.” She had desperation in her voice, a mother’s fear. “He didn’t kill those people. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t him. I gotta convince Big Daddy of that, and stop him from killing his own son!”
“So if the ’66 Wild Man didn’t murder that family, who the hell did?”
I was so busy, focusing on Rose’s story, that I didn’t hear the bell as the door opened. I didn’t hear the crocodile skin boots tapping across the floor to our table, or the hatchet pulling back. But I sure felt the heavy handle cracking into my skull and knocking my face to the table.
The black graphite slammed into my face and then I rolled off of the chair and onto the ground. I looked up to see Inky Abrams, grinning at me as he held up a hatchet. I saw his gold teeth shine in the low light. He rested the axe on his shoulder. “Who killed them, detective?” he asked. “That’d be me.”
Rose started screaming. She
tried to stand, but that was far as she got before Inky buried the hatchet in her skull. She slumped down and Inky got to work, swinging the axe down again and again until blood spewed onto the glass and the table. He stepped over me, pausing to give me a searing kick in the ribs. I tried to reach my pistols, but Inky knelt down and pulled them away, setting them out of my reach.
It was like I was seeing everything through a red haze. I heard the cook at the counter screaming something, and then gurgling out his life blood. Inky got to work on him, taking off his head and mashing up his body with the axe. Then he returned to glaring down at me. “You’re probably asking yourself why I didn’t bury this blade in your skull, you shamus scum,” he said.
“I’m asking myself how I’m gonna kill you…” I groaned. I tried to stand up, and got a boot to my face for my trouble.
“You won’t be smarting me, detective. You dying here, well, that’s a little much. Might make Big Daddy suspicious of the real killer. I don’t want him suspicious. I want him grieving, so sad at the death of his old flame that he gets angry at the Wild Man and has me and the boys take out that monster for good.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s the Wild Man to you?”
“Nothing – except the son and heir of Big Daddy. I’ve been waiting years for that tub of lard to keel over, and then I found out the truth from a drunken floozy that Miss Rowan had spilled her heart to. I learned that when Big Daddy does die, a brain-damaged freak could inherit what’s rightfully mine! You’ll understand my frustration, I’m sure.” He pulled back his hatchet. “That’s why I busted the Wild Man out of Plunket’s place, and why I cut up that family in the Easy Z’s Motel.”
“But you’re not gonna kill me?”
“Heh. What I got planned for you, flatfoot? You’re gonna wish you got the axe.” He brought the handle down on my head. The red haze deepened, and swept up the rest of my vision.
When I woke up, I was looking up at the night sky. The stars winked down like flickering eyes, laughing at my stupidity. There was a small storefront on my right, some kind of old wooden structure that could have been a general store in a Western flick. A large rat was painted above the doors. I tried to move my hands, but thick cords bound them. My thoughts instantly turned to the Ka-Bar in my boot. Inky hadn’t touched it. If I could just reach down and grab it, I’d give that tattooed freak a couple more marks he wouldn’t soon forget.
The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1) Page 20