"Speak of the devil," he said.
"I asked you a question." The barrel bored harder.
"No, I didn't bring my gun. It's back at the office."
She tsked. "You know, if I plugged you right now it wouldn't make much of a sound."
"Anyone else, and I'd take that as a bluff."
"Let's walk outside."
He was tempted to ask if they could hold hands, but bit his lip. Siti didn't have a sense of humor. He dropped his popcorn on an ashtray and let her prod him towards the door.
"So, did Blackburn tell you I'd been asking around?"
Her eyes crinkled. Wrong guess.
"How'd you make me, then?"
"Shut up. We'll talk in private."
They stepped out of the Majestic's plush lobby onto sidewalk. Moments later, the long black Lincoln he'd seen outside Loftwood Studios came sliding up. The passenger's side door swung open.
"Get in." Siti's gun prompted.
Under other circumstances he might've tried to bolt, but he wasn't feeling froggy. Bald Percy sat in the next seat, wearing a white dinner jacket. He flexed his hand by way of greeting. "Well now, it's the 'trained boxer' from the club. Good to see you, sport."
"Likewise. How's the hangover?"
"Can it, ladies." Siti squeezed in next to him and slammed the door shut. She nodded towards the driver, a tough face in the rearview mirror. The Lincoln shot forward.
"Pat him down," she told Percy.
Educated hands felt around Jack's torso. "He's dry."
"I could have a knife in my boot."
"Go ahead." Percy grinned. "Try to pull it."
Ignoring him, Jack said to Siti: "I should point out my secretary knows I was supposed to meet a client back there. If I don't show at the office tomorrow she'll call the police."
"Uh-huh." Siti spoke to the driver: "Ralph, you see that secretary he's talking about?"
The tough face nodded. "She left the Wilson Building at 1:15 p.m.., carrying a box full of stuff. She didn't look like she was coming back."
Ralph's voice, Jack realized, was the 'client' he'd heard on the phone.
"No one knows where you are," Siti said. "No one cares. That's the drawback of being a loner."
She jabbed the gun again. Percy reached over, seized Jack's Stetson in both hands, and pulled it down tight to cover his eyes. He smelled old Brylcreem under the brim.
The .22's barrel receded, a little. "You keep it on like that," Siti said, "and Percy doesn't have to hit you over the head. Understand?"
"Perfectly." He felt ridiculous, but it beat a concussion. "Can you tell me, in general terms, where we're headed?"
"Someplace your square little brain's never dreamed of."
* * *
They drove for forty minutes like that. Jack knew because he counted the seconds. At one point Percy shoved a lit cigarette in his mouth. An ominous gesture. They could be taking him to a quarry, for all he knew, or a construction site where the cement hadn't been poured yet. No one offered any hints. Ah, well. He wasn't bored anymore, at least.
When the car finally came to a stop, Percy checked to make sure the hat was still firmly in place. He put Jack into some sort of arm-lock, while Siti, for variety's sake, pressed the gun against the base of his spine. They marched him out into cool air.
"Steps," Siti warned.
He went up a short flight, his boots creaking under him. Then the smells of mildew and rotting wood. They'd taken him inside an old building. He heard a gabble of women's voices speaking Spanish, and a sudden, snapping sound, followed by a groan. His imagination started kicking in.
"Down here," Siti said.
More steps, these ones descending. The voices grew quiet behind him. A basement? He heard the rattle of a lock, a door creaking open. Hands shoved against his back. He careened forward, tripping over the edge of a rug as a startled voice cried out. Cement floor struck his forearms, but he managed to break the fall. His hat flew off in the process. He pushed himself up, blinking at the stark light coming from a naked bulb. The door slammed shut behind him and locked.
"Jack!"
He was in a bare-walled room the size of a large closet. Tom Reiss rose from an old mattress shoved in one corner, his face discolored by a bruise on his temple and a bad case of five
O'clock shadow.
"Where …?"
Tom was already shaking his head. "I don't know. They blindfolded me, after they nabbed me on my way to meet Agnes for dinner last night." He helped Jack to his feet.
"She must've told them about the investigation. Maybe she's trying to get back into Dix's good graces that way."
"I'm afraid so."
An outhouse smell wafted from the far corner, where a galvanized bucket, partially full, stood.
"Sorry," Tom said. "There's not much in the way of plumbing."
Jack tried the doorknob. Didn't budge. The door looked sturdy; new wood in an old frame. With his boots he might be able to kick it down, eventually. Or sprain his foot.
"What do you think they're going to do with us?" Tom said.
Jack tapped his knuckles along the wall. Solid. "For now? Just keep us on ice. This proves your hunch was right, by the way. They wouldn't go to all this trouble if their business with Dix was on the up and up."
"I'll feel vindicated later, after we're gone from here. Tell me you've got someone who'll notice you're missing."
"Nope. You?"
"My family's back in Louisiana. As far as they know, I'm on a two-month vacation."
Jack nodded at the bucket. "Anyone show up to empty that?"
"A beefy Mex woman. She's bigger than the guy who shoved you in here. She brought some water last time."
"How long ago was that?"
Tom shrugged. He wasn't wearing a watch. Jack emptied the contents of his pockets onto the bed. A comb, keys, two Luckies, and a Zippo. He'd been bluffing Percy about having a knife.
Tom picked up the lighter. "I saw a movie where a guy trapped in a room started a fire. When the guard came in to put it out, he smacked him over the head with a bed spring."
"You see anything here to catch fire?"
"What about the mattress?"
"We get that going, we're likely to suffocate before anyone shows up. Let's see how the routine works, when the woman comes to change the bucket."
"What if they come to kill us?"
Jack spread his hands. "It'll make for a shorter stay, I guess."
* * *
They took turns sleeping on the mattress. There wasn't much else to do. Jack resolved to make his cigarettes last, and ended up smoking them both while Tom snored away. At twenty minutes past nine in the a.m., the lock on the door rattled. A muffled voice called: "Huerta's coming in, but I'm right outside with a shotgun. Try anything and you'll both get it."
The door opened, admitting six-feet-two of brawny Latina, all shoulders and scarred cheekbones. She carried a jug under one arm and a brown paper bag. Jack gave her plenty of distance. He glanced out into the hall, where, as promised, Ralph the driver stood with a pump-action shotgun. He winked at Jack.
Huerta stoically carried the honey bucket out of the room and came back with an empty one. The door locked behind her after she left.
"Well," Tom said, "what do you think?"
"I think we're stuck."
"You must've gotten out of situations like this before."
"Not really." He opened the paper bag. Two sandwiches, made from cheap, pink bologna. He offered one to Tom.
"I'm not hungry."
"You should keep your strength up."
"I'd have more of an appetite if I knew what was happening with Dix right now."
Jack took a bite. "That's the sixty-four dollar question, isn't it? The timing must be important, or they wouldn't have risked snatching us."
"I don't know how you can stand all this," Tom said, gesturing at the walls. "You seem pretty calm about the whole thing."
"I was in the Air Corps during the w
ar. The Germans took me prisoner after I was shot down over Schweinfurt."
"And you didn't crack up? Jesus, I've been here a day and I'm ready for the bin."
"Oh, I cracked up. We all did. This room here, well, at least it's warm. In the Stalag, we spent most of our days trying to figure whether the cold or hunger would get us first."
He didn't add that sitting in his office without a case felt about as bad as being locked away. Worse, even. It sounded too crazy to say out loud.
* * *
Wednesday dragged into Thursday. Tom and Jack, now sporting bristly beards, got tired of talking to each other. Tom turned out to be one of those guys Jack would've never associated with outside of business. He came from money, had gotten out of the war on account of anemia, went to a good school, and flossed his teeth every night. He also thought the world was supposed to hand him things on a platter, a philosophy Jack had always detested. Friday afternoon they caught a break.
Huerta had just dropped off a fresh bucket. Tom and Jack ceased their latest argument when they heard shouts from above.
The ceiling creaked under heavy footsteps. More shouts echoed, followed by women's shrill cries.
"Oh, God, I hope it's not a fire," Tom said, whitening. "We'll be trapped …"
"Quiet."
Footsteps approached. The door shook with sudden force as someone pounded against it. "Open up in there," said a voice, high and hoarse. "Keep your hands where I can see 'em."
Jack pushed Tom to the room's center, grabbed the bucket, and positioned himself behind the door. The lock rasped. A moment later the snub barrel of a .38 poked in, followed by a coat sleeve. Followed by a heavyset face. The man gave Tom a jowly sneer. "Hands behind your head, pervert," he said, motioning with the gun. "Up against the wall."
Jack brought the bucket down with both hands. Galvanized steel struck the base of the man's thick neck. His body did a magic trick; vertical one moment, toppling the next. Jack caught him from behind and eased him to the floor. He grabbed the .38. His free hand reached into the man's pockets, felt around, and drew out a black leather wallet with a chrome star.
"Shit."
"What's the matter?" Tom said.
"Vice cop." Come to think of it, the guy's fleshy face looked kind of familiar, like maybe he'd seen him before at the Carousel Club. "This must be a raid."
He tossed the .38 on the mattress like it was red-hot. A glance at the cop showed he was breathing, strong and steady.
"Now what do we do?" Tom said.
"We slip out of here, before I get booked for assault."
He peered through the doorway, into a basement room of rotting brick. An ancient water heater stood in the corner, and wooden stairs rose at a treacherous angle to a landing above, where all the shouts were coming from.
"No way but up," he told Tom. "We'll have to chance it."
They took the stairs, merging almost at once into a narrow hall jammed with Mexican women. A uniformed officer was herding them from a row of cell-like bedrooms towards the exit. Among the throng were a couple sheepish white men in their skivvies. Moving bodies pushed Jack and Tom along, past a larger room lined with whips, cat o' nine tails, handcuffs, feather dusters, muzzles, studded belts, and less identifiable objects. In the center, a nude man lay spread-eagle atop a bed, bound by wrists and ankles to the corner posts. He was sobbing violently as a pair of plainclothes read him his rights.
"Thought so," Jack said. "Siti holed us up in a cathouse."
He kept his eyes down as the human stream carried him towards the uniform. He and Tom were just another pair of Johns, caught in the act. They exited onto a back alley shadowed by afternoon sun. The cops had somehow managed to get a couple old-fashioned paddy wagons squeezed into the space. Ralph, the Lincoln's driver, had been cuffed with hands in front of him and stood next to Huerta, similarly restrained. Working girls were being led up a little gangplank to huddle inside the wagons.
An officer nudged Jack towards a line of men along one wall, waiting to be cited, fined, booked, or verbally warned, according to the whim of the Vice Squad. Jack took his place at the line's end, not five feet from Ralph. But the big man wasn't looking at him; he was telling a baby-faced cop all the things his lawyer was going to do when he got his phone call.
"That policeman you kayoed got a good look at me," Tom whispered. "They'll find him any second now."
"I know."
"We'll go from one lockup to another."
Jack was watching the baby-faced officer. Ralph's legalistic threats involved a fair amount of spittle, and when the cop flinched at the spray, Jack grabbed Ralph from behind and shoved with all his strength. He barreled right into the young cop, almost knocking him down. The cop responded by drawing his billy. Eyes contorted, he laid a clean one across the bridge of Ralph's nose. Wet thuds followed as the club rose and fell.
"Run for it!" Jack shouted.
The lineup of Johns bolted in different directions. There weren't enough police to stop them. Jack grabbed Tom's wrist and hauled him past a row of trash cans, out onto a side street. It didn't look familiar. Across the street lay a meat packing plant and a row of old warehouses.
They sprinted along the plant's fenced perimeter, took a corner, and crossed railroad tracks. On the other side, an avenue crawled with late Friday traffic.
"I think I see a bus stop," Tom said.
"That's our ticket. At least we're clothed. Those other guys are going to be easy to spot."
"About the fare …" Tom made a resigned gesture at his pockets.
"I'll handle the goddamn fare."
* * *
They had to change buses two times to reach the Wilson Building. Jack took an emergency pack of Luckies out of the file cabinet and fired up until his blood sang with nicotine. Tom puffed away, too. Suddenly he was likable again, leaving Jack to wonder if friendships were possible without cigarettes. Or booze. Dosed, he went straight to his steel case desk and rifled the drawer. Tom's eyebrows hitched when he saw the Colt.
"You're not going to shoot anyone with that, are you?"
Jack checked the loads in the cylinder. "Depends." He'd been meaning to clean the gun, but there wasn't any time now.
"We should go to the police," Tom said. "I mean you should—I'll probably be arrested, if I show my face at the station."
Jack shook his head. "Dallas PD's pretty big. If you shaved first, I doubt anyone would recognize you. And filing kidnapping charges against Siti's not a bad idea. I'm sure she's got a record."
"But what about you?"
"I'm going to talk with Dix directly, before this gets any hotter."
"What if he doesn't listen?"
"Then at least we tried. You want to come with?"
"I'm not really one for confrontations."
"Figures." Jack snapped the cylinder shut. "Look, timing's important. Once Kind and Siti hear about the raid they'll know we're sprung, and probably step up their plans. Whatever they are. For now, we've got a small window of surprise."
"It's Friday night. What if Dix isn't in his suite?"
"Then I'll check the clubs."
Tom seemed to run out of objections. He rubbed both hands over his scraggly cheeks. "I guess I'm going to the cops. Do you keep a razor here, somewhere?"
"Second desk drawer. It's an electric." He sniffed at his four-day old suit. What he didn't have handy was a fresh change of clothes. Some deodorant wouldn't hurt, either.
Nothing for it. Dix Stricklin was about to get a talking to, even if the former star had to hold his nose the whole time.
* * *
Some of Jack's resolve cooled during the brisk walk to the Adolphus. Was charging in really a good idea? The direct approach hadn't always worked so well for him in the past. Maybe if he slowed things down, he could come up with a better angle … That's just your middle-aged brain talking. Ever since he'd stopped drifting, he'd become more and more cautious. More feeble. What he needed to do now was act, like the old Jack. Once he pul
led this has-been's ass out of the fire, word would spread and he'd get more business. He'd have to hire two Leslies to handle all the work, maybe even spring for a bigger office.
The Adolphus loomed ahead, its shadow cutting off the flow of his thoughts. No more deliberation.
He marched through the front entrance, past the sneering doorman. The concierge and well-to-do in the crowded lobby stared. Alright, he probably should've had a go with the electric razor. But the damn thing took so long to use.
Ignoring the dirty looks, he made his way to a marble hall lined with elevators. A door dinged open, disgorging an elderly couple. They gave him a wide berth. He stepped into the empty car and thumbed the button for the twenty-second floor.
The elevator wasn't empty, it turned out. A gold-veined mirror along one wall showed a tall, haggard stranger with a gut. Jack stared at himself, mystified. The dark bristles of his jawline made a strange contrast to his bleached moustache. He looked ten years older than his real age of thirty-six. Had a vagabond's life really taken that much out of him? What had happened to the rangy kid who threw the meanest uppercuts west of the Mississippi?
Worse, he realized he must've taken off his bolo tie in the office. The obsidian arrowhead had belonged to his hero grandfather, a good luck talisman. For a panicked moment he thought about going back and getting it, but dismissed the idea. He had the Colt; that was the important thing.
The elevator rose without interruption. When the doors opened again a wall of raucous noise fell into the car. A party was underway in the thickly-carpeted hall outside Dix's suite. Society types mixed with young people; tuxedoes and blue jeans milling under the usual drifts of smoke.
He stepped out, almost immediately having to dance aside to avoid crashing into someone. It was the soulful-eyed bellhop he'd exchanged clothes with. He was carrying an empty champagne stand, his lips curled in the half-smile of the pleasantly lit.
"Oh, it's the newsman," he said, slurring a little. "No need to sneak around now, friend. Everyone's invited." He nodded towards the open suite door. Loud rock n' roll blurted out.
Two-Trick Pony (The Drifter Detective Book 8) Page 8