Elizabeth nudged me and whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
* * *
I looked up the street and saw no one. Then a quick movement caught my eye as a shadow flitted into the gap between buildings. Taking care to be quiet, I stood, pulled my pistol, and scanned the area for perhaps five minutes. Elizabeth stood next to me doing the same.
“Hey, Anderson.” The whisper came from the edge of the stoop, only a few feet away. I must have leaped three feet into the air. Elizabeth whirled around, pointing her gun at the unseen man.
She grunted as it was torn from her hand. “Settle down there, sport,” Abe said with a smile, the glint of his teeth reflecting a far-off light. “It’s only me. Got my thirty-five bucks, Anderson?”
“Are they both going to be here?”
“No. Gianollas.”
“What about Adamo?”
He shook his head. “Ain’t gonna meet with ya.”
“Shit!”
I glanced at Elizabeth. Her eyes were hidden by the fedora. “Give me my gun,” she growled at Abe.
“Sure, sport,” Abe said. “Just didn’t want you shooting an innocent man.” He handed the gun back to her. “Now, about my dough?”
Even though he hadn’t gotten us a meeting with Vito Adamo, I pulled the full thirty-five dollars from my wallet and gave it to him. Without even looking at them, he slipped the bills into his pocket and said, “Come on.”
He trusted me. He lived in a world in which trust was dangerous, yet he trusted me? Must be because I posed no threat to him. He could make me disappear just as easily as the Gianollas or Adamos could. Abe was an intelligent boy with the wiles, charisma, and morals of a politician. He was going to be a formidable man.
He led us around the left side of the fence. About halfway down, he pried off a board and turned back to us. “Nobody else needs to know about this,” he whispered. “Once’t in a while we need some coal.”
“No problem,” I said. “We’ll keep it quiet.”
“Awright.” He rested the board against the fence. “They oughtta be here soon. From what I hear, the shipment’s comin’ in at two.”
“Shipment of what?”
He shrugged. “Booze? Wops? Drugs? How should I know? And what does it matter, anyway?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t.”
“They’ll bring the truck to the docks through the gate in the middle.” He pointed over the fence toward the river.
I extended my left hand to Abe. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He took my hand and pulled me a little closer. “And I mean that.”
“Not a problem. I understand.”
“Okay then.” He let go of my hand and sauntered off, not a worry in the world.
“Will,” Elizabeth whispered. “What are we going to do?”
“I was thinking we could watch them, assess the situation. If it’s only the Gianolla brothers, or we get a good chance to kill them, we should do it. Otherwise, we can just watch. Maybe we’ll come up with something we can use against them.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally she nodded. “You’re right. Who knows if we’ll get another chance.”
“Let’s go in. See how the place is laid out.”
Elizabeth nodded and slipped through the hole in the fence. I grabbed the loose board and squeezed through backwards, then propped the board into the hole. Elizabeth stood about ten feet away, surveying the landscape. We skirted a few coal piles and walked toward the river. Another fence ran parallel to the shoreline, blocking off the coal yard from entry via the river. A pair of ten-foot-wide gates stood at the center, secured in place by iron rods set into metal sleeves in the concrete. I pulled up one of the rods and swung the door out far enough for us to slip through. The hinges creaked. Three long docks, each about fifteen feet wide, cut out into the river. Empty barges sat at the two outside docks. A cement path the width of a road ran from the end of each and converged in front of the gates.
“Okay,” I said. “They’ll almost certainly open both of these gates. With my weapons, I’m going to have to be close. But you can stay farther back, use the rifle. We’ll catch them in the cross fire.” The farther I could keep her from the action, the better.
“There’s no cover here besides the fence,” she said, gesturing around us. The coal piles were all at least fifty feet from the gate, far outside the range of the sawed-off.
“What if … What if I got down underneath the center dock? They won’t be looking for anyone there. If the situation’s right, I’ll blow the Gianollas to pieces with the shotgun. Otherwise, I’ll sit tight. You do the same.”
“You’ll only shoot if the odds are with us?”
“Of course.” But that wasn’t what I was thinking. This might be the only chance I got to kill the Gianollas. With them dead, my loved ones were safe. If I had to, I’d die to make that happen. We walked back into the coal yard, and I pointed toward a towering pyramid, a triangle of void, darker than the night. It just happened to be the coal pile closest to the loose board in the fence. “Use that pile for cover. If they search the yard, you’ll be able to sneak out. If not, you can pick them off with the rifle.”
“Okay.” She sounded breathless.
“Listen, Elizabeth.” I took hold of her elbow. “Don’t shoot until I do.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
I hefted the shotgun. “You’ll know.”
“Okay,” she said again.
“We’d better get into place.”
She reached out and touched my arm. “Be careful.”
“You too.” I stepped back outside the gate. Elizabeth swung it shut and rammed the iron rod back into place. I could hear her footsteps crunch on the coal dust as she moved away from me.
I caught the flash of headlamps near the office building and heard the low rumble of a gasoline engine. The Gianollas. I ran down to the river, lay down, and slipped under the center dock. My heels and the backs of my ankles were in the water, my forehead only six inches below the wooden slats. I hoped Elizabeth was well hidden.
The sound of the engine grew louder, and light from headlamps squeezed through cracks in the fence. Half a minute later, hinges creaked, and the engine revved.
They were driving out to the docks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The sound of the engine got louder, and headlamps lit the riverfront.
It was then that I saw the spiders—hundreds of fat spiders on the underside of the dock, some within inches of my face. The activity and light had stirred them into a frenzy. One dropped onto my forehead. I swatted at it, hitting the dock as I did, rousting even more of its friends.
The engine was very close now, and the lights fixed on the dock. I froze. A pair of boots clomped onto the wooden slats, directly over me. Another spider and then another dropped onto my face and proceeded to crawl over my eyes, past my mouth, down my neck. It felt as if thousands of them were crawling over my body. The Gianollas’ men walked only inches above me, but it was all I could do not to run screaming into the water. I screwed my eyes shut and tried not to move.
The men were talking, though I didn’t understand a word of it. One of the voices sounded familiar, and finally I placed it—the three-fingered man who drove when they kidnapped me. With panic only seconds away, I pushed myself a little farther into the river. The cold water filled my boots and lapped at my calves. The spiders still danced their dance on my face, down into my shirt, who knew where else. I tried not to think of where else. I pushed myself down a few feet more into the river. The water was nearly at my waist now.
The kidnapper stopped directly above me. I froze again. He lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the water. It hit with a sizzle, which startled me, and I jerked my head toward the sound. A sharp pain flared in my cheek, and, without thinking, I slapped at it, spattering a juicy spider over the side of my face.
“Silenzio!” the man above me shouted.
I froze agai
n, as did everyone else. They seemed to listen for a moment; then the kidnapper barked out a command and they all began moving again. He walked down the dock. I pulled the shotgun from the pocket of my duster, held it out of the water, and slid farther into the river. The bullets in the pistol were watertight, so I didn’t think I’d have a problem with that, but I had to keep the shotgun shells dry.
More spiders scurried up my neck and onto my face, looking for dry ground. Chills ran through me. I slid deeper into the river, while my mind screamed at me to get underwater, get the spiders off. Perhaps a dozen of them now congregated on my face, scuttling back and forth. I wasn’t stopping, no matter who heard me. I took a deep breath through my nose and slipped the rest of the way underwater. The spiders floated away.
Keeping the shotgun out of the river, I pushed myself out a little farther and then crouched in three feet of water, my head a foot under the dock. My cheek throbbed, and the skin felt tight. It was swelling. I hoped the spider hadn’t been poisonous.
Another voice rose above the others, a voice I immediately recognized—Tony Gianolla. He walked onto the edge of the dock, joining the kidnapper. I tracked him with the shotgun. Tony and the other man walked over my position and stopped a little way past me, then turned and walked back off the dock. Tony called out to Sam, who answered. In a spirited conversation, the three men began moving toward me.
I stuck the shotgun under my arm, pulled the pistol from my belt, and held it upside down, making sure all the water was emptied from the barrel. I’d heard that so long as the barrel was clear, pistols that had been immersed would still fire. This wasn’t the best time to experiment, but there was nothing to be done for it. It would work or it wouldn’t. I stuck the gun into the highest pocket in my duster and took hold of the shotgun again.
Two of the men walked onto the dock. The other stayed back. I wasn’t sure both men above me were Gianollas, but at least one of them was. The other was near. I’d shoot these men from down here, then come up on the side of the dock with the pistol and shoot the other. The two men on the dock stood close together, only two feet in front of me. I braced the shotgun against my shoulder, trying to steady it with my bad hand. Taking a deep breath, I aimed between the slats at the silhouettes and pulled both triggers.
The gun slammed into my shoulder. The roar of the twelve-gauge, so near my ear, deafened me, but the dock shook when the men fell. One pitched into the water. I dropped the shotgun, pulled the pistol from my pocket, and swept up from the side, looking for another Gianolla.
Gunshots fired from all around, bright flashes in the dark, muffled explosions in my damaged ears. A bullet thudded into the wood next to me. Another whizzed over my head. I shot at everything man-shaped I could see. A muzzle flashed beside a coal pile on the other side of the yard, and then another and another. Elizabeth had opened fire.
Something hit me from behind, spinning me around. A man ran at me from the end of the dock. Fire leaped from the end of his gun. I dived into the water and swam underneath the dock to the other side, toward one of the barges. My right arm didn’t seem to work. Now sharp pains arced through my shoulder. I came up for a breath and ducked into the water again, swimming for the last dock. The pain sharpened, was overwhelming. Trying not to gasp in water, I dug with my left arm and my legs, trying to get as far away as I could.
When I came up again, I was ten feet from the front of one of the barges. Sporadic gunfire came from the coal yard. Two men walked up and down the middle dock, scanning the water. A number of others hustled a big body toward the truck.
I swam one-armed to the front of the barge and underneath the dock to the far side, Elizabeth’s side. Sharp pains, like the stab of an ice pick, pulsated in my shoulder. Hidden in the dark, I pushed myself as close to the shore as I could before trying to stand. My head spun. It was all I could do not to cry out from the pain. The morphine. I crouched down, steadied myself, and fished one of the bottles from my pocket.
I took a long drink and hurried around the outside of the fence. It was getting hard to focus. I felt weak and tired. The truck started up and roared away, the headlamps careening over the coal piles. In seconds, it was gone. I hurried to the loose board and saw that it lay on the ground outside.
I hoped that meant Elizabeth had escaped. She hadn’t cried out. There had been no triumphant shouts from Gianolla’s men. I climbed through the hole in the fence and took a quick look inside, then propped up the board as quietly as I could with one hand and hurried down the shoreline.
* * *
Holding my right arm in my left, I ran up the road toward the car. I was on the right side of the street and then the left and then I was back again on the right. I tried to straighten out but couldn’t quite seem to do it. Finally I saw the car and the silhouette of a small person crouching near it in the dark. I slowed and called out quietly, “Elizabeth?” My voice was thick, my tone dull.
“Will,” she said. “Come on.”
I lurched up the street to her. “Are you all right?”
She steered me toward the Torpedo. “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m fine.” Wait. She didn’t ask. I was so tired. I adjusted the throttle and spark and felt my way around to the front to start the car. Elizabeth was already there, spinning the crank. The engine caught. When I turned, my head spun again, and I nearly fell over. I steadied myself against the car until it passed.
“Come on,” Elizabeth said, her voice urgent. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I’m coming.” I stumbled around to the side and climbed in the car, veering into the back door before squeezing past. She followed behind, pushing me in. “Did you shoot any of them?” I said, putting the car into gear.
“One, I think.”
I pulled out, trying for quiet. Instead the engine revved and the tires squealed. I nearly ran into the curb on the other side of the road.
“Let me drive, Will.”
“I’m okay.” I straightened out the car and drove up the street, keeping my speed down. “Did you hit either of the…” I forgot their names. “Brothers?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m pretty certain you did.”
Now out to Jefferson, I opened it up and roared away. The streetlamps whizzed past on the sides of the empty street. My head felt like it was going to float up into the clouds. “I’ve got to make a stop,” I said, my voice thicker now, set in molasses.
“Where?”
“Dr. Miller’s.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I got hit.”
“Hit? By a bullet?”
“Yeah.”
She leaned forward and looked at me. As we passed under a streetlamp, I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, my God. You’re really bleeding.”
“I’m not feeling so good,” I mumbled.
“Let me drive.”
“No, I’m…”
She grabbed the wheel, reached over, and pulled the throttle lever all the way up while maneuvering the car to the curb. Pulling back on the hand brake, she said, “All right, now move.” She helped me out and into the backseat, then climbed in again and pulled the car onto the road.
* * *
When I woke I was alone. I smelled chloroform and disinfectant. My right arm was in a sling taped to my chest. Using my left hand, I propped myself up on the bed and looked around at the understated blue wallpaper, the oil paintings of the countryside, the white cabinets full of medical supplies, and the vegetable garden through the window—Dr. Miller’s office.
I was exhausted. My right shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch. My hand throbbed with the burning to which I’d become so accustomed. I looked at it, nestled into the white cloth of the sling. Someone had taken off my glove. The skin was mottled, burgundy and white. My fingers touched at the tips. I needed a smoke. I thought I would get up, find the doctor, but instead I lay back and slept again.
Some time later, Dr. Miller bustled into the room. “Will, my boy. How are
you feeling?”
“Fine. Is Elizabeth all right?”
“Yes.” He worked the sling over my head and began peeling a layer of bandages off the front of my shoulder. “She’s sleeping now. She’s been staying here all along.”
“Oh.” It took a moment to register. “All along? What do you mean?”
“You’ve been here three days.”
“You’re not serious.”
He stood up straight and looked me full in the face. “I nearly killed you with morphine before I operated. Elizabeth didn’t know you’d already taken some. Almost enough to kill you, in fact.”
“Oh, right. I just happened to…” When I saw the look on the doctor’s face, I trailed off.
He shook his head slowly. “I’ve seen no evidence of withdrawal symptoms, so obviously you’re not as far gone as you were before. It’s your call as to what you do. You can be a coward and continue to drug yourself. Or you can face your pain like a man.”
“Yes … well…” I looked away from him. I didn’t know what to say.
“Morphine will kill you, you know.”
“I know. It’s not what you think.”
He studied my face for a moment before saying, “She loves you.”
“What? She said that?”
He nodded. He finished changing the bandage on the front of my shoulder and began doing the same to the one on the back.
Could it be? Elizabeth loves me?
“You got hit pretty good, by the way,” Dr. Miller said. “The bullet nicked an artery. Had Elizabeth gotten you here ten minutes later, I don’t think you’d have pulled through.”
“Will I have any long-term damage?”
Motor City Shakedown Page 26