The two men who came into the alley behind the half-breed and the reporter wore soft-soled shoes and made fast, secret progress under cover of the distant humming sound which was a composite of all the noises of the great city. So that it was Edge’s highly developed sense of the presence of danger rather than any clumsy movement by the men which warned him of their approach.
He did not turn around immediately. Instead continued to move with apparent nonchalance in the wake of Dickens who was six feet ahead of him as he said:
‘How long you been a reporter, feller?’
‘Ten years.’ Dickens did not turn around either as he concentrated on avoiding the trash cans and empty cartons and broken packing cases that littered the alley. ‘Started out on a weekly sheet up in a small Vermont town. Got the job on the Globe seven years ago. But I know this city better than most people who’ve lived here all their lives, Edge.’
‘Seems you don’t know enough to stay out of dark alleys,’ the half-breed rasped. And came to a sudden halt. Whirled. Drew the Remington. Thought he had timed his move too late.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ Dickens croaked as he turned to seek the reason for Edge’s cryptic comment and saw the attackers.
Big, broadly built men of about thirty dressed in dark shirts and pants which fitted snugly to the muscular flesh of their bodies. Hatless, their faces no more than blobs of paleness in the faint remnants of light which reached this far into the alley. Their teeth gleaming as they grinned in anticipation of an easy triumph. Sources of more intense reflected light were the blades of the knives the men thrust toward the half-breed.
‘Beat it, scribbler!’ one of the men snarled.
‘Just want the cowboy,’ the other added in a rasping tone.
The first to speak had already fastened a strong grip around Edge’s gun hand and forced the Remington to aim uselessly up at the smoke layered night sky above the city. As he stabbed his knife in an underarm swing toward the belly of his intended victim. While his partner made to lunge around behind Edge to attempt to back stab him.
The half-breed’s casual attitude had been a false front while he keyed himself up both mentally and physically to counter the expected attack. So that when he halted and whirled his fear was under control and serving to hone his reflexes even sharper. It was as the fist closed over the wrist of his gun hand and forced the revolver to aim at the sky that his fear expanded at the thought he had delayed his move too long.
Long ago, in the early days of the war which was to teach him so many lessons in the art of survival, such fear in such a situation might well have given way to panic. Now it acted to strengthen his resolve and quicken his responses.
His eyes narrowed to mere glittering slivers which seemed to generate an ice-cold light of their own rather than to reflect that which filtered down the alley from the street. At the same time as his lips thinned and parted to reveal sheened white teeth in the killer’s grin.
His legs were apart, his feet firmly to the ground so that he was perfectly balanced. Pitted against two men who were moving, already excited by the prospect of a victory they were sure was theirs.
He threw one leg backwards, swung his body sideways-on to the man who trapped his hand, and arched his back. The man snorted with anger as he realized his knife was now aiming at nothing but thin air at the front of Edge’s sucked in belly.
‘Shit!’ the other man snarled as the half-breed’s move left him in front of Edge instead of swerving around to be behind him. He pulled up short, half turned and started a stabbing action at the target his partner had missed. But had to jerk back the knife as Edge used his partner’s momentum to guide rather than force the man into the intervening space.
‘Oh, my sweet Jesus!’ Dickens groaned, fear transfixing him to the spot where he had turned at the first sign of danger.
Edge hurled himself backwards, venting a grunt of pain through his clenched teeth as his shoulders hit the building wall. But the man who held him suffered a greater pain - screamed shrilly as he was jerked off balance, knife arm flailing, defenseless against the forceful kick which the half-breed directed at his crotch. He released his grip on the wrist and fought against the impulse to clutch at the source of his agony. Edge brought down his gun hand as his left streaked upward to delve into the long hair at the nape of his neck. And grunted again as the heel of his right hand smashed against the top of a lidless trash can. His fingers involuntarily splayed and the Remington clattered to the cement.
‘Get the bastard, Eddy!’ the man who had not yet made contact yelled.
Eddy was trying, forcing down the impulse to indulge his pain and drawing back his arm for another knife thrust. Cheered by the fact that the gun was no longer a threat, but puzzled by the half-breed’s action in reaching for the back of his neck. Then Eddy gasped his dismay and fear as he saw the reason for the move.
For Edge had drawn an open straight razor from a pouch that was held at the nape of his neck by a beaded thong. Drawn it and was swinging his arm down and out.
Eddy halted his own attack and took a backward step, raising both arms in self-defense as the blade arched toward him, on a level with his throat. He slammed into the solid bulk of his partner and groaned. Saw the direction of the half-breed’s swinging arm change and was too late to parry it. Felt a smarting sensation across his belly and was compelled to look down at himself. His black shirt had been cut open for a length of almost twelve inches, to show the dough white flesh beneath. Then the whiteness was abruptly gone, as the lips of the gash in his belly parted to spew crimson wetness.
‘You cut me,’ he accused, astounded.
‘Lost your stomach for this, feller?’ Edge rasped, and took deadly advantage of the man’s instinctive action of clutching at the ugly wound. By turning his wrist and swinging the razor back in the opposite direction, at a higher level, having to drop into a half crouch so that the blade went beneath the sagging chin to open up a deep cut across the front of Eddy’s throat.
The dying man attempted to say something as he fell hard to his knees, dropping his knife. But just a gurgling sound emerged from his lips, followed by a short spurt of blood ejected by the final breath to escape from his windpipe.
Edge stepped to the side and kicked his own gun across the cement before the twitching corpse could pitch against his legs. Eddy’s unfeeling head crashed into the trash can.
The dead man’s partner stared in horror at the corpse, then raised his eyes to look at the blood dripping blade of the razor.
‘Why, you…’ he started to snarl.
‘You fellers did the picking,’ Edge put in as if replying to a question. Then lunged to the side, reaching out his free hand at full stretch of the arm to wrap it around the butt of the Remington.
The man dropped to his haunches and made to topple forward, knife hand above his head for a downward stab. But Mason Dickens had beaten his paralyzing fear by then, ran three strides and lashed out with a booted foot. Whether by intention or accident, his toe crashed into the man’s upper arm. To produce a scream of agony and rage and a response from his nervous system which caused his fingers to spring open, flicking the knife several feet away.
Edge was on his back then, in process of folding up and bringing the gun to the aim.
Minus his knife, the man knew he was within a split second of feeling a bullet tunneling into his flesh, decided that his only slim chance was to lengthen the range. So he powered erect and launched into a run, his injured arm hanging limply at his side.
It looked as if he was going to make good his escape, for in starting his dash for freedom and life he charged aside Dickens, who hit the wall and bounced off, each of these unintended moves rushing him across the half-breed’s line of fire.
Edge wasted no more than part of a second with a futile thought about the Winchester rifle that he had left back in his room at the boarding house. Which left plenty of time for him to get into a less awkward posture, thrust the Remington out at full stretch and si
ght along the top of the barrel.
But the running man did not die from a gunshot. Something which reflected light spun through the air from behind where Edge sat and Dickens squatted on his haunches, the half-breed unmoving and impassive, the reporter gasping for breath. An expertly thrown knife that homed in on the target as if drawn by a magnet - to sink its blade deep into the flesh below the left shoulder bone. The man’s run became a stagger, weaving him from side to side. And perhaps he might have made another three yards under the force of forward momentum had not his legs crashed into a pile of cartons, which caused him to pitch full length across the cardboard. As dead and still as his partner.
Edge started to turn his head, but halted the action as he felt a ring of cool metal press into the back of his neck.
‘Easy,’ a man said soothingly. ‘I’m a friend.’
‘No, feller,’ the half-breed answered evenly, looking into the terrified face of Dickens. ‘Anyone who aims a gun at me is never that. Once I’ll allow is a mistake. Twice and I kill him.’
The gunman laughed, soft and confident. ‘Mr. Edge, you just showed you’re a hard man. You don’t have to prove it with words.’ He moved the gun muzzle away from the flesh. ‘That was just to be sure you didn’t make a mistake in the heat of the moment. And figure I was with Boss Marlon’s men.’
Edge had heard the name before. So had Dickens, revealing his knowledge with a short gasp. The reporter stayed down until the half-breed had eased upright and turned to look at the newcomer. A man of about forty, well dressed in a city suit, shirt and tie. He also wore a derby, which he raised in greeting as he spread a warm smile across his weakly handsome face. His gun was out of sight.
‘You throw a good knife, feller,’ Edge said. ‘But I’m not beholden to you.’
A nod as the hat was set on the slicked down hair again. ‘Appreciate you could have dropped him, Mr. Edge. We use guns here when it’s necessary. But they’re noisy, are they not? And New York is more crowded with over curious people than the wide open spaces of Texas.’
‘Tall people come from all over.’
‘What?’
‘I’m from Iowa.’
A shrug of the narrow shoulders of the unlikely looking knife thrower. ‘A figure of speech. Shall we go?’
The half-breed still had the revolver in one hand and the razor in the other. He stooped to wipe the blood off the blade before he returned the razor to the neck pouch, kept his hand draped over the butt of the Remington after he slid the gun into its holster.
‘You’re not with the police?’ Dickens asked nervously, licking his lips and then grimacing as if they tasted bad.
The man broadened his smile. ‘They’d like me to be, Mr. Dickens. I guess they’d really welcome me for a long stay in the Tombs.’
The reporter’s anxiety deepened.
‘Don’t worry about it, Mase,’ Edge offered. ‘Nobody can know everybody in a city this big.’
The reporter shook his head, then nodded. ‘If he’s not a lawman and after what he just did to a Marlon man, he has to be with Boss Black.’
‘On the button, scribbler,’ the knife thrower congratulated. And nodded toward the 29th Street end of the alley as an enclosed carriage turned in off the thoroughfare and moved slowly between the high walls, hauled by two black horses. The finely groomed coats of the animals gleamed as luxuriantly as the brass of their harness and the highly polished coachwork of the post chaise.
‘Boss Black is inside?’ Dickens asked incredulously, as the horses stepped delicately over the sprawled body of the man with a knife in his back. It was another name Edge knew.
‘Sure is. And he’d appreciate you two gentlemen taking a ride with him.’
The wheels of the carriage crushed some cartons but missed flesh and bone. There was a liveried driver on the open seat. And another man, not in uniform, standing up in front of the footman’s seat at the rear of the enclosed compartment. Both of them were somber faced.
‘We’re almost where we want to get to, feller,’ Edge answered as the driver brought the post chaise to a smooth halt, the horses only three feet from where the men on the ground stood.
The knife thrower became as unsmiling as the men aboard the carriage. ‘When Boss Black wants something, it doesn’t matter at all what other people want.’
‘I have a murder story to file with the paper,’ Dickens said, without hope that his excuse would be accepted.
‘They playin’ hard to get, Sheldon?’ a deep voice asked from inside the post chaise. The man moved as he spoke and the vehicle rocked on creaking springs.
‘Guess they don’t trust us, Black,’ the knife thrower answered.
‘You tell ’em that if they don’t do like I want, you’ll kill ’em.’ The deep voiced man said it as if he were passing a comment on the weather. He sprang open one of the doors. ‘We can get by without the cowboy and the scribbler we don’t even need.’
‘You better believe what he’s saying to you,’ Sheldon warned.
‘I believe it,’ Dickens muttered and gulped as he shot a sidelong glance at the half-breed.
Edge dropped the hand away from his gun and moved toward the open door. ‘No sweat, Mase,’ he growled. ‘Never have been ready to put my life on the line for other people’s beliefs.
CHAPTER THREE
Boss BLACK was a Negro. Edge saw this as he climbed aboard the unlit post chaise parked in the dark alley. He also saw that the man was grossly fat with a barrel shaped torso topped by a head that sat on his shoulders with almost no neck intervening.
‘You sit alongside me, son,’ the big black man invited warmly. ‘Scribbler oughta be able to squeeze in on the end of the seat.’
The arrangement worked, to the discomfort of all three, which increased as the post chaise began to rattle and sway along the alley.
‘What about the dead men?’ Dickens asked.
Black snorted. ‘They worked for Emilio Marlon, didn’t they? Means they were garbage. What better place to leave garbage than where they are?’
The blinds were pulled down in front of the windows but as the driver steered the team into a turn, and a change in the mixture and level of sounds from outside further revealed they were out of the alley and on the street, Edge struck a match to fire a cigarette he had started to roll as soon as he was aboard.
‘You ain’t tryin’ to scare me are you, son,’ Black asked evenly, stabbing a short, fat finger toward the Remington on which the half-breed had struck the match.
Edge held the gun in his left hand, resting in his lap, aiming at nothing. Black took hold of his right hand and eased the flaring match toward his own face, to touch the flame to the end of the fresh cigar clenched between his teeth. He held the match there longer than necessary and spoke through his teeth.
‘I get it, you get it. The guy ridin’ on the back ain’t for openin’ the door and helpin’ me to get outta this rig.’
The big man’s jet black skin gleamed in the match light, from the crown of his totally bald head to the lower of several chins which rested on his shirt collar and necktie. The clenched teeth and white surrounds of his eyes provided vivid areas of contrast. Obesity made the head look wider than it was long, the cheeks bulbous, the nostrils flared and the mouth large. The skin was unlined but this did not cause the man to look younger. He was close to sixty. He was attired in evening dress to the extent that he balanced a collapsed opera hat on his thick thighs.
The match flame died and the half-breed pulled his hand out of the big man’s grasp to drop the burnt out stick into an ashtray on the dashboard of the luxuriously appointed vehicle.
‘Just didn’t want to mark up your nice rig, feller,’ he answered as he slid the gun back into the holster. ‘Never have been able to do that trick with the thumbnail. Maybe it’s only Texans can do it.’
Black laughed and the shaking of his enormous body seemed to be transmitted right down to the springs of the post chaise. ‘And you’re from Iowa, son.’
‘Everythin’ I need to know.’ The laughter had ceased and Black’s voice was hard and menacing. ‘For openers, you killed three of my men some place between Denver and here.’
The reporter gasped and said, ‘Oh, my sweet Jesus.’
A little street light was now filtering in around the sides of the blinds. The Negro leaned forward to look across the front of Edge at Dickens.
‘Didn’t he tell you that, scribbler?’
‘We didn’t have time to talk about anything, Boss Black.’
‘But he has great expectations,’ the half-breed put in.
Black grunted and leaned back against the padded seat again. ‘Listen good, scribbler. Leave it up to you what you put in that lousy sheet you work for. But I guess you’re smart enough to know what to leave out. On account that if I read what I don’t wanna, you’ll get your name in the obituary column. You mind, son?’
‘If you kill him?’ Edge asked.
Dickens groaned.
‘If I tell him why Marlon wants you dead?’ Black sounded a little impatient.
‘Figure I’m more interested in that than Mase is, feller.’
‘You gotta have some idea, son. After the shoot-out at that railroad depot in the sticks?’
‘Marlon got it wrong.’
Another laugh, but harsher this time. ‘He makes a habit of that, son. You seen tonight. Three of his men sent after you and two of ’em dead.’
‘Hey, I know nothing, remember?’ Dickens put in, his eagerness for a good news story serving to diminish his nervousness.
Black blew more aromatic smoke into the eye-stinging atmosphere of the enclosed carriage. ‘Starts out in Denver, Territory of Colorado. And all happened on account of a crazy old fool named Silas Martin who figured he could steal from me and get away with it...’
EDGE: WAITING FOR A TRAIN (Edge series Book 30) Page 3