by P. N. Elrod
I straightened and rested, leaning against the chest-high rail of a stall. The blood rushed through my empty body, warming me, filling up the corners.
Barrett finished his meal, faded briefly to reappear again, but still looked shaken. Vanishing takes care of physical damage, but it’s no help against emotional stuff.
“You okay?”
He grunted. “I was interred once, no need to repeat the horror.”
“You remember what happened?”
“I heard. . .I don’t know what. . .some kind of loud percussive rattle, but. . .”
“Like a machine gun?”
“I’ve never heard one except in films, but I think that’s what it was. You pitched forward and then I . . . ” He struggled, then shook his head.
“Lots of wood down in that hole. We must have cracked into it one way or another. No vanishing. Then someone covered up the mess.”
“In so short a time?”
“Take a gander outside, Barrett. It’s tomorrow already.” On the way in I’d noticed pink streaks in the western sky, remnants of what must have been a flashy winter sunset. Barrett had needed to be led in, his head down as he focused on walking. He must have lost a lot more blood. His clothes were shredded worse than mine.
He needed convincing and had a look, and it did not improve his mood. “How?” he wanted to know.
I shrugged. “We’re injured, knocked cold, and surrounded by earth. Maybe by the time we recovered enough to come around the sun was up. This being your home soil it’s no surprise you were out for the count, but don’t ask me why I took that long a nap.”
“Perhaps it’s earth alone that’s needed . . . but speculation later. We have been affronted. I demand retribution.”
“If that means some ass-kicking, include me in. Let’s go find this Stannard bird.”
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
We didn’t start right away; Barrett was resolute about feeding and watering his horses first, but it didn’t take long with two of us. I think he needed the exercise to work off the shock. Assuming me to be a city boy, he called unnecessary instructions. I saved effort and didn’t bother correcting him. I had my own dose of shock to sweat through and shoveled manure and threw down fresh straw without complaint. It had it all over digging up a corpse.
Once finished with the livestock, I asked him to point out my window, then vanished and floated up and in.
Hell, yes, I sieved through the cracks.
I stripped and had a shower bath. Some memory of events came back while the hot water battered the top of my head. Like Barrett’s, it had to do with sound. I recalled the sharp, ugly, hammering of a machine gun. Vaguely—and just as well it was vague—I knew I’d been in terrible pain, falling, and helpless. At some point I began to rouse out of it, but not quickly enough. Unable to take in its meaning, I heard the grunt and rumble of a big engine firing to life, then a black avalanche of earth blotted out everything, even me.
Yeah, I owed somebody some retribution, too, a whole lot of it.
I pulled on my traveling suit, coat, hat, and gloves, and went downstairs. Barrett was pacing the entry hall, disgusted.
“The cheek of them—they put my car back in the garage,” he said.
“Count your blessings, it could have been stolen.”
“Why bother?”
“Out front and visible from the road, someone might get curious why you left it there.”
“We were meant to mysteriously disappear?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“To blazes with that. By God, my poor horses would have starved to death before anyone came by to look in on me.”
“Better hire more help and make new friends.”
He gave a snort of annoyance.
He drove again, stopping the Studie at the site. I wanted a look around.
It must have been a clear, cold day. No new snow obliterated the tracks in the area, which were frozen and unchanged by melt. I’m no Boy Scout, but could figure out a few generalities.
“They walked in from the main road.” I pointed out two sets of footprints that left the driveway and slogged along toward the dig. “They kept the machines between us and just stayed out of sight, maybe watching the whole time.”
“While we did the work for them,” said Barrett. “We were doing a great deal of vanishing, what must they have made of that?”
“There was no moon; they could have missed it. I’ll bet they wondered why we didn’t use flashlights, though.”
“Both are men, do you think?”
“Unless it’s a couple of dames in extra large galoshes. Those aren’t walking shoes or hunting boots, see how the ridges go crosswise with no break from toe to heel?”
“Hm.”
I followed one set of prints that led to where a pile of earth had been before being shoved back into the hole. The prints got lost in the mess. I did find what I’d been looking for; the trespassers been careful, but not painstaking.
“What’s that?” he asked as I stooped and picked up a small, shiny thing mostly hidden in the crusty mud.
“Shell casing.” I brushed the brass off and dropped it into his hand. “From a forty-five. I’ll bet the farm that it came from a Thompson.”
He didn’t ask what that was and searched as well, turning up three others. “Should there not be more?”
“The shooter either dumped them into the hole or picked up all he could find. Leaving a pile of brass lying around would look funny and might get someone digging again. These are just the ones he missed.”
Barrett was six kinds of pale, with anger, disgust, and horror accounting for three of them. “He stood about here . . . and when we turned our backs . . . hideous.”
“We got lucky.”
“How is any of that lucky?”
“All that broken wood and nails inside the pit? Maybe we cracked our skulls, but we didn’t get impaled on anything or we’d still be down there.”
It didn’t seem possible, but he found another shade of pale, this one with a lot of green to it.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Barrett drove through a little place called Glenbriar, then took a road south a mile or so, pulling into a graveled drive that led to a rutted work yard. A sizable two-story brick building held court over the yard, which had a number of earth-moving machines and trucks parked in orderly rows. I thought I recognized the bulldozer and the shovel from the estate. They were filthy with mud that had I come to know all too well.
The building’s steel door had STANNARD CONSTRUCTION painted on it, the business office on the ground floor, while the top served as living quarters, or so I assumed. Not a lot of offices bother putting up lace curtains. No lights showed in the front; the place was ominously silent.
We got out and crossed the yard and did not bother knocking. The office door was locked. We exchange looks, vanished, and slipped inside.
Not much light filtered through the drawn blinds; I found the switch, turning on the overheads.
The office took up the whole lower floor. Stairs were at the back, leading up. A couple desks, some wide tables holding blueprints, and file cabinets filled most of it. One wall was covered with an oversized map of Long Island dotted with colored pins marking job sites. There was a pinhole on the Francher property, but the pin was gone, job finished.
Barrett went still, listening. “I thought I heard someone.”
“Look upstairs. Make sure.”
He vanished, which I didn’t expect. His invisible self was discernible to my eyes as a man-sized amorphous gray thing. It looked eerie as hell flowing up the stairs.
I located what seemed to be the boss’s desk, broke into the one locked drawer, and found nothing more valuable than a half a box of toffees.
The paperwork was up to date, including the bill for rental of equipment to a J. Barrett. It was marked paid in full, the yellow onionskin flimsy sitting in a wire basket next to the file cabin
ets waiting to be—
Upstairs a woman screamed: a full-throated, dissolve-your-bones, wall-shattering shriek.
Barrett yelped.
A gun went off.
That gray thing reappeared on the stairs, swept down, and surged toward me.
Barrett spookily emerged from the gray as he went solid. He looked rattled, but there weren’t any holes in him. “We should leave now,” he said, grabbing my arm and tugging me toward the exit.
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing. I surprised a lady in her boudoir. She’s in a bad mood, we should leave.”
A woman bellowed down from the head of the stairs. “I’m calling the cops, you creep!”
I shook off Barrett and yelled back. “Mrs. Stannard?”
“Who wants to know?”
“We’re just here to see your husband.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“I’m here with Mr. Barrett from the Francher estate. He rented a bulldozer and a shovel from your husband. We came to pay the bill.”
“Why did you not ring the bell?”
“The door was open.” I motioned for Barrett to go unlock it. He finally got the idea. It was even money whether he’d take off. He was unhappy.
“I am proceeding toward you,” she announced. “Try anything funny and I will drill you like the Swiss army drills the cheese.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was a clip-clop like a light-footed horse on the move. I knew the sound; Bobbi wore the same kind of low-heeled backless slippers. Barrett, who remained behind me, peered around for a look.
Mrs. Stannard, a sturdy brunette wrapped in a thick blue bathrobe, made her cautious way down. In one hand she grasped a nifty, short-barreled revolver. She paused at the bottom to give us a hostile once-over.
“You—” she said, pointing the gun at me, “I do not know. You—” she snarled at Barrett, changing her aim, “I have seen before. You came the other week and spoke to my mister about renting, of that I am sure. What are you doing walking in amongst my house like you are the owner of it?”
She had a familiar pattern to her speech, pronouncing each syllable as though it was a word unto itself. No one talked like that in New York, only certain parts of Chicago. I’d missed it.
Barrett whipped his hat off and actually looked humble. “Madam, I sincerely beg your pardon. You are right, I had no business intruding, none at all. I am sorry.”
“How many times I gotta tell people, the office is down here, the home is up there, and they are two different regions.” She pronounced it “re-gee-unz”.
“I do apologize.”
“There is a purpose to respecting such differences. I could have shot your head off. Instead, I put a hole through the wall. It is your good luck that no other damage transpired in regard to your head or my wall, but you should not be startling persons minding their own business in their personal domiciles.”
“No, madam.ont
“I am not a madam, I am Missus Stannard.”
“Yes, ma’am. May I ask where we may find Mr. Stannard?”
“You may ask, but it is evident that he is not presently here, else he would also take exception to you intrusioning yourself, though I expect him home soon. He is a hard-working man is my mister, so I do not begrudge him stopping at Louie’s Tavern up the road for a beer. As I am often on my own, he does not begrudge me a means of defending myself against creeps who walk in where they should not.” With her other hand she indicated the revolver. “You can wait for him or I can help you as I work down here when it is working hours.”
“Well, I. . .”
“What is this about paying the bill? There is confusion on the matter, for did I not stamp it paid in full already once today?”
“You have?” I asked.
“I have.” She pointed the gun at the wire basket by the files. “Your proof is there of the payment made in full. While I would enjoy a double payment for a bill, such a thing would be dishonest, and I am an honest woman, ask anyone. I would suggest one of you get organized.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I went back to the file for the yellow flimsy and held it out to Barrett. “Did you sign this?”
“He did not,” said Mrs. Stannard. “Was I not here when your two men came by at today’s crack of dawn to turn in the equipment and pay the bill? Was I not here while one of them signed off the bill and the other gave me the cash—which is in the bank now if it is anyone’s business but my own.”
“But I don’t emplo. . .” Barrett started, then caught himself “That is to say, I believe those men to be imposters.”
“Impostering whom?” she asked.
“Ah. . .”
I stepped in. “We’re not sure. Did they give you names?”
“Only the one when he signed, and he did not make a readable job of his signature, which you will see if you examine the page. They said Mr. Barrett was done and leaving town, but it becomes clear they were misinformed, for are you not standing here in the office, Mr. Barrett?”
“Yes, Mrs. Stannard. I am doing exactly that. I hope you will not mind that I am curious about two strangers paying my bill.”
“It does seem to be an altruistic presumption,” she conceded.
“And you never saw them before?”
“I did not say any such thing. While they did not impart a name between them, except for that unconvincifying scribble, I have seen the two of them at least once before, and if my recollection is correct—I have a memory for faces, so I know that it is—they were here some years ago in this very room.”
“Indeed. Might you recall why?”
“Be it known that on special business deals my mister gives me a high sign, which means that I am to remove myself from the office here, and go up to the house there, until such time as his special business deals are concluded. Normally I do not put up with shenanigans, but we had a talk, and he convinced me it was safer for me to not know everything that he might be required to do by certain types.”
“What types?”
“Certain types. The ones who talk out the side of their mouth and carry bigger guns than this under their arms with the mistaken idea that nobody is gonna notice any such thing. I am a person who does notice such things, but I am not a person who would be so impolite as to remark about it. But in the interest of keeping my mister healthy and peace under the roof, when he gives me a high sign I go upstairs. This does not happen often, but the first time was a couple years ago.”
“Seven years, perhaps?” I asked.
“It could have been that long. Faces I am good at, time, not so much. It was when the old Francher house what burned to a cinder and needed a teardown. That was our first big job. Took every man we had, and the mister had to hire more. That was when I saw the certain types.”
“You hired them?”
“No, and I would not choose to do so, but in the city they were in the hauling business. The mister had to lease trucks and drivers for the teardown. Those two come in, and the mister gives me the high sign, so I cannot say what was discussed, but I expect it was to do with the leasing. Though why that should be a secret the mister did not see fit to share with me.”
“Would you have the name of the company he leased the trucks from?”
“I would, but why should I mention it to you? Certain types might get annoyed with my mister.”
“Perhaps, Mrs. Stannard,” said Barrett, “it could be arranged that certain types do not trouble you or your good husband ever again.”
She thought it over. “I would not be unpleased, but it might be bad for business. In this hard and wicked world it is often necessary to deal with certain types just to get things done.”
I raised my hand. “How does this sound: suppose you were upstairs and unaware that some other certain types broke into your mister’s office and looked through the address files you have. No one could blame you or your mister if that happened.”
Some more thought and she nodded. “I am liking
how you think, though you do not look like a nosy burglar. I will not lie to my mister, but I could not mention everything to him in the interest of doing him a favor for his own good.”
“I’m sure you have his best interest at heart.”
“Which I do. In that case, a nosy burglar would find the address in that file box—not that one, that one!—under the letter B for Brogan Trucking. A nosy burglar can write the address down, but not using the note paper with our letterhead on it as that would be a bad thing.”