by P. N. Elrod
“This is a disguise as well,” Escott added, lifting the pipe. “The air.”
“Air?” I sniffed. It was pretty dense. He must have been smoking for hours, but it was a pleasant, sweet mixture.
“Do you smell anything else?”
“That’s kinda impossible.”
“Exactly. No fresh paint, no drying plaster.”
I gave a short laugh. It was a detail I’d have overlooked. “Great, but couldn’t you have opened a window?”
“Not without drawing notice; it’s too bloody cold out. I brought a fan from the basement to help air things. Fortunately, very little paint was required, only a dab or two, but it is such small giveaways that can make or break a scene.”
“Charles has been telling me about when he used to be on the stage,” said Bobbi.
“Those days are not over yet, my dear. The performance has merely permutated into something considerably more interesting.” He was extremely pleased with himself, so much so that he seemed ready to pop a vest button if he didn’t get a chance to talk.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m impressed. Now show me what’s been done, and I’ll give you a standing ovation.”
“Hah!” he said, and proceeded to point out everything. The three of us went to the next room over, which was ordinarily a storage area, and I got a look at the specialized equipment. It was bulky, but Bobbi assured me that it arrived in a plain crate by way of the delivery doors opening on the back alley, the same as the club’s other supplies. Anyone on watch wouldn’t know what was inside.
“You can work this?” I asked.
“We both can,” she said. “Tested it out today. Here, listen.” She flipped a switch.
I listened. And got impressed all over again. “Jeez.”
THERE wasn’t much to do until seven. The normal ritual of opening the place dragged like a snail, but I got through it, and none of the hired help picked up that anything else was going on. In a perverse way I was looking forward to my meeting with Dugan. Escott had the addresses of Dugan’s friends for me to tap if things went wrong, but I was feeling optimistic.
The papers wrote nothing new on the Gladwell kidnapping case, just stirring what they already had into a different order to fill the columns. There was still staunch support for Hurley Gilbert Dugan, with quotes from his lawyer and Cousin Anthony. They both agreed that Dugan was a victim of the gang as well and agreed about it to every paper that would listen. He was nowhere to be found, having secluded himself from the hubbub. His lawyer read a statement from him that expressed his sympathy and regret to the Gladwell family with the hope that they would hear his side of things and know he also suffered. It was enough to choke a goat.
Escott said things were quiet at the Gladwells’. Reporters yet hovered by the closed gates, but it was a cold, fruitless wait. Vivian was content to look after Sarah, who seemed to be recovering, patiently teaching her how to play cards. Apparently the girl was fast becoming a killer at Go Fish.
With some satisfaction, Bobbi reported that rehearsals went well for Roland and Faustine’s exhibition dancing. They brought their music on some records and with those playing over the club loudspeakers were able to work out what was and wasn’t possible on the dance floor. They showed a civil face to the world, but it was clear that Faustine was still mad. Roland was the soul of contrition, attentive to her, focused on the job, and he stayed within her sight the whole time. I did not envy either of them.
Adelle turned up for work on time, along with the band, and Gordy was with her, which surprised me. When she went off to her dressing room, I took him up to his table. Strome and Lowrey were with him; the third guy was off parking the car.
“I thought you’d be busy,” I said, once Gordy was settled.
“I was,” he said back.
“What about that noon deadline?”
“It didn’t happen.”
“What did?”
“Nothing. Bristow had too much to drink and too much hangover. He forgot about it. He’s coming back tonight for more talk.”
I didn’t care much for that.
Gordy accurately read my expression. “Don’t worry, we ain’t wrecking the joint.”
That was for damned sure.
Keeping to my routine, I stood post in the lobby, greeted customers, saw to minor problems, and otherwise did my job. When Bristow came in, he was as abrasive as before, but I got around that for a few crucial seconds. He went into the main room in a remarkably good mood, which again puzzled his men. One of them hung back from the rest to have a private word with me. He was the one I’d had the gun on last night, and from the hang of his suit was still packing heat.
“What was that about?” he wanted to know.
“What was what?”
“You looking at the boss like that. What did you do?”
I gave him a demonstration—which he wouldn’t remember—along with some very specific instructions on how to behave in my place, then told him to send his buddies out front to see me, one at a time. Even the guy whose arm I’d damaged fell into line. Gordy could wheel and deal all he wanted and any way he liked, but there would be no trouble here tonight.
When the time came, I introduced Adelle to the audience, and she launched into her first set. Couples got up to dance, and the rest enjoyed their half-price drinks.
At ten to seven, Anthony Brockhurst, Marie Kennard, and the other high-hatters unexpectedly came in. They gave me the eyeball and got one right back, but without any whammy behind it. Time enough for that later. I wanted to save my hard-hitting for their resistant friend. They reminded me of a bunch of college kids crashing a party at a rival fraternity house, smugly daring their disinclined host to do anything about it. I chose not to; they weren’t worth the effort, and for the moment were likely part of Dugan’s strategy to protect himself. If anything bad happened to him, he had six witnesses on hand to swear that I’d been the perpetrator.
At five to seven I went outside and pretended to smoke in the windy cold, but it was really an excuse to check the street. It was still early enough for traffic; any of the cars parked in front of the shops and the diner could belong to him. He could have ridden along with his cousin’s party. I tossed my cigarette at the gutter and went back in.
Seven o’clock came and went; so did five after seven. By then I was convinced he was pulling the same thing with me that he had with Vivian Gladwell and the ransom drop water hauls. At ten after I went up to my office, thinking he might phone.
The upper hall was dark, but my office light was on, the glow seeping from under the door. I distinctly recalled turning it off, though. Either Myrna was having her fun, or someone more corporeal was where he shouldn’t be. Listening, I heard enough to decide it was the latter. Myrna played with lights and swapped bottles of booze around on the shelves when no one was looking. She’d never shown any interest in opening and shutting desk drawers.
I twisted the knob and went in.
A familiar face. Dugan was at my desk, working with a lockpick on the panel that covered the built-in safe. He managed to jump less than a mile at my abrupt entrance, but he was definitely caught flat-footed and red-handed.
“Ah,” he said. A smile came and went, seeming to linger because of the shape of his mouth. He had one of those innocent faces, the kind people automatically like and trust on sight. “Hello, there. I suppose you’ll want an explanation.”
I shut the door behind me with a good loud click. “I don’t want anything. What you want is to give me a reason not to break your neck.”
“Ah. Well, yes, of course.” The smile flickered again. He gestured at a chair in front of the desk as though he was the host. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Fleming?”
The bastard had nerve. And arrogance.
I didn’t like either one. He’d recovered his full composure lightning fast. Was that naïveté, stupidity, or lunacy? I’d dealt with crazy guys before, but each one had been different.
Dugan watched me, probab
ly waiting to see what I’d do. Most guys would have a pretty strong reaction to being invited to sit in their own place by an unwelcome intruder. I kept cold and tried to imitate one of Gordy’s dead-eyed stares. It was usually an effective ploy. You wait long enough, and the one you’re staring at gets uncomfortable and starts talking to fill the silence. This was also the perfect time to attempt hypnosis again.
It’s a potent power. Even when weak and on the edge of death, I’d been able to trust its strength over others.
Providing they were susceptible.
I focused hard, concentrating until a band seemed to constrict around my temples. There was no sense of contact with Dugan, no change in his eyes. I kept at it, time and silence stretching between us, kept at it until my head felt ready to explode. He returned my look, fully alert, perhaps even amused. That made me mad, helped me to press harder. Emotions fed the force of it.
But this time . . . nothing.
The only others immune to it besides crazy people and drunks were my kind, vampires. Dugan had a strong heartbeat going, though. His lungs pumped away nice and regular; he wasn’t in the union. What I had not six feet in front of me was some not-so-ordinary two-legged insanity.
“Please.” He gestured at the chair like he owned it. “Let’s be civilized about this.”
From a standing start, I moved faster than he could react, taking the distance and the desk in between in one flying lunge, hitting him square. He slammed bodily against the wall with a grunt and dropped on his face. I was set to throw a sucker punch or three to soften him some more, but he was too busy gasping for air to fight.
“Let’s not,” I said, standing up and brushing my knees.
8
“THAT was,” he finally groaned out, “completely unnecessary.”
He was in pain. Good.
Downstairs, the distant band struck up a dance number, and Adelle Taylor sang about love and loss to lure couples onto the floor. Perhaps Anthony dear and his friends would join them. More likely not. I figured they were here to back up Dugan in some way. The last thing I wanted was anybody walking in with a gun and interrupting. I snicked the lock shut on the door and rounded on Dugan.
I dragged him up by his fine blue suit and swung him around, back to the wall, until we were nose-to-nose. He didn’t fight, even when I made a quick search for weapons and whatever else he carried besides lockpicks. He had a wallet, keys, a gold pocket watch, and a plain white envelope fat with papers. The wallet held eight dollars in cash and a driving license. I tossed everything on the desk and turned my full concentration on Dugan, whispering instructions for him to listen, bolstering it with the force of my long-suppressed rage. The latter I was always careful about; I’d once driven a man insane with it. Tonight I didn’t bother holding back . . .
And it still didn’t work. Time stretched, my headache worsened, and Dugan remained fully alert and aware, even amused, meeting my gaze look for look.
“Take your hands off me,” he said evenly.
I did. By throwing him over the desk and across the room. He landed on the couch, hitting hard, the breath knocked right out of him. I stayed behind the desk. In my mood, I could forget myself and send him on a one-way trip to the cemetery. Damn, my head hurt.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said a moment later, once he’d struggled upright. He was rumpled but strangely serene of face.
“You break into my office for some burglary and think I should . . . what? Why don’t you tell me?”
“I was just filling the time until your arrival. Simply an exercise to learn more about you. Besides, you’re late. I said we would meet here at seven. You didn’t think I’d come in by way of that lobby, did you? You might have made a scene. The stage entrance is much more discreet.” He straightened his clothes, composing himself next to the table with the cut flowers. “You should show much better behavior than this.”
“Guess again. This is no Sunday tea party. You’re in my place. Expect mayhem.”
“Which is going to shortly change.” He shot me a smug look and another damn smile. “We really do need to talk.”
True, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I opened the envelope, pulling out papers. A quick glance showed them to be carbon copies of letters.
“Again,” I said slowly, spotting my name, home, and club address on each page along with their phone numbers. My guts twisted like a snake. “Convince me not to kill you.”
“It would be a great inconvenience. To yourself, I should clarify.” With casual dignity he stood and retrieved his other property, then returned to the couch. “I did not take the risk of coming here without some insurance, as you’re about to discover when you read those through. If I disappear or am further harmed, you will find yourself to be the focal point of a meticulous and far-reaching investigation conducted by various law enforcement agencies and other interested parties.”
The letters were addressed to the Chicago DA’s office, the Internal Revenue, J. Edgar Hoover, three major newspaper editors—the works, up to and including Walter Winchell. Anyone who could possibly turn my life into a living hell was formally notified of my existence and that I should be in jail. That was the short version. There were more details, and specific questions were posed, like how a guy working part-time for a detective was suddenly able to afford to buy a fancy nightclub without bothering any banks for a loan.
I’d taken great pains to cover and clean up certain earnings for the tax man, but a really close look at my business affairs could create a lot of unfixable trouble. My work with Escott had put me in the middle of more than one murder case best left unsolved; my friendship with Gordy and ties to his mob would come out of the shadows. If even one of those resulted in a court case, I was sunk. Daylight appearances were impossible.
“I haven’t mailed the originals,” said Dugan. “Not yet. But be assured that should you choose to indulge in your baser instincts, there will be serious and permanent repercussions.”
The letters were concerned with ordinary matters; no mention was made of my supernatural difference from the rest of humanity. If worse came to worst I could find a way out, even if it meant running off to parts unknown, but I’d worked too hard to casually walk away from what I’d built here.
“Those are,” Dugan continued, “what I could put together in just one day. I have additional resources. I know many important people. You would not be the only one affected. Should you try to leave town, your family and friends will also find themselves similarly inconvenienced, all of it perfectly legal. My lawyer tracked down many of their names for me. I have dozens of similar letters ready to be sent out—anonymously—for each of them. I was creative with my accusations, but it’s of no import, the effect of a lie can be just as damaging. Your detective friend could lose his license, that blond singer with whom you keep company will never get decent work again. That large gangster will have no end of grief with federal investigators and could shortly find himself heading for prison—”
“Okay, I get the picture. What do you want?”
He sat back on the couch. Smiling. Really enjoying himself. “Just answer a few simple questions. And perform a small favor.”
The kind of questions and favor he’d have in mind could never be simple or small. I dropped the letters; they slewed across the desk. One sheet slipped clear and drifted, zigzag, to the floor. “Such as?”
“This may take a while. Please, be seated.”
“Just ask.”
Dugan gave a little shrug. “Very well. Our initial meeting was a bit onesided. We had no real opportunity to talk. I will confess I was rather disturbed to find myself tied up in the car, then carried into the Gladwell house like so much luggage. Once that passed, I soon worked out that you were the one who spoiled my experiment—”
“That’s what you call kidnapping, extortion, and attempted murder?”
“Oh, no, it was an experiment.”
Jesus, he was absolutely serious.
> “You may think I was after the money, but not so. That was just a little research in human behavior, which meant I had to work with people instead of mice,” he explained, as though that made it all right. “The ransom was only a means to involve the other men in the operation, a way to success. I planned every detail: the sort of men I would need, the choice of victim. It was something entertaining and challenging to fill the time.”
“Dugan, just what kind of sick bastard are you?”
His eyes twinkled. “I rather expected such a reaction. It’s nothing new to me. I’m insult-proof. Try to calm yourself.”
I calmed myself with the idea that he must have been lying. Nobody could be that crazy.
“Thank you. Now, I was just closing that experiment down when you halted the works. At first I wondered how you managed to follow my men. They’re not up to my level of intellect but do possess a sharp instinct for survival; that’s why I chose them. I couldn’t accept that you’d suborned them by threat or bribery in so brief a time. It was quite a puzzle. Since you were unaware that I’d woken up from your most brutal assault, I continued the pretense of being unconscious. Once my initial confusion passed, I was able to study your interaction with each of my men very closely in the Gladwell parlor. Without the use of any drug you managed to sway them to your will. It was fascinating and alarming, particularly when my turn came. I braced myself for some sort of mental shock, but nothing happened.”
“Nothing at all?” It’d be a shame for my head to hurt so much for nothing, not to mention annoying the hell out of me.
“Do give yourself some credit for the effort. I will confess I was truly fearful of succumbing to whatever spell you put upon them, then delighted to find an immunity to it. Obviously their weaker minds made them easy prey. To assure my continued good health I wisely agreed with all you told me. It was a very macabre situation, especially when I came to realize just what sort of man was before me.”