Dark and Stormy Knights

DARK LADY by P. N. ELROD

My name is Jack Fleming. I am owned by a nightclub. As a sideline I have been known to help damsels in distress, though in my experience the damsels of the Windy City are well able to look after themselves. Now and then I’ll step in, against my better judgment, and attempt to lend a hand; just call me Don Quixote with fangs.

CHICAGO, APRIL 1938

“Myrna,” I said to the apparently empty room, “you are the pip.”

Myrna wouldn’t leave the office radio alone and kept changing the station to dance music when I wanted to hear the sports scores. I’d dial it back, but soon as I sat down, she’d switch to dance music again.

“Five minutes,” I said, twisting the knob. “Just lemme listen for five minutes, then pick whatever you like.”

She gave no reply until I was behind my desk, then Bing Crosby crooned from the speaker, smooth as butter, the volume twice as high as normal.

“Okay. You win. Just turn it down so I can work.”

After a moment, the volume eased. She’d made her point.

Arguing with a dame gets you nowhere fast.

Arguing with a ghost dame who happens to be haunting your nightclub is just plain screwy, but some nights I’m a slow learner.

I could imagine her putting on a smug smile, though I had no idea what she looked like. She’d been a lady bartender killed by shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade during a gang war that began and ended years before I bought the building. The bloodstain marking where she’d bled to death was visible on the floor behind the lobby bar. I’d replaced the tiles a few times, but the stain always reappeared.

Myrna was quirky, but as ghosts go—and I don’t have much experience—she was okay. She seemed to like me and my friends, and even helped out at the club’s bar, moving bottles around. Sometimes she played with the lights, which was hell when we had a stage show going, but I didn’t mind much. She was usually undemanding, comfortable company, just not at present.

Maybe she was bored. I could sympathize. The nights got long for me, too, though I had worldly distractions to keep me busy.

I hammered various keys on my adding machine, pulled the lever, then wrote the result into the correct ledger column. It being Sunday night, my club was closed, and I used the time to check stocks and balance the books. The place was quiet, except for the radio.

Myrna must have changed her mind: Bing’s voice faded and ceased altogether with a soft click. The dial no longer glowed. She’d switched it off, which was odd. I held still and listened, and downstairs in the chrome-trimmed lobby a visitor rapped insistently on the front door.

Someone must have spotted my Studebaker in its reserved slot in the side parking lot and knew I was putting in extra time. A customer would have seen the CLOSED sign and noticed the lights were off. A friend wanting to visit would have phoned so I could leave the door unlocked. My partner and my girlfriend had their own keys, so it could be anybody. Might as well find out what the problem was, and it would be a problem, hopefully not a lethal one.

I’m not being melodramatic. I have aggravated a number of people in Chicago’s underworld. My last two years have, to wildly understate things, been harrowing. On my first day in town I ran afoul of some gangsters, which led to my untimely death, which led to a lot of other things that I would rather not go into. The end result put me in this office doing the books on a Sunday night and wondering if yet another mug on the wrong side of the law had plans to ventilate me.

Taking a shortcut, I vanished, sank through the floor, angling to the left, and then re-formed in the lobby with nary a hair out of place.

It’s ghostlike, but I’m undead, not dead.

That’s spelled v-a-m-p-i-r-e.

Look it up in Webster’s, but don’t take the definitions as gospel. It’s given me an edge on life and hard times, and I keep quiet about it. People will forgive you for having Mob associations, but let them find out you visit the Stockyards every few nights to drink blood and it’s a pitchfork parade with torches followed by a hammer-and-stake party.

Okay, that was melodramatic, but why take chances? What I drank in private was my own business.

The small light behind the lobby bar was on; Myrna liked it that way, but the rest of the space was dim and echoed the rappings of my visitor. I could make out a shape through the frosted-glass windows set in the doors. The height and build indicated the caller was female, and so it proved when I opened up. She was plump, looked as if she’d just come from church in her best black clothes, and under one arm was a paper-wrapped parcel tied with string. She wore a short-brimmed hat, and a thick black veil obscured the top half of her face. A purse dangled from her other arm, which was raised to knock again. She rocked back with a little “oh” of surprise.

“Jack Fleming,” she said decisively, taking in my rolled-up shirtsleeves and unbuttoned collar. The day had been warm, or so I’d been told, the night temperate enough to throw open the windows.

“Maybe.”

“I’m Emma Dorsey. You don’t know me, but I do costuming work over at the Nightcrawler Club.”

Good enough. The memory prompt reminded me that I knew her by sight, if not to speak to; I recalled a youngish woman of her proportions floating about backstage with the leggy, giggling dancers. There should be a pleasant face under the veil, a match to her soft voice, and neatly combed hair the same color as her dress.

I motioned her in with a word of welcome.

“What is it, something for Bobbi Smythe?” My girlfriend was a professional singer and might have placed a costume order. If her outfit was so skimpy as to fit inside the parcel, which looked about half the length of a shoebox, then I couldn’t wait to see her in it.

“N-no, nothing like that. I need help, and I shouldn’t even ask, but I’m scared, and Bobbi’s always said you’re a straight-arrow guy and . . .”

I let her run on, steering her toward the bar.

“C-could you lock the door?”

I took a quick gander outside to see if anyone was hanging around who might spook her. The street was clear of suspicious characters. I locked up.

The general darkness within was no problem for me, but her human-normal sight and the hat veil limited her view. She finally brushed the obscuring barrier out of the way. She usually wore glasses for her work, but they were gone now, and for the first time I got the full impact of her lustrous dark eyes. Wow. Film stars would kill for big, expressive glims like those.

“Drink?” I asked. Whatever her story, it might require a jolt of alcohol.

“Oh. No, thank you. I don’t drink.”

“Good habit to get into,” I said. I gave her a moment to explain herself, but she was taking in the high ceiling, red velvet curtains, and black and white marble tile floors. Mine was a swank operation, and I was proud of it. “Like my place?”

“I’ve seen it from the outside, but never been in. It’s very nice.” She sounded distracted. Her heart pattered fast, and I could smell fear.

“I’ll put some lights on, give you a tour.”

“Oh! No lights. Please! I’m sorry, I’m doing this badly. I don’t know where to start.”

“You’ll get to it. Let’s go to my office. Bar stools aren’t comfortable when you’re sober.”

She made a little “hmm” sound of hesitation but followed me upstairs. The office door was open. It had been shut when I’d vanished from the room. Myrna was being helpful, probably curious, too.

I got Emma Dorsey to sit on my new sofa and pulled up a chair to face her. She perched primly on the edge and fumbled the parcel so it rested on her lap. The way her gloved fingers twitched around like nervous butterflies gave me to understand that she didn’t care much for the contents. It was wrapped in plain brown paper, just the way those ads in the backs of magazines promise, and the string was a thick, sturdy twine tied in a bow. No address was visible.

“What do you need help with, Mrs. Dorsey?” I asked.

“Um . . . it’s Miss Dorsey, but call me Emma, everyone does, and it’s about my boyfriend . . . my fiancé, I mean. I’m still getting used to that.” She plucked off her gloves and put them in her purse, then tucked it next to her. No engagement ring, so the change must have been recent.

“Congratulations. Who’s the lucky man?”

“Joe Graedon.” She briefly pulled in her lower lip, her breath giving a hitch as she waited for a response.

“Don’t think I’ve met him.”

“Um . . . yes, you have. He works for Gordy. At the Nightcrawler.”

“Lots of guys do.”

“You might know him as Foxtrot Joe?”

“Ah.” I tried not to give a reaction, but she was watching and saw what she expected.

“He loves me,” she said, as though that explained everything.

Love is responsible for nearly every kind of insanity in the world, though greed, vanity, and pure meanness contribute their portion to the general misery. I’m usually in favor of love, the good kind, the kind that’s between me and my girl, but Bobbi and I were a match. I couldn’t see Emma and Foxtrot Joe passing each other on the street, much less walking hand in hand in the same direction. She was plump and cheery, he was hard edges, as personable and tough as a brick wall, but crazier matches have happened.

He worked collections with Gino Desanctis, who answered directly to Northside Gordy, who ran the Nightcrawler Club and a large chunk of territory in Chicago. Gordy was a good friend of mine, one of the few who knew about the vampire stuff.

Relations sorted, I asked, “What’s going on?”

“Joe did something stupid. He did it for me, for us. He’s crazy about me, and it’s not really his fault, but if I make it right, maybe Gordy won’t . . . do anything.”

A well-considered euphemism, that. It covered all manner of mayhem from a severe bawling out to sinking a bullet into the head of an offender as a cautionary lesson to impart wisdom and prudence upon potential offenders.

Gordy was capable of ordering up all kinds of havoc when required, though I never stuck around to watch if I could help it. He also owed me a few favors. Emma might have heard and hoped I could work a miracle for her.

“What did Joe do?”

He’d dropped from sight with money that was not his. When a collector goes missing—along with cash—guys like Gordy tend to get homicidally annoyed. While the gangs had no problem skimming a share off the various businesses of the city, they took a dim and grim view when one of their own skimmed some for himself. Joe’s continued employment, not to mention his ability to keep breathing, was in peril.

Collectors worked in pairs so they could keep an eye on each other and not get ideas, but Joe had earned a reputation for reliability, so his boss, Desanctis, let him loose on his own once in a while.

“Then,” said Miss Dorsey, “Joe started talking about us getting married and how we didn’t have enough money, but I thought we did. I don’t need a fancy ring. A plain gold band was good enough for my mother and it’s good enough for me, but Joe said he wanted only the best.”

It didn’t sound right. She was sincere, but none of this tender consideration for a prospective bride went with what I knew about Foxtrot. He had gotten the name from the way he’d roughhoused a slow-to-pay gambler twice his size. The larger man took a swing; Joe took a swing. The gambler staggered back several strangely graceful steps before slamming into a slot machine, which fell on him when he hit the floor. It knocked him out for a week, and when he woke up he didn’t remember the debt. He still had to pay it—and for the machine. Joe hung around the hospital and made sure. After that, Joe had only to smile at deadbeats and ask if they wanted to dance.

“It’s not like he took the money that was going to his boss,” she went on. “He had people put a dollar or more on top of that, and it added up. He wasn’t stealing, this was more like getting a tip.”

Foxtrot raised a total of eight hundred bucks, which gave me an idea of just how profitable and wide-ranging an operation it was. He’d collected almost a year’s pay in less than a week. I was in the wrong business, what with trying to be honest.

“A tip.” My tone was completely neutral.

“He did it for me. He’s crazy about me. I told him not to, but he just couldn’t help himself.”

If he was getting tips on top of regular collections, no one would say a word. A few bucks going to Foxtrot was cheaper than a hospital stay.

“Look, if Gordy doesn’t know about these tips, then—”

“He does know. Someone complained last night to him, now Gino Desanctis has people looking for Joe. That’s why I asked you to lock the door. They’ve been watching my place, I guess to see if he came by. I sneaked out with my landlady’s family. They were going to evening Mass, and I just stayed in the middle of them and got on the El. I was going to the Nightcrawler, but I got so shaky and scared. Then I remembered Bobbi talking about how you sometimes helped people, so I took a chance that you might be open tonight. But the place was dark, and then I saw the lights in the upstairs and—”

“What do you need me for?” I could guess, but she’d worked herself up to it, and it wouldn’t be polite to take it from her.

“I was hoping you could go with me to see Gordy. I—I don’t think I could get the story out with Gordy watching me.”

Gordy was intimidating as hell to guys who killed for a living, never mind the effect of his steady gaze on this plump little seamstress. But with or without me, she had a bad night ahead.

“I’ll go along for moral support, but understand that Joe’s in for it. I can’t interfere with how Gordy does business.”

“But don’t you work for him, too? You ran the club and—and the other things. . . .”

I’d reluctantly filled Gordy’s big shoes for a brief and terrible time while he recovered from a case of lead poisoning caught during a botched assassination attempt. “Just the once, and I wasn’t in charge so much as a target. Some of those guys still hate me for it.”

Desanctis was one of them, but he’d been smart enough not to act on it at the time. He’d kept his distance to watch and wait for me to fall on my face, which didn’t exactly happen. He wouldn’t appreciate me putting my nose into this, though.

“You think they’ll kill Joe.”

“I couldn’t say.” There was a remote chance that they’d beat him to hell and gone and kick him out of Chicago, but I didn’t want to get her hopes up. An execution was far more likely.

“But if he gives back the money, wouldn’t that make a difference?”

“It’s not about the money, but the fact he took it in the first place. They can’t trust him. Crazy as it sounds, the gangs run on trust same as any other business. If a clerk steals money from the till, they’re gonna fire him, no matter if he returns everything.”

She looked down, visibly crushed, fingers brushing the sides of the parcel.

“What d’ya have there?”

“Joe left it for me. It was outside my door this evening. With a note. He explained what he did and why and what I had to do. I tried calling him, but I guess he’s hiding. It’s the money—all of it. He wrote that if I took this to Gordy, it would make things right. He doesn’t dare go in himself.”

“May I?”

She handed it over with no hesitation, a gleam of hope in her gorgeous dark eyes. I felt bad for inspiring that kind of trust. In my heart I knew hers was a lost cause.

The box felt a little heavy. Even eight hundred one-dollar bills wouldn’t weigh much of anything. Maybe some of it was in coin. I shook it, but nothing shifted or clinked.

“Here,” she said, pulling the loose ends of the bow. “He told me to wait for Gordy to open it, but you should check—”

The bow did not come undone; the twine slipped an inch and caught. She automatically gave it a strong yank with me reflexively tightening my grip on the box to brace it, and suddenly the string dangled free in her hand, a large metal ring looped fast to the intact bow.

In the space between one of her heartbeats and the next, I glimpsed a slit in the paper where the ring had popped out, and a dreadful understanding jolted me to panicked action. I lobbed the parcel behind the couch and flung Emma bodily through the doorway so quick and hard, she didn’t have time to blink.

I can move fast, but even my unnatural speed wasn’t enough for me to follow and pull the door shut behind. Instead, I used my momentum to slam it closed and vanished just as a hideous flat BANG clubbed the room into perdition.

A discharge of countless tiny things gusted through the space I’d occupied, the concussion flattening my invisible and formless self against the door, which shifted violently in reaction to the blast. It was like an army of machine gunners firing in unison for just one second. A Thompson can spit a dozen slugs in a single tick of the clock.

I’d been through this before, believe it or not, an experience I’d thought never to repeat.

But it was over. One horrible explosion and dusty silence.

It was safe. I could re-form and go solid.

Any time now.

No hurry.

No hurry at all.

A faint whimper from the hall drew me out of hiding. Emma.

I forced my terrified self to ooze back into solidity.

The office door was wood veneer over thick metal, specially made to keep intruders from breaking in to find me apparently dead on the sofa during the day. The thing was heavy and required an extra-strong metal frame to support the weight.

In the wake of the explosion it hung loose by one twisted hinge, steel showing through where the wood had been flayed off. I made a grab just as it gave and propped it against the wall with no small respect. The door had done its job of protection, just not in a way I could have anticipated.

Emma was facedown across the thin hall rug, moving feebly, glory hallelujah. Bruised and breathless and paralyzed with shock was a good state to be in. By the grace of God, an armored door, a four-second fuse, and yours truly having damned fast reflexes, she’d not been shredded into a bloody corpse by her fiancé’s parting present.

The sheer wickedness of it—and I’d seen more than my share in the last two years—sickened and infuriated me. I wanted to put a fist right through Foxtrot Joe’s face. I nearly put one through the wall, but there was enough damage to the joint.

Shaking as well from unspent adrenaline, I helped a violently trembling Emma to the washroom and put her on the toilet seat before her legs gave out. The light was gone, but I kept flashlights in every room in the place. Myrna’s predilection for playing with the electrics made them a necessity. I found the one under the sink and clicked it on. I can see fine in the dark, but I need help in windowless spaces like this one.

Emma was drained white, her breathing down to little panicky hiccups. I told her everything was all right, because that’s what we both needed to hear, and gave her a glass of water. I had to help her hold it. She got one sip, then turned away, coughing. Wetting a towel, I made her put her head down and eased the towel onto the back of her neck. When I was sure she wouldn’t fall over, I went to check the remains of my office.

The walls were pocked and holed, lath and plaster exposed, dust everywhere. The desk was riddled with shrapnel. The lights were out; anything made of glass was shattered. The liquor cabinet in the corner leaked like a boozy Niagara. It hadn’t been hit, the concussion had been sufficient.

The sofa was inside out, with stuffing all over. Just as well that I’d vanished. The metal shards of the grenade would have gone right through my body—hellishly painful—but wood was deadly. Even if a piece missed my heart or didn’t tear into my brain through an eye socket, I could bleed to death with dozens of splinters piercing my skin.

The two windows overlooking the street had been open to air out the office and had allowed some of the force of the blast to escape. Both swung outward and were wire reinforced and bulletproofed, so they were intact, but the blinds and curtains were shredded. I crunched across the debris-choked floor and checked the neighborhood.

The shops and other businesses were closed and Sunday-night quiet a block either way. There were no residences in the area, so no out-of-place cars or startled pedestrians caught my eye. No watchful bad guys lurked in the false security of alley shadows.

I heard a click from the radio, the sound it makes when you switch it on. The dial remained dark. The speaker had shrapnel stuck in it, and every tube inside the case must now be junk.

“I’ll get you a new one, Myrna,” I said aloud. “Are you okay?”

Not that I expected a reply, but she had ways of making her presence known.

Nothing. Which worried me.

I’m nuts. There was a live dame in my washroom in need of help, and here I was anxious about a dead one. But Myrna was a friend, even if I had never seen her.

“It was a grenade, honey. That’s why I’m asking.”

Total silence clotted the room like a physical thing. For a second I thought I’d gone deaf; it was that profound. The temperate air drifting through the windows turned deathly cold and still. I breathed in to speak again, and it was too thick to use. I had to make do with what was left in the bottom of my lungs, and my voice came out high and wheezy.

“Myrna, honey . . . you okay?”

The chill got colder and colder still. Gooseflesh galloped up my arms and pinched the back of my neck. The feeling in the room turned oppressive, the weight of it so great that if my heart could beat, it might have stopped from the excess pressure. I’d never felt anything like this from her before. Though fairly immune to cold, I gave in to a sudden shiver.

“Myrn—”

Icy wind howled to unexpected life around me, blowing outward through the windows. A terrific cloud of plaster dust and stuffing whipped past, stinging my eyes.

“M-Myrna—calm down!”

Now that was stupid. Never tell an angry female to calm down. It just makes things worse. The lady rattled me through and through.

The door, propped at an angle, suddenly shifted and toppled like a tree, making a heavy, oddly musical whannnng when it struck the floor. The ventilated desk shifted as though being shoved by an invisible Charles Atlas, shooting broadside across the floor until it slammed the wall behind. My sturdy chair, caught between, broke into sticks.

Papers swirled; I grabbed what I could reach, then gave up and fled before any wood shards got picked up in the storm and started slicing me.

“Jeeze,” I muttered, getting out of the line of fire from the gaping doorway. Papers fluttered out and sifted down. All the wind was confined to the office.

The ghosts in movies and plays weren’t like this. They moved ponderously slow or stood in place, looking unearthly. Myrna was throwing things around like an invisible, intelligent tornado.

After all this time, she’d finally scared me.

I shouldn’t have mentioned the grenade. Considering how she’d died, she was bound to be sensitive about that kind of thing.

I hustled toward the washroom, thinking to get Emma out until things settled.

She still had the wet towel on the back of her neck and her head between her knees. She began to straighten.

“It’s just me,” I said. “How you doing?”

“What’s all that noise?”

“Wind. Looks like we might get some rain.”

She didn’t question it and kept her head down, asking if I was all right. I made sure she hadn’t broken anything from being pitched out and told her what had prompted the action. She wanted to know how I’d escaped.

“I dove behind the desk. Got lucky.”

“B-but a bomb? There was a bomb in the box?”

“Not a big one,” I said, glad she couldn’t see me wincing. If I could still hypnotize people, I’d have eased her right over this part of things.

Myrna must have tuckered herself out: the office-sized cyclone abruptly ceased. The building went silent again, the normal sort, not the pending disaster kind.

“J-Joe left that for me? . . .” Emma straightened, tears spilling from her eyes. “He meant for me to take it t-t-to Gordy and kill us. . . .”

Another stupid thing to do is to tell a female to not cry. I knew better. My girlfriend was not the kind to turn on the waterworks gladly or often, but she’d taught me how to deal with them. There were five thousand other matters I had to see to before dawn came, but I put an arm around Emma, offering her one end of the toilet tissue to unreel to soak up her tears.

She cut loose, loud and ugly, but I couldn’t fault her for it, not one damned bit. I wanted to kill Foxtrot for doing this to her.

Maybe I would.

Emma’s initial reaction eased, and she lurched up with determined strength, spun in place, and yanked up the toilet lid just in time.

I’d done my duty holding her while she cried, but Bobbi hadn’t said a word about what to do when a lady is being sick. I backed off, glad I didn’t need to breathe, and looked the other way. Some instinct told me to start the water in the sink, so I did that, then backed the rest of the way out of the little room.

Right into Gino Desanctis, Foxtrot Joe’s boss. He looked as surprised as I felt.

I glared at him, an intruder in my territory and indirectly responsible for Foxtrot. Hardly aware of the action, I slugged Desanctis square in the gut.

He folded and dropped, but he wasn’t alone. The two guys behind him surged forward to teach me manners, and I took them out just as quick.

There was a third man behind them, but he stayed in place, calmly regarding the rumpus.

“Greetin’s to ye, Jacky-lad,” he boomed cheerfully. That Irish accent . . .

He flipped open a lighter, the little flame overwhelmed by the gloom of the hall, but enough to show his face.

“Riordan?” I returned, unpleasantly surprised. He was supposed to be a private investigator but was happy enough to ignore the law when it suited his bank account. We’d had a few run-ins, none of them good. The first time we met, he’d broken my shoulder with a tire iron. He had been aiming for my skull. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He held the lighter with a steady hand. Me punching flat three of Gordy’s best didn’t deserve so much as an eye twitch. He’d seen me cut loose on bigger and tougher guys and not break a sweat. “Those fine lads strewin’ the floor are looking for Emma Dorsey.”

Riordan had an egg-shaped balding head under a rakish hat, plenty of teeth, and brown eyes topped by arching brows. They gave him an ingrained expression of perpetual naïveté that he wholeheartedly exploited when he thought he could get away with it. In truth, he was as clever-brained as they come, but certifiably insane. If some head doctor locked the Irish bastard in a booby hatch, I’d have been glad to lose the key.

“You’re looking for Foxtrot, you mean,” I said.

“They are for certain. The lads an’ me were havin’ such a nice game of billiards when Gino came by wantin’ ’em to earn their keep. Seein’ that one owes me three dollars and the other owes me four, I’m keepin’ an eye on ’em till we finish our game. Have ye seen our Foxtrot?”

“No.”

“What about the lovely lady we followed here?” He pulled out a cigarette.

“She’s not feeling well. Foxtrot tried to scrag her with a grenade rigged in a box. It was meant for her and Northside Gordy.”

Riordan let the lighter burn a fraction longer than needed to fire up his smoke. “So that was the mighty flash and bang we saw from the street. A grenade, y’say? Sure?”

I glanced at the floor where Emma had landed. The twine bow and the ring with its attached pin lay almost at his feet. I pointed at it and at the now quiet office. “What do you think?”

He picked up the twine, then peered in the room. Not much glow from the streetlight came in the windows, but he saw what he needed to see. “Damn. You’re one lucky mother’s son. The lady’s all right?” His tone changed, losing its usual sardonic grate, his accent softening.

“Shaken but in one piece.”

“Glad to hear it.” He switched back to what I had thought was his normal voice. “Y’say that was her fella’s doin’?”

“She thought she was returning the money Foxtrot took. He left her a note to take it to Gordy, but we opened—”

Desanctis lurched from the floor, favoring his bruised middle, and pulled a revolver from his shoulder holster a second short of getting his full balance. I was on him and grabbed the gun away, my hand freezing on the barrel to keep it from turning. He was startled, then swung a fist, but I stepped out of range, too ready pop him again. It had felt good to have a target.

“Oh, now, Gino. Leave the man be,” said Riordan, a little sharply. “We’re all friends here.”

Desanctis put the brakes on, glaring. “You saw it, he busted me.”

“This hall’s darker than the inside of Satan’s arse. He didn’t know ye.”

I went with his lead. There was more going on here than Riordan looking after his pool hall bets. “I thought you were Foxtrot come to look at the blood.”

“Gimme my piece. I’ll show you blood.” The man was not interested in explanations and clearly not used to coming in second in a fight. I am tall, but on the lean side; he had an inch and fifty pounds on me, all of it muscle. Most guys never challenged that combination; the others rarely lived to regret it. Desanctis was one of those specialists who knew all the finer points about how to turn people into fish food.

“That’s over, Gino.” Riordan’s voice had gone ominously low and level, his eyes narrow and razor sharp. He got a surly grunt in reply.

“Keep it put away,” I told Desanctis, handing the gun back butt first. “This is my place; only I am allowed to shoot people here.”

He snorted contempt and called me a goddamned punk, which was an accurate description, so I let it pass. We were about the same age—late thirties—but I look a lot younger. I’ve gotten used to hearing “punk” flung my way.

“How’d you get in?” I asked Riordan.

“Picked the back door lock.” He inhaled deeply from his cigarette and blew the smoke to one side. “Took a few minutes. That’s good-quality brass you got for keepin’ out the riffraff.”

I accepted the compliment with mixed emotions and vowed to find a locksmith who could install something better. “Thanks for not breaking the door down.”

“Seemed best not to irritate the landlord. You’ve quite the temper, or so I’ve seen.”

There was little point discussing his lack of haste to get inside. He knew something about explosions. If you don’t hear screaming afterward, chances are high that no one survived, and you don’t want to see what’s left.

“I’m thinkin’ we should take this news to Gordy, along with the lady,” said Riordan.

Exactly what I planned to do.

“We keep looking for Foxtrot,” said Desanctis, helping one of his men up. “I’m not running to the boss every time something don’t work out. We got the dame. She’ll know where Foxtrot is.”

Without being too obvious, I put myself between them and the washroom. “If she did, she’d have contacted him by now. He set her up. Guess he thought if she could knock off Gordy, we’d be too distracted to go after him.” I’d purposely included myself in matters. It was time. Any bastard trying to kill a nice gal like Emma deserved my personal attention. “But why would he do that for a lousy eight hundred?”

“And Gordy put you in charge.” A scornful Desanctis got the second man on his feet. “What does this dump turn that makes that lousy money?”

I looked at Riordan. “What’d I miss?”

“Books have been gone over, sums have been added, and stacks of lolly counted and counted again. There’s eight hundred thousand missing from this month’s take, Jacky-lad.”

It required a long, still moment for me to absorb that large a sum. Such numbers weren’t real. They had to be made up. That kind of money was for governments, not people. I’d known the scale of Gordy’s operation was huge, but not that huge. “Jeeze.”

“Y’can imagine Gordy’s not in the least amused.”

He wouldn’t show it. Maybe his pale eyes would be a little harder than normal. If Foxtrot had any sense, he’d be on his way to Outer Mongolia and hoping it would be far enough. So much cash explained why Riordan was hanging around. If there was a chance in hell for him to nab some of it . . .

“Come on,” said Desanctis. “Let’s get the skirt and—”

“Take her to Gordy,” I finished. “He’ll want to talk with her. Riordan, bring that grenade pin. I’m going to shove it down Foxtrot’s throat.” I took a step toward the washroom, and my foot caught on something. Emma’s purse. It hadn’t been there before. Myrna again, now in a helpful mood.

I picked up the little bag and looked in on Emma. She’d set the flashlight on its end on the floor like a candle. She had apparently heard everything and looked anxious.

“You ready to travel?” I asked, voice low.

“Guess I have to be. But those men . . .”

“Are gonna behave. I’ll stick by you. If I have to be someplace, you get next to the Irishman out there named Riordan. He’s crazy, but he’ll look after you. He’s got a soft spot for women.”

“I know him. He’s kind of scary.”

“Right now you need scary friends.”

She gave a brief, blotchy grimace, accepted her handbag, pulled on her gloves, and stood straight. Not much height to her, but plenty of poise. I got the flashlight and backed out like a knight making way for his lady.

“Gentlemen,” I said, certain none would take exception to the irony, “Miss Emma Dorsey needs a safe escort to the Nightcrawler Club.”

Riordan’s eyes flickered with amusement as he swept off his hat. “It’s my specialty and privilege to be of service to ye, missy. Shamus Riordan, me name is me game, spell it the same.”

Desanctis growled under his breath, then spoke aloud. “Where’s your boyfriend, Emma?”

“I don’t know. That’s God’s honest truth.”

“He ain’t hiding in your flat, we checked, so where else would he go?”

She shook her head, glancing at me.

“The lady doesn’t know,” I said. “You’re familiar with how he does business. Where do you think he’d go?”

“We checked those places. He ain’t in any of ’em.”

“Then figure he’s on a train, bus, or car with a hell of a head start. You cover the stations?”

“In this town and all stops between here and both oceans. With eight hundred grand running loose, we got more eyes than J. Edgar Hoover.”

“You didn’t tell them about the money, did you?”

“Of course not.”

“Foxtrot can buy his way past anyone with it.”

“That he can,” said Riordan, looking pleased.

“You’re after the money,” I said, unsurprised.

“Why, Jacky-lad, on the life of my sainted aunt Murgatroyd, of course I am. A man can go far and live high forever on that much lolly.”

“Until we find you,” Desanctis pointed out. He didn’t sound worried that Riordan would get anywhere near the cash.

“Well, life’s uncertain, Gino. I’d live well for as long as I could. That’s all any of us have till Saint Peter whispers in your ear.”

It was an impossible quest. Foxtrot had time to put himself anywhere, either to hole up until the initial search slacked off or to get as far away as possible. If it had been me, I’d have hired a pilot and flown south to a whole different continent.

“Been watching Emma’s place?” I asked as we trooped unhurriedly down to the lobby.

“We went by to see if she’d join up with her boyfriend,” said Desanctis.

“Why didn’t you talk to her sooner?”

“Dames are funny when they’re gone on a guy. They clam up no matter what you do to ’em. It was a better bet to have her lead us to him.”

Emma’s hand, which was on my arm, tightened its grip. I did not ask how Desanctis came by his information about women. I’d already slugged him once tonight and didn’t need a fresh excuse.

“The delay gave Foxtrot a big head start,” I observed.

We reached the lobby floor, and Desanctis rounded on me. “What are you saying, Fleming? You think I wanted that bastard to run off? My head’s on the block for this.”

He might lose his job and get sent somewhere disagreeable as punishment, but Gordy was a fair man—in his own way. He wouldn’t order Desanctis put down without a compelling reason. Good help’s hard to find, and the man was good at his job.

“Why did she come to you, anyway?” he wanted to know.

“Emma needed someone to get her in to see the boss.”

“Maybe you’re helping the two of them lam it out of here.”

“Yeah, that makes perfect sense what with that grenade nearly killing us.”

“Neither one of you’s got a scratch. Maybe you set it off on purpose.”

“Gino, why would I blow up my own office? How could that possibly help either of them escape?”

He had no answer. While he was good at collections, it was a job that did not require much brain.

The light behind the lobby bar was still on. I’d had the idea that electricity for the whole building was gone. We took the curved hall into the main room and found the lights on there as well.

“Who else is here?” Desanctis wanted to know.

“Just us.”

“Someone put those on. We didn’t.”

“The building’s got electrical problems, always has. Ask anyone.”

The floor tables were stripped of their cloths, with chairs stacked on them upside down. They gave the huge room a forlorn appearance. The fixed tiers of booths arranged in a rising horseshoe shape with the open end toward the stage looked more normal. All they needed were people, but there was no show tonight. The stage was dark, its empty boards thick with sullen shadows. I was aware of every mood of this place, and it didn’t like being closed.

Our footsteps created hard echoes from the black and white tiles, turned hollow as we crossed the wood dance floor, then resumed hard again. A service door on the other side of the stage took us to a wide hall. It gave access to the basement, backstage dressing rooms, and wide double doors to the alley.

“Why didn’t you guys come in the front?” I asked.

“Didn’t want to get noticed,” said Riordan. “We saw the great boom, left a lad on watch for cops, and Gino kindly got the back open.”

“There’s a guy? I didn’t see him.”

“He’s in the doorway of the haberdasher’s shop across from ye.”

I stopped short of pushing forward to the outside. “No, he isn’t.”

“The streetlight doesn’t reach. Deep shadow.”

“Riordan, I’d have seen him. I took a look out the office window after the boom. He wasn’t there.”

Desanctis shoved past. “So what, he moved. Come on.”

The lights flickered off-on, just the once. Myrna’s communication was limited, but that was her way of sending up the alarm. I stayed put, and Riordan and the others hung back with me, looking uneasy. Desanctis held the back door and watched us watch him for a long moment. He glanced either way in the alley.

“No one’s here,” he stated.

I transferred Emma’s hand to Riordan’s arm. “How ’bout I check and make sure?”

“We’ll both check.” Desanctis took the direction leading to the street, I went toward the parking lot. Two vehicles were there: my still-new Studebaker coupé and next to it what was probably his car, a blue Hudson.

Both had flat tires: driver’s-side front on mine, passenger front on the Hudson.

Crap.

Feeling vulnerable, I ducked between the cars, probably in the same spot where the vandal had crouched with something sharp. He had efficiently cut off our means of escape, barring a footrace out of here. The mental picture of our little group sprinting along in full rout, getting picked off one by one by a pursuer shooting from cover, I could blame on a too-vivid imagination. That was not going to happen, but once the thought crossed my paranoid mind, I couldn’t shake it.

I didn’t care to attempt changing a flat until long after this party left the neighborhood—which would be soon. We were only temporarily stuck. A phone call to Gordy would bring in transport and as many armed mugs as he deemed appropriate. He wouldn’t mind.

First, I needed a quick look at the street.

Back to the wall, I eased along, checking everything in my angle of view, my hand twitching, missing a reassuring weight that should have been there. I kept a gun in my office, hadn’t thought to bring it along, and I should have. Yeah, I know, I’m a big bad vampire, but Chicago’s a rough town. Even the undead need an edge. That damned grenade must have knocked all sense out of my noggin. There were no windows on this side of the club. I could ooze my way through the bricks to get in and raid the top desk drawer, but it would be easier to borrow a gun from Riordan. He always carried more than one.

The shop doorway was indeed empty. A narrow alley divided the opposite block; the ash cans crowding it would make good cover. Half a dozen other doors and nooks offered shelter and were within shooting range. Until now, I’d never thought about the exterior of my club in terms of attack and defense.

I put my head around the corner, letting myself fade from full solidity. My sight dimmed, but in this state a bullet would pass harmlessly through my skull. No one fired, but I did spot what looked like a drunk taking a nap in the club’s entry. He was right under the red awning that ran from the door to the curb. I wouldn’t have been able to see him from the office window.

Still slightly incorporeal, I drifted toward him; my legs were moving, but I was really floating silently over the sidewalk. Reaching the shadow under the canopy, I went solid to check for a pulse. The man was limp as wet laundry, but alive. Someone had coshed him good.

He wasn’t Foxtrot Joe.

He was positioned so that when the front door opened, he’d fall back and in, blocking the way and providing a distraction.

Someone must have thought we’d come out this way. I whipped around, alert to threats, but nothing happened.

Having completed his half-circuit of the building, Desanctis barreled up, face red with fury, his gun out. I put my finger to my lips and hastily signed for him to get down, but he wasn’t interested. He kept moving, heading toward the parking lot and rounding the corner. His ripe and heartfelt swearing carried, signaling that he’d found the flat tires.

I had my keys and opened the front door and, with a grim sense of déjà vu, dragged in the casualty. The other time, the guy being dragged had caught a bullet in his leg, so I wasn’t experiencing the same kind of life-and-death panic. I was pissed off.

“Heads up, Myrna, we got more trouble.” I pulled my burden out of the way so he wouldn’t be stepped on accidentally.

I’d had an extra phone installed behind the bar, a fancy one. Punch a button you get my office, punch another and you can make an outside call. It was past time to let Gordy know what was going on. If Foxtrot was hanging around, we might have a chance of grabbing him.

But the phone was dead, its line ripped from the wall.

That wasn’t Myrna’s style; Foxtrot must have found a way inside. But why? If he had the money, then why risk himself? I checked the lobby’s alcove phone booth and found it had also been sabotaged. The receiver lay on the floor, trailing a short tail of cut wire.

Drawing a breath to curse, I caught the scent of human blood hanging in the still air. A second breath, mouth open . . . I could almost taste it. Fresh, mixed with sweat, the distinct sour tang of fear, and, above all, immediacy—he’d been here scant moments ago.

No hiding places in the lobby; I would have noticed anyone taking cover under the naked tables and stacked chairs and had already been behind the bar.

Going still, I listened, sifting out the breathing of the unconscious man, the distant sounds of city traffic, Riordan holding forth on the other side of the building, the creak as wind played on the awning outside, the clock above the bar ticking, my watch a tiny counterpoint to it . . .

For the barest second, I caught the rasp of air against vocal cords. It took more effort to pin down a direction for that faintest of whispers . . . but I got him.

He was in one of the restrooms. The closer of the two, the ladies’ lounge. It was just past the bar, and if you cracked the door, you could see a good section of the front. He’d taken out the front man, left him as a decoy. While we were busy with him, Foxtrot could sneak up behind. The ambush was meant to be inside, not out. So why hadn’t he tried for me? Was he waiting for the others?

Desanctis barged in, pausing right in the line of fire to snarl something at me, but I launched at him. We hit the hard marble tile in front of the bar with bone-bruising force a hair ahead of the flat crack of a gunshot. The bullet snapped into a wall on the other side of the room but missed us, and that’s all that mattered.

I was okay, but it knocked out his air. The single-minded idiot tried to bring his gun around. I slammed it fiercely down and clapped a hand over his mouth, hoping he’d take the hint. He couldn’t move, was struggling to breathe. I took my hand away and signed for him to be quiet.

He wheezed and nodded, finally figuring out more important things were going on and that he’d better pay attention.

“Foxtrot’s here, hiding in one of the johns,” I murmured.

A flash of wide-eyed disbelief, then Desanctis looked ready to pop a blood vessel. Teeth showing, he started up, but I grabbed him back.

“He’s in too good a spot, he’ll scrag us both. There’s a service door for the janitor. I’ll get in that way, come up behind him. You stay put. Make him think we’re both out here.”

He grunted cooperatively. I hurried toward the curving hall to the main room, while he hunkered down at the end of the bar to cover the lounge door. As soon as he turned from me I vanished, changed course, and floated right past him, a necessity since there was no such service entry. Desanctis might have felt a deadly chill as I went by. Unable to see in this form, I had to bump and bumble along by memory and the awareness of solid shapes between me and my goal. This was a stool, that bulk to the right was the bar, skim along a vertical plain of wall on the left, and for the love of Mike don’t miss the door.

I found it and slipped quickly under the threshold crack and in. My hearing was limited; I couldn’t locate Foxtrot by sound, so I cast about with what should be my arms, a blind, invisible monster trying to find its prey before anyone else got hurt.

He was on the floor just inside, right where I’d have been. This close and I could hear his quick, labored breathing. I set myself and went solid, and he was too surprised to react when his gun was suddenly yanked away.

His back propped against the wall, he held the door open a few inches with one outstretched leg. He shifted and the door shut automatically, cutting off most of the light. There was some glow seeping through the red-tinted windows, enough for me, but he’d be blinkered. Just as well; I didn’t want him noticing how the mirrors here kept missing me.

I tried a reasonable tone. “All right, Foxtrot, game’s over—”

He flopped on one side, throwing his right arm wide to grab. I backed away and smelled fresh blood again, a lot of it, mixed with the sharp, sweet odor of cordite from his one shot. The red color of the window glass made it difficult to see, but his middle was soaked. He held his left arm tight there, panting with pain. His voice was slurred and rushed. “Who izzit?”

“Jack Fleming.”

He grunted disgust and stopped trying to find me. “Na’ dead.”

“In so many words, not quite.” I was being strangely polite to him, considering the dirtiness of the grenade trick. His wounding puzzled me, and tardy alarm bells only I could hear went off inside my thick skull. I cursed while pocketing the gun and grabbed him under the arms to drag him out of the way, exactly as I’d done for the fellow in the lobby.

He did not resist. “ ’f tha’ bas’ard’s hurt her . . .”

“She’s fine, Joe.” I eased him down flat, got towels from a cupboard under the sinks, and pressed a wad of them to whatever damage he’d taken. “Hold it there, can you do that?”

He made no reply, responding by dropping a bloody arm over the makeshift dressing. “Emma . . .”

“Keep quiet.”

I opened the door and called out to Desanctis, “It’s clear, Gino, I got him.”

Desanctis was already in the hall, striding forward, gun raised, which I did not expect, which was damned stupid, but I faded just as he fired. It was such a near thing that I felt the sharp passage of the slug tugging with miserable familiarity through my chest, and it was enough to startle me into vanishing completely.

Dimly, I heard the door thump shut.

Damnation.

I went solid, listening. Desanctis was just on the other side, certainly doing the same thing, reluctant to try the door until he was sure he’d gotten me. It was dark for him; the disruptive flash from his gun would have prevented him from seeing me wink out. I shoved hard on the door to knock him silly, but he skipped back and fired three times right through at chest height, and that did the trick.

I dropped like a bag of sand, nerve and muscle in shock from the bullets’ passage. The lead shattered bone, seared flesh, and I’d have screamed had there been breath. Instead, I made an ugly choking sound down in my throat and thrashed like a fish. I should have vanished, but something short-circuited things. Blood flowed out front and back, weakening me. I had to vanish to heal or—

Damned wood.

The door was made of pine panels, soft, splintery pine.

My fingers raked over the holes in my chest, clawing for the slivers that had to be there. I pulled one clear but remained solid, still bleeding.

How many more?

They were like little daggers. I had to get them all, but if they were too small or if fragments had tattooed themselves under my hide . . .

Desanctis hauled open the door. I frantically rolled out of the way of his next shot.

It was nearly pitch dark for him. I could use that—

He flicked on the light, revealing the whole appalling mess of what seemed like gallons of blood smearing the black and white tiles, Foxtrot Joe helpless on his back over there, me fumbling desperately to get one slick hand on the gun in my pants pocket, knowing I’d be too late.

Desanctis showed teeth in the bright, ferocious grin of a man who’s won everything—

Then one of the heavy chrome bar stools slammed into his shoulders and head like a cannonball.

It knocked him sideways with swift and hard and decisive force. The grin was still on his mug as he hit the inside wall and slithered down, stunned.

The stool clattered metallically on the hall floor, and the door closed again.

I scrambled over to get his gun, but he was in no shape to notice.

My panic-driven strength fled, leaving behind a terrible and mounting exhaustion. I pulled more damned splinters from my skin. Daggers, hell, they were like hot needles, or maybe it was the damned bullet holes that tore another breathless scream from me.

But the instant I dragged a finger-long shard clear, that comforting gray nothingness swept me into a soft, painless haven.

It takes only a moment to heal, and then I’m all right.

Physically.

The rest of it, the recovery that may or may not come when you have to face the ghastly fact that another two-legged predator has tried to remove you from life, takes longer. Much longer. You wonder what’s worse, someone murdering you in the heat of rage or coldly blotting you out simply because it makes things easier for his own nonstop and futile strivings to continue.

And I was no better; I had murdered as well. My reasons seemed good enough at the time, but it is a certainty none of them would have convinced my victims.

Maybe it’s the ones who don’t have a reason that sickens you the most. They carry a darkness that no one can understand. You ask why and get a shrug, and it is the truth. They don’t know themselves.

Desanctis, though, knew exactly what he was doing.

Bastards like him leave behind damage that can’t be stitched up by a doctor or even a supernatural edge. Parts of my soul were still in tatters from my murder two years ago.

But I can forget that when I’m like this, a ghost but not a ghost.

It is so good to be free of a solid body, free of gravity, free of outraged nerve endings, responsibilities, homicidal lunatics, dames in distress, and all the other insane annoyances associated with the farce of living. One of these nights I would vanish and never come back.

But not tonight. I had to get help for Foxtrot. The men who came with Desanctis might be in on things with him. Emma had to be taken somewhere safe. . . .

Solid again and on my feet, I started for the door, but it was yanked open, and by great good fortune for us both, I did not blow a hole in Shamus Riordan’s head.

He gaped and pulled back, startled by something other than the gun I’d taken, probably the look on my face. It could not have been reassuring.

Thankfully he was at the wrong angle to see the mirrors, though he did finally become aware of Desanctis and Foxtrot.

“What a riot you’ve had, Jacky-lad. Where’d they get you?”

“It’s not my blood.” I could hear the fast pounding of his heart. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that, but hunger sharpened my already excellent senses. Lingering adrenaline would keep me going for a little while, but I’d have to replace what the bullets had taken, and soon. Tunnel vision would come next, then— “What’d you say?”

“Are they dead?” Riordan asked, his voice louder.

“Not yet.”

“Where’s that girl?”

“Emma’s gone?” I asked stupidly.

“She’s with me mates. I meant the other girl.”

My brain began working. I was in a mood to accept the uncanny. “You didn’t throw that bar stool, did you?”

“Now why would I bother when I’ve a perfectly good shooter?”

True. He held a pipsqueak .22 semiauto, the kind that requires good aim and doesn’t make a lot of noise.

“You saw a girl?”

“Just a glimpse when I rounded the corner. Me an’ the lads heard shots. I told ’em to get Emma out of sight, then came runnin’. A bit late, it seems.”

“What’d she look like?”

“Little thing, didn’t seem big enough to be throwin’ furniture about.”

“You’ve no idea.”

“Where is she?”

“Look after Foxtrot. I’ll call a doctor and get Gordy over here.”

The bar in the main room was also equipped with a fancy phone, this one functioning. I hit the button for the outside line, dialed with a shaking and bloodstained finger, and had a quick, urgent chat with Gordy at the Nightcrawler Club. I told him a doctor was required and why, and that bringing along armed muscle would be a good idea and not to trust anything Gino Desanctis said.

“No problem,” Gordy replied, and hung up.

My friend was not much for words, but an expert at getting things moving. He knew I’d answer his questions when the time was right.

Before distractions started piling up, I ducked into the storage area under the main room’s tiered seating. It held bar supplies and other odds and ends, and set in the back wall was a hidden door only I knew about. I vanished and reappeared on the other side, fumbling for the light switch.

Sometimes I’d spend the day in this lightproof sanctuary. It had the necessary comforts: an army cot with an oilcloth liner holding my home earth, spare clothes, emergency cash, and books to read in the last hour before the rising sun shut my body down.

I’d recently added a small refrigerator and blessed my extravagant foresight.

Inside were beer bottles with cork stoppers, not the usual caps. Some months ago I’d cut down my trips to the Stockyards by siphoning cattle blood into bottles and keeping them cold. It didn’t taste as good or last long, but it was a godsend now.

Two bottles left, both at the foul edge of drinkability. I downed them like an alkie just in from Death Valley. If the need got bad enough, I’d have lapped the leavings on the washroom floor. As the cold red stuff flowed sluggishly through my starved body, I was glad not to have been reduced to that humiliation. Still, it was better than assaulting any of the hapless humans under my roof.

All right, with Desanctis I’d have made an exception.

Considering what was in store, he might prefer having his blood drained by a starved vampire than to face Northside Gordy.

I shed my punctured and alarmingly blemished shirt, got a replacement, and emerged from the storage room. One of the two men who had come in with Desanctis was behind the bar and gave a guilty start. He’d been examining the beer taps.

“Where’s the boss?” he wanted to know.

“That crazy Irishman’s looking after him. Where’s Miss Dorsey?”

“She’s hiding in the basement with my pal. What’s going on?”

“Nothing much. Gordy’s on his way over with the cavalry. We’re to sit tight.”

He looked relieved, and I liked his reaction. It saved me from punching him flat again. I switched on the tap pump and invited him to serve himself. His mood improved. I could sympathize; nothing like a drink to make you feel better.

I cleaned up in the deep sink behind the bar and pulled on the shirt.

At the basement door, I called down, and the second guy came out with Emma. She was pasty and frightened. I invited the other man to join his partner for beery refreshment and walked her around to the lounge. Riordan had its door propped open with the bar stool. Desanctis, who was still not fully awake, was trussed hand and foot with cut-up towels.

Emma stopped short. “What’s happened?”

“Your fiancé’s off the hook,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t leave you the grenade. Gino Desanctis did.”

“He—” Unlooked-for hope flooded her face. “Joe didn’t . . . ?”

“Maybe Joe skimmed money to buy you a nice ring, and maybe that’s what gave Gino the idea to use him to take the fall for a bigger theft. Joe didn’t try to kill you. He’s been trying to save you.”

“That’s exactly it, missy,” Riordan called from the lounge. He sounded cheerful.

We looked in. Riordan knelt over Foxtrot Joe, pressing a towel to the wound.

Emma gave an alarmed cry and rushed over. Joe was just this side of consciousness and feebly took her hand. She stroked his hair and whispered to him, tears running down her face.

Riordan grinned up at me. “All the world loves a lover, right, Jacky-lad?”

“Looks it.”

“Help him!” she shouted at us. “Can’t you help him?”

“A doctor’s on the way,” I said. “Any minute now.”

“He’ll be fine, missy,” Riordan assured her. “I’ve seen worse that got better. Give him a week and you’ll be dancin’ at your weddin’, sure enough.”

She moaned and kissed Joe’s forehead, murmuring to him. He smiled at her, and I recognized the look that transformed his hard face: true love. Who’d have thought it?

Riordan continued keeping pressure on the damage as he spoke to me. “Oh, the things I’ve learned from this patient, y’wouldn’t believe, Jacky-lad. Seems our Gino shot this fine fella, an’ let on he was goin’ to do away with the lovely Emma, too. That didn’t sit well with Foxtrot. He played dead, then somehow got himself out of wherever it was Gino stashed him to rot in peace. Poor Joe was supposed to disappear for good, y’see.”

“Taking eight hundred grand with him,” I said. “Gino gets it all and keeps his spot as collector. He should have stopped there and not gotten cute with the grenade. With Gordy dead he must have thought he could move up to the big office.”

“The threat to his lady love kept our Foxtrot goin’. He cabbed over to our Emma’s, an’ followed Gino following her. Poor lad was on his last legs. Lucky for him you twigged to Gino’s game. Just how did that come about?”

“If Foxtrot was guilty of the theft, he had no reason to be here. Gino looked pretty damned surprised about it. He wasn’t concerned about you getting near the cash, either. Wrong reaction.”

Riordan snorted. “A sad underestimation of my talents.”

“It makes sense if Gino’s the only one who knows where the money is. Gino had to kill Foxtrot, and then kill me to shut me up about it. The money stays missing for good.”

“Lucky for you that little slip of a thing lent a hand. Who is she? Where is she?”

“Her name’s Myrna, and she’s shy. I wouldn’t go—”

The lobby door opened and a skinny guy with a doctor’s bag hurried in. He had two other guys with him and a stretcher. They started for the man I’d dragged in earlier, but I called them toward the ladies’ lounge.

Without fuss they went to work and shoveled Foxtrot into a beat-up panel truck. It had the name DUCKY DIAPER SERVICE in faded letters on the sides, along with a winking cartoon duck wearing a diaper. Maybe it was someone’s humor at work, it being a not-too-subtle reference to cleaning up other people’s crap.

Emma Dorsey climbed in the back to take over pressure duty and to hold Foxtrot’s hand. As an afterthought they packed in the guy he had coshed, then drove quickly away.

Just as their taillights winked around the corner, twin beams from another large vehicle swung into the street, followed by three more large cars. I recognized Gordy’s new armored Cadillac in the lead. Things were about to get much, much worse for Gino Desanctis.

“What a night,” I muttered.

The small light behind the bar, the one Myrna liked having on all the time, flickered as though in agreement.

A week later, in my refurbished office, I finished attaching the antenna to Myrna’s new toy. Fifty feet of wire had been strung across the roof of my building by a guy who knew how to do that kind of work. The end of it snaked in through special holes drilled down through the ceiling—elaborate, but the reception would be outstanding.

I’d promised her a radio, said that it was hers and hers alone, and she could play whatever she liked whenever she liked.

I was still humbly grateful about the timing of that thrown bar stool.

She had the best Zenith floor model I could find, guaranteed to pick up foreign broadcasts on its shortwave band. The wood cabinet had a rich, honey-smooth finish, and the speaker was larger than any other in the shop. Open the back and you’d see a cone-shaped covering around the speaker itself, sort of like a lumpy bullhorn. You adjusted it to fix the bass sound to fit the size of the room, or something like that. I’d read the directions some other time.

I plugged it in.

The thing came to life with an enthusiastic hum. After it warmed up, I fiddled with the dial and put it on a station playing dance music. It sounded damned good, almost as though you were there.

Gordy had been generous. For saving his life, since I’d been careless enough to explode a grenade meant for him, he sent over an army of carpenters and janitors to clean up my club and restore the office. A friendly guy from a furniture store called me one night and said I was to come over to take my pick of his stock; any friend of Gordy’s was his friend, too. He even sounded glad about it.

I didn’t protest, accepting it all as Gordy’s version of a modest thank-you gesture.

Foxtrot Joe, since he had tried to stop Desanctis, albeit for his own reasons, got to keep the money he’d skimmed but was told to quietly leave town and not come back. Emma wanted him to meet her parents; her dad had a tailor shop down in Springfield, and he was not averse to offering a job to his future son-in-law. Foxtrot was not averse to accepting it. He knew a little about bookkeeping.

Riordan slipped away when no one was looking, which was no surprise. The fact that Desanctis was missing his watch, wallet, and car keys might have had something to do with it. At some point, the flat tire on the snazzy Hudson had gotten fixed, for the car vanished from my parking lot, never to be seen again. Riordan continued driving a battered Ford, claiming with a grin to know nothing about the theft. He stopped by once to ask after Myrna, but I put him off.

He said he couldn’t fault me for keeping her to myself, describing her as a darlin’ little thing with dark hair. That’s all the detail I got, and I couldn’t ask for more or I’d have to tell him she was a ghost, and that was none of his business.

How was it that he’d seen her and I’d never had a glimpse? I’d done reading on the subject. Some people could see ghosts and others could not, and the ones who do don’t always know it isn’t a living person. Riordan might be psychically sensitive and unaware of it. There’s plenty of stories about the Irish having the inside track on that stuff.

Or maybe when it came to the psychical I was just color-blind. Or ghost-blind. Being a vampire gave me no edge, apparently, but it didn’t bother me much.

Desanctis . . . I never found out what happened to him, and that was fine with me. Gordy ran the dark side of his operation with an arctic-cold efficiency. There are aspects of it I did not need or want to know about, which he respected. The missing money turned up, and how they got Desanctis to talk I also did not need or want to know about.

I sat behind my new desk, looked over the substantial receipt for the radio, and wondered if there was a way I could put it down as a business expense.

Just as I dropped the receipt into the file, the dance music ceased, there was a hiss of static, and then the voice of an announcer reading sports scores filled the air.

“Myrna,” I said to the apparently empty room, “you are the pip.”

P. N. Elrod has sold more than twenty novels and at least as many short stories, scripted comic books, and edited several collections, including My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding and Strange Brew. She’s best known for the Vampire Files series, featuring undead gumshoe Jack Fleming, and would write books more quickly but for being hampered by an incurable chocolate addiction. More about her toothy titles may be found at www.vampwriter.com .