The Vampire Files - Bloodlist Part 17

So he was supposed to be my friend, he had some pity for me. Maybe if I cooperated he'd pull his punches. Bulls.h.i.+t.

"Where is the list?" Morelli pretended he hadn't heard his boy speak.

I was made to stand. Favoring my kicked leg, or appearing to, I shook my head.

The Mountain hit again and that's when I overdid my act. It was by accident, or by sheer clumsiness, that my body pitched too far and too fast off balance and my head connected hard with the edge of the desk.

The thing was made out of very solid mahogany.

Lights flashed behind my eyes, there were waves of dizziness, and if I went under they'd think I was dead. They'd sink me in the lake again and this time I might not come up. My eyes fluttered, I felt myself falling, but it was just the Mountain turning me over.

Breathe, keep breathing.

He was watching me closely. I looked back, concentrating on pumping my chest up and down and fighting the pain in my head.

Breathe, breathe until the worst of the shock pa.s.ses.

"I thought he was gone for a second, but he seems okay, now," said the Mountain.

"Then wake him up." Morelli sounded infinitely put out. "And, Gordy, you be more careful with him this time."

He poured a gla.s.s of water I didn't want in my face and I spit it from my nose and mouth like poison. The door opened and a chair was dragged in. They put it under me. Perhaps Gordy the Mountain was getting tired of holding me up.

"Tell him what he wants, kid," he urged.

My head was bowed, I gently checked the sore spot. There was no blood, but it hurt. It hurt far more than Paco's gunshots. I remembered the time and let the sleeve ride up my wrist for a glimpse at my watch. Not good, but better than I expected.

Morelli was still behind his desk, puffing on the cigar. The office was hot despite the air-cooling system, filled with smoke and the stink of sweat. Now I was glad they'd thrown the water; it would give the illusion that I, too, was sweating.

"I'll clue you, Fleming. You talk now, or you are dead meat. We will work you over and you will die. Talk and you will live."

For how long? I wondered.

"Where is the list?"

Same old song. I stalled and let Gordy earn his keep. He was not too creative, but he had a lot of endurance and muscle. He needed it since I kept falling from the chair as part of my act. It was a long and brutal quarter hour before I finally broke. I'd seen it done before in movies, in real life. I gave them the full treatment: sobbing, pleading, anything I could think of, and it was exactly what Morelli wanted to see. He was feeling good now; he'd ground a man down, opened his guts, and not even left his chair.

I slid to the floor and made friends with the carpet, curling up to nurse bruises I didn't feel. It kept my face hidden and my voice m.u.f.fled. Both were always dead giveaways whenever I tried lying. Between moans and groans I spun them a line of how Jack had pa.s.sed the list on to his baby brother, but kept the details to the bare minimum; too many and they wouldn't believe it.

"Very good," said Morelli. "But where is it now?"

' 'I took a room at Jack's hotel and waited for him. I figured you'd already been there and wouldn't come back again, and there was a chance Jack would for his stuff.''

"Smart, Junior. Keep talking."

"It's at the hotel, hidden in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'll have to show you where. You'll never find it otherwise."

They had a lot of trouble swallowing that one, and it took a large chunk of the time I had left to convince them they had to take me along.

My eyes were covered again, but this time they spared me the handkerchief. We went downstairs and waited in the kitchen. A car rolled up and stopped, its engine idling quietly. They opened the door, guided me down the concrete steps, and I was shoved into the backseat. I slumped low as if in bad shape-actually I was worried about the ever-present rearview mirror.

Gordy was on my right and another man was on my left. They each had a hand tightly gripping my wrists, taking no chances on my making a sudden move. Morelli sat in the front with the driver, occasionally giving a direction.We crossed water once, twice, there were several turns, and we waited in silence for traffic signals. The car finally slowed and parked, the motor still running. The right-hand door opened and Gordy dragged me out. He pulled the scarf down and the first thing I saw was a gun ready in his hand. Next to him was the casino guard, who had a hand inside his coat like a latter-day Napoleon. His body blocked my view of Morelli in the pa.s.senger seat. Dead meat or not, he was careful not to let me see his face. It was fine with me, I was sick of it, anyway.

"Go and get it," he said.

The hotel was a block away on the same side of the street. Maybe the night clerk would remember me, but I wasn't planning to test him. I'd only gotten them back to this neighborhood because it made the story I told more plausible. I wanted them nowhere near my present hotel.

As before, they marched along, gripping my arms. I was in luck, for a change.

They'd have to pa.s.s the entrance of an alley that ran between the hotel and the next building. There was a risk they might catch on to my unusual strength, perhaps they'd put it down to desperation. It wasn't getting any earlier; pretty soon I would be desperate.

We breasted the alley and I shook free, connecting a mild backhand hit in the gunman's stomach and pus.h.i.+ng Gordy into some garbage cans. He recovered fast, and was up and after me before I'd gotten halfway down the alley. His friend was catching up as I came to the wood fence blocking the far end. I went over it with an agility that surprised me, landed like a cat, and pounded away, gaining a good lead.

The fence protected a street lined with residential brown-stones, each with steps and railings and deep doorways. There were plenty of places to hide if necessary. I went to the right, wanting to gain more distance before vanis.h.i.+ng. That was one trick they didn't need to witness. I was looking for a suitable place to duck when one of them did the unexpected. It must nave been the gunman, Morelli had forgotten to tell him I was needed alive.

What felt like a sledgehammer blow caught me between the shoulder blades. The pain made me forget my aching head for the moment. I was in mid-stride when my body was lifted and thrown off balance by the impact. I tried to keep my legs under me, but the shock to the system was too much, and they buckled and failed. I rolled hard onto the sidewalk, carried on by impetus until I hitched up against the wheel of a parked car. The two men trotted up and turned me over.

I 'm too much of a joker not to take advantage of such a situation. Besides, it was a way of getting them off my back. I gave it my best, pulling my hands up to cover what should have been the exit wound and hoping it was too dark for them to see the lack of blood. As they approached, I gasped, twitched convulsively, and slowly let my last breath shudder out in a horrible rattle. I stared at them with gla.s.sy eyes. They stared back, then Gordy bent down to feel for a pulse in my throat. He straightened and looked at his buddy, shaking his head.

"You're up s.h.i.+t creek," he p.r.o.nounced.I was right about it being the gunman and saw why I hadn't heard the shot; a bulky silencer was fixed to his weapon. It was enough to damp the sound down so the local residents continued to sleep.

A half minute later the car rolled up and Morelli erupted out before it stopped.

He glanced once at his men, then glared down at me. I was sorry for not drawing my death scene out long enough to give him a cryptic message to worry about. He whirled on his men. Gordy pointed at the other guy, who had gone all white. Morelli went all purple, the neck tendons coming up as though to break through the skin.

His body shook with rage and his breath came in short gulps. He'd gotten one last chance to find his precious list, and this guy had stupidly taken it from him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun away and, using it as a club, laid into him. When he finished, there was another body decorating the sidewalk. He gave the b.l.o.o.d.y gun to Gordy and stalked back to the car. Gordy picked up his buddy and followed a minute later.

"What about him?" he asked. They were out of my line of sight, but I could imagine his gesture in my direction.

"Leave him. He's got no wallet, they'll think he was mugged. Leave him."

The car doors slammed and they drove away.

I lay on the sidewalk and counted my blessings. When I stood up and felt my aching head I was in the mood to consider everything else. I was out of the Nightcrawler more or less in one piece and Morelli thought I was dead. On the down side, my new suit was a disaster area, I was missing fifty-eight hundred bucks and I still didn't know much more than when I'd begun.

The sky was getting lighter and I had to go home. I started around the corner to my old hotel, but thought better of it. There was a remote chance that Morelli might be there, or return the next day and find out about the guy in the ventilated tuxedo wandering in and asking for a cab. No, that was a very bad idea. I kept walking, moving quickly in hopes of finding some other open business, or better yet, an available cab. No such luck occurred and by now the light was hurting my eyes.

I was anxious enough to make an illegal entry into a closed drugstore on a corner and used their phone to call for transportation. There was still change in my pockets, so I left some on the counter for a pair of their darkest sungla.s.ses and went outside to wait, scanning the street in worried hope. I was tied down to the place now, unable to move until the d.a.m.n cab arrived.

The gentle gray light from the east was blinding, and I could hardly see him when he did come. Tumbling into the back, I promised him a two-dollar tip if he could get me to my hotel in as many minutes. With that for motivation, he poured on the coal.

When we reached the hotel, he had to follow me up to my room for the money, but I had to stumble down to the lobby again to pick up a key. My door was locked and my normal method of entry would have sent the man screaming into the streets.

I was on a friendly basis with the night clerk, though, and that saved a little time. I persuaded him to give the driver the money and to put it on my bill. He did it with a smile, G.o.d bless him, gave me a key, and I fled upstairs.The sun was up now. I was moving through syrup and going blind. I found the keyhole more by luck than anything else and shoved the door shut, sinking to the floor. My head felt ready to explode from the weak reflected sunlight filtering through the window. I crawled to my trunk, but it was locked. I tried to seep inside but couldn't; the light was searing my brain, I could hardly think. Where was the d.a.m.n trunk key?

I groped in the closet, tearing the pockets of my old suit. Wrong guess. The bureau, I left them in a drawer... Crawl over and visit them... Middle drawer, under the s.h.i.+rts... I groaned with relief as my stiffening fingers brushed them and clutched.

I fumbled forever with the trunk lock and was ready to just break it off when it finally flipped open. I pushed the lid up, forced my legs to straighten, teetered a second, and fell inside. The proximity of my home earth helped, and my arms had just enough flexibility left to pull the lid down again, shutting me safely away from the light.

Then consciousness was whipped away like dust into the wind.

Someone was knocking at my door, but it was too close and loud. It was the trunk lid. Escott was the only one who knew I slept here, so I said come in and it opened a crack. I thought I saw a dim oval floating in a sea of purple sparklers.

"Are you all right, old man?" it asked. "I've been trying to call for an hour."

I shook my head, which made it ache more. I wanted him to go away and let me rest.

"Good Lord, you look like death warmed over. Let me help you out."

I started giggling like a fool and let him pull me up. It seemed that lately all I ever did was let other people haul me to my feet. I felt weak, though, and let him, until I remembered he was still recovering from that knife wound and the strain of lifting me wouldn't be doing the st.i.tches any good. I put a hand on his shoulder for balance, got my legs out of the trunk, and stumbled for the bed, flopping on it. It felt great to stretch out. Something cool and wet was soothed over my forehead, a washcloth.

Escott was a mind reader.

"That's an extraordinary goose egg you have there. How in the world did you get it, or are you up to questions yet?"

I tried to open my eyes again, rubbing them clear with the cloth. Purple sparklers still floated around, so I had to locate him from the direction of his voice.

"What's the matter?"

"I got caught by the sunrise, I can't see anything."

Considering the situation, I must have sounded idiotically calm. I felt his fingers propping my lids gently open and heard a match strike. I thought I could see it as it moved from side to side.

"You're tracking light and your pupils are reacting to it."

"Then maybe it's temporary."

"Are you in any pain?"

"Only from the goose egg."

"You have a nasty hole in your s.h.i.+rt," he observed calmly.

"It matches the one in the back."

"You must have had a very interesting evening."

This time I took the opening and told him briefly what happened last night, just leaving out the part about Bobbi and the blackjack game.

"Have things improved?" he asked, meaning my sight.

"A little, I think." But I was only being optimistic and kept involuntarily blinking to clear my eyes.

He waited a moment before cautiously suggesting the Stockyards as a remedy. I'd have to stop being so sensitive about my feeding habits.

"It might help," I agreed. It couldn't hurt.

He was apparently relieved at my reaction. "I'll be happy to guide you, but won't there be a bit of a problem with both of us trying to sneak in?"

"There's so much coming and going, we probably won't be noticed. Are you up to it?"

His voice, at least, sounded stronger. "I've had a good forty-eight hour rest. The st.i.tches are itching and that means they're healing. I've even sent Cal home."

"Okay, if you're sure. Can you help me change?"

He did and somehow got me down the backstairs to his car. I thankfully left the rest up to him. He parked us close in and then put something into my hand.

"What's this?"

"Your dark gla.s.ses. They were in the bottom of your trunk. Should we run into anyone they will lend credence to any story I give them about your blindness."

"As long as they don't become a permanent part of the act."

"See here, if any blood will do, wouldn't it be easier if I just found a friendly dog?"I was shocked. "A dog? I like dogs, I couldn't-"

"It was just a suggestion," he said hastily.

I got out and waited for him. He took my arm and guided me slowly along the sidewalk, down curbs, up curbs, and from the noise and jostling of bodies, past the front gates of the Yards. The cattle stench was very strong now, I could hear them clearly and very close.

"Try to find a place that doesn't look busy," I advised.

He said nothing, plainly thinking me crazy since most of the place was busy all the time. There was a long, soggy walk for us before he finally found a spot that met the requirements.

"Fence," he said. "Shoulder height, wooden, there are several cows on the other side."

He didn't need to tell me, I could sense them. I felt for the fence, then glided right through it.

I guess I should have warned him. He drew a shaky breath. "You could make a fortune haunting houses. That was quite an entrance."

I made no comment, my hands were already reaching out to a warm, s.h.a.ggy body. I calmed the animal with soft words and felt my way toward its head. I knew just where to go in. If nothing else, my fingers could guide me to the right spot, but I paused and looked back to where he was standing.

"Escott?"

"Yes?" he whispered back.

"Would you mind not watching?"

"Er... um... not at all, old man." His feet sc.r.a.ped as he turned around. Maybe he didn't understand why I was so touchy about this, but at least he respected my feelings. I could trust him to stay turned.

The ache in my head subsided quickly. I stood slowly, feeling much stronger. The stuff spread a wonderful warmth all through my body like a slug of smooth liquor, but without the drunken side effects. I took off the cheaters and tried my eyes out.

The purple sparklers were fading, and I could just make out Escott's outline above the fence and went over.

"I think I'm okay now."

"Your eyes-"

"They're clearing already.""They're..."