Part 4 (2/2)

”Neither does Hoyle.”

”He's the boss on this.”

”Sez him. I'm running things, not Hoyle.”

”Sez you.” Ruzzo grinned. Both of them.

Then they stopped being there. Both of them.

I couldn't understand it. Had the night swallowed them up? Were they like me and had disappeared into thin air?

What the h.e.l.l... ?

I was lying on my face on cold metal, which was moving under me. Rumbling through my body was the throaty noise of a truck motor going at a good clip.

Ow. Head pain. Not right.

What the h.e.l.l... ?

Ow. Bad now, very bad.

What the h.e.l.l? Again.

I repeated that several times, eventually working out that I'd been bushwhacked. While Ruzzo kept me distracted someone must have come up behind and... ow... yes, the back of my head. A familiar tenderness, bruising, and a knot. That's where he'd got me. With wood. Had to be wood. It was the only thing that could put me out without causing me to vanish. So... was it dumb luck or had someone known what would work?

Strome? Sure, he was a killer, but he had no reason to lay me flat. Unless he had special orders from Kroun. But I'd neutralized the threat.

Hoyle. Much more likely. He wasn't the forgiving type, not that I'd have apologized to him for busting him one over the dancer. He and Ruzzo were shoulder-to-shoulder apparently. Against me. Despite Gordy. Despite Kroun.

Oh, h.e.l.l. This c.r.a.p I didn't need.

Chapter 3

I BLINKED against blackness. Very little light filtered through the painted-over rear door window, just enough for me to ascertain I was alone in the back of the panel truck that had shared the alley with Gordy's Cadillac. No one had bothered tying me up. Chances were, after clobbering me they noticed I wasn't breathing and a.s.sumed I'd been killed.

Which would leave them with a body on their hands. Better to get rid of me and delay the news of my death than have someone from the Nightcrawler's kitchen staff stumbling over the corpse a few minutes later.

Feeling queasy, I thought of how Strome had sunk Bristow and his boys in the water to lose them. Nope. That wasn't going to happen to me. I'd had too much of that d.a.m.ned lake already.

When I felt steady enough to get up I d.a.m.n near cracked my head on the low ceiling. Not much s.p.a.ce in here for a tall guy. On hands and knees I worked over to the windows, finding my hat along the way. My head wasn't to the point of supporting that much weight yet. h.e.l.l, even my hair was too heavy. I folded the thing and stuffed it in a pocket, glad it wasn't one of my fancier fedoras. Lately I'd taken to wearing only my second- and even third-best clothes, fearing (rightly) that something like this situation might drop itself on me like a net. If I didn't take things in hand with these mugs, I'd end up with a p.a.w.nshop wardrobe.

I pulled out my keys, using one to sc.r.a.pe away paint from a corner of the window. When I had a peephole I looked through.

Not a lot to see. Flat, snow-crusted fields. Farm country. How long had I been out? I held my watch up to the feeble light. An hour? The way I felt it had to be more than that. The watch still ticked, though, the time correct. No one at my club would miss me until closing, which was in the wee hours. It was still well on the right side of midnight, though to me it felt much later.

The rumbling changed in tone as the driver made a sharp turn. The truck shook like an earthquake, indicating unpaved road. I braced, holding on to a length of wood bolted to the metal side. d.a.m.ned wood. Why couldn't they have just shot me? It'd have ruined a suit, but I could have taken care of them back in town. Idiots. Both of them. And Hoyle.

I deliberated about vanis.h.i.+ng and sieving through to the front compartment to surprise the driver.

Not at this speed. The peephole showed an undistinguished country lane of frozen churned mud that made the truck bounce and skid erratically. This kind of road at this time of year tolerated st.u.r.dy vehicles going no more than ten miles an hour, if that much. We were moving considerably faster. I didn't care to be in a crash and have to walk home.

And if we were an hour's drive from Chicago, meaning a long walk, then I wouldn't be seeping my way out the back to escape, either. If my luck ran bad-and lately I had no reason to expect different-I'd have to improvise shelter from the sun. That meant spending the day away from my home earth, which meant I'd be a prisoner of whatever nightmares my brain threw out. After Bristow's work on me, it'd have plenty of horrors to draw upon. No, I wouldn't put myself through that. Better to wait until we stopped, then hijack the truck, leaving them stranded.

And roughed up. A lot. Yeah, I liked that idea.

We slowed somewhat. I took another look out the back. Lots of snowy acreage, twin furrows of tire tracks leading back the way we'd come and... headlights in the distance. Someone following? Maybe it was Hoyle in his own car, taking it easy to keep from breaking an axle. I'd break his head given the chance.

A s.h.i.+ft in the gears and the truck's voice. Slowing even more, then finally coasting to a stop.

We were in an open yard by a low metal barn. A single electric light burned bluely against the dark. It was on a tall, lonely pole under a shade shaped like a Chinese hat. The cone of light from the oversized bulb covered a wide area before the barn. A car was already there, and four men emerged from it. One of them opened the trunk and handed out... what?... baseball bats?... to the others.

The truck doors in front slammed shut almost in unison, and Ruzzo joined their friends getting something swingable. They must have thought I was still alive, then, or they'd have been hauling me out instead. I'd heard about this kind of send-off. Find a deserted spot for some batting practice on some poor son of a b.i.t.c.h, then either leave what's left in the cornfield for Farmer Jones to find come harvest, or make a shallow grave in the stalks. It was too late in the season for that; harvest was long over and the ground frozen, but they might not care.

Just leaving me under a drift of snow would be enough until spring. Scavenging animals would do what they were best at and...

Shut the h.e.l.l up, it's not going to happen.

The star-filled gray sky layered the surrounding landscape in a silvery sheen, turning it to day for me. In that soft dream-glow the electric light sparked brighter than a diamond. So, just how would I take out half a dozen guys armed with something that could actually stop me? One at a time? Sounded good.

A car horn blared in the distance. The six men all looked back the way we'd come, their attention on the approaching headlights I'd seen. Just how big a party was this?

Well, since they were distracted...

I vanished and slipped out under the door. A smooth, invisible tearing over open ground to the count of five, then I slowed to wash gently against the very solid side of the tin barn. Jeez, this was perfect. I glided on, keeping the flat surface of the barn's wall on my left, reaching an opening, and going in. An instant later I was solid again, standing upright in brisk freezing air I barely felt. I was in time to take in the show.

Hoyle, Ruzzo, and four other guys I knew by sight were less than twenty feet away. The start of a nice little gang.

The second car was Gordy's Cadillac. It braked majestically; the motor cut. Strome got out. He didn't look too good, seemed to carry himself gingerly. Though he wasn't obviously showing it, I got the impression he was p.i.s.sed off.

”Hoyle,” he said, by way of greeting.

Along with a baseball bat, Hoyle had a gun ready in his other hand. ”What the h.e.l.l are you doin' here?”

Strome would be armed, but made no move for his shoulder holster and the semiauto .45 he kept there. He looked around the yard, probably for me. My broken body was not lying out in the snow. Was he in on this? When Gordy got shot Strome had been more than ready to leave for greener pastures, but I couldn't think why he'd throw in with Hoyle.

Hoyle repeated the question. He tossed the bat to one of his men, who caught it neatly and held it ready to use.

Strome was able to summon some cold-eyed threat to pa.s.s around, enough so four of the mugs backed off a few steps. He was still one of Gordy's lieutenants, after all. ”Whatever you're doing here, you stop.”

”Not doing nothing, Strome. Just a little batting practice.” Hoyle's smile was ugly. There was nothing specifically wrong with it, and that's why it made my back hairs rise.

”You boys pack it up and go back, and I won't say nothing to the boss.”

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