Part 27 (1/2)
Valentine checked again, seeing the red circle with cryptic squiggles stamped over the face of Ben Franklin on each bill.He picked up the now almost-empty sack. ”Thanks, Duke. I want my first trip to Chicago to be a memorable one.”
”Don't mention it. If you decide to move here, I might be able to connect you to a job. For, say, fifteen percent out of your first year's paychecks. I could even need a favor myself someday. You might be able to help me with that, and I'd be able to give you a h.e.l.l of a lot more in return than your captain, or whatever he is. And Chicago beats the h.e.l.l out of living up in Cheeseland.”
”It's my kind of town,” Valentine agreed.
Valentine arranged for his room with Denise. The room was small and clean and had a mattress to die for. Valentine inspected the late Virgil Ames's pistol again. It was an old army Colt automatic, firing the powerful .45 ACP cartridge. It wouldn't necessarily stop a Reaper, but it would give it something to think about. The gun belt also held four spare magazines, all of which were full. With the ammunition in the gun, that gave him thirty-five rounds. More than enough, as he did not want to use the weapon except as a last resort.
Valentine stretched out on the bed and forced himself to sleep for two hours. He showered and put the gun belt and his knife back in his pillowcase sack.
He ate downstairs in the Club room. The food was simple, satisfying, and overpriced: He paid twenty-five dollars for an overloaded sandwich and a pot of tea. He looked at an employee working on a case that held smoking paraphernalia and had a thought.
”Excuse me, sir,” he said to the server behind the counter. ”Do you have any waterproof matches?”
”Huh?” the waiter asked, flummoxed.
”He means the big matches in the tins,” the man arranging cigars in the display case said.
Valentine noticed a tattoo with a dagger stuck through a skull on his arm. ”They work good even in the rain.”
”Yeah, that's what I'm looking for,” Valentine agreed. ”I'm outside a lot, and it's a b.i.t.c.h to light a cigar in wet weather.”
”Here's what you want,” the cigar man said, putting a circular tin in front of Valentine.
Valentine unscrewed the lid and extracted a three-inch match. The entire thing was lightly coated with a waxy substance. Valentine struck one on the strip at the side of the tin, and it flared into a white light. He could feel the heat on his face. ”That's magnesium,” the man explained. ”It'll get a cigar going in any wind, unless your tobacco is soaked, of course.”
”Hey, thanks. Can't find these in Wisconsin. How much for a tin?”
”They ain't cheap. Fifty bucks for a tin of ten matches.”
”If I buy five tins, will you give them to me for two hundred?”
”Sure, seeing as you're a friend of the man upstairs.”
”Done,” Valentine agreed, and toked the man the other fifty.
”You must not get to Chicago often.”
”No, there's lots of things here that you can't get in Wisconsin. Like the Zoo.”
The tattooed man looked wistful. ”Yes, but I can't afford to go there often. Once in a while I buy a cheap pa.s.s off the Duke.”
”Ever been to the Black Hole?”
”Oh sure, I've checked it out a couple of times. I've got a strong stomach for that kind of thing. Some of it even turned me on.”
”Do they ever let regular guys get at the girls, or is it just shows?”
”Oh, if you've got a couple thou in cash, they got these rooms in the bas.e.m.e.nt.
Soundproofed, you know. And you can do anything you want. Anything. After all, the women and men in the Black Hole, well, they're the people that the Kur decided deserved something worse than the Loop.”
”You don't know anyone who works there, do you?”
”Nahh, sorry. Wish I did. But you seem to know how to toke. Just get the money in the right hands, and you'll be fine.”
Valentine paid for his matches and took his leave of the eatery. He approached Wideload, still on duty, blocking the door like a parked dump truck.
”Leaving?” Wideload said, stepping aside to open the door after a glance outside. ”Fun starts soon.”
Valentine squeezed past the human obstacle and entered the street.
He turned and looked up the sidewalk in the direction of Lake Michigan. A black van, its windows reinforced with wire, stood on the curb in front of him. The initials CSS and a small logo were stenciled in white on its side. The Chicago Security Service?
Two grubby youths leaning on a corner stubbed out their half-smoked cigarettes.
A silent siren went off in Valentine's head. Tobacco in Chicago wouldn't be wasted by street punks. He heard footsteps behind him.
For a moment his body betrayed him: His legs turned to bags of water. When the handle on the back door of the CSS van turned, he knew the trap was being sprung.
Two ma.s.sive arms enveloped him. Wideload locked his hands in a deadly variation of the Heimlich maneuver, but instead of pus.h.i.+ng up into his diaphragm he pulled Valentine to him in a rib-squeezing embrace. Valentine's breath left him.
A second pair of men approached from across the street.
One, tall and thin wearing a red tank top and pair of chain-mail gloves, removed a pair of familiar sungla.s.ses as he ran toward Wideload and his victim.
”You're-,” Wideload started to say, when Valentine brought his booted heel down hard on his captor's instep. He thrust back his head, and felt a solid thunk. The bear hug ceased.
The four men closing on him were trying to trap him between the Clubs Flush wall and the CSS van. Its rusty back door swung open. He lashed out with his foot, kicking the door closed again. It shut on something, fingers or a foot; m.u.f.fled howls echoed from inside the van.
He ran across the street, accidentally spilling a pair of riders on bicycles as they turned on their rubberless wheels to avoid him. The four pursuers tried to triangulate in on him, but he called on his speed and his legs answered. He cornered around a parked horse wagon so fast his feet skidded on the pavement. But he maintained his balance... just.
With open sidewalk ahead of him he broke into a loping run. A few loungers on doorsteps stared as he pa.s.sed. He chanced a glance over his shoulder; the four were sprinting to catch him.
Thirty seconds pa.s.sed, and the four became three. In another minute, the three were two.
By the time Valentine turned a corner, running up a series of short cluttered blocks, the two had become one: the tall man with the chain-mail gloves. His red tank top was dark with sweat.
Valentine turned down an alley and found breath in his body to do one more sprint. He zigzagged around fetid mountains of refuse, scattering rats with his pa.s.sage. His pursuer just managed to start down the alley as Valentine turned the corner at the other end. To the east down this street he saw an end to the buildings. I must be near the lakesh.o.r.e... and the Zoo.
He pressed himself up against the corner and listened to his pursuer's heavy breathing and heavier footsteps as he trotted up the alley. The man slowed, sucking wind as he approached the alley's exit.
When he knew the man was about to come around the corner, Valentine lunged. He brought his knee up into the winded man's groin. Chain-Mail Gloves managed to avoid the blow, but Valentine's thick thigh still caught him in the stomach. The blow was just as debilitating: The Chicago air left Chain-Mail Gloves's lungs in a gasp, and he bent over in breathless agony. In no mood for a fair fight, Valentine grabbed his a.s.sailant by his hair and brought his knee up again. Cartilage gave way with a sickening crunch. The man went down, now out of what wasn't much of a fight to begin with.
The Wolf shuddered, still keyed up. He pulled the gloves from the unconscious man and added them to his sack of weapons, then trembled again. But for a different reason.
A Reaper. Coming, and already so near.