Song in the Dark

Chapter 9

Alan Caine's rooms were at a good hotel, which meant Kroun and I had to get around the night man out front. It wasn't hard. From a drugstore phone booth I called the desk, said that I was Caine, gave the room number, and instructed him to let up two of my friends as soon as they came in.
"And show them respect," I imperiously added. "They're important." I was taking a chance the guy on the line knew Caine's voice. On the other hand, if I was bossy enough, he might fall for it. Must have worked; I got a weary
"yes, Mr. Caine" in reply.
Kroun drove half a block and parked across the street. We walked into the lobby. "I'll handle it," he said, and veered away. He murmured to the clerk there, who eventually nodded and handed over a key.
"When the cops start investigating, he'll remember your face," I said.
"Yeah, but by then I'll probably be back in New York, won't I? Besides, I got one of those hard-to-remember mugs."
He had to be kidding. The clerk noticed us, noticed Kroun, the moment we came in. There was no dampening of his magnetism at all. On the other hand I was wallpaper by comparison and content to stay that way.
He continued, "Most people only see the white streak in my hair, and I kept my hat on. Let's go."
The elevator was one of those fancy push-button ones that didn't need an operator Everything these days was going automatic, from gearshifts in cars to toasters. Looked like another job was being shut down in the name of progress.
We stopped on the fourth floor, doors magically heaving open on their own. I noticed the fire exit was close to Caine's room. That would be convenient for Strome when the time came.
Kroun unlocked, let the door swing open, and paused, listening. No radio going. In a place like this a loud radio would be investigated. So would gunshots. He went in, flipping on the light.
Yeah, Caine had done himself swell. His shades were up, the curtains wide. He had a wide slice of view of the street below. Nothing spectacular, but better than Jewel's or Evie's lot.
Evie didn't jump out at us. Neither did anyone else. We went through each room more thoroughly than they deserved.
Maid service had been in that day. The bed was in order, fresh towels in the bath, wastebaskets emptied. His clothes were hung up or in a hamper. In the living room was a studio piano parked against the outside wall, a stack of sheet music, and a well-stocked bar. He'd taken generous samples from all the bottles and had a preference for scotch to judge by the many brands.
The hotel's furnishings were in place but no pictures were on display except his own. Handsome portraits abounded. Caine had been a man thoroughly in love with himself.
"Ain't that cute?" Kroun pointed to a large, beautifully executed nude photo of Caine that had a place of honor hanging above the sofa.
Caine was posed full length, but sideways to the camera so nothing really showed, but there was no doubt he had a body to match his perfectly sculpted face. Every lean muscle showed in the play of shadow and light over his form. I knew a thing or two about photography from my days as a reporter, and understood the kind of work that had gone into making such a picture. You had to be able to get the whites white and the blacks black, yet preserve the countless shades of gray in between.
"That cost him a bundle," I said.
"Must have been stuck on himself real bad. Only guys I know who put up pictures of themselves are funny. I've never seen one go this far, though. Singers."
"Vanity's expensive, all right." I went to a desk and dug in, finding nothing as eye-catching as the portrait. Caine had bills, clothing receipts, old letters, and handwritten IOUs. Lots of those. Nothing for less than a hundred, and several for over a thousand. Trusting souls. They must have fallen for the pretty face and charm, too. The people he owed used nicknames mostly, but perhaps Derner might know some of them. Rather than mess up the investigation for the cops, I pulled out a hotel envelope from the stationery drawer and scribbled down those that were legible. One of them might have gotten fed up waiting to collect and decided to get fatal.
I found an address book and decided to take it along. Plenty of names-and nicknames-and numbers for both Chicago and New York exchanges to tell by the prefix letters. I could mail it to the cops later. Or not.
Kroun saw what I was doing, grunted approval, and went over the rest of the place again, poking in cupboards. He whistled once, having found a respectable cache of beer in the pantry, with an even larger number of empty bottles crated and ready to go back for the deposits. "Nothing," he announced when I was done copying. "No Evie, but some of her clothes are in his bureau. It's sweet stuff."
"Maybe he was going to pawn it," I said. I told him what Jewel had said about Caine hocking step-ins.
"You mean women buy stuff like that at a-" He shook his head. "You're kidding. I've never seen those at a pawn shop."
"Ah, Jewel was kidding. Maybe. My girlfriend doesn't tell me where she gets her scanties, and I don't say where I buy my drawers. I'm glad to leave it at that."
Kroun snorted a laugh. "That it for here?"
"Yeah."
I went down the fire escape to see where it came out, which was an alley. Strome could use it as a means of getting in the flat.
When I returned, Kroun considerately inquired after my health. Damn. I should have tied a string to my finger so I could remember to act feeble.
"I'm fine," I said.
"Just watching out for you. That's what friends do." He smiled. It was ingenuous, almost too much so, like he had a private joke.
Was he remembering what I put in his mind the other night? The words were a close echo to what I'd given him.
There'd be hell to pay if he shook off the suggestions and recalled my vanishing act. The hell would be in my head, since I'd have to put him under again. It could kill me.
We went out the front way, so the night clerk could see us leaving. He didn't ask for the key back, but considering the way Caine treated people, it was not surprising. The staff must have gone out of their way to avoid all unnecessary contact with their guest, and were willing to extend the policy to anyone associated with him.
Fine with me. We'd need that key for later.
Once outside, the cold returned to my bones. I'd almost been able to put it aside up in Caine's flat. It wasn't as bitter as before, but I would be glad when the night was over so I could lose myself in oblivion again. Even when unaware of the passing hours it was still a time of healing. I wanted it to heal me from this before it drove me crazy.
Crazier.
When we got back to Gordy's office Derner was at the big desk, up to his eyeballs in paperwork, phone calls, and loose cash from the casino. Another guy at a nearby table thundered away at a calculation machine, punching in numbers as fast as he could read from a clipboard and pulling the lever. Derner looked on my return with too much relief. I knew I was in for it.
Over on the couch, with two of the tougher lugs standing guard, lay a man, gagged, blindfolded, and hands bound behind him.
"What the hell is this?" I demanded, and only my surprise kept me from roaring the walls down.
"We found him for ya, Boss," said one of the lugs, grinning.
"Found who?"
Derner slammed the phone receiver and came around the desk. "These two brains ain't listening to me-"
"Found who?" The guy didn't look familiar.
"That kidnapper you want so bad, Boss," said the lug.
I stared at the figure on the couch. He wasn't moving much, but from what I could read off his posture he was scared shitless.
"The kidnapper?" said Kroun. Hands in pockets, he cocked his head, highly interested.
"Dugan?" I went closer. Gave what I could see of his face good long look. Pulled the gag off. The mouth was all wrong, and so was the voice that went with it.
"PleaseforGodsakedontkillme! I don't know nothing about anything! I swear! I got a wife and kids an-"
"Shuddup!" I snarled.
He shut up.
"Hey!" I said to Derner.
He approached. Cautiously. "Yeah, Boss?"
"Get rid of adding boy there, he's giving me a headache."
He stopped the man from punching more buttons and told him to take a short hike. The guy went, shutting the door. Except for faint band music that I could hear even through the soundproofed walls, it was very quiet.
"Okay," I said, tiredly. "Let's keep it short. You with the blindfold. What's your name?"
"J-j-john C-c-c-oward, sir. I'm from W-waukegan and-"
"Stop."
He stopped.
I found his wallet. Showed the driving license to the lugs. "Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Mr. John Coward of Waukegan?"
"Naw, he's the guy! He's just like the picture in the papers!"
"Yeah-yeah, just like an apple looks like an orange. You got the wrong man."
"But-"
I didn't need the evil eye to freeze him, I was that mad. He rocked back and put up a protesting hand. It cut no ice with me. "Get out of here before I ventilate the both of you. And spread the word that the hunt for Dugan is over."
"But if you ain't caught him yet..."
"Doesn't matter," I said through my teeth. "It's over, called off, finished, finito, shelved in a box. Anything about that you didn't understand?"
They shook their heads.
"Get out."
They got.
"Derner?"
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Did you have any kind of a conversation with them or Mr. Coward?"
"Yeah, Boss. I tried to tell those two, but they wouldn't listen. They said you'd tell it straight, so they parked here.
They found this guy in a craps game, made him to be Dugan, and been carting him all over Chicago trying to find you, first at your club, then your house, then that gumshoe's office..."
"Oh, my God." I rubbed a hand over my face. "They're dumber than Ruzzo."
"Well, they kept him in the car trunk so no one would see. Ruzzo wouldn't have done that..."
I snarled, and he corked it. Glanced at Kroun. He was doing his almighty best to not laugh. John Coward sat very still and trembled, his head high. He must have been able to see a little out the bottom of the blindfold. "Okay, I get the picture. Mr. Coward, I'm going to have someone take you back to wherever you belong."
"N-not gonna kill me?"
"Not going to kill you. They thought you were someone else, and I apologize for that. If you'd like to forget about this mistake, we will, too. I'll have to insist you keep the blindfold on for the time being. In this case what you don't know can't hurt you."
"Anything, whatever you want, anything, please! I won't say a word."
"That's good enough for me. I suggest you stay away from craps games in the future, hm?"
"Yes, whatever you want I'll do it!"
I went to the desk, shuffled together five hundred bucks, folding it into Coward's wallet. I put the wallet into his pocket. "Just remember: none of this happened."
"Nothing, not anything."
"If we see your face again, well, you wouldn't be happy. Now we'll get you back to the wife and kids where you belong. You just say where you want to go."
Derner took his arm and stood him up, walking him slowly toward the door like an invalid. I didn't relax until they were well down the hall.
"What a night." I groaned and eased onto the couch.
Kroun finally cut loose. He didn't quite bust a gut, that wasn't his style, but his laughter was catching. I succumbed in a much more moderate way. Oddly, the chill inside lessened. Yeah, I was onto something there in regards to a cure. It didn't last. It couldn't. Not with Caine's body still in the dressing room below and Jewel lying in her own blood and brains halfway across town. The cold came back, but I was able to ignore it better. Just had to stay busy, that's all.
Kroun found a chair, sat, and put his feet up on Gordy's desk. "You know what you should do?"
"Tell me."
"Find yourself a quiet shore on one of these lakes, settle in, and see what you can do about decimating the local fish population."
I'd have never suspected that he knew such big words. "I don't eat fish."
"That's not the point." He shook his head. "It's not about eating fish. It's about fishing. For fish. Just... just... fish."
He had an idea there. It was right up there with Escott thinking I should take a vacation. Kroun angled his hat over his face and clasped his hands over his stomach. I got the impression that was how he did his fishing.
Derner returned. "The guy's on his way home. Sorry about that, Boss."
"Never mind. The other boys know the hunt's canceled?"
"The word's getting spread now. No one's gonna be in a good mood over losing that ten Gs."
As though some of them could resent me even more. "They'll tough it out. You got the lowdown about the backstage people?"
"Yeah. A big fat nothing. They saw plenty of it."
"Good trick," said Kroun, from under his hat. "Seeing nothing."
"Who was backstage?" I asked.
Derner parked his duff on the desk and crossed his arms. "That I know of: the dancers, eight of them, the stage manager, Caine, and Mrs. Caine. Seven of the dancers were having a break while Caine did his solo. They said Evie left to hang around just offstage, waiting for him. She usually did."
"They all stayed in their dressing room?"
"Talking with Jewel Caine. She was happy about getting a job, wouldn't say where, and they was just gabbing.
You know. Hen-talk."
"Yeah. I know." My mouth went dry.
"Just before Caine's number finished Jewel went out for a smoke. She said she didn't want to bump into him when he came backstage. With all this talking the girls was running late and stayed in the dressing room to get ready for the next show. Next thing they know the stage manager shoves his snoot in and tells 'em to stay put, then locks the door.
They were still plenty mad about that, saying if there was a fire they'd be cooked, but-"
"Where was the stage manager all that time?"
"Well, after he found Caine he stayed in the hall to keep watch, so if there was a fire, he coulda let them out easy enough. He called one of the busboys over and sent him up to get me, then I ran into Strome on the way down. By then the manager got a couple more guys in to watch the other end of the hall. They didn't see anyone."
"What about before he found Caine?"
"He was up in the lighting booth. There was a problem with one of the spots, and he had to find a spare bulb. The lighting guy backed him. The manager didn't leave the booth until after Caine was offstage."
"So he had opportunity."
"But no reason. He's not big, either; you've seen him. Caine was near twice his size. He could have fought him off."
"Ya think?" asked Kroun. "If Caine was taken by surprise..."
Derner shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. The manager's been with us for years, and Caine was just another act to him. He cares more about this club's staging than anything else. Even if he had a reason to bump Caine, he'd have done it some other place. He's show people, and they're all crazy that way."
"Okay," I said. "He's off the suspect list until we get desperate. No one saw where Evie went?"
"The girls said she went with Caine into his dressing room. She was usually in there during his breaks. They thought they were being on the sly, but everyone knew."
"So maybe Evie did do it," said Kroun.
"When we find her we'll ask her," I said. "And Hoyle. And Ruzzo. And Mitchell." All I needed was to check hands and arms for scratches. I thought about sharing that detail with Kroun, but held back. Mitchell was still his boy.
Under his protection.
"Mitchell?" Derner was surprised and glanced uneasily at Kroun for his reaction, only there was none.
"Just covering the bases," I added. "Mr. Kroun doesn't mind."
"It's business," Kroun put in with a snort. "Biz-iii-nessss."
I got Derner's attention back. "Have you seen Mitchell tonight?"
"Only earlier. I heard he left before the ruckus."
"Find out for sure. See to it the guys are looking for all five of them and it's only to talk. I want everyone alive and undamaged. Let the boys know when I say talk I mean only talk. No sparring sessions, no turkey shoots."
"What if the ones they're after shoot first?"
He got a look from me.
"Okay-okay!" He left to take care of things. After a minute of thinking about it, I moved to the desk and the phone there. Kroun still had his feet up on the edge.
"Nice shoes," I said.
"Thanks."
I dialed Lady Crymsyn's lobby phone.
Wilton answered pretty fast this time. "Yes, Mr. Fleming?"
"How di-ahh, never mind. Everything going okay there?"
"No problems. We had a good night. Good shows, lotta people. You want I should get Mr. Escott?"
"Nah. Just tell him or Bobbi that I won't be back, so they'll have to close. It's business." They'd both understand.
Wilton said he'd pass the message, and I hung up.
"Biz-iii-nessss," Kroun drawled, then snorted again.
I checked the clock. "It's pretty late. If you're tired..."
"Just resting my eyes, kid. There's still one more errand to run tonight."
Kroun had surprised me about overseeing the transport job. I'd have thought he'd want to stay well clear of a potential disaster if anything went wrong. Instead, he sat in the front seat of Gordy's Caddy with me on the passenger side. We were parked just up the street from Caine's hotel. It was so late that only the deep-night creeps were out-
which included us and a select few others.
A gray panel truck sat backed into the alley between the hotel and the next building over. I couldn't see what was going on. That was good. None of us wanted the activity there to be visible to passing cars. I was mostly worried about cops. They would be the only others out at this hour. A sharp one might wonder why laundry was being delivered at this time of the morning.
Strome was one of the laundrymen. He'd turned up at the Nightcrawler with a couple of shut-mouthed goons, coverall uniforms, and the truck. An hour after the club was closed and the last straggling worker left, Strome helped the goons load in an exceptionally heavy laundry basket, then they drove off. Kroun and I followed at a distance.
Things went without a hitch. About five minutes after parking in the alley, Strome and his crew were out again and driving away. They must have used the service elevator instead of the fire escape stairs to get up to the right floor.
No matter, so long as they weren't caught. Kroun had supplied the key. Wiped clean, it was to be dropped on the desk in the room, just like he told the clerk earlier.
There would be a hell of a stink over this tomorrow. I felt sorry for the poor maid, who'd likely be the one to find the body. I also hoped the night clerk would be unhelpful about descriptions of Kroun and me. When it came down to it, we had a pretty lousy cover. Two mystery men go up to Caine's room. Caine is found dead there the next day, but not seen to come in by the front entrance. Any halfway-good cop would tear into that pretty quick and backtrack to the Nightcrawler. The best I could expect from our interference was to confuse things, buy some time to find the killer.
Then-if the hideous head pain would leave me alone for long enough-I could whammy him or her to marching in to the D.A.'s office to dictate a complete confession. We'd all be off the hook.
Of course, that was the ideal way for this to turn out. I focused on thinking about it, rather than the countless ways it could go wrong.
Kroun had cut the motor for those five minutes. He started the car again, and the heater blasted air against my legs.
I winced. "You still cold?" he asked.
"Yeah." I'd been fighting off shivering again, vowing to buy a heavier coat.
"Go home then. Get some sleep." He didn't look remotely tired himself.
"I need to see to things."
"What things? We're finished here. Even those guys are flying back to their roost." He gestured ahead, where the taillights of the panel truck made a turn and vanished. "Where's home?"
"Just take me to my club."
"You live there?"
"I flop in the office sometimes. When it's a late night."
"That's what we have here, ladies and gentlemen. A late night. Which way?"
As before, I gave directions, and he drove. He seemed to enjoy hauling the big car around corners.
Kroun dropped me at the front of Crymsyn, and said he knew how to get back to his hotel from there.
"Why are your lights still on?" he asked. "Someone in inside?"
"We leave 'em on to scare off burglars." That was better than trying to explain about Myrna.
He tossed an easy good night at me and drove off, the well-tuned Caddy barely making a sound. I hurried to unlock Crymsyn's front doors.
Kroun was right about this chill not being related to winter. I shook from it, but my teeth weren't chattering.
Shut the door against the cold, cruel night, turned to check the lobby. The overhead lights glowed, as well as the one behind the bar, almost as though Myrna knew I'd be coming in and would need them.
I'd often been here before on my own, and each time noticed the silence. Of course, with my hearing I could pick up on every damn creak and pop, which was ignorable or twanged at my nerves depending on my mood. I was in a foul and fragile frame of mind for now. Something about Kroun bothered me. The way he'd been acting at some points was worry-making.
The uncomfortable suspicion rolled through my head that Kroun might be immune to my kind of hypnosis. If he was crazy and able to hide it, then just pretended to be under the other night... I didn't want to believe it.
Distracted as I had been with the pain, he'd remained dead-eyed and not reacting the whole time-even when I'd vanished. No one could be that good at faking.
Unless he'd met another like me and knew what to do, what to expect. That might explain it. I was one of a rare breed. If Kroun knew about vampires that would account for his changed manner. He might see me as a possible ally to cultivate. Make me a friend, then I cease to be a threat.
Or I was imagining stuff, and this was all a load of crap.
I could just about hear Escott agreeing with me, too. Whatever I was reading from Kroun was certainly colored by what had I'd been through in the last week. There was no reason to trust any of it. I needed to take the advice I'd given to Gordy and get some rest.
Perhaps Kroun was just... I guess relaxed would be the word. He sure didn't match up with the ill-tempered man I'd first talked to on the phone or the commanding mob boss who could clear a room with just a look. Gordy said Kroun was scary. I wasn't seeing that anymore. Or feeling it. That must be what set off the doubts in my gut. Gordy wouldn't have used that word without good reason.
Capone was known to be as charming as all get out when he was in the mood for it. He was still a killer.
Maybe that was the scare about Kroun. Lull a person with the charm, then bang-bang-you're-dead.
Too late for me.
I went up to my office-lights were on there, too. The ledgers with Bobbi's neat entries were with that night's respectable take in the desk safe, meaning a bank run tomorrow. I put the money bag back, along with the .38 Detective Special I kept there. Sure, I was fairly bulletproof, but if I could head off trouble packing heat of my own, then why not?
Heat...
I turned up the radiator and hovered over it, hoping to thaw out.
It occurred to me that maybe I should have more blood inside my shuddering body.
Rotten thought.
I was not hungry, but the impulse strongly tugged to bring that living heat inside, to glut on it and drive away the death chill. In my mind I knew it would be futile, but the malicious darkness within urged otherwise.
Phone up a taxi, it said. There was time to squeeze in a trip to the Stockyards before dawn. Time to drink myself sick again.
I fought it off by telling myself it was too much trouble, would endanger me if I got caught by an early-morning yard worker. I ran through a few dozen other discouraging excuses of varying degrees of likelihood. All served to delay until the craving passed, and depression firmly took over, finally immobilizing me.
It's a sad thing when self-pity becomes a safe and welcome alternative for heading off self-destructive activities.
Left the office, went down to Bobbi's dressing room. I had some spare clothes shoved into the back of the closet there. No need to move her stuff out now that Jewel was dead.
Damnation.
Stripped and turned on the shower water as hot as possible, risking a scald to just stand with the spray square in my face. With no need to breathe I was there for a long while, the water hammering my eyelids. Lost track of how many times I soaped and scrubbed, soaped and scrubbed. I emptied the club's huge hot-water tank. Finally warm, or at least not cold, my skin was cherry red when I emerged.
Except for the long, thin, white scars.
I decided it was time to look at them. Adelle had said the face of the enemy. I should lose my fear of this, lose my hatred of them. On one hand the memory of getting them was as sharp as Bristow's knife, on the other, it was as though it had happened to a different man who had told me about a harrowing, but long-ago experience.
They still didn't seem to be fading. Was their trauma so great that they'd always be with me? How would Bobbi react to them?
If she saw them. If we ever made love again. Certainly never as long as I was unpredictable, out of control. I didn't dare touch her.
And it wasn't a big help standing here in her empty dressing room in front of an empty mirror.
I dressed quickly, went up to the office where the radio I'd not turned on now played. I didn't recognize the band or their song, must have been new, and sprawled on the sofa and stared at the ceiling and tried not to think of anything at all.
And, God, it hurt.
Too much.
This time I foiled the seizure by vanishing quick, before it could peak.
The floating helped. No heavy body to twitch and flop, no pathetic groaning. Instead, through my muffled hearing I picked up the radio's music. The song, whatever it was, helped steady me. I hovered over the couch. Its cushions each had a bag of my home earth sewn inside for those sleep-over days. I didn't know if its proximity would help.
I held formless for a long time and thought about how I'd floated in the stock pond as a kid. This was very much like it, except back then I didn't have to shut out bad memories.
One other sense was left to me in this state: touch, and it was more muffled than my hearing. I could feel objects, get a general idea of something's shape, size, and the space around me. And people. I could touch them, leaving behind a profound cold.
I felt someone in the room with me. Couldn't think who it might be, but wasn't unduly alarmed. Escott and Bobbi had keys. Why would either of them come here at this late hour, though?
They wouldn't, not without making more noise. Bobbi usually said hello to Myrna. Escott would have called out to me by now.
So who was here? Kroun? He could have picked the lock to get in. I reached out, thinking whoever it was would soon have to move or complain about the cold, and I could identify the voice. Only that didn't happen. The person stayed put.
So I moved. I floated into the hall through the door and re-formed, then stepped back in the office again.
I fully expected to see someone sitting on that couch.
Nothing. I was seeing nothing. A lot of it.
But I had sensed... uh-oh. Mouth dry again. I cleared my throat.
"Myrna?"
No reply. But I knew.
In taking a breath to speak I was overwhelmed by the scent of roses.