Dead Men's Dust Read online

  Cain saw the headlights flick on. The engine coughed to life like a grizzly stirring from hibernation. The SUV barely rolled forward a couple of yards before braking violently. Ambrose had forgotten all about subtlety and blending in, if the way he stomped to the back of the vehicle was anything to go by.

  “Gotcha,” Cain said.

  Ambrose crouched down by the flat tire, running his hands over it as though he could magically restore it by touch alone. Unfortunately, he was no sorcerer. Defeated, he stood up with his hands on his hips, and even heard from across the parking lot his language was choice.

  It would be so simple to come up behind Ambrose while he was distracted. Push the point of his scaling knife into the juncture of his neck and clavicle. Dig down for the vital organs in one rapturous moment. End him right there and then. At his leisure, Cain could search the dead man’s possessions and regain that which belonged to him.

  “Yes, that’s as it could be.”

  That was exactly as his plan had gone. By now it was hours later, his discussion with the dippy receptionist wouldn’t be connected to an apparent mugging gone wrong. Cain could go merrily on his way, his sense of justice appeased.

  “But, thief, that isn’t how it’s going to be.”

  The enigma of Ambrose’s true identity, and what it was—who it was—he was hiding from, was enough to give pause to anyone with an inquiring mind. And don’t let it be said that Tubal Cain was not a deep thinker. Yes, his needs might be basic, but he thought long on the ways of fulfilling those needs.

  His curiosity was more than piqued. It was on turbodrive. He wanted to let this play out a little longer. “Who knows, thief,” he decided, “it might make for an interesting conclusion.”

  17

  EVENTS OVERTOOK OUR PLAN WAY TOO QUICKLY FOR MY LIKING. Not that I was surprised; isn’t that always the way plans go? That’s always been the flaw with our tactics. Murphy’s Law strikes again.

  It was no longer a case of a one-two move, but a full headlong charge for the top.

  The man I’d knocked unconscious didn’t give me enough to make a considered judgment. There could be as few as three men with Petoskey or as many as a dozen. Think the worst, and anything else is a bonus.

  It was a full balls-to-the-wall assault.

  We headed for the upper floor with our guns blasting. The intent wasn’t to shoot anyone per se, but to cause as much confusion as possible. Petoskey was a rat, and everyone knows what rats do on a sinking ship. I ruled out the fire escape at this corner of the building, guessing that Petoskey would head for the one we’d used to gain access.

  “I’m going back across, cut off any escape route,” I told Rink. “You okay with that?”

  He racked the pump action. “As long as I’ve got ammo, I’ll give ’em hell.”

  “When the shooting stops, I want you to come up and join me as quickly as you can.”

  “Damn, and here was me thinking it was time for a coffee break.”

  “After we’re done I’ll buy you coffee and doughnuts.”

  “Make ’em jelly doughnuts and you’ve got a deal.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Another volley of fire gained the attention of those on the populated side. I backtracked across the building.

  Speed was an issue. Call me cautious, but I made my way through the building as though every nook hid an assassin. Better a minute late than thirty years too early at the pearly gates.

  The remains of the door Rink had blasted were like an open mouth full of jagged teeth. The room beyond exuded the stench of battle like sour breath. Apart from the stink, the room was now empty. The unconscious man had obviously come to, and he wasn’t as ill informed about our chances as he was making out. At least he’d had the sense to get the hell away from the shitstorm raging above. The man who had taken a bullet in the shoulder was gone, too. A smear of blood on the window ledge confirmed their escape route.

  Happy that no one would come on me from behind, I ran along the corridor. Behind me, the boom of Rink’s shotgun resonated as he unloaded it toward the upper floor.

  I headed upward on the other staircase. Natural functions sometimes take a backseat when adrenaline shrieks through your veins; I took the full flight of stairs before I remembered to breathe. At the top I paused to exhale, sucked in air, then stepped out into a corridor much shorter than the one I’d passed through below.

  A little over thirty feet away, the corridor had been blocked. What appeared to be a new metal door had been installed. It reverberated under the ring of urgent voices from beyond. A background accompaniment of baying dogs and shotgun blasts confirmed that I’d found Petoskey’s hideout.

  Cursory inspection of the metal door told me it was a no-go. There was no handle on this side, no keyhole. The soldier in me said it would be almost impregnable to anything short of heavy artillery. Abandoning the door, I stepped into the office on my left. There was the usual jumble of wrecked furniture and scattered documents.

  I made my way to the wall and put an ear to it. I was quite sure that all the action was at the far end, and the possibility of getting hot lead in my ear was pretty slim.

  The wall was made of Sheetrock, and by the swollen roar of activity beyond it I could tell it wasn’t as heavily fortified as the door. I crouched down and took the KA-BAR from my boot.

  It took less than a minute to cut away a torso-sized portion of the wall. Beyond was a second layer of the same substance. Why the Americans called this brittle stuff Sheetrock always amused me. Using only the tip of my knife, I bored a small circle in the plaster and peered into Petoskey’s hideout.

  As if on cue, Rink stopped firing. Makes me wonder if the link we share exceeds mere intuition and laps at the shore of the preternatural. Then again, he may have been reloading his shotgun. Whatever, the lull in activity was just what I needed.

  Through my peephole, I could see an open room that ran the breadth of the building. A group of men gathered by a second doorway at the far end had to be the hired guns. Their attention was on the stairwell below them. Two more men held pit bull terriers on leashes. The dogs were blood-soaked and torn in a number of places. Unconcerned by the madness of humans, they strained at their leashes to continue their own private war. That meant that the final three men standing by a jerry-built arena in the center of the floor were the highfliers. One of them had to be Sigmund Petoskey.

  Okay, quick calculation and what did I have?

  Ten men in total.

  Two dogs.

  It wasn’t the most difficult summation.

  The real question was: Could I handle them all?

  Whether or not I was capable wasn’t an issue. I was going to, and that was it.

  18

  WHEN I WAS A SMALL CHILD, I LIVED IN A HOME POOR IN money but rich in love. What my parents were unable to provide in fine food and modern conveniences, they made up for with hugs and kisses and quality time spent with their only child. I don’t miss having little in the way of material belongings, but I do miss my dad.

  After my dad died and my mother remarried, things changed. I still didn’t possess the treasures children yearn for, but I did get a little brother. But then it was my brother who got more of the hugs and kisses. And I looked elsewhere for comfort.

  My father instilled in me a love of books. Where other kids got stereo record players and portable TVs in their bedrooms, I had a collection of dog-eared novels passed down to me by my dad. Poe, Lovecraft, and R. E. Howard were my favorites. Next in line came the comic book superheroes that I grew into when a newspaper delivery route gave me the pocket money to spend on treats. Sometimes I wonder if the books taught me about the horrors of our world, while the superheroes taught me how to deal with them. Whatever, they did give me a fertile imagination.

  Probably explained why I envisioned myself as the Incredible Hulk when I erupted through the wall. The Hulk had an extraordinary strength he used against his enemies, but I didn’t have that luxury. I c
ame out shooting in a spray of dust and plaster particles.

  I didn’t aim to hit anyone and fired above their heads. Combined with my Hulk act, it was enough to startle everyone into immobility. Only the dogs responded with panic, circling and ensnaring their handlers with their leashes as they spun.

  “No one move or the next bullet will kill you,” I shouted. In reality, if all of them had turned on me at once, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. The thing was, without exception, everyone thought I was shouting directly at him. No one wants to be a dead hero.

  “Guns on the floor,” I shouted as I took a half-dozen paces into the room. The three men nearest me weren’t armed. They thrust their hands toward the ceiling.

  The dog handlers were too busy trying to untangle themselves to pay me immediate attention. Stuck between me and Rink, who approached the opposite door at a gallop, the five guards at the far end quickly dropped their weapons and kicked them away.

  “Inside the room, boys,” I heard Rink shout. His voice jostled them like bowling pins.

  My unorthodox entrance, not to mention the demanding muzzle of my SIG, commanded compliance. The three men by the fighting arena moved quickly toward the plastic-shrouded wall, their hands seeking heaven.

  A shadow in the doorway morphed into Rink. It was good to see the big guy again. He shot me a wink as he ushered the five goons before him.

  “Get your butts in the ring and sit on your hands,” Rink told them. They crowded into the center of the fighting area. Space was at a premium as they jostled to be farthest away from the 12-gauge. Rink turned to the two dog handlers. “You, too.”

  One of the handlers, a skinny youth with a huge nose covered in acne, twisted his face at Rink. He was uglier than his mutt. At least the dog had an excuse; it had already gone a couple of rounds.

  “Got a problem with your hearing?” Rink demanded.

  “The dogs will fight,” he said.

  “Then it’s your job to stop them, Zit Boy,” Rink said. “Now get the hell in there. One of you at either end.”

  The big-nosed youth entered the ring first, pulling his struggling dog to him. When he was as settled as he could be, the second dog handler entered. Rink pushed the gate to, flipped a catch in place. No one moved in the arena. The tough guys huddled together. Dogs’ teeth and a 12-gauge shotgun made the proverbial rock and hard place.

  Harvey’s surveillance shots of Sigmund Petoskey came in handy. He looked like a typical wealthy businessman. Shirt, tie, suit, and shiny shoes. Well groomed and manicured. He looked out of place in this setting. Even if I’d never viewed a photo of him, I’d have picked him out by the contempt that radiated from him.

  “Hi, Siggy!” I said. “Like to bring your ass over here?”

  Petoskey’s eyebrows rose and he lifted a finger to his chest.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “I want a word with you.”

  Pointing my SIG at his chest, I indicated the bulge in his breast pocket where ordinary businessmen would carry a notebook.

  “Lose the piece.”

  Petoskey pulled a Berretta out of the shoulder rig. Two fingers; like he’d done it before. He placed the gun on the floor at his feet, kicked it away from him.

  “Okay. Get over here.”

  He stood his ground.

  “You are making one hell of a mistake, you goddamn asshole,” he directed at me. With his Eastern European name, you’d half expect him to have the stilted accent of a villain from a James Bond movie. You would be wrong. Just as Rink is a contradiction of his ancestry, so is Sigmund Petoskey. He spoke with the cultured tones of an Ivy Leaguer with top honors.

  Admittedly, his first words weren’t anything you’d expect from one of such a background. Then again, you only have to recall Rink’s summing up of Siggy’s childhood to imagine where the gutter language came from.

  “No,” I told him. “You’re the one making the mistake.”

  “Who the hell are you, coming here and shooting up my place? My personal friend the mayor will have something to say about this!”

  “I don’t give a damn what the mayor says,” I told him.

  “He’ll have your job for this,” Petoskey said. He rounded on Rink. “And yours.”

  “Like I said,” I told him, “you’re the one making the mistake. We aren’t police officers, Siggy. For all I care, your friend the mayor can kiss my ass.”

  For a second time Petoskey’s eyebrows sought the top of his head.

  “Not the police?”

  “Not the police,” I echoed.

  “Then you’re with Hendrickson. I should have known…”

  His words faltered at the shake of my head.

  “I don’t know Hendrickson from Jimmy Hendrix,” I told him.

  “So who the blazes are you?”

  “Someone who needs answers. And I want them quickly.”

  Petoskey looked at his feet, gave a slow shake of his two-hundred-dollar haircut. Something dawned on him and he slowly raised his face to look at me. A scowl broke across his features. “This is about John Telfer, isn’t it?”

  John was indeed why I was there, but I’d expected to have to draw the information from him like rusty nails from a knotty plank.

  “Where is he?” I demanded. “If you’ve hurt him I’ll—”

  Petoskey sneered. “You think I have him?”

  “Maybe not here, but I believe you know where he is.”

  “Look,” he said, stepping toward me in defiance, “I already told your friends I don’t know where he is. The son of a bitch took off owing me a substantial sum of money. Do you think if I knew where he was, I wouldn’t have brought him back by now? Jesus Christ, how many times have I got to tell you people the same damn thing?”

  I didn’t answer.

  This wasn’t a put-on. Petoskey’s words rang true. He really didn’t know where my brother was. So it was pointless questioning him any further regarding John’s whereabouts. Time for a change of tack.

  “You’ve already spoken to my friends?” I asked.

  “Twice!” he said. Full of impotent fury, he held out his hands. An expansive gesture, taking in the entire room. “And now this?”

  “Okay, Siggy. Just cool it,” I told him.

  “I’ll do no such thing.” He lifted a stubby finger toward me. “You come in here shooting and making demands. Now you want me to act reasonably toward you?”

  “Unless you want me to start shooting again, you will,” Rink drawled from across the room. For emphasis, he aimed the shotgun directly at the group of men in the dog-fighting pit.

  Petoskey wore righteous anger like a dead man’s suit. He folded his arms across his chest. Challenged Rink with a sneer. Then he turned it on me. It faltered when I shoved my SIG into the dimple on his chin.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Who are these friends that you’re talking about?”

  “You should know,” Petoskey said.

  “Indulge me,” I said.

  “Your friends from the government. Who else?”

  It was a war to keep my features flat, but this was a surprise, and it probably showed. Petoskey misread me. Maybe it was the way I allowed my gun to drop from his chin.

  “See. I knew it,” he announced. His two friends nodded along with him. One of them opened his mouth to say something. I shot him a warning look. The man clammed up immediately.

  To Petoskey I said, “You’re saying that CIA agents have spoken to you about John Telfer?”

  “Aren’t you listening to me? Twice they’ve been at my office. Twice they’ve demanded to know the location of John Telfer. I wish I’d never seen Telfer’s goddamn face!”

  “These agents actually said they were CIA?” I asked.

  “They didn’t need to. I can smell a spook a mile off.”

  “So you’re only guessing?” I said, with not a little hope.

  Petoskey shook his head. “They didn’t exactly introduce themselves, if that’s what you mean. One of them flashed a badge the first t
ime they came around; they didn’t bother the second time. Pretty much the way you haven’t now, eh?”

  Again I didn’t answer. CIA agents, by virtue of their secretive trade, aren’t in the habit of flashing badges or announcing their identities. Petoskey had to be confused, must have misread the acronym on the badge. It would be easily done, I suppose, though I doubted that the Child Support Agency would go to such lengths to trace an absent father.

  Judging my silence to be guilt, he said, “You can go back and tell your bosses that they’re barking up the wrong tree. For the third time, I do not know where John Telfer is. Have you got that?”

  We had lost a major advantage, and unless we started shooting again, it was an unsalvageable situation.

  On the same wavelength, Rink moved toward me. His shotgun still menaced the men in the arena. No one moved. It wasn’t so much the fear of being shot as that they thought we were CIA. Worse than going up against the police, they weren’t prepared to risk the ire of the government. They wouldn’t make a move. Apparently, neither would we. Not now that we’d been uncloaked as government agents.

  Petoskey was wearing a smug look on his face.

  “Quite a mess, eh?” he crowed.

  Yeah, it was a mess, but not for the reason he thought. We backed toward the demolition job I’d done on the wall.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake. Use the door, will you?” Petoskey said.

  “We’ll leave as we came,” I said as we continued to back out.

  “Do me a favor,” Petoskey called as we stepped through the hole into the abandoned office. “When you do find Telfer, tell him I want my ten grand. Plus thirty percent interest. And you can tell him not to show his face around any of my places again. He’s not welcome. Tell him he can post the money to me.”