AEGIS Tales 2, page 12
part #8 of Airship Daedalus Series
✽✽✽
Henry pushed the old Ford as fast as it would go on the narrow, winding road. He thought he’d surely be chased, but thus far, he had the road to himself. He kept the pedal down hard anyway. The highway crested a small rise and bore down into the surrounding pine forest, winding up and down and around the huge trees. The curves tightened and the road narrowed further. The big truck lunged with every corner, forcing him to grip harder. Suddenly, in the midst of a steep right turn, Henry’s fingers fell right through the wheel. It quickly spun to the left as the turn continued right. He wildly clawed the air in front of him, grabbed nothing. The truck left road and the last thing Henry saw as the vehicle flew towards the enormous tree rising into the sky... the brightest red flashing he’d ever seen.
✽✽✽
Deke Morris pulled his old Ford TT off the edge of the road and peered with concern at the remains of a delivery truck plowed into a tree about a hundred feet into the thick forest. He couldn’t tell how long it had been down there. He carefully scrambled down the rough shoulder and approached.
“Hello?” he called out. No answer.
The truck had hit hard, wrapping the front end nearly around the base of the old tree. He looked into the crushed cabin and sighed in relief. Whoever had been driving must have escaped, there was no sign. There also was, thankfully, no blood anywhere inside, even though the damage was extensive. He whistled softly to himself. A soft orange light caught his attention. He dropped down and leaned under the collapsed steering wheel and plucked and odd little bracelet off the floor. It had a soft rubbery band and some sort of glowing decoration. He turned it over in his hand. “Vera’ll love this,” he smiled to himself and dropped the find into his pocket.
The Ghost Gets Around
by James Stubbs
Douglas Graves, known on his bad days as the vigilante The Gunshade, could count on one hand, hell, one finger, how many times he’d had a woman fall on his car from the sky. Yet, this single extraordinary occurrence was happening to him right now. Her body made an uncomfortable whump against the hood of his Ford DeLuxe before his forward speed carried her back into his windscreen.
It cracked but held.
He watched in growing comprehension as the woman frantically scrabbled for and miraculously managed to grip the seam between the glass and the engine cowling to avoid falling off. Her panicked gaze darted his way.
He couldn’t mistake those blue eyes and cheekbones anywhere.
Edna Haskell.
He should have known.
In his last adventure as The Gunshade, scourge of the underworld, Graves saved this particular overly snoopy reporter from an almost certain death in a fiery warehouse ambush. To be fair, the ambush had been for him, not her, but she’d blundered into the middle of it, which made it as much her problem as his now.
The powerful flathead V-8 under the hood protested as he let off the accelerator, allowing her to slip unceremoniously to the running board. The pale face that stared back at him almost matched his own, if nowhere near as gaunt.
“Do you normally throw yourself at strange men, Miss Haskell?” he asked, watching as her hands made a white-knuckle death grip on the rear mirror and passenger door.
No biting reply came back. Dear Lord, this was serious.
He’d hoped to provoke some sort of outrage by poking at one of the sore spots he knew she had, her sex and its perception as being weak. He’d known enough women throughout his many lifetimes to know that was about as big a lie as there was but, at this point, it wasn’t so much the truth he wanted, but the indignant anger he was looking for.
The Gunshade sighed and slowed to a stop. It looked like Albert Vincelli was going to have to take his chances with Detective Harris and his goon squad. Lucky him. Ordinarily someone as small time as Vincelli, a two-bit confidence man, wouldn’t be worth the time nor the bullet, but crime was at a low ebb. After The Gunshade’s narrow escape from the warehouse fire, Alfonso Bianchi, the mob boss who’d orchestrated the trap, had gone to ground and nothing Graves had done had managed to flush him or his gang out of hiding. He suspected that he shouldn't expect a Christmas card.
“Get in,” he commanded.
She did, without one single ounce of sass at his tone of voice.
The Gunshade kicked the brawny engine of his Ford back into roaring life and took off, using the traffic and the violation of several motoring laws to weave his way through the streets in an effort to confuse any potential tails. Unless Edna had taken to throwing herself out of windows for fun, her article—the one he'd tried to dissuade her to write—had caught up with her as he'd guessed it would. He figured that one of Bianchi's boys was out to tie up any loose ends, Miss Haskell in this case, who might serve as a witness in any future court appearances. Spreading someone across the street from several stories up would do nicely in that regard.
Graves sighed. There was nothing left for him to do other than to take her to one of his safehouses, one that he'd now have to abandon because he didn't have the time to stop and blindfold her and he didn't trust her current shocked state to addle her memory that much. No, the woman had a mind like a damned steel trap.
"They tried to kill me!” Edna suddenly shrieked and he nearly lost control of his car.
"Ah. Good of you to catch up. Welcome back to the land of the living, Ms. Haskell,” he remarked dryly.
"Gunshade?”
"Unless you know some other guys who look like me that ain't taking dirt naps?”
"How'd I get here?”
Graves could see her mind racing to catch up with current events. "I was driving, minding my own business, when you made the worst swan dive I've ever seen...right onto my hood.”
"He threw me out the window,” she said, as if stating it out loud would cement the memory of it in her mind.
"He who?”
Edna shook her head and waved her hands in frustration. "I have no idea. Tall man. Roughly six-one. He had a mask over his nose and mouth. Close cropped black hair and brown eyes. Brown suit, off the rack, probably Woolworth’s. Smelled like cheap cologne that should have been musk but was more wet dog.
The Gunshade almost gawked at her but kept his expression neutral. "Nothing about that rings any bells but your observation skills are...not something to be taken lightly.”
"Well,” she said, not without a touch of bitterness, "when your job is reporting on how people look, you learn. I should've known that phone call was fishy to begin with.”
"Phone call?” Gunshade asked, although he had a pretty good idea of how this story was going to go. One of the oldest tricks in the book that wasn’t a forbidden apple.
"I got a direct call to my desk. It didn't go through the paper’s switchboard. The voice was a woman's. She said she had information on where Alfonso Bianchi was and what he was planning next. I was to meet her in room 22 of the Century Hotel.”
Edna paused and shot him a look. "I know what you're going to say but a woman met me at the door. She said her name was Linda and she seemed nervous enough that I believed her story...at least until she shut the door behind us and her gorilla slugged me in the head with his sap and sent me out the window.”
“Well, I’m not going to rake you over the coals for trying to do a job that is not your job, but, Ms. Haskell, that was an obvious trap. You need to be more careful. You’ve gotten incredibly lucky so far, so I’m going to stop at the next phone booth and make a call. Then we’re going someplace safe to hash all this out. There’s probably something useful that you know and you’re not thinking clearly right now with all the excitement.”
The Gunshade hopped out at the next drug store and darted inside, ignoring the stares and exclamations of the crowd on the sidewalk, but not before handing the horrified reporter one of his revolvers. “Don’t hesitate to use that if someone comes at you while I’m inside.”
Edna hurriedly thrust the gun into her purse. The last thing she needed was for a patrolman to see a woman sitting in a running car in front of a business holding a gun. Getting arrested for a non-existent hold-up was not on her list of things she wanted to do today.
Graves returned a few minutes later and handed her a napkin with a phone number written on it. “If you’re ever in danger or you think you’re going into danger, call this number and say the word “albatross” and your location. Someone will come to help.” With that said, The Gunshade released the brake and they were off again.
"Is this your number?” she asked.
"Hardly,” he replied with a grim laugh. "The last thing you need right now is any deeper association with me. Look where our friendship has gotten you. That's the number for a switchboard that'll dispatch someone from a group that I help occasionally. I can't tell you more than that.”
After numerous twists and turns that were designed to shake off anyone following them, but also served to completely confuse Edna as to exactly where they were in the city, they arrived at a rundown storefront that, at one point, had sold hardware. The Gunshade pulled his roadster around to the back and they entered. He flicked on the lights and Edna saw a spartan room with a table, a chair, a cot with a footlocker, and a battered wardrobe. The highlight of the room, however, had to be the powerful shortwave radio set.
"Make yourself comfortable,” The Gunshade said. "It isn't much but it serves its purpose. We should have company in a few more minutes.”
Edna asked who but the man refused to answer. A knock twenty minutes later made the point moot. She'd find out soon enough. The gaunt gunslinger opened the back door to admit a smartly dressed middle-aged black woman carrying an oversized leather bag.
"Thank you for coming so quickly, Doctor Delva. This is Ms. Edna Haskell, who I called you about.”
"A pleasure, ma'am,” The doctor said, opening her bag.
Edna whirled on him, her anger rising. "What'd you call a doctor for? I'm perfectly fine!”
"You were thrown out of a second story window onto a moving car—my car, which happened to be speeding at the time. You're probably injured even if you're not feeling it...and, if nothing else, you were, in my opinion, in shock earlier. I think it'd be best for the doc to give you a mild sedative—“
"I don't....OW!” Edna exclaimed and glanced down at the hand pushing the plunger of a hypodermic needle now stuck in her neck.
"You. You...” Edna's legs went wobbly and the woman lowered her patient onto the cot before the reporter’s world went black.
Doctor Samantha Delva shot him a reproachful look as she pulled a screen in front of them. "A mild sedative for a thoroughbred perhaps. Was that really necessary?”
"Sam, if you knew the trouble this one likes to get herself in, you'd want her out of action for a few hours too. Thanks for getting here so fast. You AEGIS folk sure are handy to have in a pinch.”
Minutes later, Sam’s voice called out from behind the barrier, "She’s one lucky woman, just some bad bruising, nothin’ more serious. And don't you go on thanking me. She gon' be mad when she comes to and you gon' be the one to bear it, not me.”
"I'll take the chance. A special agent should be along soon to watch over her and keep her here until I can deal with Bianchi... for good this time.”
"Kidnapping and murder,” Doctor Delva said with not a small amount of reproach, "If our jobs weren't so dangerous, I'd have some very harsh words for you.”
✽✽✽
Alfonso Bianchi scowled at the black robed figure standing arrogantly in front of his desk. The silver four-pointed star on the chest of his outlandish attire being the only concession to color. "What is this? Halloween come early already? And why'd you let this clown into my office, Mateo?”
Matteo Berlusconi, his most trusted man, didn't reply but remained stock still, unmoving and staring off into space with a frozen expression of stupid confusion on his face.
The robed man replied instead. "Your man wasn’t going to let me in to see you. So I’ve stopped him for the moment. He doesn't see me and he can't move either. Terrible thing to be such a big man and yet completely powerless. If you can’t be a little more welcoming to visitors, I might go a little deeper to his heart. Shame of a way to go in your prime. I'm here to offer you a deal, Bianchi, one I'd recommend you take.”
The mob boss leaned back in his chair with a thin smile. He wasn’t completely sure of what was going on but the man hadn’t drawn a gun and he was still breathing so, for now, it was in his best interest to hear the intruder out. Besides, he was always in the market for deals. It was a language he understood, even if it came wrapped in cheap theatrics. "What makes you think you have anything of value to me?”
"Oh, I have nothing of value for you. My master has only instructed me to tell you to continue to stay out of this...Gunshade's way. We want him. You, and your underlings, stay out of our way and your problem is dealt with. How do you say?...Permanently, no strings attached.”
"So...I don't lift one finger and you kill him for me?”
"Oh, Mr. Bianchi, your world view is so very small. We need nothing nor want nothing from you, but we are not going to kill him. Our plans for him are much, much worse. However, I assure you, he won't be any trouble for you ever again.”
The gangster smiled benevolently. "How can I refuse such a generous offer? He's all yours.”
✽✽✽
Room 22 of the Century Hotel was a complete bust but Mrs. Agnes Nelson, the manager, of said establishment was a veritable font of information. She most certainly did not have anyone currently named Linda as a guest but she did remember Edna after he gave her a description. Agnes hadn't thought much of it at the time because her guests often had friends visit, but, now that she knew what he was after, she gave him a physical description of "Linda”: brunette with curly hair, about five-five and wearing a blue floral print dress.
After a five-dollar apology for intruding upon her valuable time, Douglas Graves went into the alleyway next to the Century and it wasn't hard work finding the fire escape that lead right up to the window of number 22. He guessed that "Linda's" goon went up the escape, jimmied the window, and unlocked the door from the inside. Then he only had to wait.
None of this helped him. He could see how it was done but he had nothing to go on, nor any way of matching a name to the woman's likeness. As much as he hated to do it, he would have to call on John Law, namely Detective Harris. He spent most of the drive to the station practicing his most icy indifference to the hostility that awaited him.
The Gunshade ignored the daggers the officers at the precinct shot at his back after he'd walked in and made his way to Harris's office. Oddly enough, none of them dared to do so openly. He hated to intrude upon Harris' domain because he was sure the detective's career was being harmed by their association. He’d have to remember to recommend the man to AEGIS, surely their pay was better than being a civil servant.
Harris looked up from a pile of paperwork. “I really expected you to show up when we busted Vincelli.”
“Better you than me, though I'd have saved the taxpayers the cost of his incarceration. Besides, I got sidetracked,” The Gunshade quipped, before relaying everything that'd happened to date.
Harris scowled. “That girl is nothing but trouble. You want me to have a word with her boss? Maybe a subtle hint about interfering in police investigations?”
“Well, she hasn't done anything wrong so far other than showing really bad judgment so, no, for now. What I could use though is some help identifying someone.”
Harris frowned after listening to the description. "That's not a lot to go on but, if we limit ourselves to known associates of the Bianchi family, there's really only one person your "Linda" could be—Sally Wendell Adams. She's not high up on the list of hardened criminals among that group though.”
"I'm not so much interested in bringing her up on charges as I am getting her to talk. Any idea of where she might be found?”
"Well, before they kicked the beehive with you, I'd say the Orange Club. She manages the showgirls there but I can't guarantee that she'll be allowed to be out in public, especially now that they're keeping a low profile. Best of luck...and Gunshade? If you do poke the bear this time, please show some compassion for our poor overworked coroner will ya?”
✽✽✽
The robed man sitting cross-legged in a magic circle of gore held a spent .45 cartridge fired by the man he had been tasked to capture between bloody fingers. He took a brief moment to admire the faint flicker of candlelight off of the brass. It was a thing of beauty in an otherwise dingy apartment. The room’s former occupant, a down on his luck shoe salesman and drunkard, had paid the grisly price for his last bottle of cheap whiskey. Even among the necromancers of the Silver Star, Ivan Semenov was not a man to be treated lightly, which was one of only several reasons he'd been chosen for this great task for his master.
It was ironic, he thought as he looked at the bullet casing that what had caused one death would now lead to another. This...Gunshade was a man so familiar with death that the cartridge felt almost alive in his grasp. The necromancer closed his eyes and chanted an almost intelligible arcane phrase.
There. It was done.
The vigilante was as much now marked for death as those he hunted.
Ivan motioned to the Silver Star soldier who remained impassive through the gruesome ritual at his portable radio set. "Inform the others,” he said. "We go now.”
✽✽✽
Sally Adams was not at The Orange Club, and that was about all Graves got for his trip there. He didn't expect any front that laundered money for the Bianchi family to be forthcoming about their employees, especially not to him, but he'd scared the bouncer enough that he'd believed him. He wondered if an after-hours return trip might be more fruitful.
