A Night's Tale - Convergence
Karl watched the moon rise quietly, sitting alone on the stone breakwall that separated Lake Michigan from the hospital in Michigan City. The moonlight created a pathway on the water straight from his feet to the rising orb itself, and he was reminded of stories his grandmother used to tell him as a child, in thick, Norwegian accented English, of the stairs the spirits must climb as their trial toward heaven. As a boy, Karl had never understood how his grandmother, who died lame and wheelchair bound, had climbed that final flight.
And now, here he was, facing what could very well be his own final trial. If he had made a mess of one of Capone’s important drops, he was gone for sure...on principle alone, if not on fault. The Chicago gangster was still climbing the crime ladder, and could risk no mercy or kindness on trivial men like Karl Lewis.
Karl watched the wine dark lake lap against the stone a few yards under his feet. He could dive in. They would find his body upstream, and they would bury him and blame it on one of the rival crime lords of the city. He’d be given an honorable death, and celebrated among the families. Of course, chances were he’d probably just break a leg and catch hypothermia and end up helpless and incapacitated when he really need to be able to fight for himself.
Just where had he left that baseball bat?
Not to mention the man in the next room. A liability at the very least, Lee would have to be killed if Ben didn’t follow through on the drop...as well as make the delivery that he had been assigned. And Karl didn’t even know where that was supposed to be, so he could send no warning to the man. The drop packet had been conveniently misplaced by a lower lackey of Capone who would be wearing cement shoes in a matter of hours - drifting peacefully to the bottom of the weed filled water’s edge at which he sat - for his mistake.
Karl missed being an accountant.
Things were so much easier then, so straightforward and honest. He bought one new three-piece suit every year, was proud to use his father’s gold pocket watch instead of the shining silver contraption Capone had bought him, and didn’t have to worry a day in his life about whether or not he was going to be serviced in the back of the head by a crowbar. Karl spared an instinctive glance around with that thought, but he was still alone in the garden of the hospital. He would’ve loved to see this place in its heyday, pregnant mothers being wheeled down the cut-limestone path to admire flowers with their newborns. Yellow buttercups and blazing blue flags would lean down to kiss the world. Grieving families - mourning innocent crimes - gathering in a shady, cool corner under the sorrowful comfort of a weeping willow. Nothing quite so diabolical as what he’d been doing lately.
He’d taken Lee off the sedatives, but they would still take a good hour to wash out of the man’s system. The leg he’d been shot in would be shaky for a while, but would return to capacity given a full recovery period. If only Karl could make sure he’d live to see it.
There were several courses of action that were now available to the main enforcer of Chicago’s underbelly. He could admit his mistake to Capone first thing in the morning, a true suicide, but with small hope for absolution. With all the cooked books he’d made for Capone, he practically had the city’s finances sitting in his palm. Not just anyone would be able to take that over, and not with a bit of tutorial first. Karl had been sure of that. Considered it job security.
He could go and find Ben Carey, and try and fix the problem before it even began. But it was over an hour drive into Chicago from Michigan City, and he was sure that Ben had left already anyway. His friend, Daniel Jones, might be of some help, but not without revealing more than Karl was comfortable with. Working with people he didn’t trust was his strong suit, but he certainly didn’t favor it to working alone.
Which left him one last option. Find his Justice Department counterpart, reestablish the mission at hand, and make it to the delivery point before Ben got there. Nab the product for the federal government, disappear off the face of the earth before Capone and his corrupt cops could found him, and begin a new life in the Justice Department-guaranteed witness protection agency. Karl flipped out his wallet, examining the bureau-issued badge and picture that stared back at him. He could easily enter the witness protection agency.
Karl HAD always wanted to be a gardener.
* * *
Daniel waited until the trolley slowed before he jumped off the back. Tailing, as he called it when he was a boy, had become harder to do during the day, but it was still easy to catch a free ride at night when no police could see you clinging to the back of the trolley car.
Still agitated about his missing cab, Daniel skulked up to the hotel front doors and pushed inside before the doorman could come to assist him. But there was a tuxedoed man rushing at him immediately.
“Sir, sir, please, can I help you with-”
“I’m here to see Professor Hayes,” Daniel cut him off. “It’s important, or I wouldn’t be here.”
With a sniff, the tuxedoed man glanced from side to side. “This is quite inappropriate, Mr...” he paused for the name, but Daniel was already staring at his surroundings.
“Quite a place. I’d hate for thereda be a scene,” he threatened mildly.
“A...a ‘scene’?” The steward blanched.
“Mmm...” Daniel mused. “Now really. Professor Hayes is expecting me.”
“Room 24,” the steward offered, though Daniel could tell it pained him. He clapped the man on the back before stalking over to the small elevator at the opposite side of the lobby. “Thanks.”
It was outside the doctor’s room that Daniel’s nerve faltered, however. He wasn’t sure how the man would take it when he learned that Daniel was without not only the case but any means of getting it or knowing where it would be. But his hand rose unbidden to rap upon the door, just below the gilded numbers that labeled the room.
The door swung violently open and Daniel was met with quite a disheveled doctor, who ushered him immediately in. He glanced both ways out in the hall as if to see if they were being watched before slamming the door shut and bolting both the locks. He leaned heavily against the frame and let his eyes drift shut in supplication.
“You look ravishing, Doc,” Daniel quipped as he pulled out a cigarette. Darren’s shirt was messy and unbuttoned, half untucked, and his tie lay over one shoulder. His hair was a tousel of sweat in the summer heat, and his socks were clutched in one fist, awaiting placement. Darren looked down at them in his hand and forcefully stuffed them in his rear pocket as he pulled away from the door.
Maybe things weren’t so bad, Darren reasoned. There was a reasonably attractive man standing in front of him; handsome in a rogueish way. He was about to get his suitcase back. And his speech had been rescheduled for later in the week. Attempting to return his presentation, Darren stood in front of the mirror and tucked his shirt in. The buttons he attacked next, watching the driver’s reflection. “You have the briefcase, what, in the taxi? And don’t light that.”
Daniel coughed awkwardly and turned away, sticking the cigarette behind his ear. “Yeah, about that...the taxi’s gone.”
Darren’s hands paused in their upward buttoning journey. “So where’s my briefcase?”
“It’s...in the taxi.” Daniel spoke haltingly and leaned, resigned, against the close wall. But there wasn’t even time for his body to meld to the wall before Darren had grasped fistfuls of his shirt and was pressing Daniel into it.
“Where the FUCK is my briefcase, Daniel?” the doctor growled, giving him a shove for good measure. “Perhaps you don’t understand” -shove- “the importance of what” -shove- “it HOLDS.” Darren was flush against him, one knee against the wall and the other bracing upward, trying to match the last few inches Daniel had on him.
Daniel was purely frightened.
And honestly turned on.
“There are samples of an ingredient that don’t belong to me in that case,” Darren growled, his eyes narrowing as he stared down the gap-mouthed driver. “They belong to the United States government, and they are on loan, and I have to return them. Down to the ounce. You’re going to get me back that briefcase, Daniel.”
His hands creeping up the wall at his sides, Daniel managed to wrap them around the fists curled into the material of his shirt. “Sure, Doc. No problem...just...I need to be able to move, if that’s jive with you.”
Slowly, Darren unwrapped his fingers and stepped away as he realized the position he’d had the driver in for a few brief seconds. He managed to hide his blush under the remaining menacing glare and turned his back to the other man. Daniel stayed pressed against the wall, but tried to rearrange his limbs in a more dignified manner, letting the cold wash of fear rinse away any arousal that endured.
“Okay,” Daniel started, both a question and a statement. Darren nodded and Daniel went on, after a studying pause. “The taxi is with my friend Ben. He’s doing a pickup or a drop for Capone tonight down in Indiana. But his instructions were muddled, so he’s not sure what’s going on. That’ll make him hesitant. We might be able to catch him before it goes down, right? So all we have to do is get to Michigan City.”
“How are we going to do that, if we don’t have a car?” Darren asked, a little of the menace disappearing, replaced by the collected professorial demeanor Daniel was used to. Calm. Collected. Less than homicidal. Daniel hoped he’d stay that way.
Peeling himself away from the wall, Daniel offered a smile. “Have you ever tailed a trolley?”
* * *
It was at the Michigan City limits that Ben began to have second thoughts.
He was beginning to remember the city. Remember horrible things about it, how it was no more than a newly founded settlement, hardly even a city. No government, no laws, certainly no enforcement. It made running things in and out of Lake Michigan from Canada easier than most cities, and things could then be transported into Chicago with ease. It was a hub of corruption and filth, and normally Ben loved to visit every chance he got.
But not anymore.
Right now, all he wanted was a good gun. Or possibly a crowbar. Or even a two-by-four with a nail in the end. Anything he could use to defend himself against the lengthy shadows that draped themselves across the almost-road he was winding down. On one side he could hear the lake, and on the other there was enough empty space for a car to pass him should he encounter one. But the road was strangely silent for a night that should have been full of bustle.
The last trolley stop was a good ten miles south of the city limits. Anyone who wanted to get farther into Michigan City either had to walk or requisition a car. Or do what Ben usually did when he was alone: steal the nearest still-running automobile. Which was a good enough reason for no one being around. Good, law abiding families in Michigan City were no doubt asleep in their beds. Though, as he passed a barn lit up like Christmas Day by bonfires and lanterns, Ben was sure he saw a rooster fight ring being prepared. And perhaps that was a liquor run boat he saw on the Lake, just past the breakwall, ready to unload at some secret docking station.
Maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought. But it was still too quiet for comfort.
The occupants of the town had to know that something was going to happen tonight. Perhaps they’d been warned away. But most likely, things had just changed enough since Ben had last been there that he was heading into what was now a deserted part of town. Capone wouldn’t want to have a drop where people would be around to watch. Live witnesses made things messy and complicated.
Though a crowd could keep Ben alive a little longer if it was around, he reasoned to himself in the night. And then he wondered if Daniel still kept a rifle stashed under the box seat in the back.
* * *
Daniel sat crouched on the tarred roof, back against a steel smokestack and gun in hand. All around him, rows and rows of crisp, white hospital sheets hung like streamers from laundry lines. They snapped and billowed lightly in the pre-dawn air, shadows creeping like cartoon ghosts under the careful watch of Daniel’s tired eyes. A new shadow cut the white of the sheets, outlined gray by the lowering moon, but it paused before entering Daniel’s row.
Two quick chirps cut the air, traveling across the tar to Daniel’s immediate response whistle. The shadow shifted forward, an irate Darren crouching low against the sheets and dashing down Daniel’s row. The professor came to rest next to him. “I feel like an absolute fool. Who are we, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn?”
Daniel blinked., turning to look at Darren. “Who?”
The professor shook his head. “Never mind. I had forgotten your illiteracy,” he muttered scathingly. He foraged on, cutting off Daniel’s insulted “Hey!” nearly before it was past his lips. “The point is, this secretive nonsense is highly ineffective. The guards below don’t know we’re here yet, but they will soon if we move from the roof. Which we will have to do at some point if we still plan on rescuing your friend. That is the plan, is it not?”
“I guess...” Daniel muttered, digging the barrel of the gun in his hand into the soft tar under his feet. He left a small dent in the surface, a little “O” imprinted by the weapon. “The truth is, I don’t really have a plan.”
“Good grief, where did you get that?” Darren gestured to the weapon.
“I picked it up on my way to the Salisbury.. Thought we might need some protection,” he explained.
Darren snorted in an ungentlemanly manner. “You think that’s going to protect us?”
“You think your smarts are enough? They’re gonna listen to cold steel before your brain,” Daniel replied, quickening his pace as they walked up the dirt road toward the hospital. In the dark, the trees loomed close and neglected over their heads. For all intents and purposes, this hospital had been shut down a few years prior. Only a few people knew where it was anymore, or that it still operated for a few people connected to organized crime who needed the privacy it provided.
“Weapons are for the weak,” Darren muttered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket. “And there’s things going on down there. Your friend Lee has got to be extracted. But what you don’t know - what I just saw, I mean - is that Ben has arrived. With your taxi. There’s something going on here that neither of us are remotely prepared to deal with,” he whispered.
Daniel made to reply, shifting up on his haunches to turn toward Darren, but stopped before the words came out. Squinting, he cocked his head to one side and watched the billow of the sheets. Darren turned to follow the other man’s line of sight and noticed a strange shadow looming where no shadow should be.
Raising his gun, Daniel called out. “You there. Come out slowly. I’ve got you in my sights, and I’m an excellent shot.”
“Idiot!” Darren whispered harshly, as the shadow moved. “What if he’s got a weapon?”
But the shadow simply sidestepped, appearing between two billowing topsheets.
“Karl!” Darren blurted, standing up.
The shadow squinted. “Darren? Darren Hayes? What are you doing on my roof?”
“Your roof?” Darren demanded.
The shadow came forward, eyes on Darren, and wasn’t expecting the barrel of the gun that planted itself between his third and fourth rib, or the man attached to it. Daniel stared him down. “This is all your fault. You gave us the wrong instructions,” he growled, angry enough that he couldn’t quite keep still, leaning up on his toes even though he already had height on the man.
“I told you to watch yourself,” Karl insisted, his hands up and empty as he watched the gun. “I’m on your side. Put that thing away.”
“Not until you tell me how to fix this. My friends are in there!”
Darren, tiring of the exchange and impatient for action, laid a restraining hand on Daniel’s shoulder, tugging him away from Karl. “Would you please stop waving that thing around before someone gets hurt? I don’t want to go in there anymore than you do, but if there’s anyone who can get us in, it’s Karl Lewis.”
“Now hold on,” Daniel interrupted, standing and sliding away the gun at the small of his back. “You two know each other?” He pointed to Karl.
“Of course he does,” Karl insisted, approaching the other two men and dropping his voice to a whisper. “And there’s trouble down there. I heard voices and came up, but we should be safe for now. I was the only one posted on the north side of the grounds.”
“How many are there?” Darren asked.
“Six. Maybe more. They’re transferring something, and working over Ben pretty harshly in the meantime. Something about a briefcase. He insists he hasn’t got it.”
“He doesn’t,” Daniel said. “It’s in the taxi. What the hell is it, anyway?”
“No one knows,” Darren replied. “That’s what I was supposed to find out. But my tests were inconclusive, and I had to get it back to the government before I could finish a more thorough analysis.”
“You work for the government?” Daniel turned to Karl, surprised yet again.
“Shh. Yes.” But Karl seemed distracted, deep in thought. He held up a warding finger, pursing his lips and crouching down, as if by compacting his body he could force out the thought that was bubbling inside him. And then he spoke: “Darren, you were doing those tests. The results are in the briefcase. But it wasn’t just what was in the briefcase that was so important...Ben wouldn’t be important at all, the drop wouldn’t matter, if what they needed was just in the briefcase. They could’ve taken it from you at any time on the street. They didn’t know Ben had it. There’s no way that they could’ve. But now that they’ve got the contents of the drop, they need whatever’s in the briefcase, too. Right?”
Daniel stared blankly, a few seconds behind, but Darren was nodding vigorously. “My experiments always came up inconclusive...they were just plant samples. We could never figure out why they were so important.” He turned quickly to Karl, and the three crouched closer in their triangle. “What was in the envelope?”
Karl shook his head sadly. “I never looked. It would’ve blown my cover. My job is to do, not ask.”
“Cigarettes,” Daniel said after a moment, thinking back. “Instructions, and cigarettes.”
“Cig...” Darren muttered to himself, on the verge of a thought. “Why would Capone want to traffic a legal item?”
Karl glanced over his shoulder and the edge of the roof, examining for evesdroppers out of habit. “We’ll have time for that later. We’ve got to figure out how to remove Ben from Capone’s men. And get Lee out, so they can’t use him for blackmail. And get me out, too, since I’m supposed to be down there helping them beat some answers out of him.”
Daniel glared at Darren. “I thought you had a plan, Doc.”
Darren smiled to himself. “I do.”
tbc...