A Hard Rain Part 12

Again Mr. Data's sickly smell crashed into Dix's senses, made worse by the contrast of the clear night air around them. Dix felt his stomach twist and he forced himself to swallow.

Again Dix and Bev both stepped back, closer to the street.

Mr. Data was about to come closer again, chasing them with his unseen weapon, when Dix held up his hand. "Stay where you are, Mr. Data," he said. "Tell us what you found."

Mr. Data looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. "I found ten bodies. The room had been searched. None of the men carried the Heart of the Adjuster, but I did find this, hidden behind a loose stone block in the wall."

Mr. Data held out the metal box.

"How did you find it when whoever killed those men didn't?" Bev asked.

"My question exactly," Dix said. "Was it obvious?"

"No," Mr. Data said. "But I felt there had to be a hiding place of some sort down there. And the back wall made of stone seemed like a logical place." Mr. Data went into his gangster pose. "As Merle Weir once said, 'There's more in most things than meets the eye.' "

"No kidding," Dix said, putting a hand over his nose. He took a deep breath and held it, then stepped toward Mr. Data and took the box, stepping back quickly while indicating Mr. Data should not move. It still wasn't fast enough to escape the awful smell Mr. Data carried with him from that bas.e.m.e.nt.

Dix fished Jessica Daniels' keys out of his pocket and tried the small one on the box. As he suspected it might, the key fit and opened the box.

Inside there was a stack of money and another ledger. Dix opened the ledger. Right up front were the addresses of every major crime lord in the city, plus a few he hadn't heard about. It seemed he now knew where the headquarters of Benny the Banger and Harvey Upstairs Benton were. Benny's was only ten blocks away, pretty close to the spot where Benny's goon had tried to stop him on the street.

Dix flipped through the rest of the book. It was the same sort of thing that Cyrus Redblock had done in his ledger. Mostly it was records of payoffs to cops and others. Again Dix did a quick check to make sure Detective Bell wasn't in the book. Dix was happy to see he wasn't.

Now they had a lot more to trade, if they could just find someone to trade with.

Dix handed the book to Bev. "Hide this on you somewhere," he said.

She nodded and a moment later the book disappeared under her coat.

Dix made sure there was nothing else besides the money in the box, then locked it again and tossed it to Mr. Data. "Put that back in the wall, but make sure you leave the rock out just enough so someone with a good eye will find it."

"Gotcha, boss," Mr. Data said, turning to head back into the garage.

"And Mr. Data," Dix said, "when you are finished, find Detective Bell and report finding the bodies, nothing more. Don't tell him about us being here, or finding any ledgers."

Mr. Data nodded.

"And one more thing," Dix said. "Before you rejoin us, change clothes and wash off."

"Boss?" Mr. Data asked, clearly puzzled.

"Trust him," Bev said. "I'd toss that suit away if I were you."

Mr. Data looked down at his suit as if searching for a hole.

"Meet us at Benny the Banger's headquarters when you are finished," Dix said. He gave Mr. Data the address and then turned to head off down the street, motioning for Mr. Whelan to gather up his men and follow.

"Now what are we going to do?" Bev asked, walking beside him, her breath white in the cold night air.

"What can we do?" Dix asked. "We're going to keep following this trail until it goes dead, or someone drags a red herring across our path."

"You sure after the perfume and the odor of those bodies, we'd smell it if they did?" Bev asked, laughing.

"After what we've been through tonight," Dix said, "I don't think my nose will ever work right again. And it feels as if we've been going in the wrong direction right from the start."

He had had that nagging feeling for some time, but saying it out loud made it even stronger.

"I've had the same feeling," Bev said.

They walked for a half block, saying nothing, their heels clicking on the sidewalk, the sound of the other men following in the distance.

Finally Bev said what Dix had been thinking. "The problem is, I don't see any other direction."

"Neither do I," Dix said. "So no matter how much it stinks, we follow it."

Clues from Dixon Hill's notebook in "The Case of the Missing Heart"

Cyrus Redblock's ledger of bribes to cops and city officials would be enough to control the city.

Slippery Stan Hand had somehow taken the book and stashed it in Jessica Daniels' apartment.

Slippery Stan Hand had his own ledger of bribes.

Chapter Seven.

Who Was That Masked Man?

Section One: Only a Shadow L OTS OF ELEMENTS make people see things that aren't there on a city street late at night. Shadows of the cars parked along the street, the blackness of the alleys, the shades of gray tempered only by a distant streetlight. With the Luscious Bev beside him, and five of his men a short distance behind, Dixon Hill walked purposely through one of the darkest areas of the city. The buildings were in poor repair, garbage littered the street and sidewalk, and the lights on each corner had long ago burnt out and not been replaced.

Behind every car he thought he saw something move.

Beyond every corner a gunman shifted.

Down every side alley a figure ran.

His imagination was taking every shadow, every dark shape, and turning it into an enemy. He kept trying to tell himself he was seeing things. There couldn't be a group of men following them so carefully.

That's what he kept repeating to himself every time another motion caught the edge of his vision, but it didn't help. He kept seeing things.

Finally, a shadow seemed to form into the shape of a man fifty paces in front of them, then slide off into an alley.

"Did you see that?" Bev whispered as she matched him stride-for-stride down the sidewalk.

"You saw it as well?" Dix asked, stunned.

"I've been seeing things in the shadows since we left the garage," Bev said. "I'm spooked by it, let me tell you."

"I thought I was imagining it all," Dix said. "We can't both be imagining the same things, now can we?"

"Not likely," Bev said. "But considering the condition of the reality we find ourselves in, and what is happening in this city, anything is possible."

Dix had to agree with that. But at least he hadn't been imagining things. And if these shapes were real, they could be caught.

At that moment a cat yowled and streaked across the street in front of them. It was being chased by a large dog into an alley. Dix followed the cat and dog with his gaze, only to see another shadowy figure lurking in the darkness. This shadow seemed to be wearing a trench coat and hat.

"There's no doubt we're being tailed," Dix whispered to Bev, "by a group that is doing its best to stay out of our way."

Dix touched Bev's arm just enough to keep her with him as he slowed his pace, letting Mr. Whelan and the rest catch up. When they were only a few paces behind, Dix motioned for Mr. Whelan to come up beside him.

"See the men shadowing us?" Whelan asked. "They are pretty darned good at it."

"Not good enough to keep us from seeing them," Dix said.

"Maybe they want us to see them," Bev said.

Dix thought that over. There was a chance of that, but more than likely the men shadowing them worked for one of the crime bosses. Maybe, if Dix was lucky, the one who had the Heart of the Adjuster.

"Okay, we're going to call their bluff," Dix whispered to Bev and Mr. Whelan. "They want to play cat and mouse, we'll give them a little confusion to go along with the mix. Have everyone stay ready, hands on their guns."

Whelan nodded.

"And stay within ten paces of us," Dix said. "I don't want to go spreading out too much. And follow my lead."

"Understood," Mr. Whelan said, slowing down and dropping back to the men behind. Dix could barely hear him whispering the instructions to the others. He gave Mr. Whelan enough time, then again with his arm against Bev's arm, he increased their pace.

Quickly, he moved their speed up to a point where Bev was almost having to break into a trot to keep up. Dix could hear that behind him the other men were matching the speed.

They reached a corner and Dix turned right, moving at the same speed for the entire length of the city block.

The shadows around them seemed to be a little more obvious, a little more rushed to find cover ahead of them.

At the next corner, Dix again turned right, heading back in the direction they had come from a few moments before, only one block over.

That move caught one of their trailing friends actually out in the middle of the street. He wore a dark coat with the collar up and a dark hat, showing almost no face. He moved quickly into an alley between two buildings as they marched past. Dixon Hill ignored him.

At the next corner they turned right again.

Dix could feel himself starting to breath hard, and Bev was clearly having trouble maintaining the pace in the high-heeled fashion of the day.

One more right at the next corner and they had gone completely around the block. This move again caught a man in a dark coat out in the open. The guy shook his head and ducked for cover.

At the next corner, Dix turned his group right again, covering the same ground they had already covered. But this time, not more than twenty paces down the sidewalk, Dix grabbed Bev's arm, stopped quickly, and turned around, heading back in the direction they had just come at the same fast walk.

They went right through the startled group with Mr. Whelan and back around the corner, this time to the left, retracing their steps.

The guy who had ducked for cover a moment before was back out in the open. And close to the corner, clearly moving to try to follow them.

Dix pulled out his gun and leveled it on the guy. "You move and you're going to be testing the rebirth theory."

The guy froze like a deer in the headlights of a Ford.

Dix motioned for Mr. Whelan and the others to take up positions along the street in the shadows, guarding both ends of the block. He motioned Bev to go with them. Then Dix moved up to the man he had captured in the middle of the street and took his gun, tucking it away.

"What do you say we just stand here," Dix said, "until your friends come out of hiding?"

The guy, his eyes dark slits under his hat, said nothing.

It didn't take long, as Dix figured it wouldn't. Another man in a dark coat came around the corner at a run. He stopped cold when he saw Dix and his prisoner in the middle of the road.

Mr. Whelan stepped out of a shadow, gun drawn. "Hands in the air, or I put you face down in the gutter."

The man froze for an instant, then raised his hands.

Dix motioned for Mr. Whelan to bring him to the center of the street.

"I figure you have two more friends out there yet," Dix said.

At that moment, from the other direction, another man came around the corner, running, his coat flapping. He too was quickly captured.

Dix and Mr. Whelan moved all three prisoners out of the street and over to the mouth of an alleyway and back into the darkness.

"What do you plan on doin' with us?" the man Dix had captured asked.

"Shadows speak," Dix said. "I'm stunned."

At that moment one more dark-coated man appeared at a run and found himself facing two of Dix's men, guns drawn.

"I'm betting that's all of you," Dix said. "You want to tell me different?"

The guy said nothing.

"Cat got your tongue?" Dix asked. He motioned to Mr. Whelan. "Line them up against the wall."

The alley was just dark enough to make everyone look like a dark shadow, yet light enough to see what they were doing. Dix was counting on the darkness to help his plan, just as these four had used the same darkness to follow them.

Whelan and the others did as they were told, then Dix had everyone stand back. Dix turned to his people and in such a fashion that the men against the wall couldn't see, winked at Whelan and Bev. "Follow my lead," he whispered.

Whelan and the man next to him nodded.

Dix turned back to their prisoners. "I'll take the one on the far right," Dix said. "Each of you take one and we'll get this over with and get on our way."

"I got the one next in line," Mr. Whelan said.