A Hard Rain Part 4

Then, as quickly as the weight of the wood had hit him, it was relieved as Mr. Data took the heavy board.

Dix let go and leaned over to watch as Mr. Data silently levered the board out and over the alley, nestling it into place on the other fire escape to form a bridge between the two buildings.

Then he smiled up at Dix and gave a thumbs-up sign.

Dix motioned for him to go across as he swung over the edge and went down the wet, cold, metal ladder that clung to the stone face of the building.

By the time he reached the platform, Mr. Data was standing on the other building's fire escape, looking as calm and collected as if he'd been out for a Sunday stroll in the park.

Dix jumped up on the board, not letting himself look down. Mr. Data steadied it and Dix made it across in four quick steps, not even giving the hard pavement below a glance.

"Stand the board up on this side against the building," Dix told Mr. Data as he started up the ladder toward the roof. "That way no one will notice that anyone got out this way."

Mr. Data levered the board up and stood it on the landing, leaning it against the stone wall of the building as Dix climbed the ladder. Then Mr. Data quickly joined Dix on the roof.

Up the street the gunfight was still filling the night with the sounds of gunshots. The flashing red lights of the police cars made the fog almost blood red. Dix could see a few police bodies in the street. It was clear that the Undertaker and his gang were not going easily.

With Dix leading, they found the way off the roof and down the staircase inside what looked to be an apartment building. On the first floor they came up behind a crowd of residents, mostly dressed in their nightclothes, standing inside the entrance out of the line of fire, trying to watch.

"Careful, folks," Dix said as he pushed through the crowd. "You don't want any stray shots to hurt anyone."

Without waiting for an answer, or any questions as to where they had come from, Dixon Hill, with Mr. Data right behind him, went out the front door and down into the street behind police lines, running to stay low behind the police cars to make sure the now slowly dying gunfight wouldn't catch them.

Dix was about to turn away from the fight when it stopped, almost as suddenly as it had started.

The silence filled the street, seeming almost as loud as all the gunshots. Tucked to one side of the street, half on the sidewalk, was Detective Bell's Dodge. Bell had given Dix a lift in the car to a bar where Dix had been searching out a suspect in a case he called, "The Doll-Faced Caper." Riding with Bell had been an experience Dix was never going to forget, or repeat. The guy didn't believe in the word slow.

Detective Bell had been Dix's inside connection with the cops a number of times, on a number of cases. It suddenly occurred to Dix that maybe Bell might be able to give them a lead on who took the Heart of the Adjuster. And since they were no longer inside the police lines, but outside them, he and Mr. Data had nothing to fear from the cops. Dix doubted anyone who had been inside was left alive to put the finger on them.

Dix motioned for Mr. Data to follow him, then moved up to where a cop now stood behind a police car, his gun still hot in his hands from all the firing.

"Need to talk to Detective Bell," Dix said. "Important."

The cop glanced around, gave both him and Mr. Data the once-over, then pointed down the sidewalk to the left. "I think he holed up in the second doorway there."

There was no sign of anyone in that doorway, but Dix just nodded his thanks to the cop and moved forward. Down the street he could see a dozen cops moving in around the bodies of what looked like the Undertaker and his men.

When Dix reached the deep alcove where Bell was supposed to be, he at first saw nothing. Then the image came clear. In the shadows at the base of a large wooden door, Detective Bell sat, holding his stomach. Black-looking blood dripped through his fingers.

"Call for help," Dix ordered Mr. Data. Then he knelt beside his friend.

Bell looked up, taking a moment to understand who he was seeing. Then he smiled and coughed. "Should have known you'd be around someplace. I'm amazed you weren't in the middle of the fight."

"Don't talk," Dix said. "Help is on the way."

"Not much help for me," Bell said. Then he coughed again, wincing in the pain.

Dix tried to comfort his friend, but from the look of the blood pooled around the detective, he didn't have long.

Bell glanced up after the coughing fit pa.s.sed. His eyes seemed extra bright in the dark alcove. "Dix, make sure my wife and kids are all right, would you?"

"Of course," Dix said, squeezing his friend's shoulder. "You know I will."

"Thanks," Bell said. Then he smiled and the light left his eyes and he slumped sideways.

Behind Dix two cops entered the alcove. Dix stood and stepped back, giving them room to check on their boss.

"Oh, no, not Bell," one cop said.

"Were we too late?" Mr. Data asked Dix as they stepped back out into the dark, wet night.

"This time around," Dix said. "This time around."

A slight wind swirled the fog lower among the buildings, and the cold bit even harder at Dixon Hill's face and hands. Especially his blood-covered hands.

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

Lenny might have been the inside man on the Redblock s.n.a.t.c.h.

The Undertaker worked for Redblock.

Detective Bell is dead.

Chapter Three.

What's a Castle Doing Here?

Section One: The Long Ride T HE COLD OF THE NIGHT AIR chilled Dixon Hill. His breath was a cloud of white hanging in front of his face. He couldn't remember it ever being this cold in the city by the bay. But considering everything that was happening, unusual weather was the least of his problems.

He and Mr. Data and the other four members of his group watched them load the bodies of Joe "the Undertaker" Morgan and six of his goons who died in the street into a white morgue truck. Two other trucks were doing the same thing with other bodies, one truck for the four dead cops, one for the bodies inside the funeral home, including Danny Shoe. As one cop said, "It's goin' ta be a party at da morgue tonight."

Dix wondered if the cop knew just how true his words might turn out to be.

A crowd of neighbors stood on the sidewalks, wrapped against the cold, watching, like a crowd at a baseball game, waiting for something to happen. Dixon Hill half expected there to be a scoreboard on one side of the street: Gangsters: 12. Cops: 4. It looked like the game was over for the moment. The half dozen or so gangsters who had been captured alive had already been hauled off to jail.

From down the street Dix saw the Luscious Bev, Mr. Whelan and two others heading his way. As she got close she nodded and smiled, indicating that Mr. Evans was going to make it. Now the scoreboard would read: Gangsters: 12. Cops: 4. Good guys: 0.

Dix felt the weight of that worry lift off his shoulders. The kid had been far too young to die.

"Thank you," he said to Bev.

"You're welcome," Bev said, squeezing his arm through his coat. "He's going to be in bed for a few days, but otherwise fine."

"So what's up next, Boss?" Mr. Data asked.

"We're going to make sure we haven't missed anything," Dix said, staring at the funeral home. "Mr. Whelan, I want you and two others to stay here until the police clear out, then search that building for any sign of the Heart of the Adjuster. There are secret pa.s.sageways, so check everything, including the caskets."

Whelan nodded. "We'll tear the place apart, boss."

Dix nodded, then turned to Carter. "I want you to take the others, except for Bev and Mr. Data, with you. Search Redblock's headquarters in the same way. Miss nothing. We all meet back in my office."

"Gotcha," Carter said. He pointed to the men standing behind Bev and they headed off down the street, disappearing into swirling fog a half block down the street.

"Mr. Data, Bev, I want you two with me at the morgue. If my friend Detective Bell does what Redblock's gang did, and comes back to life, we could use his help."

"And if he doesn't?" Bev asked, her big eyes shining in the light from the nearby window, her breath swirling in a small white cloud.

"Then we try to figure out what the police know, and go from there."

"In other words, we're playin' it by ear," Mr. Data said. "Goin' by the seat of our pants. Spittin' in the dark. Wingin'-"

"We get the picture, Mr. Data," Bev said.

"The big picture, Toots," Mr. Data said, taking his tough-guy stance again. "The big picture."

Bev just huffed.

Dix stared at the morgue truck that held Detective Bell's body. It looked as if they were about ready to close the door. He turned to Bev. "I'll meet you two downtown. Get there as quick as you can."

He walked toward the truck, and then, just as a cop was about to close the door, he nodded to the guy and climbed into the back.

"You sure you want to ride in there, Hill?" the cop asked.

"Detective Bell was my friend," Dix said. "I'll take the last ride with him."

The cop nodded and moved to close the big doors.

Four bodies, covered in white sheets, filled the s.p.a.ce on wire bunklike racks on the walls on both sides of the truck. Dix didn't really look at them as he moved past the dead and sat down on the bench, his back to the cab of the truck.

Then, with a shallow breath, he tried to ignore the smell of blood and death as the cop closed the door and plunged Dixon Hill into darkness.

Seventeen hours before the Heart of the Adjuster is carried off Captain's Log.

Mr. Data estimates the Enterprise now has only forty-one hours remaining until it is torn apart by the forces from the four quantum singularities that form the Blackness. Chief Engineer La Forge believes he can keep most of the ship's systems functioning right up to the last minute, but offers no guarantee to the reliability of the more sensitive operations. Even the doors of all the rooms and corridors are opening and closing at random times. Dr. Crusher reports two slight injuries from this problem alone.

I have a.s.signed La Forge and Mr. Data-and everyone else who has engineering or quantum mechanics experience-to work on a way to block the effects of the Blackness so that we can restart the impulse drive. The warp core has been completely shut down for safety, so the impulse engines are now our only hope.

Section Two: Don't Ask The ride to the morgue in the blackness was a nightmare made real for Dixon Hill. Bouncing through the rough streets, surrounded by four dead bodies, it was everything he could do to keep his mind on why he was riding along on this journey into the depths of the netherworld. The cop driving the truck seemed to pay no attention to speed limits, or b.u.mps, or taking corners too fast. No doubt he wasn't used to having live pa.s.sengers.

Dix hung on to the metal bench with both hands and tried to float with the moves, even though he had no idea what was coming next. He could hear the bodies b.u.mping against the walls in the darkness with each turn.

Dead flesh against cold metal.

In the dark, that wasn't a comforting sound.

He stopped himself from imagining the truck crashing, the dead bodies flying all around him in the pitch darkness. Instead he focused on what would happen if what was real changed again. If these bodies came back to life, he needed to be with Detective Bell. He needed Bell's help finding the Heart of the Adjuster, and right now the only chance of getting that was to have his friend come back from the dead, as Redblock's goons had done.

Dix didn't much like his chances. In this world of shifting cold and rain and fog, no rule seemed to be firm, no reality functioned exactly the same from moment to moment. Alive or dead, sometimes the line between the two was thin. It seemed it had always been that way in the city by the bay. But now it had gotten worse.

The only certainty was that if Dixon Hill didn't find the Heart of the Adjuster, and get it out of this city, nothing would survive.

The truck took a hard corner, bounced over what seemed like a curb, and then came to a sliding halt, banging Dixon Hill's head against the wall enough to make his ears ring. Thoughts of taking the driver by the throat crossed his mind.

He was rubbing his head when he heard the moan.

At first he wasn't sure if he was the one doing the moaning, then the back doors of the truck flew open and it was clear he wasn't the only live person now riding in the back of this morgue truck. Bullets that had been in the cop's bodies were scattered around the floor. The blood that had stained a few of the white sheets had vanished.

"We're here," the driver said like a conductor on a train announcing the next station as he opened the second door. Then he froze as he looked up into the truck and saw his pa.s.sengers.

Dixon Hill could only imagine what he was thinking, or the nightmares the guy was going to live with. All four of the cops that had been dead were now trying to sit up. Two still had the white sheets covering their faces. That was a sight that would haunt anyone's nightmares for years.

The driver made a choking sound and stepped back, his hand on his gun.

"Nothing to worry about," Dix said to the poor, startled man. "They are as alive as you are."

Dix stood and moved to help Detective Bell out of the wire cot hanging on the wall, pushing the white sheet to one side so his legs wouldn't get tangled in it.

"What happened?" Bell asked. "I remember looking up at you in the building doorway, saying something, then it was all nothingness, blackness, like a sleep without dreams." Bell glanced down at where he had been shot, rubbing his hand over his now perfect suit coat.

"You and the rest in here were dead for a short time," Dix said, helping Bell stand and move toward the door.

"I'm in the morgue truck?" Bell asked, shaking his head as he looked around.

"You are," Dix said. "I figure you were dead for an hour at most."

The cop on the ground, his eyes twice the size they should be, kept backing up, his hand on his gun, as if shooting someone who had just come back from the dead was going to help anything.

"How?" Bell asked, glancing around at the other three cops in the morgue van coming back to life.

"I don't know exactly," Dix said, not lying to his friend. "But for the moment, let's just say death for many people in this town is not a permanent thing. That might change at any moment."

"So don't make a habit of getting killed," Bell said. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Exactly, my friend," Dix said, steadying Bell.

Detective Bell half nodded, clearly not understanding, but making the best of the situation, as he always did. Dix knew there was no way he could make his friend understand. They all had to just go with it, as if sometimes returning from the dead was now the reality.

Actually, it was the new reality in the city by the bay, for everyone but Dixon Hill and his people.

"We have one major and immediate problem," Dix said as he and Bell stepped down onto the concrete in front of the city's morgue.

At that moment a second morgue truck pulled in, banging over the curb as the one Dix had ridden had done.