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"A lot"

"I saw hi the club He could barely talk How could he have ordered a hit?"

Stroot drunk Maybe one of his boys thought he should start the takeover early"

"Which one?"

"Who knows? They don&039;t talk All evening they don&039;t talk Just Bristow He talks all night, every night, says the sa him myself Gordy sits and listens to it, then finally tells Bristow &039;No, it ain&039;t gonna happen,&039; and Bristow goes nuts His boys got him outta there, but s Just &039;cause Bristow says noon don&039;t "

"When will Bristo himself?"

"Who knows? He don&039;t know if Gordy&039;s dead yet &039;Less he hears different, he&039;ll keep out of sight"

"Then let&039;s give him what he wants"

His face alot scragged? No I ain&039;t gonna say it if it ain&039;t true"

"Then Bristoon&039;t co"

"Don&039;t et him"

"Now you listen to me"

"Jack" Coldfield interrupted "Take what he says as right &039;Cause it is"

"I can s over every hotel and flop in the city Have hi Gordy died? You won&039;t do hiame"

"Why not?"

"Because once a boss steps down-even if it&039;s faked-he never gets back up again Hell, I learned that in the play yard in grade school So did you Sa would happen to Gordy"

"What do we say, then? That&039;s he&039;s on vacation?"

"Sounds right toAl would take off out of town all the tiht twice about it because he left Nitti in charge to hold his place for him"

I didn&039;t like the sound of this "Oh, no, you can&039;t be thinking-"

"No one crossed Nitti, because he was good at the job and had Al&039;s blessing

No one will cross you, either"

"Oh, no, not ht now"

"Makes sense," said Strome "Better than your idea"

Of course it made sense to hiet

"I&039;ll back you to the other boys You wanna get Bristow reet out front, say you&039;re in charge, then wait"

"Oh, hell"

"You got some other stuff to back you up, too," Coldfield reret that he knew about my supernatural extras Thankfully, Strome didn&039;t inquire about what he meant; neither did Adelle She followed all this hat looked like horrified interest

"Jack, I don&039;t want you risking yourself," she said "Stay out of it Have Gordy&039;s s"

Strome looked like he wanted to tell her to butt out Ladies and ames weren&039;t supposed to irlfriend "We can take care of things better with Fle the show"

"But-"

"He&039;s right," I said "If Gordy wants his spot back in one piece, I&039;ll have to step in If it helps, I don&039;t like doing it one bit"

"It doesn&039;t help! I don&039;t want hi back to that If this Bristow man wants to take over, let him Gordy and I can leave town"

"Adelle, it doesn&039;t work that way, and you know it Guys in Gordy&039;s business never retire"

"I want us to be different"

"Me, too, but it isn&039;t in the books"

"You&039;ll do it?" asked Strome

"With e"

"Huh?" This was news to hioes The boys do the same for me as they would for Gordy"

"I donno about that"

"You don&039;t like it, then you take over and you be the sitting duck for Bristow&039;s shooters"

His eyes flickered He ht of that possibility

"It&039;s the only way You want Bristow? That&039;s the price I&039; as Gordy takes to get well"

Stroet well?"

"Worry about that only if it happens"

"It could"

"For God&039;s sake, shut up!" said Adelle, hovering protectively over Gordy as he slept "Don&039;t say that; don&039;t think it!"

Stroot some eye pressure from me "Drop it"

And he dropped it

Coldfield knehat I&039;d done and failed to hide his amusement "Damn, kid

You&039;ll do"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, suddenly tired "That&039;s what I&039;round floor was dark, but lights warmed the upper s

My car was still in its space, glea from the persistent rain The lot was empty now Isham dropped me off at the curb, then drove back to the Belt Strome was to watch Gordy and Isha would happen

Adelle elected to stay with Gordy There was no prying her away, and no one tried

I didn&039;t bother unlocking and sieved inside The place was quite, quite ehosts have to sleep so on the office couch with three overcoats tucked around her: her own, mine, and Escott&039;s She looked so daan&039;s voice droned from the next room over I&039;d heard it all the way up the stairs He&039;d say soain Escott was hard at it, transcribing everything into shorthand

"I&039;h noise walking up so as not to surprise him "How&039;s Gordy?"

"Still out Clarson says he&039;s holding his own Shoe wasn&039;t happy, but he did the right thing"

"Decent chap Always has been Both of theuy?"

"Left ages ago Afraid they didn&039;t say where"

"The Nightcrawler" I&039;d allowed Stroot assurance that Gordy was alive, it was business as usual, and that I&039;d be doing some special work for hi they liked from that

Escott put his pad of paper to one side "What now?"

"We get Bobbi home"

"She said she wanted to see Gordy"

"You can drive her over tomorrow Maybe He&039;ll be at Clarson&039;s, and you wanna watch for tails"

"Of course"

"And I&039; over for Gordy"

Now he put down his pencil He didn&039;t say anything for the longest time, then abruptly chuckled

"Hey, there&039;s nothing funny about this! I could get punctured at any oons!"

"And you of all people would be able to survive it"

"Yeah-yeah, but I don&039;t like te fate, she has a twisted sense of huone to the top in Chicago You are now a bona fide Aroaned "Only &039;til Gordy&039;s on his feet"

"Will your official hat be a pearl gray fedora or a straw boater?"

"Wrong on both counts A football helskins"

"What&039;s going on?" Bobbi came in, eyelids puffy from interrupted sleep, one side of her face marked with pillow creases She still looked cute "How&039;s Gordy?

I want to see hi, "Not until toh, and maybe not even then"

"Why not?"

"Because visiting hours are over The more activity at Doc Clarson&039;s office, theafter him I told her to phone you"

"But I could phone her Oh, all right" She correctly interpreted the look onyou can do for hiet soood hands and will be much safer if we stay clear of hiuy who shot hi taken care of"

"By you?"

Da Gordy&039;s operation For as short a ti Bristow"

It looked like she had a few objections to launch, then she sighed and shook her head "Great I&039;ster&039;s moll What ever will I tell Mother?"

"That the pay is the sa after Bristow? No one else?"

"Have to Gotta shut hi over Gordy&039;s job He&039;d turn the Nightcrawler into a crib house in half a week Or less" I&039;d gotten that infor his nicknas and later men, Bristow had worked his way up in the New York vice rackets He was a gooda profit Apparently he had drea back the glory days of the old Levee when you couldn&039;t spit anywhere between Clark Street and Wabash Avenue without hitting a brothel There&039;d been some reform since then, so his attempt to turn back the clock would spark more trouble than it orth Why didn&039;t New York realize that?

Bobbi did so to do it?"

"I&039;ll figure soeneral plan was find Bristow, then send some of Gordy&039;s torpedoes in to do the honors That was how such things were usually acco of everything else, keeping it steady until his return I refused to consider anything else Gordy had to coan? You&039;re busy with him, remember"

"Let hi for teeks Do hiood to learn what it&039;s like"

"And this club?"

"I can handle both, but I wouldn&039;t turn down any offered help" I sounded hopeful

She snorted "Only because it helps Gordy And I still wanna see hiet you ho Charles and I discovered it on the recording"

"Discovered what?"

"It&039;s really weird"

"If Dugan said it, then I&039;m not surprised"

"Charles, would you play it?"

He nodded and worked the roove; the fuzz of static ca civilized, then there was the sound of thu with him

A moment of silence, then not too distinctly a woround static and said, "Hit hiain I don&039;t like hian Bobbi and Escott sharply waved roaned "That was completely unnecessary"

"Was so," the woman declared

Dance h, picked up by the all-hearing microphone More close to it a clunk and click of a door shutting-which was s when I&039;d hauled Dugan up for that last attempt to hypnotize him My own voice was odd to me; I didn&039;t careI had to do when trying to put him under

But on top of it, the woman said "That don&039;t ith his type Bust hian told me to take my hands off him, then yelped; there was a crash when he landed on the couch

The wohed "That&039;ll show him!"

Escott raised the needle, then one of his eyebrows

Bobbi looked at me expectantly

" Who was that?" I asked "There wasn&039;t anyone else in the room"

"Perhaps there was," said Escott

I got who he meant and shook my head "Oh, no Nononononono that&039;s not possible"

"When one has elilanced at Bobbi-"and we have, then whatever remains-and we&039;re very well aware that it is rather i my head " No"

"Why not, Jack?" Bobbi asked

Because I don&039;t want it to be, that&039;s why "It just can&039;t"

Escott played the piece again

"Bust hied, barely above the static but understandable

He lifted the needle, put it on its rest, then pulled a box of matches from his breast pocket

"No," I said firhts went out