The Fedora Fandango: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 5) Read online

  “There’s not. They’d already be here if that was the case.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “I am,” she said. “One hundred percent.”

  Letting out a long breath, I said, “That’s worth something, O’Neal. But still…hiding a witness like this, and a hot one at that…it’s a hell of a favor. Why me?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go. I can’t use anyone on the force. And the friends I have who aren’t cops…they wouldn’t know how to take care of themselves or the witness if anything ugly got started.”

  “You expecting ugly?”

  “No. But I wasn’t expecting any of this tonight, was I? There’s no way to promise you’ll come out of this unscathed. But I think there’s a good chance—better than good, really—that you’ll be okay. In a day or two, I should be able to get some more muscle in place and we can move the witness then. For now, though…”

  “For now, you need someone outside your establishment but inside the protection business. Someone who can use a gun if he needs to.”

  She nodded. “That about says it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, O’Neal. It sounds like you need something between a bodyguard and a babysitter, and I’m not worth much when it comes to either of those things.”

  She gave me a long, thoughtful look before saying, “So that’s a no?”

  “I want to help,” I said. “But…I might not be the right guy for the job.”

  “And why is that?”

  I hesitated a moment before saying, “I’ve been having some…episodes. Sort of…blacking out, I guess. Seems like something left over from the war.”

  “You seen a doctor?”

  “Not yet. It’s on my list of things to do.” This was a lie, but it wouldn’t make any sense to say I was planning to consult my local genius inventor for help. The lie would have to suffice.

  She bought it with a nod. “What about the mechanical woman? Could she be enlisted to help if you’re incapacitated?”

  “Normally, yeah. But I’ve had her babysitting Sherise ever since Hennigar broke into her place. I’m surprised you’d think she was a suitable substitute for me.”

  The detective shrugged. “Normally, I wouldn’t. But in a pinch…I know you trust Carmelita, and I trust you, so…”

  “Well, like I said, she’s not here.”

  “You really think these blackouts are something to be concerned about?”

  I shrugged. “Could be.”

  She nodded. “Well…I’m willing to take a chance.”

  “Because I’m all you’ve got?”

  “No,” she said. “Because of the way I’ve seen you take care of that robot. And the old man. Even that assistant of his. You talk a tough game, Jed, but you don’t like to see the innocent get hurt.”

  I shrugged. “Most people aren’t innocent. You sure about this witness of yours?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “He’s definitely innocent.”

  I gave her a stare, waiting for her to go on.

  When she started, I soon wished she hadn’t. “You were right on the money when you said I need a bodyguard and a babysitter, Jed. My witness is a boy. Seven years old. How’s that for innocent?”

  The starch dropped out of my collar at that point.

  “Who bought it?” I asked, my voice almost lost in the sound of the falling rain.

  “His parents.”

  “He see it happen?”

  She shrugged. “He’s not talking. It doesn’t really matter, though. Whether he saw it or not, there’s somebody out there who thinks he did. And they’ve already killed one cop who tried to protect the kid.”

  “A cop?” I asked, incredulous.

  She nodded.

  “Could my night get much worse?”

  She smiled. “Sorry to dump this on you, Jed. I don’t know who else to turn to.”

  I let out another long sigh and then gave her a little nod. “All right. Go get him. I’ll…figure something out.”

  Her smile didn’t grow any wider, but her eyes got moist. Out of relief, I suppose. She reached out and grabbed my wrist, giving it a brief squeeze. “Thanks, Jed.”

  She turned away and went out into the rain. With no hat and no umbrella, she moved quickly, getting to the car and opening the driver’s door before ducking her head inside. The car’s interior lit up when the door opened, and I was able to see inside. I craned my neck a little to make out the boy but could see only another woman at first; she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her at that distance. Then I saw another head pop up in the back seat, a child. The boy had probably been asleep back there, and now the light and the voices had woken him.

  Less than a minute later, the woman in the passenger seat was out of the car, opening the back door while O’Neal closed the driver’s door. It looked like the second woman wrapped the kid in the folds of her raincoat and then picked him up, all three ending up on my porch moments later.

  The second woman was blonde and had pleasant features that weren’t able to shine. She had the look of someone who’s been through hell, or is only halfway done with the journey—circles under her eyes and a red nose from crying. Even so, I remembered her from a few days earlier.

  “Detective Dietrich,” I said, recalling the woman who’d shown me some decency as my last case had closed outside the Tidepool Inn in Santa Monica. Then, she’d looked smart and together, clearly able to out-police her jaded superior in any task that was thrown at her. Now, she looked like she needed a stiff drink and a long time in a dark room where she could be left to wrestle with whatever demons plagued her.

  “Mr. Strait,” she said, having to raise her voice a little against a violent torrent that had just started pelting the roof above my porch. “Thank you for helping us.”

  As I was about to say something chivalrous, she opened her coat and set what looked like an impossibly small boy on the wooden floor of the porch. His undeniable presence and what I took for frailty sent my words packing. The kid had light brown hair in a bowl cut and wide eyes in his round face. He looked so tiny there with the women who’d brought him to me for safe keeping, dressed in short pants, a button-up shirt and a little coat. His shoes were small, his hands, too. I never would have taken him for seven years old, but then again, I wasn’t used to being around kids. Maybe he was sickly. Or maybe he was just small for his age. For all I knew, he just looked small and meek thanks to the power of the rain and what I’d learned from O’Neal—that he’d seen something terrible and now someone wanted him dead for it. That would have been enough to make anyone look small.

  When he looked at me, though, his expression pushed aside my first impression of him being under-sized. The kid’s eyes were empty. It was like he looked right through me to the front door behind me. The kid wasn’t just small. He’d had something yanked out of him. His eyes were those of soldiers I’d come through harrowing battles with, and I’m sure there’d been more than one time that my compatriots had seen that same look in my eyes.

  “Jed, this is our friend, Jack,” O’Neal said, making an obvious effort at sounding pleasant and casual. Then she turned to the boy and said, “Jack, this is our friend, Jed. You’re going to stay here with him tonight and he’s going to take very good care of you until we can get you fixed up with someone from your family. Do you understand?”

  The boy gave no indication he’d heard anything the detective had just said.

  I made my own meager effort by saying, “Hi Jack. Nice to meet you.”

  It was something I would have said to a grown man, but it was all I had to offer.

  Again, the boy gave no response. I looked up at O’Neal and then at Dietrich. They both looked back at me, helpless. And then I noticed something. It was subtle. But it was undeniable.

  The two detectives had edged closer to each other after Dietrich had poured the boy from the folds of her coat. Now they stood shoulder to shoulder, the backs of their hands touching each ot
her.

  It made me feel glad that O’Neal had somebody—a strange thought, I suppose, since the detective’s private life and emotional well-being had never been a thing for me to ponder before. Still, the feeling was undeniable.

  “Thank you, Jed,” O’Neal said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Dietrich echoed.

  “I won’t say it’s my pleasure, but…” I shrugged. “Suppose we’ll make the best of it, though, right?”

  “I’m sure,” O’Neal said. “We’ve got some loose ends that need tying up still. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  When she mentioned the bit about loose ends, I noticed that Dietrich’s drained expression seemed to dip a little lower into the void. Whatever had happened tonight, it had rendered this little boy speechless and put him in danger, but I could also tell that O’Neal’s girlfriend had paid a price of her own. Curiosity—both natural and professional—made me want to know what it had been, but I knew that now was not the time to ask.

  “That sounds good. I’m going to need to spend some time at Guillermo’s tomorrow, but Jack can come, too. Leave a message with Peggy when you’re ready for me, and she’ll be able to track me down.”

  “That sounds fine.”

  Both detectives shook hands with me and then said goodbye to the boy, who still gave no indication that he’d heard a word any of the adults had said. As I watched O’Neal and Dietrich run through the rain back to the car, I felt a new sort of emptiness—my being left alone with this kid now an undeniable reality where a minute before it had still been something I was going to have to face in the future. When the car doors were closed and the engine started, that reality grew firmer. And when the headlights came on and the car dropped into gear, it turned to granite.

  I stood there on the porch watching O’Neal’s taillights grow dimmer and more distant. When I was left with nothing but rain, I knew it was absurd to stay on the porch any longer. Things had probably reached the point of absurdity well before that.

  “Come on, then,” I said to the boy and led the way to the door. When I glanced back, I was glad to see he’d opted to follow me. Small favors, I thought, as I pictured the alternative—the boy planting himself on the porch and needing to be forcibly brought in out of the rainy night. “Good for you,” I said as I unlocked the door. “I expect we’re going to get along just fine, kid.”

  Chapter Two

  I awoke somewhere around four in the morning to the sound of screams coming from Carmelita’s bedroom, where I’d set my charge up for the night after doing my best at going through the motions and doing a reasonable imitation of Uncle Jed.

  The screams had pulled me out of a dream where I’d been back in the gambling den, only instead of rolling dice, it was a pair of bullets I was rattling around in my hand and then tossing down on the floor. The bullets seemed to have no markings, so I couldn’t tell what was a winning throw and what wasn’t. Everyone else around me seemed to know, though, including Stony G, who had not one but two eye patches and yet still seemed able to keep track of the bullets and the wagers. Then Charlie—the grizzled simpleton who’d been poked with Stony’s knife—started mewling in the crowd, his ruckus growing louder. Soon, I was no longer throwing bullets but was trying to calm Charlie down while Stony laughed in the background. “What’s the matter with you?” I asked, but she said nothing, and when I turned back to Charlie, his expression changed. He was horrified at the sight of me, and he started screaming. I knew why. In the strange logic of dreams, I understood that I no longer had a face.

  Startled awake as the screams from the dream clawed their way into the real world, I jumped out of bed without fully grasping what was happening. I keep a gun in the nightstand drawer, and I grabbed it now as I raced out of the room in boxer shorts and undershirt. The front room was dark, but I found the knob on Carmelita’s door, and yanked it open without any fumbling.

  I hit the light switch and saw the boy sitting up on Carmelita’s bed, the screeches coming with each breath, tears running down his face. He was looking at me, but I could tell he wasn’t seeing me. At the last second, I thought to set my gun on the shelf outside Carmelita’s door, and then I rushed in and tried to calm him down, fearful that the neighbors would hear the sounds of distress and call in the police—exactly what O’Neal had wanted to avoid.

  “It’s okay, Jack. It’s okay,” I said, raising my voice a little to be heard over the screams as I sat on the bed and put a hand on each of his shoulders. There was no response.

  Then I realized it wasn’t just screams. He was saying something, trying to get something out through the tears and the gasps for breath.

  One word, repeated after every third or fourth outburst.

  “Miscarry!”

  I didn’t get it, and right then I didn’t care.

  Not knowing what else to do, I gave him a little shake. It did nothing. “Jack!” I tried, louder still. “You’re okay! You hear me? You’re safe now. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Whatever you’re scared of, it’s not here. It’s gone. It’s gone, all right?”

  Maybe it was the steady barrage of talk, and maybe it was something in the actual words I said, but something got through. The screams stopped. All that was left was some wheezy weeping as the boy tried to find his breath and wipe at his eyes. No more repetition of the single, strange word.

  “It’s okay,” I said, more quietly now and grateful for whatever had gotten the boy to calm down. “It’s okay.”

  I took my hands tentatively from his shoulders and waited to see if the screams would start again. He stayed still, though, so I sat back a little more.

  “You want a glass of water or something?” I asked him.

  He shook his head, the first sign he’d given since being delivered to me that he could communicate.

  “All right. That’s good.” Then, reading his effort at communication as an invitation to try for more, I said, “You were saying something before. When you were upset. Miscarry? Was that it?”

  I had been hoping the question might lead to something concrete that I could give O’Neal when we talked later. It was the wrong thing to try, though, as the boy’s chin started quivering and his breathing got rapid again.

  “Okay, okay. We can be done remembering. It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

  I watched him nervously, waiting to see if his fuse was going to burn down to an explosion or if I’d managed to snuff it out in time. After several seconds of him just breathing hard and staring at me without screaming, I figured I’d dodged a bullet.

  “You want to get up, kid?” I asked, hoping for something more neutral. “You hungry?”

  Nothing.

  “Need the bathroom?” I tried.

  Still nothing.

  “I don’t expect you want to try sleeping anymore.”

  He just stared.

  “All right,” I said. “That’s all fine. Maybe…”

  I was grasping at the frayed ends of a broken rope, hoping to find anything I could tie together.

  “You like music?” I finally offered. “Hang on.”

  Feeling a little nervous about leaving him alone, I went as quickly into the dark front room as I could, found my guitar case in its customary corner, and brought it back. Opening the case, I took out the shiny hollow-body Harmon and showed it to the boy, letting its brilliant finish catch the light. With relief, I noticed a bit of life in his eyes, a sliver of interest in the guitar. That was enough. Not bothering to bring in my little amp and plug in, I propped the instrument on my leg and hit a nice, happy C chord and then plucked each string, one at a time. Now his eyes were glued to the guitar.

  “Just as well,” I said. “I wasn’t going to get much more sleep anyway. And I’ve been getting a little behind on my practice.”

  I cleared my throat. “Don’t know any kids’ songs. But…” I coaxed an E chord out of the strings, and then traded that up for the tension of a tight B7. “There is this one song about a gal whose man don
e her wrong. You want to hear that one?”

  With neither affirmation nor rejection coming from my small audience, I launched into a sedate version of “Broken Bottle Blues.” And before I knew it, the sun was coming up.

  There wasn’t any milk in the ice box, but the kid went for the dregs of the orange juice I’d bought two days before along with two scrambled eggs and a piece of toast. I matched him but washed mine down with black coffee.

  We ate at the little dining table next to the kitchen—something unusual for me, as I usually shoveled food in while standing up in the kitchen. The table was more typically used to spread out papers and maps, things related to cases I was working on. That had been the case the previous night, before I’d been hijacked. As I laid two plates, forks and knives out on the table, I saw the notes I’d been making the night before. I tore the top sheet off the pad and stuffed it in my pocket before telling Jack to come have a seat.

  Just as he hadn’t answered any of my questions earlier, he gave me nothing when I asked about food or anything else. Still, he ate. And when I gave him a clean towel and showed him where the soap was in the bathroom, he indicated that he would be able to get himself cleaned up without my needing to do any sort of hand holding.

  As I closed the bathroom door to give the kid some privacy, I told myself this babysitting business wasn’t anywhere near as tough as the screwball comedies made it seem. Then, knowing I’d have at least a few minutes without prying eyes, I went out to the front porch and spotted the newspaper in the middle of my walkway. Moments later, I was back at the kitchen table, the headlines spread out before me.

  I had to read fast, as I didn’t want the kid seeing any of what the paper had to say when he came out of the bathroom, and I also figured it wouldn’t do for him to see me scrambling to get the paper all folded up and hidden away from view when he reappeared, freshly scrubbed. So, I skimmed with my eyes while keeping my ears trained on the sounds coming from the bathroom.

  The night before had been a bloody one in Los Angeles, and writers and editors at The Record must have been determined to mop up as much of it as possible with newsprint.