The Night's Legacy Read online

  Barney called for a taxi while they ate dessert. Tony really had thought of everything. She didn’t want to imagine how much all of this was costing him and Barney; it probably came to more than a gift shop employee made in a week. Before they left, she gave Barney a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “This was wonderful.”

  “Anything for a pretty young lady.” As Tony led her out to the cab, she asked, “So now what, Big Spender?”

  “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

  “You mean you didn’t plan the rest of the evening?”

  “I wasn’t sure how things were going to go. We could go dancing—”

  The mention of dancing reminded her of her vision of them in Dr. Johnson’s ballroom. “I have an idea.”

  He recognized the address as soon as she gave it to the cabbie. “That’s Dr. Johnson’s house, isn’t it?”

  “Soon to be my house.”

  “I guess so. Do you have a key?”

  “Yes.” She reached into her pocket. “Mom already had a key for when she wanted to visit Aunt Betty.”

  “So I guess no one would mind.”

  “If they do, screw them.”

  As they rode to the Heights, she took Tony’s hand. She didn’t want to kiss him in front of the cabbie, though the cabbie had probably seen worse. She tried to remember the last time she’d had such a perfect night. Never. Her dates in high school had consisted of burgers or a pizza, followed by some clumsy groping in the car afterwards. In college it was a dorm room or a frat house, followed by rolling around on a lumpy bed or couch. After that it was dark bars, followed by a roll in the hay in the backseat of a car, as she had with Tony. She’d never gone on a romantic date before.

  Deciding to ignore the cabbie, she leaned over to kiss Tony on the cheek. “This has been a great night. Just what I needed.”

  “It’s not over yet.”

  “I know.”

  The cab stopped at the front gates to Dr. Johnson’s house. Tony paid the man and then they were alone. “It’s huge,” he said, staring up the winding drive at the house.

  “It was brought over brick-by-brick from Wales,” Lois said. “Richard said it was built in the 17th Century by a Welsh duke. George the Third spent a winter here in 1778. Of course it was still in Wales then.”

  “They brought all of that over here?”

  “It took a few years.”

  “I’d say so.”

  She punched in the access code to open the gate. She probably wasn’t supposed to know that, but she had seen Mom open the gate dozens of times. Once the gate ground open, she motioned forward. “Come on, let’s go up.”

  She took his hand, pointing to some of the marble statues on the front lawn. These too had been imported from overseas, mostly from Italy. “A lot nicer than garden gnomes,” Tony said.

  “No kidding.”

  At the front door she stuck the key in the lock. She wondered if any of Dr. Johnson’s servants would still be around. He had never kept many, just a maid, a cook, and a gardener to maintain the place. Cleaning thirty bedrooms and mowing acres of grass required a lot of work.

  There didn’t seem to be anyone inside. The lights were all turned off and the security alarm turned on. She knew the code to disarm that as well. She turned on the crystal chandelier dangling overhead so that he could see the foyer with its parquet floor and stairs leading up to the second floor.

  “Wow. I think this is bigger than my whole apartment.”

  “There’s a lot more. Come on.” She pulled him to the left, opening a set of doors that led to the ballroom. The room was of course empty, though the floor still looked freshly polished. “Do you dance?”

  “My mom taught me a little.”

  “Then you can teach me.”

  “There isn’t any music.”

  “So? I could hum.”

  He took her other hand and then turned her to face him. “Put your feet on mine.”

  “That might be hard. Yours are too small.” She did it anyway, angling her feet to the side so that she could press close to him.

  “Here we go,” he said. He swept her forward, counting aloud, “One two three.” It wasn’t quite how she had imagined earlier, but it was close enough. She closed her eyes, imagining an orchestra in the corner and a room full of other couples. In her imagination she saw Mom with Sam, both of them in formal attire, the latter with his hair cut and clean-shaven so that he looked like a dapper old gentleman. Dr. Johnson and Aunt Betty were also there, all four of them watching as Lois and Tony danced. In her imagination, Lois wore a wedding dress and Tony a tuxedo.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  She didn’t realize until then that she was crying. “I’m sorry. Old memories.”

  “We can go—”

  “No, there’s something else I want to show you.”

  With thirty bedrooms to choose from, it didn’t take long to find one. The bedroom probably hadn’t been used in years—if not decades—but it was still free of dust. She made a note to keep the maid and maybe give her a raise.

  This guest bedroom was done in dark red with pink floral touches. The queen-sized bed was so high that she had to jump to make it up. She rolled onto her back, motioning for Tony to join her. “Come on,” she whispered. “What are you afraid of? We’ve already gone all the way.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  He landed next to her on the bed. She rolled into his waiting arms. At the same time she began unbuttoning his shirt he started working her zipper. He unhooked her bra while she unfastened his belt. They wound up naked at the same time.

  “You look a lot better without a car around you,” she said.

  “You look the same.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “What do you think?” he said and then kissed her.

  * * *

  She woke up clutching a pillow to her chest. She lifted her head, searching the dark room for a clock. There was an old analog one on the nightstand, its illuminated face indicating that it was one in the morning. “Good morning,” she mumbled, feeling around with one hand for Tony. There was no one else in the bed, just more pillows.

  She pulled a sheet from off the bed to wrap around her body before she went to look for him. He’d probably gotten up to use the bathroom and gotten lost. He should have woke her up, but he wasn’t that kind of guy. He was a nice guy. Maybe not as nice as Dr. Johnson, but far more considerate than slobs like those guys in Durndell.

  “Tony?” she called out. “Where are you?”

  She padded down the hallway, knocking on every door and then peeking inside. This took a while since there were so many doors from which to choose. Most of these were guest bedrooms that were empty, though as dust-free as their room. She found a bathroom; there wasn’t a light on, but she knocked anyway. She opened the door carefully and called his name. There wasn’t any answer.

  She went all the way down the hall to the master bedroom. She opened the door and turned on the light. Her heart broke at the sight of Dr. Johnson’s bed, a picture of Aunt Betty on the nightstand. He had probably kissed that picture goodnight for years before he went to sleep.

  Both of their clothes were still in the closet. Tears came to her eyes as she saw the rows of dresses much too large to fit her. Dr. Johnson hadn’t been able to get rid of his wife’s clothes, not even to put them into storage. She found the blouse Aunt Betty had worn that day she drove Mom to Brown. Leaning in close, she could still smell the mixture of frying oil and burnt coffee from that diner. She wondered if Aunt Betty had planned to wear this same shirt to greet Lois once she came back. It was too late now.

  Dr. Johnson’s clothes still had his familiar scent of sandalwood. She had bought the cologne for him when she was four; he had kept buying it ever since. She patted one of his shirts, closing her eyes to try imagine the feel of his body, but when she did his sk
in was cold.

  She hurried out of the master bedroom, running back to the guest bedroom where she and Tony had made love. He wasn’t in there. By now he might be wondering where she had gone and left to find her. Looking around the room, she saw that his clothes were gone. She abandoned her sheet to put her dress back on.

  She found the note downstairs, taped to the front door. Tony’s handwriting wasn’t as neat as Mom’s, but it was still easy to read. “Thanks for a great night. I had to go take care of something. See you at work tomorrow. Love, Tony.”

  She balled the note up. That rat! First he had ditched her at that club and now he snuck out after they made love! She threw the note to the floor and screamed, the scream echoing throughout the foyer. What sort of business would be important enough for him to sneak out? He probably just didn’t want to be with her in the morning, not after he’d already got what he had wanted the most.

  “So fucking typical,” she grumbled. She thought he was different, but he wasn’t. Just like every other man she’d been with he’d come and gone. Making it worse was that she had fallen for his whole act of being a sensitive gentleman. He wasn’t sensitive or a gentleman, just another son of a bitch.

  “I am going to make him pay,” she said, imagining giving him a swift kick to the crotch. She wouldn’t even need the armor to make it hurt. In the meantime she could vent her frustration hurting some people who deserved it even more: Set and his buddies.

  Chapter 26

  She had to visit three clubs and pummel three different mob guys before she got a solid lead on Rahnasto’s lieutenant. According to a thug hanging out at the Dirty Martini Club, Rahnasto went through lieutenants like some people changed their underwear. It wasn’t considered much of a promotion to become the gangster’s lieutenant because they inevitably wound up in prison (thanks to Mom) or dead (thanks to Sam).

  Before he passed out, the thug indicated a Mr. Andropov would be dropping in on a certain high-class call girl at an apartment downtown. He would be there for a couple hours of relaxation before going back to his wife and kids. That gave her a couple of hours to find him and then beat Rahnasto’s whereabouts out of him.

  The apartment building wasn’t one of those old brick tenements like those of the Hole. It was a modern skyscraper with sleek glass sides interrupted by steel balconies. She had to be a pretty good piece of tail to live here. She was probably part of a stable of women kept around for the mob’s use when they wanted to blow off some steam.

  Climbing the building was pretty easy. With the balconies she didn’t even need the suction cups most of the time. She just hopped from one balcony to the next, mentally keeping track of which floor she was on. According to her source, the hooker lived—worked was more like it—on the forty-third floor.

  Thanks to the armor, Lois wasn’t even winded when she reached the forty-second floor. She stopped there, hearing voices above her. They were speaking in Russian, which she knew a little of after reading a dictionary while working at a coffee shop in Milwaukee. It was a little tough to translate the spoken language, but she could get the gist of it.

  Andropov was in there with the girl. She wished she didn’t know Russian so that she wouldn’t know what they were doing up there. It was the sort of stuff that probably would have made Mom faint.

  Lois considered how to approach the situation. She decided on the direct approach. She balanced herself on the edge of the balcony and then jumped to the next one. She caught the rails with her hands. She waited for the Russian guards to approach the railing. Then she flipped herself over the rail, kicking one in the face. The other she spun around to catch in the midsection with her foot. She knocked both out before they could scream for help.

  She pushed the balcony door open with little trouble. The hooker—or at least her decorator—had good taste. The living room was full of modern art, with white furniture; she didn’t want to think about the kind of stains that might be on that furniture. There was no one else in the room. The rest of the guards were probably outside so they didn’t have to listen to what their boss was doing.

  She heard a lot of moaning and grunting from the bedroom, reminding her of what she and Tony had been up to. He probably thought of her as his high-class whore, the kind he could buy off with a nice dinner before ditching her in the middle of the night. She clenched her fists as she thought of his note. Then she reached for Caledfwlch.

  When she opened the door, she found Andropov in a very compromising position. A bleached blond stood over him with a riding crop in her hand. The woman turned to her and said, “What are you doing here? This isn’t a three-way.”

  “I’m taking over,” Lois said and then decked the woman. The whore had a smile on her face as she collapsed; she was that kind of call girl.

  Lois picked up the riding crop, figuring this was why Mom had left Sam to handle a lot of the detective work. She cracked the riding crop on the edge of the bed. “You like the rough stuff, huh? Then I guess we’ll get along just fine.”

  Andropov mumbled something. She yanked the gag out of his mouth. “I won’t tell you anything!”

  “Sure you will. The only question is how long it’ll take and how much of you there’s going to be left.”

  “You won’t kill me. You can’t.”

  She smacked him on the neck with the riding crop. “That was the old Silver Seraph. I’m the new model. You’re going to tell me where Set is or I’m going to flay you.” She brandished the sword so that he could see the sharpness of the edge. “Now, what’s it going to be?”

  “I don’t know where Set is. No one does. He always sets the meeting places. We go to him.”

  “Yeah? What about your pal Mr. Nasty? I bet he knows where Set hangs out.”

  “He doesn’t. No one knows. I swear.”

  She raised Caledfwlch, taking perverse pleasure when he covered his face and squealed like a girl. “Maybe I’ll ask him. Where is he?”

  “I can’t tell you. He’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll kill you first.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t tell.”

  “All right.” She lowered the sword, touching it against his neck just enough so the edge drew a thin line of blood. This prompted him to squeal again.

  “The Brass Drum! That’s his club. He’s there most nights.”

  “Like tonight?”

  “Yes!”

  She drew the sword back and then leaned down to look into his terrified eyes. “If you’re lying, I’m going to find you. Get it?”

  “He’s there. I swear.”

  “Thanks.” She punched him in the face. He sagged to the mattress, a trickle of blood coming from his broken teeth. She left him there with his whore and then went over to the phone. She dialed Murphy’s cell number and then took off her helmet. “It’s me again.”

  “You have any idea how much that stunt in the subway cost?”

  “Less than fifty lives, so shut up.”

  “You call to gloat about it?”

  “I don’t gloat. I’ve got Rahnasto’s latest number two. You want him, just come to the Rochester Towers, apartment 4310. That’s where he and his friends will be.” She slammed down the phone before that ingrate cop could say anything. Then she tied up Andropov just in case he woke up.

  Before leaving she opened the front door. As expected, there were two more guards outside. They must not have thought anything of their boss’s screams. She took them out as easily as the other two and then dragged them inside for Murphy.

  Then it was time to find Mr. Nasty.

  * * *

  The Brass Drum ostensibly closed at two in the morning. There were always a few people who hung around until the bouncers threw them out, or a select few “friends” of the owner who got special permission to stay past last call. Lois was neither of these.

  She didn’t figure Rahnasto would be at the bar. He would be in the office if he hadn’t already left for the night. If so, she would pay Andropov a visit in jail. As she pul
led up to the bar, she thought of the last time she had been there, when she had met Tony. She hadn’t explored much of the bar, but she figured the office would be past the VIP area.

  With the cape around her body, she crept towards the front door. She waited for a bouncer to toss a drunk out the door and then slipped inside. A waitress was stacking chairs while the bartender wiped down the counter. It all looked perfectly normal, which was the point. Everything illegal would be happening in the back, behind the purple curtain.

  She made her way across the floor, stopping to make sure no one was looking in her direction before she pushed the curtain open enough to duck inside. The VIP room didn’t look much different except there were vinyl booths instead of chairs. She wondered what Tony had been doing back here that night when they met. Knowing him he was doing shots off some strange woman’s belly button.

  As expected, there was a door in the back, painted black so that it blended with the wall. A red sign next to the door indicated it was a fire exit. She thought of the subbasement and Mom’s hidden base disguised as a janitor’s closet. This was probably the same deal; heroes and villains weren’t that far apart when it came to hiding out.

  She twisted the knob hard enough to break it off. Then she pushed the door open and stuck her head through the doorway. The hallway was deserted and quiet. Had Mr. Nasty given his guards the night off? That or else he wasn’t here. A third possibility was that Set had already shown up to liquidate his partner.

  There were three doors: one to the left, one to the right, and one at the end of the hallway. The one at the end of the hallway had to be the fire exit. She tried the one on the right first. Pushing the door open, she found an ordinary furnace room. There didn’t seem to be any hidden doors to lead to a secret office.

  She backed up and then decided to try the remaining door. It came open easily enough. Through the visor she saw a darkened reception area, like Lorna’s office at the Thorne Museum or in Brian Brendel’s office. Nothing identified Rahnasto or the mob, but again that was the point.

  She kicked open the door to the inner office. As with the outer office, the inner one looked disturbingly normal. There were rows of bookshelves with various business manuals and legal texts. There was even a picture of a Brass Drum softball team on one. The wooden desk also looked normal, with a picture of a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a chubby blond woman along with two small girls, twins by the look of it.