The Night's Legacy (27 page)

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 b
elt.  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 skin 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 pulled 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.

The man in the picture sat in a leather office chair.  He held a bottle of Pepto-Bismol in one hand and a pistol in the other.  “I should have known you’d find me eventually,” he said.

She let the cape drop and put a hand on
Caledfwlch’s hilt.  “Rahnasto.”

“You’re much shorter than the last one.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“I suppose you’re here to take me in to the police.”

“No, I’m here to find Set.”

Rahnasto put down the gun and then took a long pull of Pepto.  “I would like nothing better than to give him to you.  That fool has done far more harm than good.  He’s brought far too much attention to our business.”

“Then help me get rid of him.”

“I would love to, but as I’m sure Mr. Andropov already told you, we don’t know where he is or who he is.  He shows up at times of his choosing and he never takes off that mask.”

“You must have people tailing him.”

“We’ve tried.  He’s very tricky.  My best men follow him for about a block before he disappears.”

“I’ve seen your best men.  They aren’t very good.”

“They might be better if they had magic armor.”

“No one gives magic armor to punks.  When are you meeting him next?”

Rahnasto nodded and then too another hit of Pepto-Bismol.  “He hasn’t said yet.  He’s lying low after that subway thing you broke up.”

“The trap you helped him set for me.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“But you helped him rob the Thorne Museum.  You helped him cripple my predecessor.”  Lois had to stop herself from saying, “my mother.”

“We didn’t know what he planned to do.  He left a note for me here to set up a meeting.  He said he could get rid of you.  All we had to do was rob the Thorne Museum.”

“That was before he was Set.”

“Yes.  He didn’t start calling himself that until he took that staff and helmet from a display case.”

“That was his target all along.  He wanted the Staff of Set.  And you helped him.”

“We provided assistance in keeping the do-gooders occupied.  He handled everything else.  He got us in there, disabled the security and killed that guard.”

“You helped him rob those banks too.”

Rahnasto shrugged while polishing off the antacids.  “He didn’t give us much choice.  That stick of his crippled your predecessor.  What could we do against that?”

“So basically he played you for a sap.  You, the big kahuna in this town.  That’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

“I didn’t really think he could get rid of the Silver Seraph.  Looks like I was right.”

“You got rid of one.  You won’t get rid of me so easily.”

“I beg to disagree,” Set hissed.  She dove just in time for him to fire a lightning bolt.  Rahnasto wasn’t so quick; the lightning bolt hit him in the throat. 
Lois yanked Caledfwlch from its sheath, wasting no time in throwing it at Set. 

She didn’t hit him, nor did she expect to; she just wanted to keep him from lining up a shot on her with his staff.  She rolled to her feet and then sprang towards Set.  She hit him right on the nose of his headdress.  The punch knocked the headdress around ninety degrees, so that for the moment Set couldn’t see anything.  Her next punch hit him in the midsection, doubling over so that she could knee him in the throat.

All of this violence loosened his grip on the staff.  She tore it from his hands and then brought it around to hit Set on the side of the head.  He flew across the room, into one of Rahnasto’s bookshelves.  The shelf broke in half, coming down on top of him.  She leveled the staff at him, wondering how she could make it fire lightning.

“It’s over Set.  Come out of there and take off the stupid mask.”

He obliged her on the first, shoving the remains of the bookshelf to one side so that he could get to his knees.  “You haven’t won,” he said. 

“I got the staff.  Seems close enough to me.”

“You can’t use that staff any more than I could use your sword.”

“You’re welcome to try.”