F Wilson - The Dark at the End

“No sign, not a word from them.”

No surprise.

“Too bad,” Mack added.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Because I loooove his ride. A black 1980 450SEL 6.9.”

“An old Mercedes? I had him figured for a Maybach, or maybe a Bugatti.”

Mack shook his head. “Uh-uh. That ain’t just an ‘old Mercedes.’ Don’t you dare call it that. It’s one of the greatest saloons ever built.”

Jack knew Mack was baiting him with the term. He knew what he was talking about but bit anyway.

“Saloon? I thought we were talking about a car.”

Mack’s eyebrows rose. “We are, my man. That’s the British term for sedan. But that SEL is a saloon.”

“More like a tank.”

“Got that right.”

Jack pushed the conversation back on target. “Okay, so when Osala moved out, did you happen to notice who did the actual moving?”

Mack gave him an annoyed look. “You take me for some kinda fool who’s gonna let a bunch of yahoos come in here and clean out a tenant’s apartment without knowing who they are and making sure it’s cleared with the tenant ahead of time? Course I did.”

Jack knew from their previous run-in that Mack took his job very seriously.

“Was there a name on the truck?”

“There was.”

Compared to Mack, a rock was garrulous.

“What was it?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Crap.”

“But I do have a work order.”

Bless you, Jack thought as he followed the bantam of a man to his cubbyhole of an office. Mack pulled open a drawer, fished around, and came up with a yellow sheet of paper.

“Here it is.”

Jack reached for it but Mack pulled it away. Jack snagged it on his second try. The name on the header came as a shock, but only for an instant, replaced by an I-should-have-known feeling and accompanied by a Bernard Herrmann cue.

Mack snatched it back. “Don’t you go grabbing my papers.”

Wm. Blagden amp; Sons, Inc.

A year and a half ago, in South Florida, a Blagden amp; Sons dump truck had been stolen-supposedly-and used to run down his father, leaving him in a coma. A couple of months later, Jack had followed Luther Brady to the Blagden amp; Sons’ concrete plant in Jersey… a bad memory there.

And now the name pops up again. He had known back then the Blagden company was connected to the Order, and that the Order was connected to the Otherness and Rasalom. So not a huge surprise that when Rasalom needed his stuff moved, Blagden amp; Sons showed up. After all, they had trucks galore. But mostly dump trucks and cement mixers.

“What kind of truck was it?”

“Typical box truck.”

“Like a moving van?”

Mack glanced ceilingward. “A moving van is a box truck.”

“Okay, okay. Jersey plates?”

“How’d you know?”

“Lucky guess. You don’t happen to remember the plate number.”

“Don’t have to. Wrote it down. You don’t think I’m going to let them drive off without me knowing that, do you?”

He jotted the number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Jack.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask if they happened to have a delivery address on that work order.”

Mack nodded. “It would.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to ask them.”

“You really think they’ll tell you?”

“I can be very persuasive.” He clapped Mack on his upper arm. “Thanks for your help.”

As he turned to go, Mack said, “Don’t you want the address?”

“Don’t need it. Been there a couple of times already.”

On his second trip he’d discovered the plant’s awful secret.

Ernst Drexler hung the jacket of his white suit on a hanger in his office closet, then adjusted his vest before seating himself behind his desk. He had to look cool, calm, and most of all, in control. He could not reveal the rage and-yes, he admitted it-fear and uncertainty roiling through his gut.

The man who would knock on the door any minute now could not be allowed to see any of that. Ernst was an actuator, one of the long arms of the Order’s Council of Seven. The man arriving was a tool for that arm…

A tool who had acted on his own.

Or had he? That was the unsettling part.

He rubbed his hands together. Chilly in here. Maybe he should have kept his jacket on. The thick granite walls of the Order’s Lower Manhattan Lodge kept it cool in the summer but made it hard to heat in the winter. And he wasn’t getting any younger. He’d passed sixty years ago. One felt the cold more in one’s seventh decade.

Or was it just his mood?

A knock on the door.

“Come.”

Kris Szeto entered in his beloved black leather jacket. He had black hair, swarthy skin, and always appeared to need a shave, even when he didn’t. He had been living in America for years but maintained a Eurotrash look. His face still exhibited faint reminders of the severe beating he’d sustained two weeks ago. The bruises had cleared but a couple of fresh scars remained.

“You wished to see me?” he said in Eastern Bloc-flavored English as he came to a stop before the desk.

Control… keep the voice steady.

“Yes. It has come to my attention that Claudiu Ozera is dead.”

The incident was all over the news. Four men had opened fire on an elderly woman in Central Park this morning. A fifth gunman came to her aid, killing one of her attackers before whisking her away. The dead man had not been identified to the public, but a brother of the Order who was also a member of the NYPD had reported it to the Council. The news came as a shock. Ozera had been assigned to Szeto. Szeto was assigned to Ernst. The Council was in an uproar over it: Why was a member of the Order involved in a public shootout? Why hadn’t the actuator informed them?

For a very good reason: Ernst had known nothing about it. But he was about to find out.

“Yes. Most unfortunate. An unforeseen circumstance.” Szeto’s tone was flat, matter-of-fact, as if explaining a spilled quart of milk. “My team engaged target as instructed-”

As instructed? Ernst let it pass for now.

“-and fire many times, make many hits, but she does not go down. Then other man appears, firing. He kills Claudiu and wounds Filip. I am watching from side. Since Lady is not going down, I order retreat.”

Ice shot through Ernst’s veins. No… it couldn’t be.

“‘Lady’… do you mean the Lady?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But she cannot be hurt by bullets.”

“I know this. But if the One wishes to have her shot, then I must shoot her, yes?”

Ice was fire compared to the interstellar cold exploding within him now. He couldn’t help himself “ The One? How would you know what the One wishes?”

Szeto’s bland expression finally changed. “He came to me and told me.”

“You idiot! That was not the One. You’ve been duped!”

Szeto’s face darkened. “I know the One. Is my mother not his housekeeper?”

Yes. Yes, she was. The connection had slipped Ernst’s mind. Women weren’t allowed in the Order, of course, but the Order supplied the One with staff, and traditionally any woman supplied would be related to a brother.

“But the One knows better than all of us that the Lady can’t be shot.”

Szeto shrugged. “He tells me shoot Lady, I shoot. I do not question the One.”

No one questioned the One.

Szeto’s eyes narrowed. “Why is it you do not know of this?”

Ernst had been dreading the question, but was prepared for it.

“I have been out of town on Council business. Most likely he did not want to wait until I returned. The One is not known for his patience. And since he knows you are my right-hand man, he went directly to you.”

Szeto nodded slowly as he stared at Ernst. “Yes. That must be it.”