John Miller - Death Draws Five

“What are you doing here?” Jerry asked in a low voice.

“Nighthawk brought me here,” she said in a quick whisper, almost more to herself than Jerry. “The Cardinal made him. He said he was going to free me soon, but he hasn’t come. I can’t—I can’t take this place much longer. This place is mad, insane with death and misery. It drips from the walls, running in puddles up to my knees—”

“All right,” Jerry said in low, soothing tones, “all right.” Her voice was rising, almost hysterically. He tried to shush her, but it was already too late.

“Quiet out there!”

The command came from inside what looked to be a larger room at the end of the corridor, perhaps the office, or the hangout, or whatever you wanted to call it, of the freak show’s keeper. Jerry could hear someone moving around, probably in response to Cameo’s growing frenzy.

“Can’t sleep with you yelling like a crazy woman! You make me come out there and I’ll give you something to yell about!”

“All right,” Jerry said. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“My hat,” Cameo demanded. “Get my hat!”

“All right,” he repeated again, helplessly making placating gestures. “Just be quiet for a minute.”

“My hat,” she repeated, insistently.

Jerry nodded vigorously, striding towards the guard room to discover the modern day equivalent of a medieval torturer manning the dungeon as he practically bumped into a large, fat, and unshaven man coming out of the room with a snarl on a face that could have only been improved if it had been wiped clean and redone. The man started and blinked dumbly for a few moments as he stared at Jerry. He was wearing a dirty undershirt, dirty jeans, scuffed shoes, and, of all things, a battered fedora.

“Bu-Bu-Butcher Da-Da-Dagon,” he stuttered with a degree of fright that was almost comical. “Wha-wha-wha are you do-doing he-he-here?”

Jerry kept his smile to himself. At least his disguise was working. He had no idea what Dagon’s voice was like, so he modeled his British accent on Roger Moore.

“I’ve come for Cameo,” he said. He remembered something that she’d said, and inspiration struck him. “The Cardinal wants her.”

The dungeon-keeper bobbed his head in mute and complete agreement. He turned and led the way back into his office. There wasn’t much too it. A wooden table with a scarred surface that looked like someone had been playing mumblety-peg on it. A few wooden chairs that looked scarcely capable of supporting the guard’s bulk. A large handbag teetered on one corner of the table with a pile of junk spread out before it.

“This her stuff?” Jerry asked.

“Uh-huh,” the jail keeper replied.

Clearly someone had dumped her over-sized purse and searched through the accumulated mass of feminine paraphernalia. There was a lot of stuff, most of which Jerry didn’t care to examine too closely. For a moment he was worried, because the all-important hat she’d demanded wasn’t present. Jerry turned and looked at the turnkey, frowning.

“Where’s the hat?” he asked as flatly as he could, discovering that it was hard to be menacing and yet sound like Roger Moore.

“Uhhh.” It seemed to be the guard’s favorite word. Sheepishly, he removed the battered fedora that was perched jauntily on his head, exposing a forehead that couldn’t have contained a teaspoon full of brains. He held it out apologetically to Jerry.

Jerry had expected some kind of female-type hat, but if this was the one in the bag, this was the one she must have been talking about. He swept all of Cameo’s other paraphernalia into the purse, figuring there might be some other vital bit of equipment she needed. He took the hat from the guard as he swept out of the room, paused in the doorway and took a key ring that was hanging from a spike hammered into the wall. The keys were iron, appropriately massive for the old cells. Jerry had thought he’d be able to do his skeleton key trick to open up the cell doors, but judging by the size of the keys in his hand, he’d have to stick two or three fingers into the massive lockplate to be able to duplicate the key, and he didn’t think that would have worked too well.

He paused and turned to the guard. “Stay here. I don’t want to disturb your rest any further.”

He hoped that he’d managed an appropriately sinister turn of voice and the jailer would obey. He didn’t want the man peering over his shoulder while he went through the cells freeing not only John Fortune and Cameo, but all the prisoners.

He went back out into the corridor, and his heart suddenly seemed to catch in his throat as he saw a dark figure. For a moment he panicked, and then he realized that the man seemed to have more of a waiting than lurking attitude, and he didn’t seem very menacing at all. He was a small, older-looking, very dark-skinned black man neatly dressed in a dark suit with a faint pinstripe, white shirt, and polished black shoes that would have been very stylish fifty, sixty years ago. It looked, in fact, like something Bogart would have worn in Casablanca. The old man carried it off very well. He looked sharp, in the parlance of an earlier generation. Except for the black glove that he wore on his left hand. What’s up with that? Jerry wondered.

“You shouldn’t be prowling around the oubliette alone, Dagon,” the old man said in a sweet, soft voice that revealed his deep south roots. There was, however, a peculiar emphasis on the word “Dagon” that Jerry didn’t like.

“Just checking things out,” Jerry said, trying to sound like Dagon but suspecting already that he was wasting his effort.

The old man nodded. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves,” he said formally. “My name is John Nighthawk. I am in the employ of Cardinal Romulus Contarini, whose hospitality you are currently enjoying at Saint Dympna’s Home For The Mentally Deficient And Criminally Inclined. And you are?”

“Butcher Dagon?” Jerry asked, trying but failing to keep an interrogatory tone out of his voice. He knew now that his cover was blown, but at least he wasn’t being confronted by a pumped-up muscle head like Witness or a stone killer like Dagon. He figured that he should be able to handle this old man, though he realized that appearances in the wild card world could be utterly deceiving.

John Nighthawk shook his head. “Time to put all the bullshit aside, son. I’m afraid that Butcher Dagon is currently a guest of state of Nevada, city of Las Vegas. I’m afraid also that if we want to get out of here, we don’t have much time. A team of heavily armed mercenaries backed by aces is going to show up in a very few minutes. It’d be better if none of us were here to answer their questions.”

Jerry sighed. Once again, it seemed as if nothing were really as it seemed. He was getting tired of playing this game. “What do you want?” Jerry asked.

“I want Cameo,” Nighthawk said. “I want to get her out of here. Since you came here with John Fortune, I assume you want him, and you also want out. I have no objection to that.”

“Just what do you people want with him?” Jerry asked. “Who the Hell are you, anyway?”

Nighthawk shook his head. “There’s no time for long explanations. Let me just say that Contarini is the head of an order known as the Allumbrados, which means ‘The Enlightened Ones.”’ They believe that John Fortune is the Anti-Christ—”

“What?” Jerry couldn’t believe his ears.

Nighthawk held up a forestalling hand, the gloved one. “We can talk about this or we can get the Hell out of here.”

Jerry nodded. “All right. Let’s get the Hell out.” He and John Fortune could ditch this crazy old coot as soon as they hit the fresh air. “Cameo’s this way.”