“What the hell are you doing?” he says.
I fling the keys into the darkness like I’m on the pitching mound in the big leagues. His arrogance slips a notch. In his moment of distraction, Angel Doll slams him in the head with her purse. His hat tumbles away and she twists free, backing away from him as I advance.
I power-limp across the platform. Teague swivels toward Angel and slams her to her knees with a bunched fist. In the second it takes him to gloat, I land a good one to his jaw. I hear a satisfying snap...a tooth...maybe a bone. I can’t strut like a horny rooster, but there’s iron in my fist.
“You son of a bitch,” he says, and comes at me hard. His shoe slams my ribcage. Cartilage rips from the bone and I stagger sideways.
Angel screams as she watches me struggle to stay on my feet. My body clenches around the pain. I hear a distant siren. Jim should be here in two minutes, maybe three. Either way, Teague isn’t going anywhere without a car.
Teague gives me a bloody, broken-toothed smile. A straight razor materializes in his right hand. I have nothing to lose, so I make one final play. Where I come from if you gotta go down, you go down fighting. He thrusts toward my gut and I grab for the knife. Angel rises to her feet. I’ll never know how successful my effort would have been, because a bullet whines past my ear and the razor clatters to the wooden planks.
Teague needs both hands to plug the hole in his throat. He’s sprung a sizeable leak and blood dribbles between his fingers. He looks surprised, like how can so sterling a fellow as himself come to such an ignoble end? He drops to his knees with a gurgle, falls forward on his face and bleeds out on the boards.
Angel looks down at him with the gun in her hand. My gun. One of her eyes is swollen closed and a bruise is spreading across her cheekbone. She doesn’t seem to comprehend what has just happened.
“It’s all right,” I say. “Hand me the gun.”
She looks at me with a dazed expression, like she’s doesn’t know who I am, like I’m a stranger who’s wandered onto the scene. I take a step toward her and she takes a step back. The gun is heavy and her arm falls to her side.
The whistle blows. Cars begin inching down the tracks.
“Angel, everything is going to be okay. We can clear this whole thing up.”
Patrol cars pull onto Depot Street. The train moves slowly over rails that are silver with rain. Angel looks at the train, then at me, then at the train again.
“Angel,” I say, but she’s in a dead zone beyond my orbit.
She drops the gun and runs along the platform as the train picks up speed. I start after her, but my leg buckles and I go down. She raises her arm. A hand reaches downward and grabs her wrist. She’s briefly suspended on air, then disappears inside the train. My last vision of Angel is her tear-stained face at the window and her little hand pressed against the glass as the train picks up speed.
I’m pulled to my feet by a strong hand. It’s Jim. He walks over and pockets the gun, then looks down at the body, his face expressionless. I throw my weight on my good leg. A second patrol car pulls up to the depot. Two young officers climb onto the platform and out of the rain.
“Duggan,” says Jim, “see that the Ford gets back to Hank Featherstone at The Rexford? This gentleman is too injured to drive.”
“Yes sir.” Duggan can’t take his eyes off the body. I’m not sure that any of us have seen that much blood in one place at one time.
“Duggan, now, if you don’t mind,” says Jim.
“The keys are in the ignition,” I say. He walks off looking a little green around the gills.
The other officer stands waiting for orders.
“Boyle, forget the ambulance and get the coroner down here.”
“Right away, sir. Do you know who’s responsible for all this...blood?”
“Mr. Dunning seems to be the only witness. I’ll see what he has to say.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“There is no victim. That’s Axel Teague.”
Boyle scratches his head. “If there’s no victim, there’s no perp.”
“You get smarter every day, Boyle,” he says, and bags the razor for evidence.
* * * *
Jim stops the car on the bridge. The night is dense and black and the river roaring. He takes my gun out of his pocket and tosses it over the railing.
“So there won’t be any questions later,” he says. “The way I see it...no girl...no gun...no sweat. Got a problem with that?”
“That’s the way I’d tell it,” I say.
We drive in silence for a while with rain pounding on the roof of the car.
“Jack,” he says, “a word of advice. Don’t obsess over the girl. Sure, you could follow her to L.A., but believe me, by the time you find her she won’t be alone.”
“Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine,” I say.
He sputters a laugh. There’s the trace of a smile on my lips, not because things are funny, just at the crap life throws at you. We pass The Blue Rose Dance Hall. The door swings open and Elmer Ganguzza sails through the air and lands on the sidewalk. Water pours off the windshield and Jim turns the wipers on high.
“Whether it’s Boston or Santa Paulina, some things never change.” I say.
“No shit. Speaking of Boston, ever work cold cases?”
“Sure, I’ve worked my share.”
“The Chief’s going to do some snooping into your solve record at B.P.D. If he likes what he sees, he’s going to ask you to have a look at some of our old cases. He’d like to put you on as a consultant. Isn’t every day we run across a big city cop. It shouldn’t interfere with what you’ve got going at The Rexford and a guy can always use a few extra bucks.
I’m about to tell a whopper, then I figure what the hell.
“Before I sign on you should know they canned my butt in Boston because I drink too much. I’m still on the bottle.”
“Too much is a relative term. The Chief says if you don’t fall off the floor you haven’t exceeded your limit. You two should get along just fine.”
“Let’s talk again on Monday,” I say. “All I can think about right now is a stiff drink and a warm sack.”
* * * *
I guess I’m moaning in my sleep because Hank calls in the doc about 3:00 A.M. and I hear them talking in the hall outside my door.
“You got to do something, Doc. No one can get any sleep with all that moaning and groaning.”
“I’ll take a shot at it,” says McBane.
He zaps me in the hip with a syringe the size of a rolling pin and the pain melts away like warm candle wax.
Alone in my room I down a shot of Jack Daniels and savor the mellow burn. I listen to the rain tick against the windowpane and watch the reflections of neon ripple across the ceiling. I’ve had one hell of a welcome to my new town.
I light the last Lucky in the pack and think of Angel and how her pale velvet skin felt against mine. I think of her soft hair on my cheek and the intoxicating waves of her perfume. One glorious night together and what do I have to show for it? A broken string of dime store pearls and an empty wallet. It’s not that funny, but I can’t help smiling.
“They say you can’t fall in love this fast,” said Angel Doll. Maybe not, but what we had was a damn good facsimile. She couldn’t take the place of Sandra...no