Authors: Elaine Lowe
There was no sign of anyone and no indication if the three men Daron had predicted from the tracks in June’s kitchen were all the enemies they might be facing. She was pulled back abruptly and almost let out a yelp but the absolute fury in Daron’s eyes and that flooded into her from his touch silenced her.
“Don’t risk my heart so easily, woman!” He had not raised his voice. He didn’t need to. Then he too looked around the corner and assessed the situation, pulling back quickly when two men appeared in the alley to shut the back door of the truck and take in the carpet. When their grumbling voices indicated they had heaved the heavy carpet on to their shoulders, Daron eased around the corner once again.
The door slammed. Daron turned back to Sophia and Alan. “They went into this building.” He indicated the warehouse with quick gesture.
“It sure looks abandoned though,” Alan piped up. He looked around the corner quickly. “And what’s up with the carpet cleaning truck?” He took a whiff of the air. “I can tell you guys right now this building hasn’t seen the kind of chemicals they use to clean carpets. All I smell is…” He paused, a wry grin on his face. “Somebody around here has a cheap still. Eau de bathtub gin is hard to hide from a chemist.”
Sophia blinked, knowing enough not to question Alan’s nose for chemicals but not seeing what use that was to anyone at the moment. Daron had drifted back to the front door of the place, examining the lock on the door. Strangely enough, it was a cheap padlock and faster than the time it took Sophia to walk from the corner to stand by Daron’s side, he’d gotten a knife out from somewhere and had stripped off the outer casing. A couple of turns of his nimble fingers and the thing had dropped away. Daron slid the knife into the well between the door and the doorframe and with a loud click that seemed to echo ominously, the way seemed clear.
“That was just like the movies!” said Alan, clearly impressed. “Any other gypsy-type magic you gonna pull?”
“No,” said Daron, worry evident in his voice, “that was too easy. I may be the son of an instrument maker and the grandson of a jeweler but that should not have been as simple as that.”
“Let’s just go in! Face whatever the hell it is and get them out!” Sophia was sick of standing around and talking. If she was going to face death, she’d face it. “Time’s a-wasting and we don’t know what’s happening to them!”
Daron took a look at her white face and knew. “You lost your connection?”
She looked away and nodded. Daron took a deep breath, bent forward and placed a kiss on her lips. “Can I convince you to stay here
, ashavi
? It is a bad neighborhood but…”
“Are you kidding! Hell no!” She pushed past him and turned the knob, pushing open the door slowly and heaving a sigh of relief when the hinge didn’t squeak too loudly. No sign of a night watchman or a barking dog. In fact, there was nothing in the room but a shred of light from the cracked windows high up on the bare walls and the empty expanse of wooden floor. Aside from stray garbage, squeaking rats and a couple of blankets that might have housed a hobo at some point, the place looked like it had been empty for years.
Daron came up behind her, putting a hand in the small of her back. By the time they’d all entered, it became evident that this was just one of many large rooms in the place. Alan sniffed again loudly. “I think we should split up, cover this whole place. Something smells fishy to me. I’m going that way. You folks go whatever way your magic stuff takes you. Holler if you need me!”
He stalked away, leaving Sophia and Daron blinking in confusion for a moment. Still, he was right, they could cover more territory if they parted ways for a time. Sophia didn’t want to have additional things to worry about but Alan had disappeared through an open doorway to the right of this front room before she could find sufficient arguments to merit a response. Daron flicked his head forward and she sighed, following Daron deeper into the echoing building.
The floor seemed to make a ridiculous amount of noise as they crept across it. The farther they had traversed toward the back of the empty warehouse, the louder the voices they’d heard seemed to echo. But then those voices suddenly cut off, replaced by a tiny sound that Sophia hoped was only Hester sniffling in fear. She didn’t want to dwell on all the other possibilities for what the heartrending noise could mean.
Daron gripped her arm tightly and quickened their pace. The floor made ominous creaking noises. Something just seemed wrong about it. Sophia dared to draw back her fragile walls blocking out the roiling density of people in the tenements nearby. She wanted to try to understand more about the coming danger they faced. Overwhelmed by sickening nausea she stopped dead in her tracks staring down at her feet with eyes wide.
Then the world dropped out from under their feet. She barely had time to let out a scream as Daron pulled her tightly to him, trying to flip them in midair so that he would take the brunt of whatever they hit as they plummeted down into the dark.
* * * * *
Sophia woke from her stupor with the beginnings of a blistering headache and the urge to retch. Fortunately, it had been long hours since she’d absentmindedly chewed on an apple and a sausage roll, so there wasn’t much for her stomach to try to eject. Daron had an arm around her waist and he was trying diligently to haul her to her feet despite her dead weight. She tried to help but her left ankle sent a bolt of pain through her and she hissed in pain, finally opening her eyes.
She almost slammed them closed again. The view down the barrels of a forty-four and a sawed-off shotgun was not a sight she’d particularly wanted to see in her lifetime. But she needed to be there and not faint like some namby-pamby heroine in a dime store novel. She couldn’t leave Daron alone to save everyone.
The voice she’d heard berating June in the alley greeted her in harsh tones. “Thanks for dropping in on us! Never thought that trapdoor would come in so ’andy now, did ya Billy?” The man grinned menacingly around half a cigar.
One of the two gunmen smiled, showing rotting yellow teeth in a leer as he held up the forty-four. The other one, presumably Billy, caressed his shotgun and answered, “Yep, sure is.”
The ringleader coughed and Billy amended his answer, “Yes sir, Mr. Diggins sir. It’s very handy.”
Mr. Diggins wore a sharkskin suit and a fine felt fedora, both in a matching shade of blue bright enough to be called teal. With the fading gold of his hair and the livid redness of his cheeks, he looked like an aging peacock. Sophia swallowed a nervous giggle. He looked utterly out of place against the backdrop of the dank basement. The shine from his patent leather shoes chased off the skittering of roaches fighting over crumbs on the floor from somebody’s discarded lunch.
Her eyes fluttered to her right, where June sat clutching a wide-eyed Hester against the brick wall. June was almost catatonic with remembered terror. Sophia forced herself not to look for Alan. Either he’d run for the cops or he was still upstairs, clueless about the basement’s occupants. She hoped he had a chance of evading the two bulky henchmen that flanked Diggins. Those two nasty looking fellas were wearing much rattier clothes than their boss. It seemed that Diggins kept his money solely for his own benefit. Sophia hoped that translated into those brutes being all show and no substance.
“So, what da ya two fancies possibly got goin’ with Juney-baby to bother followin’ her all the way down to the Kitchen, eh?” Diggins chomped on his words like he chomped on his cigar.
Sophia pushed past the sickening hopelessness that dragged her down. She spoke before caution caught up with her thoughts. “And what the hell reason have you got to steal her and her daughter out from their home?” Daron’s hand tightened around her elbow and she suddenly felt a shot of the deadly intent behind Diggins’ icy gray eyes. They were all in deadly danger.
Diggins moved his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and stared at her. “You ain’t as pretty to look at as Juney-baby but you do look a sight sturdier. I’m sure the boys will have a fun time breakin’ you in ’fore I sell ya to a whorehouse.”
Daron growled, gripping the knife he held so tightly his knuckles turned white. Sophia ignored the fear churning in her gut and tried to take stock of the situation.
Unlike the desolate rooms above, this sub-basement had the frenetic feeling of being very occupied. A battered June sat on the floor, a rumpled Hester in her arms. It was hard to tell whether the mother was comforting the child or vice versa. Against the concrete walls, there were stacks and stacks of rolled carpets, along with hundreds of half-gallon jugs imprinted with the seal of a well-known dairy. There was a pungent smell in the air and a couple of sputtering gas lamps provided the only light, its yellow waxy glow painting everyone in unflattering relief. In the gloomy distance, there was a contraption that seemed to be made of dirty copper pipes, crusted-over glass jars and laundry tubs. It was a far cry from the neat precision of Alan’s basement distillery but Sophia knew a still when she saw one.
Suddenly everything fell into place in her mind. The carpet cleaning ad on the side of the panel truck in the alley was the same she remembered from the truck that had almost soaked her in front of Daron’s building. The wild messy cloud of Hester’s bright hair confirmed her suspicion that the child had been rolled up in the carpet and carried down the stairs, her mother forced to follow quietly or risk harm to her daughter. That’s probably how they smuggled their hooch too, innocent-looking milk jugs containing second-rate joy juice rolled up in carpets and smuggled into speakeasys. A neat trick but one for a two-bit operation, not some high-rolling high-living gangster.
She tried to stand a little bit straighter with her injured ankle and put a provocative pout on her lips. “I don’t know, big boy, how many whorehouses you got? Do I get to pick which one? I might even like the work enough to give you fellas a freebee without scratching and biting.” She gave a broad wink. “Unless you like that kind of thing. I aim to please.”
Daron’s arm was still around her waist and she prayed that he and only he could read the terror underneath her sexy bravado. He gripped her tighter and growled, whipping the knife around to hold it against her neck. She flinched, her eyes widening with shock but it was mostly feigned, as she could feel a sense of trust and adoration ripple through her from where he clutched her waist so tightly.
Predictably, Yellow Teeth came just a bit closer. “There now, no hard feelings buddy! Just ’cause the bitch wants a new pimp don’t mean ya damage the merchandise.” The man leaned close enough to drag a finger across her cheek.
She smiled and then kicked Yellow Teeth in the balls with those heavy duty clogs, taking the forty-four out of his hand with an ease that shocked her. Daron aimed a kick at the fella’s head and Sophia was fairly certain he’d be out for a while. Blinking suddenly, she aimed the gun at Billy who held the shotgun and hoped to God her hands weren’t shaking as much as she thought they were.
“Or maybe we’ll just take June and Hester and get out of here. That would work as well.” She swallowed, wanting nothing more than a sip of water and for this all to be a bad dream that she’d wake up from, snuggled tight in Daron’s arms.
Diggins was turned a bright shade of puce in his rage. “Fuck you and your pimp, you little bitch! Juney’s my girl, I bought her from her mother fair and square. She and her little brat are my property and I’m just taking back what’s mine!”
“That wasn’t my mama, Hugh. That was my stinkin’ no-good cousin. My mama died in one of your fucking sweatshops, trying to make a better life for us!” June hissed. She stood suddenly, ignoring the twitching from Billy as he moved the shotgun back and forth between Sophia and June. June’s eyes flared until they seemed to burn blue. “You took my childhood away, you bastard. You ain’t going to take my daughter’s!” She leapt at him, nails out and scratching at his eyeballs. Billy didn’t want to take the risk of shooting his boss and so watched dumbstruck as Hugh Diggins tried to subdue the wildcat he’d beaten up so easily a few minutes beforehand. With a mighty backhand, he hit June hard enough that she flew into the wall and Hester shrieked and tried to run at Diggins. But she never made it.
Instead, with a loud clanking noise, one of the jerry-rigged pipes on the still behind Diggins swung out, bathing the back of that teal sharkskin in searing hot steam. Sophia thought she heard Alan’s yell of triumph over Diggins’ squealing. Daron took advantage of the moment of confusion to run at Shotgun Billy. For a brief moment, it looked like they’d won the day but then the shotgun discharged and Daron staggered from the hit. Sophia screamed, holding her gun up to shoot but Daron was faster, bowling the guy over and then slamming the back of his head against the hard floor. He kicked the gun away and then slumped over.
Sophia felt frozen, hoping again that she would wake up. Dropping the gun, she folded her hands around her middle and collapsed on her twisted ankle. She couldn’t lose him. This time she’d not be able to keep her sanity. Alan leapt over the steaming pipe and ran to Daron’s side, feeling for a pulse even while he glanced over at June slumped against the wall. “He’s alive, Sophie. We’ll get him out of here and to the hospital in no time!”