Deadly Powers (Tapped In Book 2) (21 page)

We were halfway to our destination when I felt tremors starting in my legs. I needed to tap in soon. I slowed and repositioned Butch’s bulk off my injury, more onto my shoulders.

“You don’t look so good, Doc.”

“I’m fine … just need to eat something, that’s all.” Prior, I’d grouped Jordan and Jude together as one and the same—two ruthless killers, both following the dictates of an even more ruthless, borderline psychopath-killer—Rudy Palmolive. But Jordan’s mind, I was finding, wasn’t nearly as bleak, or nearly as dark. Even now, as he and I dragged Butch Cassidy’s body down the middle of Tombstone’s Main Street, I could see Jordan had regrets. Surprised, I saw his own mental playback of the recent shooting, just as it occurred in real-time, and I realized Jordan hadn’t fired toward Butch’s chest, like the other two. No, in that instant, he’d chosen, instead, to put a round into the wooden floorboards, less than an inch from the back heel of the congressman’s right boot. There was compassion there—or, at the very least, a sense of morality. With that insight, I wondered if Jordan could be turned.

I said, keeping my voice low, “You know, the ghoul back there … behind us? He’ll inspect the body and find only two bullet holes in Butch’s chest and two exit wounds. He’ll tell your boss that one of you didn’t shoot poor Butch in the saloon.”

Jordan’s expression suddenly darkened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You should shut the fuck up before someone puts a bullet in
your
head.”

But I knew Jordan’s threats were only a cover for his own uneasiness at being discovered.

“Hey, I wouldn’t tell him. Hell, I liked Butch. I think what you did—what you didn’t do—is admirable,” I said conspiratorially.

Jordan looked straight ahead as his eyes darted back and forth, like one whose mind desperately sought a way out of a tight predicament. We walked the rest of the way in silence. As we approached the front door of the undertaker’s building, I noticed three coffins of varied size propped up outside the mortuary, blocking the window behind them. It occurred to me this outdoor display was more about keeping curious eyes from looking into the window, than about enticing passersby to stop and purchase a coffin.

“Colman … get the door,” Jordan said.

The emaciated-looking man hurried ahead of us, pulling free a set of keys from his front trouser pocket.

The door once unlocked squeaked open on angry-sounding hinges. Colman ran forward into the murky darkness, stopping halfway into the room at what looked like a long, waist-high table. He beckoned us toward him, using outstretched arms and hand motions. I hadn’t yet perused his mind—not the slightest bit interested in the inner, macabre workings of the unlikable undertaker.

“Lie him on his back,” Colman said.

It took three tries before Jordan and I were able to heft Butch up onto the table. Jordan then offered me a quick nod of his head, acknowledgment of a job well done. Colman, at some point, moved away to light an oil lamp, and the room, suddenly lit, seemed even a far ghastlier place.

Billy the Kid was right—the undertaker had had a very fruitful day. The smell alone should have been my first clue that there were other dead here. Actually quite a few, I discovered, after a cursory glance around. The telltale shapes of bodies, at least six or seven, became more distinguishable in the light of the lone, flickering flame.

When my legs suddenly buckled and the room spun, I reached for the table in front of me. Jordan came around and took my arm. “Hold on there, man.”

I took in a lungful of fetid air and tried to clear my head. Withdrawal symptoms were coming on strong.

“Shall I clear another table for him?” Colman asked.

Both Jordan and I answered in concert, “No!” My eyes found two identical doors at the back of the room. One, according to Lori, would gain me access to the town’s electrical panels. I wondered if it was accidental they’d been placed there, amongst these ghoulish surroundings, or an ingenious safeguard to keep curious eyes at bay. I took a last look at Butch and silently apologized to him once again.

“Come on … I’ll help you back to the hotel,” Jordan said.

* * *

By the time we entered the saloon I’d lost my mind-reading capabilities. I stood up tall, doing my best to hide the fact I was on the verge of collapse. The piano player was banging out a fast version of
Camptown Races
, while three brightly dressed saloon girls danced and flashed their petticoats at a rowdy, boisterous crowd. I spotted Jude and Billy the Kid at the same Faro table. Neither noticed our arrival.

“I’m heading up to my room for a while,” I told Jordan, who merely shrugged and headed toward his companions. I wasted no time heading for a swinging door, which stood between the bar and the staircase. I entered the busy kitchen—the sounds of clanging pots and pans and the sputtering of flame-cooked steaks filled the air. Bright florescent lights glared down from above, my first indication there really was electrical power here. The place was packed with ten or more workers: Four men cooked at a grill, while several others prepared platefuls of food; a couple cleaned filthy dishes at an old-fashioned sink. One man looked up at me as I hurried by, his expression one of suspicion. I nodded and two finger tapped the star on my chest—an indication my presence there was for some sort of official business. I wasn’t sure if he fully bought it, but he went back to scrubbing and rinsing the frying pan in front of him.

I burst through the screen door at the rear of the kitchen, staggering out into the quasi-darkness. I stopped short and leaned forward—hands on knees—and retched a series of dry heaves. Taking in several deep breaths I stepped backward to lean against the building. I needed to keep the spinning world around me at bay. Opening my eyes, I found I wasn’t alone. The glow of two lit cigarettes danced ten feet away. The swath of indirect light, pouring through the screen door, highlighted two saloon girls, sitting together on an outside bench. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I heard one of them say, “I’ve got this—go on back to work, Molly Mae.”

I heard the screen door clatter shut. The other woman drew closer to me—I heard the rustling of her dress, then smelled her familiar perfume. Her voice sounded tired, just above a whisper. “What is it with you? You’re like a bad penny. You keep turning up in my life.”

Lori’s red curls shone in the light as she stepped up to me. “Hey … you don’t look so good. Why don’t you go lie down or something?”

I shook my head. “I need your help. I won’t make it back there on my own.”

“I told you … I have a son. Helping you will get me shot. Or worse, my son will be hurt.” She dropped her cigarette butt into the dirt and started for the door.

I reached out and firmly grabbed her arm. “You don’t want to be a part of this—there’s going to be more … a lot more.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“I promise, I’ll get you out of here. Get you back to your boy.”

Lori looked up at me, searching my eyes. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

Together, we headed off into the darkness, following a dirt path, paralleling Tombstone’s Main Street, behind the storefronts’ shabby rear entrances. Within seconds, all sounds of saloon music and frenetic, busy kitchen clanging dissipated into the night.

Lori held onto my arm, doing her utmost to keep me from toppling over. My lack of balance and worsening jitters had made it impossible to navigate the terrain without her help.

“Cut through here,” I said, pulling her into a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

“I’m cold … what are we doing? This is crazy and you’re going to get us both killed.” Her voice was both hushed and frightened.

I slowed as we approached Main Street. Fifteen feet from the end of the alleyway, my legs wobbled, then gave out in unison, causing Lori to move in closer. She slid an arm around my waist, forced now to support even more weight, and leaned me against the building to my right.

“Just rest here for a second,” she said, her face inches from mine. I felt her breath on my cheek—could smell whisky and cigarettes. Any luminescence the waxing moon above normally provided the scene was now partially obscured by the two-storied buildings. I could just barely make out her features in the darkness.

“Look and see if the street is clear,” I prompted.

She stayed where she was—looking at me in the darkness for several long beats before huffing and scurrying off. I heard a loud metal clang and then, “Shit!” She’d stepped on something metallic that could be a church bell, for the ruckus it made.

When she returned she was out of breath. “It looks okay.” She repositioned her arm around my waist and together we moved toward Main Street. “Watch your step here,” she said, veering me around what looked like a stack of iron pipes. She halted a moment—looked both ways—then propelled us forward. “Where to now?”

I pointed off to the right. “Get us across the street.”

We were now more exposed—in the moonlight’s soft glow and the randomly placed oil lanterns.

“Where?” she asked, her impatience growing.

I gestured with my chin. “We’re close … over there … right across from the corral.”

She was holding up much of my weight and beginning to slow. “You mean the undertaker’s? You’re going to the fucking undertaker’s?”

I nodded.

“I’m not going in there, it’s stacked with bodies. No way I’m going in there!”

First one, then another gunshot loudly disrupted the evening stillness, their echoes booming down Tombstone’s Main Street like a runaway train. Behind us, near the entrance to the saloon, someone hollered, “Get out here!”

Lori veered us up onto the wood-planked walkway that ran alongside the buildings’ frontage. Obscured in the darkness, we paused and came to a halt. We’d been discovered.

“I’m calling you out. Come out and face me like a m … m … man, if you got any … any balls.”

His slurred words trailed off, and I heard distant retching. Someone was drunker than a skunk and calling someone else out for an impromptu street gunfight.

Relieved, I said, “Keep going.”

It took us another minute to reach the undertaker’s. To our mutual horror, what were three empty coffins, propped up near the undertaker’s front door, were now anything but empty. I didn’t recognize two of the men, but the one in the middle—in the largest of the three coffins—I did. Butch Cassidy stood almost vertically upright, his eyes closed and his slack-jawed mouth agape. A handwritten sign, tied with twine, hung over his chest:

Loose Lips Sink Ships

I turned to see Lori, staring at neither the sign nor Butch, but directly at me. Her expression said it all:
What the hell have you gotten me into?

The ruckus down the street was escalating, for which I was most grateful. Two more gunshots rang out. I tried the door—locked. With a glance back toward the saloon, I saw more men on the street, amidst loud hoots and hollering.

I drew my gun and, holding it by the barrel, used the butt to break the windowpane to the left of the door, directly behind the closest coffin. The sound of glass shattering seemed as loud to me as those booming gunshots. We stayed still and listened.

“You’re not so tough. I’m going to put … put a bullet in your bl … bl … black heart … Billy the Kid.”

Lori and I exchanged glances. Someone had called Billy out.

I reached an arm in and unlatched the door from the inside. I opened the door to the sound of glass shards being pushed aside.

Lori grabbed my arm. “What about me?”

“What about you?” I asked, barely staying on my feet.

“You going to leave me out here?” Her eyes flickered over to the dead man, a waxed mustache on his pallid face, less than a foot away.

“It’s up to you … I’ll need ten minutes in here.”

She looked as if she had eaten something foul. “What are you going to do in here?”

“I need to get close to the electrical panels.”

Her features relaxed as she remembered I’d mentioned that to her before. Glancing at the dead man again, she said, “I’m coming in with you.”

As if giving emphasis to her words, a single gunshot blasted out. A roar of voices cheered at what I suspected was Billy the Kid, drawing down on a drunken fool who never had a chance. Something occurred to me: They’d need the undertaker’s services again tonight.

“We need to hurry,” I said, stumbling into the death-scented air. “Close the door behind you.”

Lori moved to my side, slid her arm around me again, pulling herself close. I suspected it wasn’t entirely to help me walk. Colman had extinguished the oil lamp before leaving earlier, which made it nearly impossible to see anything in the room now. That was probably a good thing, considering Lori’s state of anxiety.

“Which door?”

“Huh?”

“There are two doors at the back. Which door leads to the electrical panels?”

“I don’t know … how am I supposed to remember something like that?”

We shuffled forward—Lori kept her left arm stretched out, and me my right.

She screamed.

By the time I placed my palm over her lips, she quieted, but I kept it there just the same. Neither of us moved for thirty seconds. I whispered sternly, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

She tore my hand away. “Ugh … I touched … a face.”

“Keep your hand at your side.” I moved us sideways and then forward, trying to recall the room’s layout, which consisted of four tables and a desk. I remembered there were bodies laid out around the room’s perimeter, as well as others, propped up on stacks of old wooden soapboxes.

It took us another two minutes, in the pitch-blackness, to make it to the rear of the room. Like Lori, I’d planted my own outstretched hand onto several faces, a fact I kept to myself.

Feeling I could remain standing on my own, and knowing time was not on our side, I said, “You try the door on the left.”

She let me go and I heard her step away. With my palms flat against the wall, I sidestepped to the right until my fingers brushed against a door’s frame. I found the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door.