Low Chicago by George R. R. Martin

Author:George R. R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

SIX: INDIANA

THE GANG LEFT CHICAGO in a small convoy of three cars just before sunrise. Khan sat in the back of the first car, with Moran next to him and one of the enforcer brothers—Frank Gusenberg—in the front passenger seat. Khan had reapplied his plaster mask, and his tiger hand was gloved. He had Moran’s .45 tucked away underneath his coat, but he wasn’t worried about having to use it. In the tight confines of the car, his claws were quicker and better than any gun. He wasn’t even encumbered by a seat belt, because there weren’t any. It felt weird being in a car without basic safety features. Khan wondered what they would think if he started telling them about headrests, satellite navigation, and anti-lock brakes, or the five-hundred-horsepower Benz with the two-thousand-watt sound system he drove back in his own time. Gusenberg was nervous, the driver even more so, and both of them smoked like chimneys, flicking the glowing butts out of the windows and letting in a cold burst of winter air every time. Khan watched the windblown, snowy February landscape roll by outside as the Cadillac sedan purred its way south.

“So what do you do when you’re not knocking Capone’s guys around?” Moran asked.

“I’m in the personal protection business,” Khan replied. “I’m a bodyguard.”

“And you’ve been doing that for a while now?”

“Twelve years,” Khan said.

“So you’re pretty good at what you do.”

“I’m the best at what I do.”

In the front seat, Frank Gusenberg let out a little derisive snort, but Khan ignored him.

“I’ve never lost a principal,” he said. Until a few weeks ago at the Palmer House, he thought. But as far as he was concerned, his sheet was still clean. He had only lost Giovanni Galante—physically, temporally lost him. Khan didn’t know which year Galante had found himself in, but he knew that the little shit had still been alive when the event happened, and only thanks to Khan.

Chicago was smaller back in 1929, and they were in the countryside soon, crossing from Illinois into northern Indiana. The farmlands south of Gary were the boring ass end of the world as far as Khan was concerned, and he found that they had already been the boring ass end of the world back in 1929.

“As long as that vicious little greaseball is out there, I guess I’ll always have a need for bodyguards,” Moran said. “And you’ve certainly given one hell of a job interview at the warehouse already.” He pointed to the cars behind them with his thumb. “Without Adam and Johnny May and the Gusenberg boys here, I’d have to close up shop on the North Side. You did me a big favor back there. You stick with us for a bit, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

An hour south of Gary, they left the main roads and turned onto a series of ever-narrowing side roads, crossing train tracks, passing isolated farms, and driving through small two-stoplight towns: Kersey, Stoutsburg, Wheatfield.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.