The Case of the Violent Virgin by Michael Avallone

Author:Michael Avallone [Avallone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Published: 2012-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The baggage car was a dark room in a photographer’s studio. And plenty of things were developing. All of them quick, noisy and rapid-fire. Guns were going off like firecrackers and the bright orange flashes licked out at the darkness. Right at the spot where I had come down from the roof like a paratrooper dropping in on a picnic.

Only I wasn’t in the same spot anymore. I had rolled on the floor, spreading out in the best deportment of scatter rugs. I hadn’t stopped rolling until I smacked up hard and short against something heavy and wooden and solid. I didn’t have to check it with my fingers. It was the big wooden kimono of The Violent Virgin.

Finally, somebody got some sense and decided that shooting aimlessly in the dark was a risky occupation. The gunfire turned off like a radio. I could hear Schnapps whimpering in the silence, could hear Marlene Kelly moaning in a subdued feminine contralto. That and other things.

Spider cursed and Dean shouted something about “a cessation of speech insuring physical safety” or some junk like that. Whatever he wanted, he got. Spider shut up. And suddenly in the darkened baggage car, conversation wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.

Only Schnapps kept talking in his own dog’s way.

I could hear low, forced breathing and someone changed position somewhere in the car. But only the sound of the Mainliner’s steel wheels and the roaring wind from the open hatch cover filled the car now.

With the heavy crate for covering, I felt brave. Plus that, I couldn’t see myself crouched in a blacked-out car for hours with a bunch of people who were trying to shoot me up. I eased myself in closer behind the crate and kept my .45 trained toward the spot where Spider’s curse had come from.

“Gentlemen,” I called softly. “Let’s have a conference.”

For a long interval, nobody said anything. Then I heard Dean’s girlish, silly laugh in the darkness. He stopped laughing long enough to say something.

“And Thor descended from the heavens, bringing with him gifts of sound and fury …”

“God damn him!” Spider snarled.

“I liked the Emerson bit better, Dean,” I said. “Look–why don’t we talk this thing over?”

That seemed agreeable to Dean. Spider was still fuming.

“To what tenets do you ascribe, Mr. Noon? Pray tell us.”

“I’d suggest prayer as long as you asked me. But let’s talk. You guys are killing people and running wild. Now you’re holed up in a baggage car holding hostages and ripping your own property apart looking for a hunk of expensive ice called The Blue Green. It doesn’t make sense.”

Dean’s voice was suddenly guarded in the darkness. And I wondered how he knew my name. Opal and I had never mentioned it.

“What conclusions do you draw, Mr. Noon?”

“You’re lying. Both of you. The statue is on this train and maybe you didn’t expect it to be. I’m not sure you really own it. I don’t believe you or Spider own anything. Opal was skipping and you caught up with her.

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