An evil angel follows a man to 1976 Las Vegas.
Excerpt
Chapter One:
Old Acquaintance
June 26, 1993 - Early Morning
In the twilight of sleep was when they spoke to me, preparing me for events that would happen soon. Soon. That word irritated me the most. It had been seven years since I had come back from World War I and nothing exceptional about my newfound relationship with those divine occurred during that time. On occasion, the angels would reveal themselves and show that they were real and not human. With each passing year, the encounters became more expected and comfortable. The angels said some occasional proof would further confirm that I was truly involved in a serious threat to human existence and I believed them more and more. The finer elements of the Laodicea Proxy and the Book of Ancients were brought up on occasion, but I didn’t have to know everything about them, at least that was what the angels told me. One thing they made clear to me was that I would never be alone.
During those seven years, I was lucky enough to build my relationship with my new younger sister, and further appreciate my mother’s presence. Neither of them had existed when my best friend Dave and I first time-traveled to the past and changed the course of my family’s lineage. I was so glad to have my mom back. Nevertheless, I grew tired of waiting. Whatever the angels were going to throw at me, I wish they would do it already.
After returning from World War I and discovering the presence of evil angels lurking around us, Dave took a year for himself and returned to his hometown of Dumas, Texas to clear his head. Both of us needed the break. He returned to Chicago the following year and after an additional year had passed, he met a beautiful young woman and asked for her hand in marriage.
With the anticipated wedding next week, we celebrated Dave’s last days of bachelorhood strolling in and out every bar on Rush and Division streets, a short distance from our apartment near Wrigley Field.
The first rays of morning light streaked through the cracks of the drawn shades and swarmed my tired eyes. I turned away, and shoved my head into the pillow for the peace and solitude of deep sleep. The angels didn’t visit me this time, but for some reason I wish they had. While sensing another presence nearby, I lifted my head toward my bedroom door. Through my exhausted, blurry vision, I saw Dave standing in the doorway in his gray T-shirt and red boxer shorts. The other figure, standing beside Dave in a royal blue running suit, was unfamiliar. I didn’t recall seeing him at Dave’s bachelor party last night either.
“John, wake up, buddy. We got a problem,” Dave said.
I wasn’t sure if they were real or a product of my hangover. Dave’s shaky voice went unnoticed as I struggled to wake up.
“What are you doing standing there?” I asked and cleared my throat. “Who’s your friend?”
An explosion of fierce pain seared through my eyes. The air rushed out of my lungs as the weight of the unknown man pinned me fast on the bed. The bedsprings strained angrily under our weight.
“What the hell’s going on?” I tried to shout.
His weight pressed my head into the pillow. I struggled to breathe, my words cut to a muffled, inaudible plea.
“I’ve been tracking your ass for years, Hercules. Never thought you’d see me again, did you?” he said, inches from my ear. I didn’t recognize his voice. The familiar sound of a cocking hammer sent a chill down my spine.
With the barrel’s cold steel pressing hard on my skull, my body froze, and I waited for my looming death. Either Dave and I had screwed up huge during our time in World War I, or something had gone seriously wrong with Great-grandpa Francis Eldridge’s task of giving away his ill-gotten war chest.
“What do you mean you’ve been tracking me?” I said. “Who are you?”
“I think my feelings are hurt. It’s me, Angelo,” he said, shoving the gun harder against my temple.
“I don’t know anyone named Angelo.”
He leaned high on my back with his knee and the pressure squeezed my kidneys. The gold chains around his neck jingled with his every move and his breath smelled as fresh as an overfilled ashtray.
“Angelo, Angelo Norticelli?”
“Seriously, I’ve never heard of you.”
The pillow burned my cheek as I turned my head to view the face of my assailant. His gun scraped across my skull and burrowed into my forehead.
He smiled and then grimaced as he sought to end my life at that moment.
“Recognize me now?” he said.
His eyes collapsed into the deep folds of his face. For an older dude he was strong.
“No, I don’t.”
His breaths came faster. His silver-streaked black mane clung fast to his scalp. He removed a folded sheet of paper from his windbreaker, got off me and stood beside the bed.
“That’s you in this picture, you and that thieving motherfucker Eldridge. So where is it, where’s the ledger?”
I recognized myself in a shiny dark suit sitting at a table with several other men. Yet I never recalled being in any place dressed like that. On the reverse of the picture, I saw a seeming collage of odd symbols.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “What’s this all about?”
“I’ll refresh your memory. Eldridge told me how Saul swiped the ledger pages from the counting room right before the raid.”
“Francis Eldridge?”
“Not that old sack of shit! Ray Eldridge! He said he gave everything to you. One last time, where’s the damn ledger?”
“What ledger?”
Angelo’s frustration peaked as he struggled for the right words to assault me.
“I let you in, you score with my girl, and then you rob me? Get your ass up!”
Angelo dragged me off the bed by my feet. Before I could stand, he shoved me to the floor and pounced on my chest.
“You keep your ass on that wall, hillbilly,” Angelo said waving the gun at Dave, who was standing helplessly nearby. Angelo snapped the gun back to my face. Through my peripheral vision, I noticed Dave motioning for something.
“Honest, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, I’ve never met Ray Eldridge or anyone named Saul.”
Without warning, he cracked my forehead with the butt of his gun and stars danced in my vision.
“We had eyes at the Fed’s office that saw Ray take a box that came from the Stardust raid. We know Saul and Ray were pals. Ain’t nobody else but Saul would know about the key. So before you open your mouth again, you think real hard about where that ledger is, or your friend’s brains are wallpaper.”
In the middle of Angelo’s threatening tirade, Dave hurled a baseball at Angelo’s head, but missed. A flash of light and a startling shot rang out. A splat of blood and gray matter hit the wall. Dave lay crumpled on the floor. With the gun away from my head, a furious anger surged from deep within me. The maddening look on Angelo’s face fell fast as my vision went as white as a raging Alaskan blizzard.
The pounding on the door grew louder until someone burst through, slamming it against my foot. I looked up at the police officers standing over me. My head still stung from the smack Angelo had given me and the choppy voices from police radios crackled throughout my apartment.
“Chicago Police,” the officer said. “Can you hear me, sir?”
Still in my boxer shorts and tank top, I staggered to my feet. The thought of how I’d ended in the living room ran through my shaken mind. I fell backward and the officer attempted to break my fall. I’d done something terrible and I prayed to the angels to help me. But, the last thing I heard before passing out was the officer calling for an ambulance.
My body rocked and waved and I faded in and out of consciousness as the ambulance sped to the hospital. The sirens wailed outside as a paramedic took my blood pressure and another checked my eyes. The police officer sitting by kept a steady eye on me as we rocked our way to the hospital.
The ambulance stopped and the back door flew open. The paramedics hauled me out and wheeled me into the emergency room. I didn’t know if I was on the verge of death but if I were, I wondered why the angels had forsaken me.
The doctors checked me out and decided to keep me overnight for observation because of my frequent blackouts. The police officer never left my side.
I opened my groggy eyes and observed the men standing before me. Two were Chicago police officers and the third was in ordinary clothes. A doctor leaned over me and checked my eyes.
“How do you feel, Mister Harrod?” the doctor asked.
“Good I guess,” I said and went to rub my eyes, but the sharp pinch of a taped intravenous needle stung my arm. I eased my arm back to my side and focused on the officer.
“Do you feel dizzy? Can you see me clearly?” The doctor continued.
“No, I don’t feel dizzy, mostly hungry.”
“I think he’ll be fine. You can question him now. But, don’t stay too long.”
The doctor left the room and the man in plainclothes approached me. I gripped the bed railings and pulled myself up. My head felt good. I looked toward the window and saw that the sun was setting.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“A little after five. Mister Harrod, I’m Detective Thomas Kendall. We need to ask you some questions. Can you tell us what happened in your apartment this morning?”
“Well, I was asleep and then Dave woke me up. He was standing in the doorway with some guy in a blue running suit.”
“What’s your roommate’s name?”
“Dave Sowell.”
Detective Kendall, a silver-haired, deadpanned veteran of untold years, scribbled sporadic bits of our conversation onto a tiny memo pad. I wiped the streaming tears from my cheeks as I recalled the horrific memory of Dave taking the bullet and then crumpling to the floor. I reached for a tissue in a box at my bedside.
“How’d the other guy die?” he asked.
“What other guy?”
“The intruder, the guy in the blue running suit.”
Kendall’s weathered pockmarked face showed a man worn by the constant battles against those on the wrong side of the law. His protruding paunch spilled over his belt.
“I didn’t know he was dead. I must have blacked out and missed that.”
“His neck was broken. Do you remember fighting with him?”
“I don’t remember anything after Dave got shot.”
Kendall returned his eyes to his notepad and flipped back a few pages. He then went to a small table in the corner of the room, opened a worn black leather saddlebag, and removed a sealed plastic bag containing a photograph.
“Is this picture yours?” he asked, struggling to put on a pair of bifocals with his free hand.
“No.”
“Who are these guys?” Kendall said as he waved his pen over the picture.
I studied the photo. My grandfather and I had never posed for a photo like that but I had no doubt it was me with him.
Kendall took his attention from the picture and looked at me in disbelief.
“That guy in the middle looks like my grandfather,” I said.
Kendall looked closer at the image.
“There’s a remarkable likeness,” he said.
“To what?”
“The guy on the right looks like you.”
“I guess he does. I didn’t know I had a twin,” I said.
“Why would the intruder bring you this picture?”
“Beats me. I’ve never met him before.”
“Do you recall how your friend got shot?”
“Well, while that guy was on top of me, Dave tried to distract him by throwing a baseball at him.”
“Did he hit him?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then the guy shot him. I blacked out right after that.”
“I’m certain the shock of seeing your friend get killed is what caused the blackout. Do you know how the two of you got into the living room?”
“The living room? No.”
Kendall nibbled at the corner of his lip. He set the picture on the bed and tapped his memo book repeatedly.
“You want to know who he was?” he asked.
“He said his name was Angelo,” I answered.
“Right, Angelo Norticelli of the Chicago family.”
“Chicago family?”
“Yeah. See, Angelo was cast out years ago. Back in the seventies, we thought his own men had killed him. I guess they had us all fooled.”
“So, will the mob come after me because of what happened?”
“I’m not sure. If you’re not connected with their organization, then I’m sure they’re going to want to know why you killed one of theirs. What did Angelo want from you?” Kendall said pointing his pen at me.
“He mentioned something about old relatives of mine in Las Vegas and something about the Stardust.”
“The Stardust Casino?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“What’s your grandfather’s name?”
“Raymond Eldridge.”
Kendall scribbled the name.
“Where does he live?” Kendall asked.
“Nowhere. He died years ago.”
“Did Angelo say anything else?”
“He said he let me score with his girlfriend and that I stole something from him.”
“What’d you take?”
“Nothing. I didn’t score with his girl either.”
“What girl?”
I took a deep breath. “There’s no girl. Look, I never knew this guy let alone do his girl.”
Kendall took a step back.
“What?” I said.
“A stud like you ain’t never got a girl? I thought you muscle types scored left and right.”
“I’ve been with girls, just not his.”
The aching pain in my forehead returned and I gently rubbed the bump that had begun to throb. I lay back down on the bed and closed my eyes.
“I see. Angelo being in your house bothers me. His being there makes no sense to me, but there must be a reason. Either you don’t know or you’re holding out on me. I’ll do some digging and let you know what I find.”
Detective Kendall and I spoke at length about the odd circumstances surrounding Angelo’s presence in my apartment. Because Dave and I were at home, Angelo’s death was ruled self-defense until further evidence suggested otherwise.
The police let me back in my apartment the following morning. I closed the door and collapsed onto the couch. The ceiling fan twirled above me as I tried to understand the unexpected events that had occurred. I thought that maybe Angelo learned of my large inheritance and was trying to extort me using a story about some casino ledger. I couldn’t understand how Angelo could connect me with the Stardust. This had to be mistaken identity. As I shifted on the couch, I heard a paper crinkle under the cushion. I leaned to one side and removed it from underneath. I recognized the picture as the same one Kendall and Angelo had showed me with the odd characters and symbols on the back. I sat dumbfounded as the characters faded from the photograph. I tossed the picture on the coffee table and tried to understand why my best friend had been killed and how the photo got under the couch.
The reasons Angelo came to me remained a mystery. After seven years, I reasoned that the angels finally called me into action. However, with my best friend dead, I didn’t know how useful I’d be to anyone. As the once-joyous thoughts of Dave’s wedding viciously shifted to those of his funeral, my mind plunged into a fog and grief consumed my core.
I went to the fridge and removed a twelve-pack of my dearest enemy. After chugging the last bottle, I slunk into a recliner and my eyes flooded in misery.
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Copyright 2008 Andrew J. Weis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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