Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [90]
Jimmy’s Bar on Washington had been quickly patched up. It was back in business and doing a roaring trade and whenever Sammy couldn’t stand Josh’s silence another minute he took himself off there to drown his sorrows in his favorite Irish whiskey, sitting at the scarred wooden bar, staring into his glass, thinking about Josh.
Josh’s silence filled their terrible derelict little room with menace. It was as though there were words locked inside him, things he wanted to say that he was struggling with all his might to express. And yet every time Sammy looked at him his eyes had that same vacant stare. Many a time Sammy had stood angrily over him after a few drinks and shouted, “Talk for God’s sake, Josh. Come on, if you’ve got summat to say, then say it.”
Tonight his anger had risen to boiling point. He’d picked him up by the collar and shaken him like a dog, screaming at him to speak, to walk, to act like he used to. “Even if you want to tell me you hate me, then say it, for God’s sake.” But Josh’s head just lolled to one side and his horrifying ever-open eyes had stared sightlessly into his like a vision from a nightmare.
Sammy had dropped him back onto the pallet and covered him quickly with the blankets. The room was cold, but he was soaked with sweat. Fear crawled over his skin and he’d run from the derelict house back to the bar. But he couldn’t stay away for long—Josh’s silent, sinister presence drew him back like a magnet.
He tossed back his drink and ordered another. Josh was neither alive nor dead. It was getting so Sammy was afraid to go back, afraid to see him lying on the filthy pallet, afraid of his own futile anger because Josh never moved and never spoke. He knew he couldn’t take it much longer. He would have to do something about him even though it would break his heart. He slid his hand into his pocket and felt the cold steel of the bowie knife. It was waiting there for Josh. One day soon.
It was late when he finally stumbled from the bar. The night sky was black and the clouds so low they seemed to be sitting on the rooftops, but Sammy didn’t need a moon to light his way, he knew the route like a homing pigeon. The knife clanked against the bottle of whiskey in his pocket at every step, but he was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t even notice. It couldn’t be tonight, he told himself. He would spare Josh one more night at least, give him a last chance. He’d pour some more whiskey down him to deaden his pain, though there was no way to know whether Josh even felt any pain.
He stopped outside the entry, glancing automatically around, but it was too dark to see anything and he stepped inside and groped his way through to the back. The stove had gone out again and the room was in darkness. Grumbling, he stumbled across and put a match to it. Then he lit the candle on the floor and turned to look at Josh. He wasn’t there.
Sammy blinked and looked again. Nothing. He held the candle aloft disbelievingly, but the blanket was tossed onto the floor and the pallet was empty. His spine crawled with fear as he tried desperately to clear his whiskey-fuddled head. Josh had gone, he had gotten up and walked away. He had left him. He dropped the candle and spun around, roaring like an enraged animal, but his roar turned into a terrified scream as two men leapt at him from the shadows. They threw him to the ground, twisting his arms behind him, forcing them back and up until he thought he would explode with pain.
“Let him go,” a calm voice said. His arms were dropped, his captors stepped back and Sammy peered at them, breathing heavily and groaning with pain. They were Chinese and they had small, lethally sharp hatchets tucked into red sashes at their waists. They had just proven their strength and he knew he was no match for them.
“Sit down,” the calm voice ordered, and Sammy quickly obeyed, peering nervously into the shadows behind them.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do the Chinese want with me?”
Lai Tsin stepped forward, holding up a lantern. His words were icy. “A confession, Mr. Morris,” he replied.
Sammy