Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

toward the door to the Hansom House. George the bartender was standing in the door, his face hung with shock. Beyond him, down a brief hall, was the door to the bar itself. I walked past him, toward the dark bar.
    Most of the lights inside were off. George must have been closing up when he heard the commotion. I went fast around the bar and looked around for something, anything, any kind of weapon.
    “What’s going on?” George said.
    “Once I’m gone, call the police. If he tries to leave, don’t try to stop him. Just see where he goes, if you can. Lock yourself in here and don’t go outside till the cops come.”
    I didn’t have time to go looking in the dark for the stun gun. And anyway that wasn’t one of my weapons of choice. I stepped behind the bar and reached for the Galliano bottle, a tall, club-shape bottle of thick, almost unbreakable glass. It was nicknamed “The Bartender’s Best Friend.” I grabbed it off the top shelf and ran past George and out the door.
    My attacker, groggy, was trying to stand, on one leg and a knee. As I passed I swung the bottle with everything I had into the knee of the leg with which he was trying to push off. There was a dull, sickening crack, and he screamed out and fell back to the floor. I ran down the path to my LeMans parked across the street, got in, and cranked the ignition. It caught on the third try.
    I reached Augie’s house in less than five minutes and skidded to a stop at the end of his driveway. I climbed out fast into the cold air with the Galliano bottle tight in my fist. I saw right away that there were no lights on in or around the house and that the front door was wide open and the front door had been pushed back on its hinges, broken. There was a dent in its lower panel, like a man had been shoved forcibly into it. I broke into a run up the lawn, bolting toward the house. I ran blindly. All I saw was the open front door and the vague shape of the house around it. I didn’t hear anything except for the sound of blood pounding in my ears, the steady lapping of the bay waves against the inlet walls directly behind Augie’s house, and the giving way of the frosted grass beneath my feet. I saw myself bursting through the door swinging.
    Halfway up the lawn I stumbled over something in the dark and fell hard onto the frozen ground. I had been running full stride and landed badly on my knees and elbows. The ground was just as hard as the ground that surrounded the pond outside of town, and upon impact a jolt went through me that knocked the air from my chest and set my teeth ringing. I looked back to see what it was I had fallen over but could see nothing in the darkness. It seemed there was a heap at my feet, both solid and flimsy, no more than a bag of firewood, though that didn’t make any sense. Then it came to me, head-on. It was like hitting the frozen ground for a second time.
    I rolled fast onto my back and scurried like a crab away from the dead body that lay sprawled flat on its back on the lawn. The head lay at a sharp angle from its shoulders, as if the neck was just so much rubber. The mouth gaped open and the limbs hung askew. They all seemed somehow unrelated to each other. It hadn’t been dead for long, I could tell this by the fact that the blood I had fallen into and scurried over was still very wet. My first thought was that this was Augie, and my heart couldn’t bear that, not one bit.
    I moved into a crouch and looked at the body but could barely make out the face and staring eyes in the dark. Blood covered his chest and face. There was a lot of it. Between breaths I muttered, “Jesus,” then looked around the yard and up and down the street quickly before moving closer to the body and taking hold of its face and turning it slowly to maybe see it better. “Jesus,” I said again.
    I leaned over the body, my face just a foot away, and peered close. I put my hand on its shoulder to balance myself and felt cold leather. I shifted my attention to the jacket. It was a leather jacket with a fur lining, not an army-issue field jacket. This wasn’t Augie, this wasn’t Augie. My heart grabbed at this. My mind and my blood were racing in different directions now. I kept low, in a crouch still, my feet in blood, and picked up the bottle I had dropped when I fell. I counted three breaths, then broke and bolted low across the rest of the lawn.
    I flew through the open door and ducked low against a wall, bracing myself against it and