Red Iron Nights Read Free

was half-shut permanently. His upper lip was drawn into a perpetual sneer. He radiated nasty. “Oh, boy,” Morley said.
    “Know them?”
    “I know the type.”
    Saucerhead said it for me. “Don’t we all.”
    The scar-faced guy looked around. He spotted the girl. He started moving. Somebody yelled, “Shut the goddamned door!” The two heavies there took their first good look around and got a read on what kind of people hang out in a place like the Joy House. They shut the door.
    I didn’t blame them. Some very bad people hang out at Morley’s place.
    Scarface didn’t care. He approached the girl. She refused to see him. He bent, whispered something. She started, then looked him in the eye. She spat. Chodo’s kid for sure.
    Scarface smiled. He was pleased. He had him an excuse.
    There wasn’t a sound in the place when he yanked her out of the seat. She betrayed pain by expression but didn’t make a sound.
    Morley said, “That’s it.” His voice was soft. Dangerous. You don’t mess with his customers. Scarface must not have known where he was. He ignored Morley. Most times that’s a fatal error. He was lucky, maybe.
    Morley moved. The thugs from the doorway got in his way.
    Dotes kicked one in the temple. The guy was twice his size but went down like he’d been whacked with a sledge. The other one made the mistake of grabbing Morley.
    Saucerhead and I started moving a second after Dotes did. We circled the action, chasing the scar-faced character. Morley didn’t need help. And if he did, Puddle was behind the bar acquiring some engine of destruction.
    Rain hit me in the face, like to drove me back inside. It was worse than it had been when I’d arrived.
    “There,” Saucerhead said, pointing. I spied the loom of a dark coach, figures struggling as Scarface tried to force the girl inside.
    We pranced over, me unlimbering my favorite oak headknocker as we went. I never leave home without it. Eighteen inches long, it has a pound of lead in its business end. Very effective, and it don’t usually leave bodies littering the street.
    Saucerhead beat me there. He grabbed the scar-faced guy from behind, twirled him around, and threw him against the nearest building with a force that drowned the rattle of distant thunder. I slithered into the vacated space, grabbed the girl.
    Somebody was trying to drag her into the coach. I slipped my left arm around her waist, pulled, pushed my headknocker past her, figuring I’d pop a bad boy between the eyes.
    I saw eyes, all right. Eyes like out of some spook story, full of green fire, three times too big for the wizened little character who wore them. He had to be a hundred and ninety. But he was strong. He hung on to the girl’s arm with hands like bird claws, pulled her in despite her and me both.
    I swished my billy around, trying to avoid seeing those eyes because they were poisonous. They scared hell out of me. Made me feel cold all the way down to my tail-bone. And I don’t scare easy.
    I got him a good one upside the head. His grip weakened. That gave me a chance to line up another shot. I let him have it.
    His mouth opened wide, but instead of a scream, butterflies poured out. I mean like about a million and two butterflies, so many the coach was filled. They were all over me. I stumbled back, flailed around. I’d never been bitten by a butterfly, but who knew about the kind that come flapping out of some old geek’s mouth?
    Saucerhead pulled the girl away from me, tossed me back like a rag doll, dived in there, and pulled that old guy out. You don’t want to get in Saucerhead’s way when he’s riled. He breaks things.
    The old man’s eyes had lost their fire. Saucerhead lifted him with one hand, said, “What the hell you think you’re pulling, Gramps?” and tossed him over to ricochet off the same wall that had been Scarface’s undoing. Then Tharpe went over and started kicking, one for this guy, one for that, no finesse. I heard ribs crack. I figured I