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"I'll be there shortly. "
I hung up and got out of the car. I moved quietly through the night, hopscotching from building to building, shadow to shadow, and stopping frequently to look and listen to the stones around me. But nothing moved on this cold December night, except the icy wind whipping through the streets and the few hard bits of snow that came along with it. Crushed beer cans and crumpled fast-food wrappers skittered across the cracked parking lots, pushed on by the steady breeze.
Finally, I left the streets and buildings behind and entered a more industrial area. A small knoll covered more by hard-packed dirt than actual grass sloped upward before curving around and cresting over the train yard below. Still keeping a watchful eye out, I palmed one of my silverstone knives and climbed up the shallow hill.
Two dogwood trees, stooped and gnarled by age, squatted on top of the knoll. The few leaves still clinging to the branches rustled back and forth in the breeze, threatening to fly off into the night. Finn sat against the trunk of one of the trees, sipping coffee from a metal thermos and looking down at the scene below with a pair of night-vision goggles. Like me, Finn was dressed in black from head to toe.
"About time you showed up, Gin," Finn said without looking up. "I've been freezing my ass off out here for half an hour now. "
"Sorry," I said, dropping into a crouch beside him. "I had to make sure I was properly attired for the evening. "
"Way ahead of you. " Finn tapped on a slender metal case sitting on the ground next to him.
"You brought your rifle?"
"You bet," he said. "With the new scope that I just bought. Thought I might get a chance to test it out tonight. "
Finnegan Lane could barely carve a Christmas ham with a knife, much less actually cut into a person with one the way that I could. But he was a hell of a shot, even better than me. Whether you were standing right in front of him or two hundred yards away, Finn could put three bullets through your eye before you realized that the first one had even hit you.
"Here," he said, passing me the goggles. "Take a gander at the majesty before us. "
I took the goggles from him and held them up to my eyes. It took a few seconds before my vision adjusted to the greenish tinge.
Below us, the old Ashland train yard stretched out horizontally about a mile, with the left side giving way to the downtown streets once more and the right side butting up against the Aneirin River. Even from up here, I could hear the swift rush of the water as it made its journey toward the Mississippi and eventually on to the Gulf of Mexico.
Metal tracks crisscrossed this way and that in the train yard, the rails glistening like the silky, silver strings of a spider's web in the moonlight, before disappearing into the shadows. A few old railcars squatted here and there, their open doors looking like gaping maws just waiting for someone to be foolish enough to step inside so they could crunch down on them. Loose gravel covered the ground, along with a variety of junk-rotted timbers, rusted pipes, coils, and other bent, twisted pieces of metal.
I moved on, eyeing the building that lay in the center of it all. The old, original three-story train depot had definitely seen better days. All the windows had been busted out, the tin roof had long since caved in, and the porch sagged worse than a set of slumped shoulders. But Finn had been right. There was a beehive of activity around the structure. Giants moved back and forth through the area, carrying lumber, Sheetrock, power saws, and everything else you'd need to tear down or remodel a building. And the improvement project had already begun, judging from the steady thwack-thwack-thwack of hammers and the hoarse shouts that drifted up to us.
In the distance, beyond the depot, I spotted a few dwarves and humans working on some of the old railcars. The sparks from their welding torches flickered, fluttered, and flashed like red, white, and blue fireflies winking on and off in the darkness.
"It looks like they're remodeling the whole train yard," I murmured. "Strange place to put a n
ightclub, though. "
Finn nodded. "That's what I thought too-at first. "
I lowered the goggles and looked at him. "And now?"
Finn shrugged. "True, it's not much to look at right now, but Mab never does anything halfway. You've told me that yourself on more than one occasion. "
I grunted my agreement.
"So I did some more digging and got a list of some of the building supplies that she's purchased in recent weeks. Flawless marble, platinum fixtures-it's all upscale all the way around. Even the paint has real gold flecks in it. By the time she gets through with it, this place will be swankier than a sultan's palace. It's got a nice view of the water, plus, it's only about a mile or so away from the Delta Queen and the Riverwalk. I'm sure Mab will get plenty of traffic from over there. "
The Delta Queen Finn was referring to was a riverboat casino owned by underworld figure Phillip Kincaid and was one of the prime places in Ashland that folks went to lose their hard-earned money. The riverboat was nothing more than a swanky floating castle that fronted the Riverwalk, a row of upscale shops and expensive restaurants designed to siphon even more money away from those looking to have a good time at the casino.
"Then there's the added bonus of the railcars," Finn added.
"And what could that possibly be?"
Finn flashed me a grin. "Taking the show on the road, of course. Once Mab gets those railcars fixed up the way she wants them, she can load them up with girls, liquor, gambling, whatever, and roll right on over to the next city. Hell, she could go on a whole tour of the South if she wanted to. Maybe even go up north and show them Yankees a thing or two about how to have a good time. "
"All of which would help put Roslyn Phillips and Northern Aggression out of business," I said.
Finn shot his thumb and forefinger at me, mimicking a gun. "You got it. Especially since Vinnie said that Mab was making her club the sort of place where anything goes. There are plenty of folks in Ashland with a lot of cash and a lot of sick, twisted vices. There's no telling how much money Mab could make off this thing, if she does it up right. And we both know that she will. "
"Well, we'll just have to see what we can do about that," I said, looking through the goggles again. "What did you find out during your stroll through the premises?"
