Free The Rocketeer by Peter David Page A

were his gentle snoring mingling with the creepy radio organ music filtering through the door.
    Then, slowly, the window slid open, the breeze billowing in the curtains. A massive figure crept into the room, moving with a quiet that was in remarkable contrast to its size. It approached the sleeping form of Wilmer and then, with a large thumbnail, cracked a match and held the faint illumination up to Wilmer’s face.
    The man—if such a word could be used—who peered down at the sleeping gangster, looked like something out of a Boris Karloff film. A neanderthal brute in a badly fitting pinstripe suit. His massive jaw was distended, his cheekbones were flat, and he didn’t have eyebrows so much as a heavy ridge that sat over small, sunken, piglike eyes.
    He reached up and clutched one of Wilmer’s traction cords in a meaty hand, and gave it a sharp yank.
    Wilmer’s groggy eyes fluttered open, and then his pupils dilated in horror.
    He recognized the creature looming over him, even in the poor light. He’d seen him once, but that one time was more than enough to make an indelible impression. He’d been called Lothar by that Limey fruit that Eddie had been contracting with. Lothar—a name out of a horror flick. Went with the face.
    “It’s you,” muttered Wilmer. “Tell your boss I don’t answer to nobody but Eddie.”
    Lothar eased his massive hands beneath Wilmer’s body and then lifted him easily.
    Wilmer gasped, having no control of the situation at all. The eeriness of the moment was heightened by the creepy music that was pouring out of the radio in the hallway, and suddenly Wilmer was even more afraid than when he’d been staring down the front of a plane that was hurtling toward him. More frightened than when the feds had been firing on him. More frightened than any time he could remember in his life.
    “Okay! Okay! Ease off,” he gasped. “I pulled a switch, see? I got the dingus stashed good . . . at the airfield. Hangar three. Some old plane . . .”
    And then he felt a horrible pressure begin to be exerted on him, a pressure as horrible as the satisfied, evil grin that played across the man-monster’s lips.
    “No!” gasped out Wilmer, and for the umpteenth time the thought went through his head, I was going to quit! This was my last job!
    At the nurses’ station they heard the screams but thought they were coming from the radio. They sounded a bit too loud, and the cop reached over to lower the volume, but before he could do so the program went to a commercial . . . and the screams kept on coming.
    It was then they realized what was happening, and the cop charged the door of the room where Wilmer was supposed to be sleeping. Wilmer, the man whom he was supposed to be guarding. Wilmer, who had talked endlessly of this being his last job and going straight.
    The cop shouldered open the door, his revolver drawn, with the nurse directly behind him. Her hands flew to her mouth and she screamed.
    The cop winced at the sight.
    This had indeed turned out to be Wilmer’s last job. However, he had not gone straight. In fact, he was just the opposite: he was hanging suspended above the bed, dangling from the traction gear, his body bent backward in half. His eyes were dead and staring.
    The cop rushed to the open window, where curtains were fluttering like ghosts. He peered out into the darkness. Nothing.
    He pulled back into the window, turned, and went to call his chief. His superior was not going to be the least bit happy to hear this.
    And on the ledge above, a massive pair of wingtip shoes shuffled off into the night.

8

    T he Bulldog Café was a stone’s throw from Chaplin Airfield and the second home—some would say the first—to a number of the fliers in Bigelow’s Air Circus.
    There had never been a café more accurately named than the Bulldog, for that essentially was what it was. It had been done up to resemble a large white and black canine, a full story high, sitting on its haunches. Its