From the Tales of Saint Anthony, the Johnny Holiday Mysteries
These short stories follow the lives of people who populate the fictional city of Saint Anthony (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and make their appearance in the first Johnny Holiday novel, The...
Sigurd Olavson stood at the back entrance to Ingrid Magnusson's warehouse-studio. He was smoking and watching the rain fall in the dark alley.
It was hot and humid, and the downpour was heavy. It had been raining for hours and he was in poor spirits.
There was no gig tonight, and no Ingrid; the rain had shut him in, leaving Sig by himself in the cavernous warehouse waiting for her to return from wherever it is that she went.
The note she left at the hotel said she would be back by 5:00 pm, that was hours ago.
Sig was worried about her, not because he loved her, he didn't, but he needed her, when she was gone and he couldn't see her or hear her voice, Sig felt like a dope-fiend jonesing for a fix.
He had no idea who he was without her, he would begin to go blind,
Ever since he had joined her entourage in Stockholm she was all he thought about. When she wasn't near him he felt thirsty...and right now he was parched.
Sig blew a long cloud of smoke through his pursed lips, when he was at the end of his breath a powerful bolt of lightning struck somewhere nearby, it's flash sent shadows dancing down the alley and across the loading dock, its thunder shook the ground beneath his feet and sent a jolt up his spine.
He flicked the butt of his square into the dark and listened to the rain as he concentrated on an image of Ingrid he held in his mind.
It was like clinging to a lifeline, which did nothing to settle his nerves.
A mere ninety seconds later Sig heard the sound of heavy feet running toward the loading dock from further down the alley, and there was shouting the runner that sounded like police.
Sig stepped inside the building, shut the door and locked it.
He ducked into the small office to the right of the door and peered out the small window just in time to see Karl Thorrson running up the ramp.
Sig froze; he was terrified.
He could hear the giant gangster fumbling with a set of keys, trying to get through the door, so he bolted from the office, ran up the iron stairs onto the catwalk suspended above the studio space and crossed its full length. He ran into place where the shadows would be deepest, even if the lights were on.
Ingrid kept him there secretly, she told him that Karl Thorrson might just kill him with a swat of his hand if he discovered him in the sanctum, she told Sig that it had happened before.
He found his spot just as he heard the door open, and Karl Thorrson walking below him, coming down the hall.
He sat in the dark as quietly as he could and trembled with a sick mixture of fear and withdrawal.
He could see Thorrson below him, pacing about the room.
He was sweating profusely and clearly unnerved, Sig had been in his company many times and had never seen the gangster in the state he was in.
Sig would not have believed it was possible and he could not help but wonder what could have caused his distress. Thorrson was the man with lightning in his eye, it is believed that he communed with the dead.
He watched the giant fumble about with a number of vials and decanters on top of Ingrid's worktable, he moved as if he was a mad bartender mixing a cocktail, then suddenly there was the sound of car outside.
Thorrson straightened and quaffed whatever it was that he had prepared and then went back down the hall to greet whoever had just pulled in.
Sig prayed that it was Ingrid.
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