“No way,” marveled Chavez, who was just coming down the creaking steps.
Frank just nodded.
“Well, that fits,” Morgan surmised. “He found this guy, killed him and took the truck to McLain’s. The only thing is, how did he know where to look?”
“I’ve been thinking that over,” Campanelli admitted. “Maybe the killer saw Kirby make that announcement on HV. Then he must have hacked into the CPD computer and looked over the personnel files.”
“Great, a computer-savvy cannibal,” Jorge commented with widened eyes.
“Anything unusual upstairs?” Frank asked.
“Nah. Nothin’. Stauros kept it a bit neater up there than the shop down here.” Chavez looked about the area as he spoke.
“Was the door broken in? Jimmied?” Campanelli asked even as he walked back to it for a look himself.
“No. We’re not sure how he got inside,” Charles answered. “Stauros might have left the door unlocked.”
Frank read the report submitted to the blotter by Hank Lyman and stifled his next question. There had been no witnesses and the time of death had been approximately ten to eleven o’clock the previous night. This timeframe was beyond the shop’s posted hours.
“Do us all a favor,” Campanelli said wearily to the two detectives. “There’s as much as eight hours between the time of Stauros’s murder and the attack on McLain.”
“Yes, sir?” Jorge Chavez agreed, but appeared confused.
“I want to know what that monster was doing for those hours,” Frank said more forcefully. “Look hard for anything in here that appears to have been moved recently. Did this bastard steal anything? Did he sleep here? We need to know,” Campanelli finished more softly. He knew that it did little good to display his frustration, let alone take it out on his fellow detectives.
Chavez and Morgan nodded and said nothing. It was clear that they felt as terrible about the death of a fellow officer as Frank. Campanelli thought of Lyman, who was the one that had called McLain that morning. While he and his partner, Davies, were here clearing the building and waiting for backup, their lead detective was in a losing battle for his life.
Frank shook his head. “Look, you guys know what yer doin’. Don’t mind me.” With that, he turned and left.
***
From the rooftop of an apartment building, Elliot Three-Seven watched Frank Campanelli enter the antique shop and, some minutes later, exit. He smiled to himself over the expression of despair veiled by anger upon the old detective’s face. As much as he wanted to laugh out loud, however, the pain in his lower abdomen was too bothersome to do so.
His body was working overtime to stop the bleeding, but the creation of scar tissue threatened to drain him of energy right then. Already, his stomach growled with uncomfortable hunger and his hands shook with impending exhaustion. Despite consuming three apples, a package of ham, and a half-full bag of Swiss cheese, the need to feed was great.
Elliot knew he had been lucky to escape from the detective’s apartment building. He was fairly confident that he had left no blood trail. A long rest is what he needed now. He could hunt when the sun fell.
He watched Campanelli’s dark blue cruiser pull a U-turn and head northward as he stood up. A sound from far away froze him in place. He augmented his hearing and, identifying it, searched the sky. In the distance, he could make out a low flying helicopter of silver, white, and blue. It was heading toward his general area, so he knew it was time to get out of sight.
Elliot yanked open the door and descended the stairs to the top floor of the building. He emerged from the stairwell to find an empty hallway. With his ears fully augmented, he could hear a helicopter approaching the area and at least three voices emanating from the apartments ahead of him. He stepped stealthily along the thinly carpeted floor and halted near each door, listening hard for sounds of life within each residence. Halfway down the corridor, he stopped. Two of the three voices were a couple from down the hall. They were talking to each other about random, daily, dull things. The third, as he suspected, was the sound of a holovision, which was now behind him.
Three-Seven pressed his head against the door and, hearing nothing from within, tried the knob. It was locked. He retrieved his pick from his tool belt and easily defeated the lock in absolute silence. He tried the knob again and pushed the door gently out of his way. As his ears had told him, it was an empty apartment. Further, it was devoid of any furnishings whatsoever.
The door from the couple’s apartment suddenly clicked open and the voices of the two occupants became louder. Without glancing in their direction, Elliot moved inside the apartment and closed the door behind him. He hoped the two young people had not heard the thump, but he had lost his balance in his exhaustion and had dropped to his knees as soon as he stepped inside.
With his hand on his bayonet’s handle, Elliot listened. The voices headed away from him. The man laughed at something the woman said. An elevator door slid open and their voices were swallowed up, silenced altogether as they descended.
Three-Seven let the doorknob slip back to center, locked it, and took to his feet. His heavy legs propelled him reluctantly from one room to another, finding each empty until the master bedroom. There was no bed, but a wooden chair and a tall coat rack were set against the far wall. With his eyes half closed in anticipation of a long nap, Elliot dragged the coat rack to the front door. He opened the closet door and set the metal feet against the doorjamb. The top was pressed against the front door. There would be no way for anyone to get in without delivering a great amount of violence to the door.
He would have been much more comfortable putting more distance between himself and his second most recent crime, but like the incident involving the crashed automobile, he realized that he could not get far without being seen on the street. Sleep would get him past the hunger, he hoped.
He peeled off the ruined overcoat and dropped the crumpled hat to the bare wood floor. With a hand pressing against the bloodied towel at his wound, he lay on his back in the sun, which would work to recharge his color-morphing scales.
Elliot tucked the folded overcoat under his head and hoped that the police did not put themselves through a building search. The logic within him told him they would do exactly that, but he was too exhausted to run. His body was too committed to healing itself.
Just a little rest and then…the hunt for something to eat.
Helicopter blades beat incessantly overhead as the Nighthunter drifted to sleep.
***
Frank drove for a couple of hours, patrolling the area right along with a concentration of marked cars, from block to block, down this alley and that, with no success. The helicopter had caught no sight of anyone on a roof anywhere, and had spent a full load of fuel doing so until it needed to return to base.
Campanelli had recommended to the Chief of VCD, Darius Treadwell, that a building-by-building search was the next step. Treadwell had agreed and Frank attached himself to a group of uniforms assigned to the block where McLain’s apartment was located. Another similar squad was doing the same to the entire block, two blocks west of them. An empty lot lay in between, where once had been a large apartment building, so another squad began one block further south.
After two hours of searching the buildings around McLain’s now former residence, there was nothing.
He pressed on with the same group, moving to the next block to the south. Again, there was nothing. The next possibility was that the maniac had nestled within the remnants of the facility known as McCormick Place, once a vast convention center and hotel complex that had been the pride of Chicago. Now, with bits of the multi-structure facility burned out or collapsing from disrepair, the sprawling eyesore represented a daunting task and was a known hideout for gangs. Mayor Jameson had proposed a demolition of all the buildings in the name of public safety, but the plan was still in the works when last Frank heard. The complex was a giant source of angst for law enforcement.
Instead of tackling McCormick, Captain Campanelli led the squad of thirteen men to the block east. On it was one tall condominium that had been placed next to the foundation of what once was a commercial high rise. The tired squad sealed off the exits and searched floor by floor. Due to the size of the building and the fact that many residents were not at home, which required the cooperation of the building’s security staff, hours passed before the clearing of the building was complete. It was late afternoon by the time the patrolmen exited the building and milled about the sidewalk, waiting for further instructions.
“Where to next?” Frank casually asked Sergeant Louis Marx, with whom he had spent the majority of the day.
“Um, that’s it, Detective,” Marx answered apologetically.
“What?” he barked.
“Orders, sir,” Louis added. “Check the blotter. We’ve been called off.”
Campanelli cussed harshly as he brought up the report to his lenses. The orders were directly from Chief Treadwell.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the sergeant went on. “Look, most of these guys are off shift in a couple hours and we’re spread pretty thin.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Frank uttered and waved him off. He sighed heavily and looked into the lightly clouded blue sky. “Okay, I understand, Louis. Forget about it. Orders are orders.”
“Take care, sir,” Sergeant Marx granted as he moved off to tell his men to return to regular duty.
Frank plodded to his cruiser, exhausted. He had to admit defeat, which left an awful taste in his mouth. He dropped into the driver’s seat, yanked the fedora from his matted hair, and chucked it to the passenger seat.
Campanelli became aware that he had not eaten lunch. His head swam and his stomach grumbled. Since Tamara’s place no longer existed, only one place came to mind, so he told the cruiser where to take him.
***
Frank ended up in Chinatown at a place that had become semi-regular to him. The Mellow Monkey was a Chinese restaurant that had started out as a massage parlor, but had recently expanded into the suite next to it. The result was a larger bar and a kitchen. The drinks were cheap and the food above par. The owner, Xiao Chan Wu, was a former informant for the goings on of Chicago’s Chinese gangs, including the Tong.
The stout, diminutive Asian brought Campanelli another bourbon and beer, taking the seat across from him. Wu could tell there was something out of sorts with the man. He was drinking fast, eating slow, and not saying much.
“Well, Frank,” Xiao said once he placed the fresh drinks on the table, “what’s been going on with you?” He stared at Frank expectantly with his implanted lime green lenses.
Campanelli glared back at first, not pleased with the unsolicited interruption. After a moment, his expression softened. He sighed heavily and shifted his gaze beyond the window on his right, which overlooked the stone-tiled path and the stores on the other side of the marketplace.
Xiao leaned forward. “Does this have something to do with that cannibal?” he asked while he stroked his white Fu Manchu, a habit of his whenever he whispered.
Frank emptied the older glass of bourbon, dumped the remaining ice into the new one and sipped it. He followed that up with a long draw from the pilsner glass. His eyes wandered over the somewhat busy establishment before he answered with a nod. Campanelli went on eating his kung pao shrimp without another word.
“What’s happened?” Xiao inquired as he sat back.
“The bastard killed a friend of mine, Xiao Chan Wu,” Frank said in a steady tone once he swallowed. His voice, though not particularly loud, had a full quality that carried for several tables, quieting some of the conversations going on around them.
Wu sighed and his heart sank. The informant was privy to the difficulties that the CPD was having retaining and recruiting new men. Despite the drop in crime once the Tong and the Ignatola crime family had both been rendered impotent, largely due to the man sitting across from him, Chicago was still a dangerous place in desperate need of lawmen. Campanelli was one of the most respected in town, and if he was hurting, so was the city.
“My sincerest apologies, my friend,” Xiao offered. He caught the eye of the waitress serving Frank’s table, tapped the table with his left hand while holding up the index finger of the other. She nodded and went to the bar.
“We got there in time to keep him from being eaten, so I suppose that’s something,” Campanelli commented grimly before taking another deep swig of bourbon, then beer.
Wu fought a grimace. He knew he could never handle the alcohol that the Sentinel detective routinely put down, let alone match the plan of attack happening before him. The two men sat quietly for a time, allowing the conversations in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, among other dialects to continue around them.
The waitress, a short Asian beauty in a double pony tail and a blue cheongsam, set another bourbon and beer in front of Frank, a tall glass of plum wine for Wu, and cleared the table of empty glassware.
“Thank you, Mindy,” Campanelli said, sounding perfectly sober. He reached for the bourbon that Wu had brought and, not realizing that the waitress had moved it slightly, missed it completely.
“Sure thing, Frank,” Mindy replied. “The one you’re working on is here,” she whispered and slipped it into his hand.
“Ah, thank you,” he said. She patted his shoulder and walked away.
“Frank?” Xiao nearly stuttered. “Just how many of those have you had?”
Campanelli was taken aback for a moment, confused. Then he understood and gave a harsh chuckle. “No, Xiao. I shut my implant down when I came in.”
Wu laughed. “You are getting quite good. I thought you could see me this whole time.”
Frank’s eyes met Xiao’s, but the proprietor of The Mellow Monkey could see that the man was just a little off the mark, not noticeable unless one knew the man was blind. The alcohol was plain in the eyes, however, having turned them red and watery.
“I was wondering why you had not commented on my attire,” Wu said as he watched the detective eat. “With the expansion, I figured it was about time to look a bit more professional.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve got one of those awful Mao suits, Xiao Chan,” Frank’s tone was jovial, though he could not bring a smile.
Xiao chuckled. “No, no. Just a nice suit with a Mandarin collar. Light gray.”
Frank nodded. “Sounds great. It’s about time you tried classin’ the joint up.” He took another drink.
“So, tell me, Frank,” Wu pressed in a voice just above a whisper, “is this man going to be caught soon?”
“Dead or alive, Xiao Chan Wu. Dead or alive.” Campanelli said this with great conviction and more than a hint of anger. His face turned rose and the hand holding the fork clenched it tightly. His unseeing blue eyes met with Xiao’s perfectly.
“Can I join?” a voice from Frank’s left called.
“Marcus,” Campanelli blurted and set down his fork. “Please sit.”
Xiao slid from the booth, shook Williams’s hand, and let the big man take his place. “It’s good to see you, my friend!”
“Hello, Xiao,” Marcus greeted and took the offered hand and seat. “Nice suit.”
“Thank you. May I get you something?”
Marcus took a look at Frank’s small collection of glasses and the man’s watery eyes. “Uh, a lager, please.”
Xiao motioned for Mindy to return and relayed the order. He sat next to Marcus and the both of them shared a brief glance.
“You heard about Kirby?” Frank asked then took down the older bourbon and started on the remaining.
“Couldn’t miss it,” Marcus answered glumly.
“It’s all over the news, I imagine.”
“Yeah.”
Mindy brought M
arcus’s beer and removed another empty.
Frank felt for the pilsner glass and lifted it to his mouth. “Treadwell send you? Sebastian? Tam?”
“No. I called Tam and she told me where you were.”
“How’s your collarbone?” Campanelli inquired and set the glass down.
“Good,” Marcus answered and took a sip of his beer. He looked to Wu expectantly.
Xiao took the hint and picked up his wine. “I will leave you two to talk. See you later.”
Williams watched the stout proprietor head away. “Rothgery’s been trying to reach you.”
“Yeah? What’s he found?”
“It’s confirmed that McLain was killed by that damned bayonet.”
“I figured that,” Frank agreed and took a bite of shrimp. “I saw that he broke a couple of fingers on the right hand.”
“Yeah, he fought hard. The blood on the wall and on the floor was a match to what he got out of Werner’s car.”
“Good,” Campanelli said and nodded. “I hope the son of a bitch is dead in an alley somewhere.”
“That’s doubtful.”
Frank sighed and a flash of fresh anger swept over his face. His eyes came close to meeting Williams’s, but missed. Marcus knew even before he arrived that Campanelli’s implant was shut down as he had been out of communication for a couple of hours.
“That FBI friend of mine is arriving tomorrow. He’s bringing a doctor with him.”
“A doctor?”
“Yes. A Dr. Mitchell Ruger. He worked on the FROG project.”
“Oh? Is he the designer of this damn monster?” Campanelli asked after another swig of bourbon and beer.
“Not quite. But Ruger’s worked closely with the project for the duration,” Marcus explained. “He’s an expert on this thing and, apparently, once he took a look at the reports I sent Quinne, my friend, he was on board. We’ll soon be able to tell if this is a FROG or not.”
“Good.”
The two were quiet for a time as Frank finished off his food. Mindy took the plate, leaving the two policemen to their drinks.
Campanelli: Siege of the Nighthunter Page 12