Looking through the narrow opening now at the door’s edge, he could see that what was stopping it was an old card chair stacked with a pile of cheese draining tins almost four feet high. It looked like the arrangement had been placed there on purpose, to keep someone from coming through here in silence.
Again he pushed cautiously on the door and, despite the resistance provided by the chair and its stack of tins, he was able to move it a few more inches. Just a little more space and he might be able to put his arm through and secure the tins.
One more push, this time with a little more force, and the chair slid again. And then the stack of tins toppled to the cement floor with a loud metallic crash, several of them bouncing around to make the noise seem like it was lasting forever.
* * *
The girl finally emerged from the bathroom in her new jeans and top just as the crash at the rear of the plant sent echoes to the office. Startled, John nonetheless knew exactly what the noise was and where it had come from.
But had a rat eluded his traps and jumped on the chair or was there someone really in the plant?
He snapped off the TV and moved quickly to the girl, grabbing her roughly and turning her back into the bathroom.
She cried, Hey, stop it!”
“Sorry, you’re gonna have to stay in here a while longer.”
“Hey, can’t you make up your damn little mind?”
He padlocked the bathroom and turned back to the desk. Opening the bottom drawer, he pulled out the .22 with his hand shaking badly. Then he moved to the room’s other interior door, leading to the storeroom.
Unlocking and opening it slowly, he left the office.
Chapter 91
With the swinging door and scattered tins behind him and his .357 in hand, Charlie scanned this high-ceilinged space with its large round vats visible in the filtered light coming from the two banks of grimy windows high on each of the sidewalls. He could no longer hear Oprah coming from the office at the front of the building and knew that was probably not a good thing.
In the dark storeroom, John moved past the shelves to the doorway that would give him a view of the production room. When he reached the open door and peered around the jamb, his stomach flipped and churned as he spotted the black man about 40 yards away. The guy held his gun in both hands, sweeping it from side to side and stepping in his direction.
With his own hand shaking, John raised the .22 and aimed ten feet above the black man’s head. For a few seconds he tried to steady his hand but finally gave up and simply squeezed the trigger. The gun’s noisy crack and kick shocked him, and he nearly dropped it.
The bullet ricocheted off the cement block wall behind Charlie, and he dove behind the nearest vat. Crouching behind its three-foot wall, he tried to decide where the shot had come from.
Pressed against the inside of the doorway, John was out of sight from the production room. He looked at the .22 in his sweating, vibrating hand and quickly decided against trying to use it again. He gathered himself to keep his voice from quavering.
“Hey, Charles, that was just a warning. I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. So why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?”
Charlie turned in his crouch behind the vat in the direction of John’s voice. “I’ll be happy to leave you alone, John. You just give me Megan Monelli.”
After a pause: “I can’t do that. The stakes are too high, and this is the only way to deal with someone like Monelli.”
Trying to figure the exact location of John’s voice, he cautiously raised his gaze over the top of the vat and said, “It won’t work. He won’t do what you want.”
“How much is he paying you, Charles?”
Silence. Charlie bowed his head.
“It better be a lot, because what he’s doing is destroying a whole generation of kids. Your people especially, Charles. A whole generation of your people. You sure he’s paying you enough for all that?”
Charlie kept his head down behind the vat wall, quite sure now of John’s location. “You overestimate his importance, John. Even if this whole crazy scheme works, tomorrow there’ll be somebody else all set to take his place.”
“I don’t care about anyone else! I want Monelli.” John’s voice was more emotional now.
And glancing over the top of the vat again, Charlie saw the teacher move his head just a bit past the door jamb. He brought up the magnum and fired, and the bullet slammed into the jamb, exactly where he wanted to put it, about a foot from John’s face.
The shot sent John reeling away from the door until he fell backwards over a small keg and sprawled in a heap amid empty burlap bags and old cheese tins. On the cement floor, he felt a wet warmth in his crotch and knew he had pissed on himself.
Following the shot Charlie moved quickly, running low to the next vat closer to the store room door, pausing briefly and running again to crouch behind one even closer.
The .22 still in his hand, John knelt in a corner with no cover between himself and the production room door. Finally, he realized he was only a few feet from another door, this one thick and airtight, leading to the refrigeration room adjacent to the storeroom. He grabbed its large levered handle and pulled it open. Looking into the dark refrigerator, he could see that its second door, leading to the production room, was standing open.
Moving cautiously into and through the dark room, he reached the open doorway, and with his heart slamming in his chest, he peeked around the jamb into the production room. There, from this new angle, he saw the black guy moving to the edge of the store room doorway only fifteen feet away. John had a clear shot at his back.
Taking one cautious step out of the refrigeration room, he held the .22 tightly in both hands and pointed it at the guy’s broad back.
Charlie called, “Com’on out, John, and no one’ll get hurt.”
John summoned all the resolve he could muster to speak firmly, without a strain in his voice. “Don’t move, Charles.”
Charlie froze, his .357 pointed down, and John moved another two steps forward. “Now toss your gun into the store room and turn around slowly with your hands up.”
After hesitating for a few seconds, Charlie did as he was told, the .357 clattering on the cement floor He turned to face John, then nodded toward the .22 and asked, “What do you think you’re going to do with that thing?”
John almost glanced at his gun but stayed with the black man’s deadpan eyes. “Use it, if I have to. Now move. Into the refrigerator.”
Taking a few steps back to let Charlie pass, he motioned with the gun and waited for the black man to walk slowly into the refrigeration room. John followed, stopped just inside the door and said, “Okay, stop right there and don’t turn around.”
Holding the .22 in one hand, with the other John pulled on the heavy refrigerator door and swung it shut behind him. Charlie turned to watch John push against the door to make sure it was locked. There was no way to open it from the inside.
“I said don’t turn around.” John held the gun in both hands again.
Charlie lowered his hands. “I know what you said. But I don’t think you’ll use that thing on me.”
“Don’t bet on it.” John was circling the black man, trying to get to the second refrigerator door, leading to the storeroom.
“I don’t think you’d hurt anyone, John.” Charlie took a step toward John as he circled.
“Stay away,” screamed John as he backed into a rack in the dimly lit refrigerator and lost his balance for a second.
And in that instant Charlie leapt at John, grabbing the .22 with both hands and twisting violently. Despite a desperate effort, John was quickly on the floor without the gun.
“Charles, please!” John’s voice and eyes were pleading. “Just let Monelli take his fall.”
“Save your breath.” Charlie quickly straddled him, pointing the .22 at his head and snatching the key ring from his belt loop. Then leaving him hopeless on the floor, Charlie stepped through th
e doorway into the storeroom and slammed the heavy refrigerator door shut, locking John in.
Shoving the .22 into his belt, Charlie grabbed the magnum from the floor and moved past the rows of shelves to the door standing open to the office. Peering into the room first, he entered and looked around more carefully. The two hot dogs and 7-Ups were sitting on the desk.
“Megan?”
In the bathroom, her ear pressed to the door, the girl was uncertain whether to respond to the unfamiliar voice.
“Megan Monelli, where are you?”
She hesitated, but only for another second. “I’m here! I’m in the bathroom!”
Charlie moved quickly to the bathroom door, glanced at the padlock, then looked at John’s collection of keys. Shoving the .357 into his waistband at the small of his back, he looked at his watch. It was two minutes to five.
“Megan, you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just get me out of here.”
“Hold on in there.” Charlie looked again at his watch. “I’ll have you out in just a few minutes.”
Megan sounded on the verge of tears. “Please hurry!”
“Just hold on. I’ll be right back.”
Charlie had already crossed the office to the outside door where he tried two keys before finding the right one to open its lock. Ripping the door open he sprinted past the Ford to the Nova parked around the corner of the building. He climbed in the driver’s side and reached into his pants pocket to come out with a slip of paper with phone numbers on it.
Finding the one for Channel 5, he grabbed his phone from the dash.
Chapter 92
In the Green Room, Monelli was still staring at the telephone, as if trying with sheer will power to make it ring. On the TV monitor Frank DeFauw, his brow deeply furrowed, was talking fast and pitching “an unprecedented live interview with reputed crime boss Steven Monelli a little later in the newscast.” Fay Banks walked in with her big smile.
“Everything okay, Mr. Monelli? I’ll be coming back for you in just about 10 minutes.”
Monelli frowned at her smile. “Ah, I thought you said 15. I mean, the thing is, I’d like to stay here until the last possible minute. I’m waiting for a very important call.”
Fay’s smile faded just a bit. “Well, I’ll be happy to give you as much time as I possibly can, but we will really need to get you to the studio door precisely on time and make sure you’re ready to go on set. We’ll have less than a minute during a commercial break to get you in there and put a mike on you. Actually, I’ll come and get you when we’re only a few minutes away from that break.”
Monelli said, “Okay, whatever you can do.”
Fay left, and once they were alone again, he looked at Robert and asked for the second time, “You called everybody and told ‘em the deadline’s 5:15 now?”
Robert nodded emphatically. “Yes, sir.” Then as an afterthought: “But what about that black guy? Didn’t you hire that black guy? I don’t have his number.”
Monelli reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat and came out with a card. “Give me some privacy here. Go get me a pop.”
Chapter 93
With the slip of paper on the front seat next to him, Charlie held the car phone in one hand and with the other punched in the Channel 5 number. Then his forefinger hovered over the talk button. Push it, he told himself. Nothing happened. As if he were paralyzed. Push it, he ordered himself. Push it! His finger didn’t move.
He could not believe this was happening. Could he really not bring himself to do this? He held the phone in front of him, staring at it now, thinking this common device could simply change his life forever. And he just couldn’t push a button?
Finally, with both anger and anguish he decided it was not going to happen. He snapped the phone back into its holder on the dash, crumpled up the slip of paper with the numbers on it and threw it in disgust at the windshield.
“Fuck!”
And then the phone buzzed. He looked at it, feeling suddenly even more nerve-wracked, then looked at his watch. He had called the official Greenwich time number and reset it twice today, and now his watch said 5 straight up. The phone buzzed again. And again. Why not answer? Because it might be Monelli. And if it was Monelli, what would he say, what would he tell him? On the fifth and last buzz, he picked up the phone.
“Yeah.”
“Well, you got anything for me?” It was Monelli all right, but without this morning’s rage.
He hesitated, wondering why he had answered.
Monelli barked, “Charlie, you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well?”
“Well, not really.”
“Not really! Either you do or you don’t. Which is it?”
Charlie paused again, then finally said, “I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too. But listen, I got a little reprieve here. Another 15 minutes. You come up with anything in the next 15, you give me a call. You can still earn those 100 Gs, Charlie. Just find what I’m looking for and get back to me in time.”
Charlie grabbed the crumpled piece of paper off the dash, opened and smoothed it with his fingers. “Yeah, right, I’ll do everything I can.”
For the next 10 minutes, actually almost 12, he glanced at his watch every minute or two. He sprawled and slumped and sat bolt up right in the Nova’s front seat, trying to decide once and for all to call or not to call. Three times he had the phone in his hand. Twice he actually dialed the whole number and then, again, could not bring himself to send the call. Once he punched in the first four digits and then angrily tossed the phone in the back seat. He picked it up again a few seconds later to call Susan and talk this over one more time. But then he wondered, why the hell, would he do that, when he knew exactly what she was going to say?
He looked at the slip of paper on the seat next to him, with numbers for Catherine Monelli, for her husband’s office and his portable and for Channel 5. The paper had been crumpled and tossed two more times, each time retrieved and spread flat again. He wondered if Monelli would call again. And wondered if he would answer.
Finally, Charlie spoke aloud. “You know damn well you can’t fuckin’ do this, so get out of the fuckin’ car and get on with it.”
With that he climbed out of the Nova and slammed the door.
Chapter 94
Monelli’s attention was no longer fixed on the telephone. After all this excruciating waiting, he knew it would never ring as long as he was watching it.
Then Fay Banks walked in, this time with no smile. “Okay, Mr. Monelli, we’re all set for you.”
He remained seated. “Yeah, well, as I mentioned to you earlier, I‘d like to stay here until the last possible minute, so I can take a very important call, if it comes.”
Fay tried for a look that conveyed how serious this situation was. “As I explained earlier, Mr. Monelli, we really have to get you to the studio door and make sure you’re ready to go on set during the commercial break that’s coming right up.”
She looked at her watch and then at a large clock on the wall. “Actually, we’re only two minutes away from that break right now.”
He raised one finger. “Just give me 30 seconds with Robert here. I have to talk with him privately.”
Fay said nothing, pursing he lips. Finally, she turned and left, saying, “Olay, just 30 seconds.”
When the door closed, Monelli balanced the attache case on his lap, opened the lid and removed two handwritten pages along with the zip-lock bag filled with white powder. He slipped the bag into a pocket in his suit coat. As he closed the case he looked up at Robert.
“If a call comes in for me about Megan, I want you to come into that studio and tell me, no matter what. Do you understand? No matter what.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And here, call this number and ask this guy Watts if he’s got anything new.”
Handing Charlie’s card to Robert, he
folded the handwritten pages and placed them in the inside breast pocket of his suit coat as Fay walked back in.
“All set?”
Monelli finally got to his feet. “I guess so.”
“Great’. If you’ll just come this way.”
Nodding grimly to Robert, he left the room and followed the young woman down a short carpeted hallway and into a large, high-ceilinged storage area. Her high heels spanking the cement floor, Fay led the way to a spot not far from a huge pair of studio doors. There she turned to him, her smile back now.
“It’ll just be a moment now, Mr. Monelli.’
And just then, one of the large double doors swung open, and a tall attractive black woman he recognized as DeFauw’s co-anchor walked out. “Hello,” she said with a pretty nod to Monelli and then paused, leaning close to him to say quietly, “When you get up there in my seat, just tell Frank the word on the street is that he’s a flaming fag.” He watched her smile and nod at him one more time as she walked away.
Fay ushered him through the door and onto the well lit set that looked much smaller to him than it did on TV. She told him with a grin, “Those two are always a barrel of laughs.”
Monelli spotted DeFauw waiting behind the anchor desk, reading glasses tilted low on his nose as he looked over a five-by-eight card. As they arrived at the desk, the newsman glanced up and offered a big friendly grin.
“How are you, Mr. Monelli?”
“Okay.”
They shook hands, and then Frank grabbed Mary Scott’s two pillows off her chair and tossed them on the floor. “Here, you won’t needs these.”
Monelli sat unhappily in the chair just a few feet from DeFauw.
A technician quickly pinned a tiny mike on his lapel.
DeFauw said, “Hell, just relax and we’ll have a great time. I guarantee this’ll be painless.”
Chapter 95
Admission of Guilt (The detroit im dyin Trilogy, Book 2) (The Detroit Im Dying Trilogy) Page 20