"Okay, man." He sat forward intently and started gesturing with his hands. "This place is going to be guarded. You got that? They will kill you if you mess up. So, you better be good to even think about penetrating this. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah. Go on," I said.
"Okay. It's The Water Tower Place. Oprah's got an apartment there. She used to live there. Right by the lake, you know what I'm talking about?"
"I think I can find it," I said.
"Security is amazing. You'll have to figure something out to get inside, but he's in there. He's got the place called Unit #7105. That means he's on the seventy-first floor."
"I know," I said.
"Okay," he said. "I don't have a clue how you'll get in, but that's where you find him."
"His name?"
"Richie Mancini," he said. "You'll recognize him. He looks a lot like you."
"Okay," I said. "Clue me in about the security on this place."
"Oh, man, it's amazing. There's a shopping mall and stuff like that in the bottom, but going in the residential side is almost impossible. You've got to be on a list of approved people."
"And you're not on the list?"
"Hell no! I'm not even supposed to know Richie exists."
"I assume they check IDs and all that," I said.
"I think they would. Like I said, I don't know how you'll get in," he said.
"But you think I'm going to," I said.
"I know you will. You got that drive about you, man. Promise me that you'll kill him when you're done, okay?"
"And you think he'll know what I need to know?"
"Man, if the family is involved in it, he'll know about it. His daddy is the boss. He's the underboss. You might want to wear something bullet proof when you go in there."
"Bullet proof?"
"Nah," he said. "Forget that. Sure thing, they'll have armor piercing rounds."
"I see," I said. I was less and less excited about this.
"Give me your word, man. You will not let them get me," he said.
"I can't promise that," I said. "But I'll take Richie out. Doubtless he deserves it."
"Man, you don't know how right you are. He's had hundreds executed."
"Okay," I said. "Get out. You never saw me." Using the controls on my side, I unlocked his door.
Without another word, he jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He didn't look back. With his hands in his pockets, he stalked off down the sidewalk.
I did a u-turn and headed for the main street a ways back. I hadn't caught its name, but I could tell it was a main drag. I was too far north, and I needed to get south to the lakeshore area.
My brain was racing. There had to be a way to crack this security and get in to see this mob guy. However, the pimp had said that this was the building Oprah had lived in. In no way would security be lax in that case.
I had a crazy thought about climbing up the glass with suction cups and blasting the window open.
The problem with that was twofold. First, I didn't have any explosives. Second, the explosion could blow me off the building. That would be a crappy way to die.
The only way to get in quickly would be to impersonate someone, and I was thinking of maintenance people. Somehow I'd have to pass myself off as some kind of a worker.
I made a left and headed down into the rich part of Chicago. The drive took less than fifteen minutes.
I had to park half a mile away from the lakefront to find a spot. I left my car on an "all day" lot for $15 and headed out for the lakefront.
There were a lot of tall buildings all around, and I wasn't sure which one I wanted.
Someone on the street helped me when I asked. She pointed the Water Tower Place out.
I walked to the base of it. The obvious entrances were to the shopping and public areas, but that wasn't what I wanted.
Noise from the street was constant with taxis, cars and buses always pushing their way through. I found the entrance that led to the private condominiums. As expected it was guarded.
Besides the security guard, I saw a closed circuit camera pointed at the entrance area as well.
While I was watching, some tradesman walked up. He was checked against a list or book, given a badge, and waved through. It seemed like a straight forward enough process.
Another tradesman, with the same kind of uniform on, came out. They looked like they were HVAC or something similar. I did my thing, that is, I watched and I waited. Another stakeout, more or less.
Day turned to dusk. The two tradesmen exited. One carried a red, plastic toolbox. I followed along behind but at a safe distance.
They made there way over to Navy Pier. It seemed they had parked in the parking structure there. They both went into the garage.
I turned around and saw a taxi rolling by. Raising my hand, I flagged him over.
"Where to?" the driver asked in a heavy accent.
"Wait," I said as I climbed in. I shut the door. "There will be a van coming out of the parking garage."
"Follow the van, sir?"
"Yes," I said.
Chapter 19
A red van pulled out. It had blue lettering on it saying they did HVAC work all throughout Chicagoland.
We followed them into a more industrial section. It was like the bad part of town I'd been in before, except without all the creepy people. This was merely deserted.
The van pulled into a garage. The door closed automatically behind them.
"What now, sir?"
"I'll get out here," I said and paid what was owed for the ride.
The taxi drove away and I ran to the corner and got around it before the two men reappeared. Not long after, they exited. Both started walking the opposite way. I guessed they were heading for a bus stop to get home.
After they were gone, I moved back to the building with the built in garage where they'd parked the van. To the right of the garage door was a normal glass entry door and some windows were further to the right of that.
There were no alarm stickers or any indication that the building was alarmed. That was good news.
I smashed the window with my elbow first and then with my foot. It cracked, and I kicked a hole large enough for me to get through.
And I was in. In and on top of a desk, I discovered. I climbed down off of it, and felt my way through the darkness to a light switch.
My plan here was to find what I needed to impersonate one of them. Obviously they were on the list. They were obviously an approved vendor.
The office was non-descript, and I didn't see anything that caught my eye.
I headed out into the shop. I noticed the floor was a sealed, smooth concrete, and after I turned the lights on, I could see it was heavily oil stained too. There were a bunch of vans parked back here. Against the wall to my right was a desk. No computer was on top.
I went to it and rummaged around for an ID badge or something. There was nothing. That would make sense, but it wasn't what I hoped to find.
Back in the office, I moved to the computers and checked each one. All had been locked, and without passwords or some computer ninja work, I wasn't going to get access. All the way down at the end of the line, there was a small conference room.
In there was a laptop computer sitting by itself on the table top. I turned it on and lucky me, it booted right up. It didn't stop and ask for a password.
Sometimes laptops were forgotten when computer security things are set up on the desktop computers. That had happened here, and I was able to access it without being stopped.
It got even better.
I could access their shared network files from this computer. I scrolled through them and found the one marked employees.
Inside were a bunch of folders. Each was named after someone. Opening one, I found their picture and an electronic form of their badge. If they had pictures taken, that meant they had a camera in here somewhere.
I went hunting for it. The receptionist desk, or whoever sat
in the front, had a camera and cord in her desk drawer. I took it and snapped my own picture.
Then I plugged the camera into the laptop. Next I went through the employees one by one until I recognized one of the faces of one of the two I'd seen.
I wanted to do that because I knew for sure that they were approved to get into the building.
The first one I found was named Jose Ratticoa. Odd name, but it would work for me.
I opened the file that had his badge, and I loaded my picture over top, then I sent it to the printer.
In the main office, I heard the printer whirring to life. If they made badges, they must also have a laminator, I figured. And I went in search of it too.
Silly me, it sat on the same desk that I got the camera from; I hadn't been paying attention.
The printer had finished, and I retrieved the badge. Using scissors from the same desk, I trimmed around the edges. Then I ran it through the laminator.
When it came out the other end, it looked great. It was an official employee badge of Top HVAC Chicagoland, but it had my picture on it and Jose's name.
Very nice.
I also needed a disguise. CCTV cameras would be everywhere, and in places I couldn't get at them.
In the shop, I found a pair of safety glasses and a utility knife. With the knife, I cut the side shield parts out to make them look more like real glasses.
It was amazing how different a pair of glasses made you look, but I wasn't done yet. On the shop office desk, I found a stubby pencil. In the shop bathroom, I drew a shadow mustache on. Except for close inspection, it looked real. Like I'd forgotten to shave my lip that morning.
I also took a uniform shirt and changed into it; another uniform shirt was shoved inside to make me look overweight. It took some adjusting to look right.
Lastly, I hunched over to shorten my already short frame. I looked like a different person.
I shut the shop lights off. It was time to go.
With care, I returned the office to the way it had been. The camera went back in its spot, with my picture deleted. I returned the laptop to its former condition, and I'd gotten on top of the desk to climb out the window, when I had a thought.
What if they were really anal and asked for a driver's license or something to compare against the badge I had. Then I'd be stuck.
Not only that, but I'd lose my chance most likely to ever have a jump on this Richie guy.
They'd know who I was at the Water Tower Place, and I'd be locked out. Naturally, I didn't have an Illinois driver's license, but that shouldn't be a huge issue, I thought.
I turned the office lights back on, and I booted the laptop back up. Then I began a search of the internet for Illinois driver's license templates.
I wasn't looking in the normal places that normal people do when they are on the internet. Rather, I was looking in the "gray" areas. I was hunting the file sharing sites and the like.
Within fifteen minutes, I had located what I was looking for. It was a PDF file loaded on zShare.com. I had it downloaded in under a minute. I took my picture again, and I loaded it in the picture section. Then I printed it out.
It had two sides, a front and a back. I cut it out and laminated it too. But as I held the newly laminated card, I realized that it wasn't quite right. It felt to flimsy for a driver's license.
I laminated it again. That was perfect. I had the proper thickness and feel now. After rounding the corners, it was perfect.
So with a driver's license from Illinois and a badge from the HVAC company, I shut the office down, and climbed out the broken window.
Half an hour later, I stood at the base of the Water Tower Place. There were several CCTV cameras recording the area. They were all high up. That was a disadvantage and advantage all in one. Disadvantage: I couldn't tamper with them without being really obvious. Advantage: If I kept my face tilted down and properly disposed of the uniform afterwards, they'd never be able to trace me. I took a deep breath and walked up to the little entry and guard.
Inside, the guard looked up at me. He was a Latino, clean-shaven, and his shirt looked like it had been starched earlier that day.
"Yes?"
I laid my ID badge on the countertop.
He frowned at it, and then he started looking at a list. "You're not on the list," he said.
"I am," I said. I knew I'd seen that guy coming out of here.
He flipped a page back. "Oh, you're on the daytime list. But you don't have authorization after 6pm. Sorry."
"I left some tools up there accidentally," I said. "I've heard I could be going to a different job tomorrow. I really need to get my tools."
"What did you leave up there?" he asked.
"Some specialized HVAC stuff," I said. "You wouldn't know the name of it."
"My dad owns an HVAC company. I probably would," he said. "What did you leave up there?"
Very nice indeed. I didn't know the name of any specialized HVAC tool, and I had to get a guard that does. "Okay," I said. "I lied. I thought you'd be more likely to let me go up for tools, but I didn't leave any tools up there."
"So, what's going on?" he asked.
"My cell phone. I left my personal cell phone in the condo I was working in."
"What condo were you in?" he asked.
Covertly, I looked down at the list and saw that Jose was working in 5009. "It was on the fiftieth floor," I said. "I'm not sure I remember the number."
He looked down. "Oh," he said. "It says right here you were in 5009. I'm going to let you go up. You gotta promise that you're going to get right down here again. I'm not supposed to let you do this."
"Thanks dude!" I said.
Behind him was a giant lockbox. He opened it up and I saw that there were keys for every condo in there. This was the jackpot.
I looked up. There was a camera to a closed circuit TV up there. I jumped and caught it by the base. That tilted it up.
Then I hoisted myself up on to the counter top and over into the guard's space.
He turned around. "Hey! What are you doing?"
I pointed in to the building hall, the locked portion that I'd soon be in. "There!" I said and stared intently.
As soon as he looked, my hand went out and I got my fingers around the key for 7105, Richie's condo.
The keys were organized in rows that corresponded to floors, and that was how I could grab it so quickly.
"There's nothing," he said.
"You're right," I said. "I must have been seeing a reflection off of the glass."
"You mind getting out of my space?"
I jumped back over the counter top and knocked some papers to the floor on my side. I picked them up for him.
"Sorry," I said. "Really sorry."
He looked at me strangely. "I'm going to hold your driver's license till you get back down," he said. "Can I have it please?"
I fished out the fake driver's license and handed it over. He gave me the key to the unit on the fiftieth floor and a contractor badge to wear. I clipped it onto my shirt.
"You got ten minutes," he said.
I nodded, and he buzzed me through to the elevator lobby. I quickly walked over to the elevators and pushed the button. One of the many opened up.
I took it and as soon as the doors closed, my cell phone rang.
That was good timing.
"Hello?"
"It's me, Ray." It was my wife. "I wanted to tell you that I'm in Oklahoma now. Everything's okay."
"Good," I said.
"How are you?"
"Fine," I said. I was going to in a moment go face-to-face with a member of the mob, but other than that I was fine.
"Be safe, okay?"
"Um, yeah. Sure," I said.
"You sound distracted," she said. "Is everything okay?"
"I'm working right now," I said.
"Oh, sorry," she said. "I'll let you go. I love you."
"I love you too," I said, and we hung up.
The elevator stopped
at the seventy-first floor. I got out. The hall was ornate. The carpet had gold borders with a wine colored center. Impressionist artwork hung on the hallway's walls. Lighting came from wall lamps that had light bulbs that were made to look like candles.
I wondered if all the floors looked like this, but there wasn't time to go into that.
I made my way down the hall and found the door for unit 05. Here it was. No one was posted outside, and that was a relief.
I drew my weapon, and then I unlocked the door. It opened and I found myself staring at an Italian guy in a robe and slippers. His legs were covered in thick, dark hair.
His mouth was open, and before he got a chance to close it, I was inside and had my gun barrel in his mouth.
"Are you Richie?" I asked quietly.
He shook his head from side-to-side to indicate no.
"Who are you?"
His response was unintelligible because of the gun jammed into his mouth. So, I removed it, but kept the business end pointed at him, inches away from his face.
"Who are you," I whispered.
"George," he said. "Who are you?"
I jammed the gun up under his chin. "Is Richie here?"
"Yes," he said.
"Who else is here?"
"There are three of us, but . . ." He trailed off.
"But what?"
"Nothing," he said.
I jammed the gun so hard into the underside of his neck that his head was forced way back so that he was looking straight up at the ceiling.
"What were you going to say?"
"There's about a dozen more coming over in a few minutes," he said.
"What?"
"Yeah. So whoever you are, you should probably get the hell out of here."
I released the pressure from under his chin and grabbed the hair at the top of his head.
"Why are those guys coming over here?"
"To watch the pay-per-view fight," he said.
"I need to see Richie," I said.
"Listen guy," he said. "They all got guns in there. You walk in there, you're going to get one in the head."
"So, walk in with me," I said.
"And then I might get one in the head too."
"Why?"
"I'm his bodyguard," he said.
I had to hold myself back from laughing. "You're the bodyguard?"
Death of an Escort Page 15