I zipped my black leather jacket down slowly, and without removing my gloves I managed to pull the documents from the inside pocket and hand them over.
I looked him straight in the eye. It was now or never. Different hair, crooked nose, sexier clothes. I deepened my voice a bit and spoke with a slight Southern accent.
“I’m sorry, officer. I only just got this motorcycle, and I didn’t realize just how fast I was going.” I batted my eyelids, because in for a penny… “It’s just so incredibly exhilarating!”
“Yes, Mrs…McKay—”
“It’s Miss.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s Miss McKay.”
“Right, Miss McKay.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, causing my leather pants to creak audibly, even over the noise of the passing traffic.
He looked down at my pants, then hastily looked away, then down at my license again.
“I don’t have a record,” I told him. “I only just got it. I haven’t really had a chance to get in trouble yet. You can check!”
He handed me back the documents.
“That’s okay ma’am, just see to it that you stick to the speed limit from now on. We don’t want you getting into any trouble. Not without a police officer around.”
“Like you?” I drawled.
“Exactly. It’s for your own safety. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to someone as pretty as you.”
“Thank you, Officer…”—I leaned into his personal space to examine his name tag—“Murphy.”
“You have a nice day, now, ma’am,” he said, and turned back toward his cruiser.
Three minutes. In three minutes, he had said more to me on the side of the road than he had in the whole year we worked in the same building. I kicked a rock with my boot, and turned away from him as he drove past and pulled back on to 94.
In that moment, I held two conflicting emotions. One was regret that I hadn’t gotten in shape and dressed better years ago. The other was anger that it made a difference. For a second I wished that all men would spontaneously disappear from the face of the earth, then I put my helmet on and got back on my bike.
“Not you, Gromet,” I said to the little motorbike, which I had decided was a he. “You can stay.”
Surprisingly, my lock-picking lesson was taught by Uncle Elgort himself.
“Ahh, those boys,” he said dismissively, waving a hand. “Nick has the hands for it, but he is more interested in his art. Plus, he would be a distraction to you, and it takes utter concentration. Eldon, he is all computers these days. All the research, the finance, the deal-making. All computers these days.”
I blushed at his reference to Nick, but he didn’t notice. We were back in the top floor loft of the Shelby Furniture building, sitting at the well-worn table where I had first told him about my problems. It had only been about four months ago, but it felt like a lifetime.
Elgort was wearing his normal suit and tie, with highly polished brown leather shoes. He always looked like he had just stepped out of 1952, but it suited him. Added to his dignity. I hated to see old men sitting around in sweat pants. It just looked sad.
“The hard skills, they are disappearing. Because who wants to rob a lock box when you can just push a button and move funds from London to Switzerland to Monaco to the Caymans?”
“I like the hard skills,” I said.
“I know you do,” he said, taking my hand and tracing the callouses I had from climbing. “I like that about you. You do things up close, without all the layers in between.” He dropped my hand and wagged his finger at me. “But be careful. Up close is difficult, dangerous.”
“Easier to get caught,” I added.
“Easier to get confused,” he countered. “Look at the military, these days. Like playing a video game.” He pursed his lips. “Pww pww,” he said, making a shooting motion. “So detached. No accountability. No soul.”
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “And since then, other things. Things not wars, but like wars. On the street. In back rooms, where violence is real!” He slapped his palm on the table. “Where you own your actions, and they make you question every step. And make you regret…” His voice faded, and he looked off to the side for a moment. Then he looked me in the eye.
“You and the no guns. I get it. I admire it. It’s one of the things I like about you.”
“Thank you.”
“But be careful,” he admonished, rising from his chair to his feet. “A choice like that is an easy one when you are alone. But when you must defend others, others you love, and you don’t have the tools to do it. What then?”
He turned on his heel and walked toward the far end of the warehouse.
“Come,” he beckoned over his shoulder, “I have a lot to teach you.”
Yes, sensei, I bowed.
Seven
I was washing dishes in Ruby’s sink a few nights later when Ellery Park knocked on the cabin door. Needless to say, this was a surprise. We were miles from Chicago, down a back road through a forest that led to this little cabin with its own yard and a dock. Ruby’s little slice of fishy paradise, though I hadn’t seen her fish at all since moving in. For my part, I had been doing a lot of kayaking. I suppose I could swim here, too, but I liked doing laps in a pool. Inside. Something about a lake made me always think tentacles were going to reach up and grab me.
I opened the door, looked Ellery up and down, then stepped back to let her in.
“Is Ruby home?” she asked politely.
“Sure,” I grinned. This girl was something. I held out my right hand.
“I’m Ellery Park,” she said, in her timid voice.
“I’m Georgette Wrigley. Ruby will be down in a minute. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just water will be fine, thank you.”
“How about iced tea?”
“Yes, sure. Thank you.”
I went to the kitchen, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to yell up.
“Ruby!? Someone is here to see you!”
A minute later Ruby clomped down the stairs. She took them one at a time, favoring her bad leg. She walked into the living room and looked at Park.
“Okay,” said Ruby with a shrug. “I knew you had talent, but two days, that is damn efficient.”
“I’m sorry to do this, Mrs. Martynek, but it was just so strange. I couldn’t let it go.” She was wearing jeans and a light jacket, with a white t-shirt underneath. Sensible shoes. She carried a handbag big enough to hold three or four bowling balls. She set it on the sofa and then sat next to it as I came in from the kitchen. “I couldn’t figure out why someone else would have it in for Haines, unless he had assaulted other women, but I couldn’t find any proof of that, just a few rumors. So why would you be there except to punish him for what he did to me, and why would you do that?” She wound down her speech, the nervous babble dying out.
“Here’s your iced tea,” I said, handing it to her with my damaged hand.
It was something else to watch understanding dawn on her face. First, she stared at my hand, as people do. Then her impeccable manners kicked in and she averted her eyes away from the hard pink scar tissue, looking instead at Ruby. Then, finally, a look of wonder crossed her face and she turned back and looked at me, studying my face. Women weren’t as easy to fool when it came to looks.
“I recognize you from somewhere.”
“I used to be a cop.”
“You quit?”
“No, I died.”
She looked back at my hand again.
“You’re…”
“Bingo,” I grinned.
“But you’re…”
“Nope.” I plopped down on the sofa next to her. “Not dead.”
“But they only found…”
I waved my damaged hand at her again.
Ruby sat in the easy chair in the corner of the room.
“Miss Park. How exactly did you find me?”
Ellery was still staring open-mout
hed at me.
“They said you killed those people!”
“Then they said I didn’t, to be fair.”
“But then you were dead!”
“Boo.”
“Divenka!” said Ruby, snapping her fingers. “Over here.”
Ellery turned to look at Ruby. She was a lovely young girl with a serious face. Not gorgeous, per se, but pretty, and clearly a woman of many talents. You could almost see the wheels of logic and speculation working behind her eyes.
“Now, how did you find me?”
“Oh, it wasn’t hard,” she said, bright with the topic. “The only halfway-reasonable explanation for someone to show up at Haines’s was the same reason I was there: revenge. Who would care about what he had done to me, apart from my family? And you were obviously not my family.
“It had to be a cop. A female cop who didn’t like that Haines was getting away with being a slimeball. On our way out of his house, you told me to go home and stay far away from Haines. I could tell you had an accent. Eastern European of some kind. And the cane. I thought maybe you were injured in the line of duty. Yesterday was my last day on the job. I took advantage of the employee database and looked for on-duty leg injuries for officers with Eastern European backgrounds.”
“Eh,” said Ruby, “not bad. You must have got quite a few hits, though, yes?”
“Yes,” said Park, leaning forward. “But when I read that you had been involved in the Red Riley Bombings, I knew it had to be you. Only a bad-ass like you would go after Haines.”
Ruby sat up straighter and smiled. I don’t know if Park was flattering her on purpose, but it was working like a charm. Then her smile dropped, just as suddenly.
“If it was so easy for you, perhaps Haines will come to the same conclusion.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Park. “One, you didn’t say much in the kitchen that night, so he probably didn’t catch the accent. Two, he’s a moron.”
We both laughed at that.
There was a silent moment, during which Ellery Park looked around the room, taking in the odd mixture of fishing décor and exercise equipment, tactical gear, and vases full of wildflowers.
“So,” she said, bringing her attention back to Ruby and I, “what are you two doing way out here anyway?”
“Bass fishing?” I suggested with a shrug.
She laughed. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it exactly.”
By the time Ellery left, the three of us had ironed out a plan. I needed some extra help on the upcoming Dexter job, and wanted to leave Ruby out of it. Park was off the force, and didn’t quite know what she wanted to do next, but liked the sound of sticking it to someone who had been supplying many of the guns that were flooding the street.
I was worried that she would be a stickler for the rules, and not want to participate in the kind of illegal entry we were planning, but she had no qualms about it at all. Kids these days. Or maybe, just maybe having your commanding officer push you against a bathroom wall and put his hands all over you had a disruptive effect on your respect for authority.
I thought about what she had said about Ruby, and the Red Riley Bombings. Maybe I should get a t-shirt that said, “I survived the Red Riley Bombings” across the chest. It was strange to be famous and to be dead.
Regardless, she was a sharp kid, and would be a big help. I had been struggling to come up with a plan that would work with just me, but I had made a promise to Marty.
I thought about what Uncle Elgort had said about protecting the people you cared for. But this wasn’t like that. This was just business. Park was a hired henchman—henchwoman—for this job only. She would be paid commensurate with the risks, and then we would go our separate ways.
After she was gone, I locked the door and turned the alarm on. Ruby had already started toward the stairs for bed.
“Well,” she said over her shoulder. “That went well.” She put one hand on the bannister and started her slow progress up.
“What do you mean?” I asked, bewildered, before realization dawned. I crossed to the bottom of the stairs, glaring up at her with my hands on my hips.
“You knew she was going to be at Haines’s house that night!”
Ruby stopped on the landing and turned back toward me.
“Of course I knew.”
“You weren’t avenging her, you were recruiting her!”
“Of course I was,” said Ruby with exasperation, and continued up the stairs.
Yes, sensei, I bowed.
Eight
I looked across the yawning chasm between the top of Dexter’s building and the top of the building nearest it, where I was standing in the chilly night wind. The nighttime view of the lake from up here was outstanding, but with it came the high wind, biting even in September.
I was wearing black tights and a black turtleneck, with a tight black sweater over it and a black backpack. A black knit watch cap covered my red hair, and of course my black Doc Martens completed the black ensemble. How much more black could I get? None. None more black.
On top of Dexter’s building was a huge antenna. That was my target, and even an inexperienced pilot like me should be able to handle it. I thumbed the levers on the control box, watching as Marty’s drone tilted a bit to the left, a bit back to the right, and then leveled off at head height. It was a pretty good-sized drone. It had to be, because it would be dragging about sixty feet of industrial hemp twine behind it.
I glanced down over the edge of the building. Mistake. Major mistake. Down below was a single-lane service alley between the two buildings. Twenty-five feet, max. Tom Cruise always made it look so easy. At least I wasn’t jumping out of a plane.
Looking back across, I sent the drone on its way. Almost immediately, it veered about ten feet to the right. It was a constant fight to control it in the blowing wind, and even with our nice, heavy DJI model, it was a fight I was losing.
“Give it here,” demanded Ruby, holding out her hand for the controller.
“Wait,” I complained, “I’ve almost got it.” The drone dropped suddenly out of sight below the edge of the roof line. I leapt forward to keep eyes on it, managing to level it and bring it back up to our height, then set it back down on the roof without smashing it into either of the buildings.
I handed the controller to Ruby.
She examined it for a second, peering down through her reading glasses to look at the two small levers on the control box.
“It’s like the Super Mario Brothers, no?” she asked.
I shook my head in amazement.
“I just, can’t even…” but Ruby wasn’t listening. The drone lifted up and flew smoothly across the alley, around the base of the twenty-foot antenna, and back over to us, where it landed neatly on the pebbled roof next to my feet. Step one, done!
We now had a continuous loop of hemp twine stretching from my side, around the antenna, and back to me. I picked up a coil of quarter-inch clothesline, and tied it tightly to one end of the hemp. Then I pulled on the free end, watching the clothesline cross the empty space between buildings, holding my breath as it somehow slid around the antenna without getting snagged, and came all the way back to me again. Step two, easy-peasy!
Next up was twenty meters of dark blue Mammut climbing rope, because climbing rope is metric for some reason. I snipped off the hemp, and connected the climbing rope. This proved much harder to pull across and around the antenna because of the accumulated weight, but with Ruby helping, we got it done.
Ruby took one end of the climbing rope and I took the other, and we backed up on either side of a large air conditioning unit. We joined the ends together in a series of very secure knots. Step three, done.
So far, so good. Now all that was left was the summoning of courage. I tested the rope by tugging on it three or four times, until it became obvious that I was just stalling. Then I clipped my climbing harness to the rope and climbed up onto the low wall surrounding the edge of the roof.
“Give
me the statue,” I said to Ruby.
“I don’t have the statue.”
“Oh well,” I said, turning from the edge. “No statue. Shucks. Guess we better go home.”
Ruby frowned at me. “It’s in the backpack. On your back.”
“Oh really? I didn’t realize…”
“Go!” she commanded. “And don’t look down,” she advised. “And good luck.”
It took seven minutes to shinny across the rope, hanging upside down with my legs wrapped around it. I was no Tom Cruise which, frankly, was just fine with me. However, there was no way I could leave this way if anyone was chasing me. I’d be a sitting duck. Then I’d be a falling duck. Then I’d be a dead duck. There was no doubt about it, I would have to stick to the plan and leave through the front door.
I lay for a moment on my back on the roof of Dexter’s building, letting the adrenaline drain from my body. Controlling my breathing, I lay still until suddenly the drone flew right over me. I sat up quickly and looked back across to Ruby, who was standing on the edge, controller in her hand.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at her.
“It’s fun. And now I have the video of your little circus performance. I thought you’d want to see it, when we got home.”
“It has a camera?” Cool.
“Yes, you didn’t see it hovering next to you when you were crossing?”
“Frankly, Ruby, my eyes were closed. Now get the rope and get out of here. I’ll meet you at the bunker.”
The drone buzzed uncomfortably close to my head on its way back across the alley. I glared at Ruby, but she had already turned away. A moment later the rope was untied and she hauled it back over to her side. I looked down the eighteen stories to the street and shuddered. So far, so good. Not dead. That was really my only barometer of success.
I crossed to the door for the stairs, took off my backpack, and pulled out the alarm silencer. It did its job with that satisfying bass thrum, and then it was time for the locksmith to do her job. That’s me. In this scenario, I’m the locksmith. I hope.
I pulled out the little billfold of tools Uncle Elgort had given me, and went to work on the deadbolt. I tried, and failed, for four minutes until finally I felt the mechanism turn to the side, and I gently pulled the door open. Yes!
Diamond White: A Red Riley Adventure #2 (Red Riley Adventures) Page 4