Chicago Blue: A Red Riley Adventure

by Stephanie Andrews

  Carefully, deliberately, I controlled my breathing, then moved my head slowly until I could see through the thin slit between the hinged panels.

  Farnham was at his desk, frowning up at the lit TV screen, likely trying to remember if he had left it on or not. He wore a loose-fitting grey suit with a black turtleneck. He was taller than I expected him to be from his pictures. The setting sun glinted off his wire-rimmed glasses as he swept his gaze around the room.

  Just as he turned toward my hiding place a low buzzing attracted his attention. He reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out his phone, holding it up to the side of his head as he turned around to gaze out at the setting sun.

  “No. Nothing up here…nothing? Greg, this can’t be a coincidence. Someone is messing with us… you’re the head of security, you don’t understand what another bomb going off in this building would do to this company. Not physically, but to the stock price. We are all going to pay it happens again, whether anyone else is hurt or not. Farnham slapped his hand on the window pane in frustration, and I had a quick flashback to Carter Blalock trying to jump through a similar window three floors down.

  Farnham had lowered his tone: “You’re right… I’m sorry, Greg, but this is really getting to me. They came at me pretty hard about the Illcom bomb. Arthur was hurt badly, I hear, maybe Aldo as well… if you know anything, if you find out anything… No, I don’t suspect you, of course not, but you know more of what’s going on in this building than anyone, and Carter called you… Valerie?... No, I haven’t seen her all week… well I assumed because she was shaken up by this whole thing… In fact, I’m meeting her for lunch at noon tomorrow at The Drake and I have a few pointed questions for her… No, I don’t really think… Well, I mean I know that, but I have to consider all possibilities!”

  From my research on Farnham I knew that Valerie must refer to Valerie Archer, Farnham’s second in command. I guessed the other office out, off reception, belonged to her. This could be interesting. It seemed there wasn’t a lot of trust at the highest level of Farnham Enterprises.

  Farnham was still on the phone as he walked past me and out the door.

  “No, I’m on my way now. I sent Janice home for the day, it was almost six anyway… I’ll stop in on my way down…”

  And he was gone. Wow. I didn’t have to look down to know my hands were shaking. I could feel sweat running down my spine. I was way out of my league, here. I was used to beat work, domestic calls, and the occasional parade. Still, my first operation as a freelance spy, and I hadn’t blown it. Yet. I relaxed my body the best I could, and then began to concentrate on how to get out of there undiscovered.

  Just as I was about to move from behind the screen, a scraping noise above my head startled me. I huddled back down behind the screen as, incredibly, the ceiling panel directly above Farnham’s desk slid open to reveal a dark hole above! Out of that hole a woman lowered herself until she was hanging from her hands, at which point she dropped silently onto the surface of his desk in an alert crouch.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from exclaiming, as the woman swept her eyes around the room to make sure she was unobserved. She was wearing a white catsuit. Honestly! Made out of lycra, I think. Certainly something that stretched, because it fit her body tighter than…I don’t know. Really tight. Tight enough for it to be obvious that she was in incredible shape. Olympic gymnast kind of shape. Yes, I could drop down out of the ceiling onto somebody’s desk, but it wouldn’t look anything like what she just did.

  She dismounted, equally silently, from the desktop and moved to some filing cabinets that ran underneath the monitors along the wall. A few moments of searching, and she removed a single piece of paper, folded it, and slipped it into the sleeve of her left wrist. She closed the drawer and then remounted the desk. Her long brown hair flowed out behind her in a ponytail. The sun had finally set, but in the soft glowing light I could see that she had a beautiful, youthful face, round and luminous. With a flex of her incredible leg muscles, she leapt straight up, her hands grasping a water pipe up in the ceiling. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and then inserted her feet through the hole, inverting her whole body so that the last I saw of her was her ponytail, disappearing into the blackness.

  The ceiling tile slid shut, and I exhaled for the first time in maybe five minutes. I listened for sounds of her leaving through the ceiling, but I heard nothing. Not a scrape, not a sound.

  Holy crap, what had just happened? Did I mention that I was completely out of my league?

  Com.plete. ly.

  Ten

  I sat in the little park behind The Drake hotel, twisting the long black braids of my wig. I also wore a white oxford shirt with a skinny black tie and black pants. Comfortable black shoes.

  Three hours earlier I had come up with this plan while working out at one of the Wilbur Wright rec rooms. I would have preferred to swim, but I didn’t have a swim suit and was too lazy to go get one. Instead I rode a stationary bike, my mind spinning along with my legs. It felt good to work up a sweat. Ideally, cops should be in top physical shape, but that wasn’t always the case, and I had slacked a bit in my regimen. I’m sure seeing the cat burglar the day before, and her lean, perfect body might have had something to do with it, too.

  As I sweated and planned my next step, I watched the news and weather scrolling by on a screen mounted high on the opposite wall. Nothing about me, but after about half an hour I was startled to see a familiar face as they began a piece on the funeral of Carter Blalock.

  He was a good-looking guy in his forties, with a full head of blond hair that needed a trim. In the clip they showed, he was standing at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with his dark-haired wife Belinda and a young daughter, maybe eight years old, holding a glittering green shamrock on a stick.

  The next clip was from two days ago, and showed the widow and daughter leaving the funeral and getting into a long black car with tinted windows.

  I felt bad for them. Whatever Blalock was into, and it was surely something bad, his wife probably knew nothing about it. Certainly, the kid didn’t. It’s always the kids that have to deal, for decades sometimes, with the shortcomings and misfortunes of their parents. When you have kids, every mistake you make ripples down through generations. Man.

  I stopped cycling and took a long drink of water, going over everything I knew about the case.

  Who was I kidding? I only had one lead: Noon. Lunch. The Drake

  That’s how I found my bewigged self crossing East Lake Shore and circling around to the front of The Drake, entering through the revolving door. As I found the Coq D’or (seriously) Lounge it was 12:35pm. I grabbed a full water pitcher from the busing station and made my way through the room. All the real wait staff were huddled near the bar, looking intently at their phones, occasionally casting a furtive glance toward their tables.

  Farnham was sitting at a small table in the far corner. He was dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck. A small amount of styling gel in his hair was the only hint that the look was calculated. He was forking the remains of a $16 salad into his mouth, talking at the same time.

  Across the table from him sat the woman who had to be Valerie Archer. I had seen her in the newspaper a few times. As someone who was young, black, and female, she stood out as a high-ranking executive, and the media loved her. She was slim, with a long neck and a very close-cropped afro. Her well-tailored cream business suit contrasted with onyx jewelry and black strappy shoes. She was a very well put together woman, but today she had an expression on her face that was half anxiety and half anger. I moved closer until I could hear them.

  “Greg Ralston told you that?”

  “No,” said Farnham. “Janice told me that.”

  “I’m not surprised. She could have done a bit more digging before jumping to conclusions.” She glared at Farnham with a fire in her eyes. “I did meet with Aldo Frances, because I’m trying to get to the bottom of this! It’s been two weeks, and we st
ill have no idea who’s targeting us. We need to stop pointing fingers. Don’t you realize this is likely some third party targeting both Illcom and us? Aldo is in charge over there now, and Arthur Vincente was nearly killed.”

  “Yes, but we didn’t—“

  “Have anything to do with that, I know. But look, Ferris: Carter Blalock, Arthur Vincente, and Aldo Frances. That’s Illcom three, Farnham zero. You can’t blame the police for thinking we were involved. You can’t blame anyone for that. It’s already affecting our stock price.”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” Farnham cut in. “I’m getting constant calls from both coasts.” He set his fork on his plate and looked around the dining room for the waitress, presumably for his check, but she was nowhere to be seen. I ducked my head and straightened the silverware on a nearby table. “But Val, if it was someone else, then what the hell was Carter doing in our building when the bomb went off?

  Archer frowned. “That’s what’s really bugging me, too. It doesn’t make any sense at all.” She stared off into the distance for a minute, then snapped out of it and looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go,” she exclaimed, reaching into a small purse that matched her shoes and jewelry.

  I was standing stock still a few tables away, lost in thought. Something Valerie Archer had said made me think of something, something from the night of the explosion. Pieces were falling into place…”

  “You! Spacegirl!” I jerked my head toward the voice to see Archer waving her arm at me. I shuffled over, keeping my head down, a pitcher of water in one hand.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Where on earth is our waitress? It’s like she fell off the edge of the earth.” Her voice was calm, and she seemed more bemused then angry, but the frustration was still simmering below the surface. She seemed like someone who didn’t often lose their cool. Under normal circumstances she was probably a very nice person, and clearly driven, and brilliant.

  “I’m not sure, ma’am. Would you like me to take that for you?”

  “Yes please,” she sighed, handing me the card.

  I headed for the hostess station, turning at the last moment toward the bathrooms and then down a long hall to the rest of the hotel.

  Like I said, she was probably a very nice person, which is why I felt a bit bad as I headed out the revolving door and onto the street, her Platinum Mastercard snug in my pants pocket.

  Eleven

  I ran a few errands, spent the rest of the afternoon in the library, further researching the telecom industry, and then went back to my “safe house.” Safe dorm? Whatever. I removed the wig, strangely happy to have my crazy red hair back, and washed the makeup from my face. A hot shower and some comfortable sweats and a t-shirt. It was only about 7pm, but I was going to make an early night of it. The adrenaline from my lunchtime escapade had worn off, and I felt exhausted. When you’re in the middle of it, the rush is enormous, but when it’s gone you’re left completely drained. You would think I would have felt this a few times while on the force but honestly, I had never been in a single high-speed car chase, never mind a shootout. Never delivered a baby in the back seat of a car, never talked a jumper off a ledge. Nope, I had pretty much spent ten years arresting drunks and vagrants. Occasionally some piece of crap who beat his wife. I’d had more excitement in the last six days than in the last six years on the job. I honestly was not missing being a police officer. At all.

  I examined the stitches on my scalp in the mirror. No sign of infection. In the medicine cabinet, I found some fresh Band-Aids for the gash on my calf, the one from the lamppost bullet ricochet. I probably should have gotten a few stitches there, but it seemed to be closing up on its own pretty well. I had to remember to thank Marty for doing such a nice job with the first aid.

  I ambled out to the living area where the black wig was now perched on the hilt of the broadsword, past the counter that divided the tiny room from the tiny kitchen, stretching languidly as I reached for a plastic bowl from the cupboard and filled it with cereal and milk. I turned to sit at the counter, but the countertop was still covered with shopping bags, so I walked back into the living area, flopped down on the sofa, and turned on the TV.

  I was soon sound asleep with the cereal only half finished and Jerry Taft on the screen, telling me the weather tomorrow would be sunny and crisp…

  A moment later I was back in my uniform, back in the Farnham Building, gun drawn and looking for an intruder. “Criminal” by Fiona Apple was playing loudly through overhead speakers, and I was wearing very heavy boots that were a few sizes too large for me—it made it very difficult for me to walk, every step was a struggle, and sweat was pouring down my forehead and stinging my eyes. Nevertheless, I struggled toward the boardroom door, which was just ahead of me. I knew I was supposed to be in there, but it was taking me forever to get there.

  Inside the boardroom, a shirtless Carter Blalock greeted me warmly, walking across the thick carpet toward me. He held a green shamrock on a stick.

  “Glad to see you here!” he exclaimed with real affection. “Sorry about my attire, it’s just so hot in here with the fire and all.”

  “Fire?”

  He stretched out his hand to shake mine. “Yes, the fire, from the explosion.”

  I looked down at his outstretched hand, recoiling when I saw the bracelet strapped around his wrist, blinking brightly with an amber light.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he told me, but then the light on the device turned red, there was a heavy, repeated banging noise, and I screamed myself awake…

  I lurched up from the sofa, sending my cereal bowl flying to the rug. Milk splattered everywhere. My t-shirt was drenched with sweat, and drool was coating one side of my mouth and even on to my neck.

  Bang! Bang, bang! Someone hammered on the door. Oh good Christ, I thought I was having a seizure, but then I took a deep breath and the room came back into focus. I wiped my mouth on the shoulder of my shirt, and looked for my service weapon, before realizing it was still back in my apartment, my real apartment, on the other side of the city.

  I took a step toward the door, crunching some Frosted Flakes under my bare foot. Damn. I kept quiet and tiptoed to the door, looked through the peephole into the gray hallway of the apartment building.

  It was Ruby, cane raised, ready to pound on the door a third time. I let her in quickly, looking up and down the hall, but there was no one else around.

  “What’s wrong with you, Kay?” Ruby bustled in, her black bag over her shoulder. “You didn’t answer the door, I was suddenly worried about you, you know?”

  “I was asleep, I’m sorry.” I stepped around Ruby to pick up the bowl and the bits of cereal and put them in the sink. “This dream, Ruby, I remember—”

  “It’s only 8 pm, you were already asleep? I think this suspension is making you lazy.”

  “I’ll have you know, I had a very exciting day—”

  “What’s all this?” Ruby interrupted me, waving her arm at the shopping bags as she stepped around the wet spot on the carpet and placed her bag on the sofa. “You shouldn’t be out shopping, with your face all over the news!”

  “Oh,” I answered evasively. “I needed some new clothes. I wore a disguise the whole time, and certainly the police wouldn’t be looking for me in the shopping district. I don’t want to wear Marty’s jeans and sweatshirts forever, and I still don’t dare go to my apartment.”

  “Right, but Vuitton? J. Toor? You can’t afford this stuff with no income!”

  “Yes… well, that’s a long story,” I stuttered. I was suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious about my shopping spree on Valerie Archer’s credit card. I had really been embracing my criminal fugitive persona; it was strangely freeing to feel like all the rules had been abandoned, all the niceties and courtesies gone. Yet there was a nagging guilt, my old self still there, hands on her hips and tapping her foot, looking at me like Mom used to look at me when I came in past midnight.

  Anyway, I had then ditched the c
ard, so I wouldn’t get carried away, or tracked for that matter. I threw it in a rain gutter. Right after I bought a few additional items at the Army Navy Surplus on Lincoln.

  Ruby had started rooting through the shopping bags.

  “Holy Mary!” she exclaimed, pulling out a pair of black leather pants. I blushed. I had been thinking of the lycra-clad catwoman when I bought those pants (I didn’t think I could pull off lycra, but the black leather looked pretty damn good on me). They seemed like something a superspy should wear.

  “Never mind that,” I said, pulling Ruby away from the counter and over to the sofa. “Let’s just say I had a little help from an anonymous benefactor. And besides,” I added with a little pout, “I really needed something to improve my mood. This has been such a nightmare.”

  “I’m sure,” said Ruby, and put her arm around me, pulling me close. This is why I loved her. “I’m sure it has been,” she went on, “but there’s an old Czech saying: When you find yourself in a hole, first stop the digging.”

  “I don’t think that’s Czech,” I frowned at her.

  “Of course it is Czech!”

  “Never mind,” I said, sitting up straight again. “I almost forgot the thing I forgot!! I’m so glad you’re here.”

  I jumped to my feet and paced.

  “I had this crazy just now, but right in the middle of it I remembered something from the explosion. Something important!”

  Now Ruby was all ears.

  “What? What was it?”

  “When I saw Carter Blalock, just before the explosion, he wasn’t carrying a bomb. He was wearing it!”

  “Like a suicide vest?”

  “NO! No, no no, it was a bracelet. How could I have forgotten?”

  “Well, head trauma, of course,” said Ruby, “but a bracelet? Are you sure it wasn’t just the dream?”