Ruby, too, was putting in some time researching, only in her case it was police files. Getting access to this information also took a long time, because Ruby had to make absolutely certain no one was watching her. Obviously, the fact that we had been friends put her in the hot seat. She had to play it safe.
I had, indeed, been on the six o’clock news that night. Kathy Brock was chatting with an expert about why I would still be in the Chicago area, while a still photo of me sprawled on Belinda Blalock’s driveway was inserted in the upper corner of the screen. Mercifully, they had cropped the picture from chest to head, so you couldn’t see my white granny panties. I was going to have to get some underwear that matched the sophistication of my new wardrobe.
I hung around the campus and mostly worked out. A combination of swimming, indoor cycling, and weight training. I missed my old yoga class, and tried to do some on my own, but it just wasn’t the same. I give up too easily when I’m on my own. All my injuries from the explosion had healed, and I was feeling good, stronger than ever. My headaches were gone, I was off the meds, and while I kept my hair short, you could only barely see the scar.
I kept my hair short because it made the wig thing easier, and I was wearing a wig all the time now, even to workout, ever since my bright red punk do had been broadcast on the nightly news. Sweating in a wig really sucks.
That disastrous night, after Ruby had picked me up and we had managed to make it back to my safehouse (that’s what I’m calling it) I shaved my head all the way, down to about three quarters of an inch. The magenta was gone, and I just had a buzz cut of my own red hair, slowly growing back out.
Kathy Brock’s question was a good one: Why was I still in the city? I hoped this was also causing the Chicago Police to consider this question. Why was I still around? Maybe, just maybe it would keep them digging into a case, and if they did they would find some new leads. On the other hand, it might just make them look even harder for me. I was kinda making them look like chumps by popping up every few days and then escaping. I think the most recent footage made it clear to John Q. Public that I was not a criminal mastermind.
Part of the answer was, of course, that I wanted to clear my name. Another part of the answer was the problem of my identity. I needed a fake license and a fake passport. Not just in case I needed to get out of the city, but also for continuing the investigation. Renting a car as Hadley Neff would have been a lot safer than stealing one. That was just one example.
I had a pretty good idea how to go about getting the fakes I needed, but I was going to have to go see my mom for that, and I was a little worried that she might be under surveillance, even though it was highly unlikely there was any help she could offer the police.
My musing was interrupted when my phone—which had been pumping some old school No Doubt into my ears while I cycled in the gym—cut the music to tell me I had a call from Marty. Finally, I thought. Laying low was getting a little boring, although my calves were really starting to look great.
We met at my place on campus, because it still seemed safer if I didn’t travel around unless it was necessary. Ruby had picked up some cevapcici and rice from Restaurant Sarajevo and Marty had brought some beer.
I figured I’d burned enough calories to earn a beer, so I helped myself. Plus, I wasn’t really trying to lose weight as much as put on muscle and get more flexible. So there.
Marty made me wait until we had finished eating before he opened his bag and pulled out some papers.
“Nada on the rest of the Illcom board,” he said, apologetically. “They are all pretty clean. As clean as financial industry tycoons can be, I guess.”
I pulled the papers toward me and whistled at the top one. This is what I had been waiting for, the results of our downtown caper at the hair salon.
Exhibit A was a close-up of the woman in the Jaguar. She had completely freaked me out with the way she honked and waved to me. For a couple reasons. One, because I was pretty sure she hadn’t seen me in Farnham’s office. And if that were the case, why did she give me that funny grin? I was certain she was toying with me, in a “I know who you really are” kind of way. Which meant she was better at seeing through disguises than the others.
Two, it was no accident that she had shown up at this showdown. That meant she was somehow connected to my case. Up until this point, I had left open the idea that she was in Farnham’s office pulling off some corporate espionage that had nothing to do with me. That seemed less plausible now.
And C, she hadn’t gotten out of the car and chased me. In fact, she seemed fairly amused by the whole thing. This freaked me out more than anything, because how do I deal with this woman when I have no idea what her motives are? She seemed completely unconcerned that I was getting away. Hopefully ID-ing her would shed some light.
“No luck,” said Martin, reading my thoughts. “Unless her name is Wilhelmina Schmidt and she lives in Sauganash.”
“She doesn’t much look like a Wilhelmina,” said Ruby.
“Or a Schmidt for that matter,” replied Marty, “though I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t think she’s big into video games, Marty. I’m sorry to say.”
“Hey!” He said, undeterred. “I have plenty of other interests besides video games.”
“Stolen car?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
“Stolen car,” he confirmed. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” I said. “Old Wilhelmina drives a pretty awesome jag.” I gave a little Balkan salad burp. “Excuse me! Anyway, I wish we knew who she was, because she’s freaking me out.” I decided to move on. “How about the moron triplets?”
“Quadruplets,” interjected Ruby. “Don’t forget the one driving the car.”
“Yes,” Martin said enthusiastically, pulling pictures of the SUV out of the stack. “Much better luck here. I don’t know the names of any of the goons, but the vehicle is registered to Fitzgerald Security, right downtown.”
“Security?” asked Ruby. “They seemed more like hired thugs.”
“Well, you can’t really call yourself Fitzgerald Hired Thugs, Ruby. I suppose a security company is as good a cover as any.”
“It’s better than a cover,” said Marty. “It’s a real business deal. They may do some shady things on the side, but they make a boatload of money as a serious security firm. They’ve got some bigtime clients.” He grinned expectantly at me. “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Who?”
He grimaced. “But that was the hint—Anyone? Beuller?”
“Ferris Farnham!”
“I’m missing something,” Ruby complained, looking back and forth between us.
“It’s a movie, Ruby,” I explained. “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.”
“Seriously Aunty? You’ve lived in Chicago for 20 years and you don’t know Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”
“I prefer the classics.”
“But it is a classic, Aunty! One of the greats!”
“Okay,” I interrupted. “Moving on to things that matter. Is that it on Fitzgerald?”
“No,” said Marty. “It gets better. They sometimes pay a consultant, and expert who used to work for them about 25 years ago named…”
“Bueller?” asked Ruby.
“No,” replied Marty. “Not Beuller. His name is Greg Ralston.”
Nineteen
“Can you sit still for two minutes?”
It was one of those days when you realize what you really need are a few new henchmen. Don’t get me wrong, Marty was great. Hacking into the DMV was movie star level awesome. The kid has a future as a criminal mastermind. However, he fidgets like crazy, and three hours in a car doing nothing but watching Fitzgerald Security’s front entrance felt like a lifetime.
Ruby wasn’t much better. Her leg would start to cramp after an hour or so, and she would have to get out and stretch and take a walk. This meant we had to park even further a
way so that no one would notice her getting out of the car every 45 minutes, walking up and down the sidewalk, and then getting back in the car. Oh, and twice, she fell asleep. Sometimes I swear she is eighty years old.
This was day two of the great surveillance, and I have to say it’s maybe a good thing I never made Detective when I was with the force. I liked walking a beat. Even patrolling in the cruiser, you didn’t get much exercise, but at least the scenery kept changing. But this, this was mind-numbing.
I was eating yet another salad, trying to offset all the sedentary hours. Marty was eating a bag of Doritos. Yet another bag of Doritos. I’m glad it was his car, because the interior by this time was covered with orange cheese powder. It looked like the surface of Mars. At least I think it was his car. I was getting better about not asking Marty anything about his work or his skill set. He claimed nothing he did was illegal, but I have to say, from the little I could glean, I’m not sure he had a very good sense of where the legal lines were drawn. On the other hand, I’m sure all those people who work in finance down on LaSalle think they aren’t doing anything dubious either. I’m old-fashioned. I like to see actual money, moving from person to bank to person. When everything is happening in nanoseconds in the nanosphere, I feel confused and a bit paranoid.
“Marty,” I said, closing my empty salad container. I put it in the plastic bag I was using to collect all of our stakeout garbage.
“Mmph?” he replied, still chewing a mouthful of chips, binoculars held up to his eyes.
“I’m not sure I’ve properly thanked you for all the help you’ve given me. You have literally saved my life.”
“Don’t mention it,” Marty said, without lowering the binoculars.
“If there’s anything I can do to pay you back,” I began.
He lowered the binoculars and looked over at me, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Umm, no. That’s not happening.”
He swallowed his Doritos and laughed. “I’m just kidding. Don’t get me wrong, you are a beautiful woman, and I love spending hours in this car with you, which is starting to smell just a little bit like old food, but you are, how should I put it, a bit too mature for me.”
I swatted him on the shoulder.
“I’m thirty-three!”
“Eeeexactly,” he replied, as if I had just proven his point.
“Seriously,” I pressed on. “I don’t have a lot of money, but can I—“
“One million dollars!”
“What?”
“I know you are poor now, but when this is all over, you can pay me a million dollars. In Bitcoin.”
“Martin Martynek, if I make it through this alive, I’ll give you a million dollars.”
“Deal.”
“Heads up, there’s Blondie.” I motioned toward the building, where our cheerful friend had just exited the front door and headed for a black Ford Taurus, one of six in a row that were likely owned by the company. Either that or these guys all had exactly the same taste.
“Jesus, you’re right. How did he get in there without us seeing him?”
“I don’t know, we haven’t exactly been doing 24-hour surveillance. We didn’t get here until about 7am. Maybe he was working the night shift and is just getting off.”
I looked at my watch, it was just about 1pm.
“Or,” thought Marty aloud, “maybe there’s a back door?”
“Just follow,” I snapped. “Or would you like me to drive. I’m an excellent driver.”
“No, I’ve got it, Officer Riley. He won’t lose me!”
“Okay, but he shouldn’t be trying to lose you, because he shouldn’t have any idea he is being followed.”
It turned out that Marty did just fine as a stalker. He kept back far enough to avoid suspicion, but close enough that we never lost sight of him. In the end, Blondie parked on a nice street in Rogers Park and walked up to a row of townhouse condos. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and let himself in.
“What now?” asked Marty.
“Nothing now. We go home and I think up a plan. We can’t just follow him around all day and hope he meets with the bad guys, and then maybe they accidentally drop a piece of paper on which they’ve written out their secret plan along with a few Venn diagrams explaining how all this fits together!”
“Do you have a gun?” asked Marty, turning to look at me.
“Are you crazy?”
“I can knock on the door, he’s never seen me. He unlocks it and you pull the gun on him.”
“No.”
“We ask him a few questions, he answers as if his life depended on it, we get out of there.”
I turned to him as we sat parked on Sheridan.
“Look, I am grateful for all your help, but this is not a game. I’m terrified, every time that I ask you or Ruby for help, that something is going to happen to one of you. This guy shot at me in the salon, remember that? He shot at me. I don’t want to put anyone at risk, but I can’t do this alone, either.” I banged my fist on the dashboard. “It is soooo frustrating, I want to scream.”
“I know it’s not a game, but if w—” Marty tried to interject.
“But we don’t kill people. End of story. And let me tell you something,” I continued, rolling over his objection, “when you pull a gun on someone, you are multiplying exponentially the chance that someone is going to get shot. And then killed.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to do it. Alright?!”
I had been leaning across the handbrake and into his face, but now I flopped back into the passenger’s seat. I was beginning to cry, and that made me angry.
“I’m sorry,” said Martin.
“I know, I know,” I said, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. “You just want to help, and I need your help. That much is obvious. But it’s got to be on my terms, okay? I take the risks, you and Ruby provide the backup. That doesn’t mean you aren’t in danger as well. Believe me I realize that. I just want to make sure you realize that as well.”
“I can take care of myself,” Martin said, puffing up slightly.
“Oh Jesus, it’s like you didn’t hear a word out of my mouth. Let’s get out of here.”
“We aren’t going in?”
“We aren’t. I am. And I need to do some prep and I need you to pick up a few things I’m going to need.”
It was around 7pm when we next were parked outside of Blondie’s house, about two blocks away. Dusk was coming on, but it was still warm.
I got out of the car, stretched for a minute, then took off down the road at a light jog. I was wearing blue tights and running shoes, a tight grey tanktop and a fanny pack. A visor was helping to hold on a short black wig.
I stepped up the pace, wanting to have a nice glistening sheen of sweat on my chest when Blondie opened the door. Running this fast without a sports bra on was uncomfortable, and starting to hurt, but again, I wanted his eyes on my body and not on my face, on the off chance he recognized me.
I turned around and headed back. I was wearing earbuds in my ears and had what looked like an mp3 player strapped to my forearm. It wasn’t, though.
As I passed back by the parked car I flashed a thumbs-up to Ruby. She scowled back at me. She didn’t like this plan any better than Marty did, but it stayed within the parameters I had set for this kind of operation. Only I went in, they provided technical, logistical, and getaway support. That was dangerous enough.
I jogged up the front steps of the townhouse, breathing heavily and sweating noticeably. And yes, my chest was heaving. The door was unlocked.
There were three apartments, and three buzzers. Number One said Baker, Dolores, on the first floor. Her mailbox was overflowing.
Apartment Two, on the second floor, didn’t have a name, and Apartment Three had a To Let sign on it. I was betting on Apartment Two.
I jogged up the wooden stairs, making plenty of noise so that by the time I knocked on the door to Number Two it opened immediately. I didn’
t want to catch anyone by surprise.
He was still wearing his black suit pants and white shirt, but his jacket and tie were missing. He looked mildly surprised, his glance dropping almost immediately to check out my body.
“That your black Taurus out front?” I said to him in the extra-loud voice used by people wearing headphones.
“My car?” He said in surprise, his eyes still drawn to my chest.
“What?” I hollered.
“Huh?” he said, looking up.
“Oh, silly me,” I said, removing the earbuds and unstrapping the black unit from my upper arm. “I can’t hear a thing with these on.” I held the black box in my left hand while I pointed down the stairs with my right. “Is that your black Taurus out there?”
He turned his head to look down the stairs and I shoved the stun gun into his gut, pushing hard on the trigger and shoving him back into his apartment without withdrawing my hand.
He tried to bat it away, but his motor skills were already failing. He tried to catch himself as he tripped backwards, but he fell heavily on his back with me straddling his chest.
I finally let go of the button. I didn’t want him passing out. I set the stun gun down and pulled a roll of duct tape out of my fanny pack, pulling his hands onto his chest in front of me and taping them tightly. I stood up off him and wrapped his ankles together as well. Only then did I stop to look around.
I closed the apartment door and locked it. We were in his kitchen, and a quick look revealed a living room, bathroom, and bedroom, all fairly tidy but reeking of cigarette smoke. Ugh. In the bedside table, I found an envelope with $3000 and his wallet. The license and credit cards all said Alan Watkins. I took them.
Back in the kitchen, I found his suit jacket hanging on the back of a kitchen chair, and beneath it his shoulder holster and automatic pistol. I took the pistol and tucked it into my fanny pack, which is where all the fashionable lady killers keep them. I shoved the money and wallet in there as well.
Chicago Blue: A Red Riley Adventure Page 8