“Giordano’s Pizza,” I said into the receiver.
“Now is not the time for humor, Miss Riley.”
“Well, I haven’t got that much time left, so... where am I going?”
“Stanton Park, do you know it?”
“Of course I know it, I’m a cop.”
“Get moving.”
“I’ve got to hang up the phone. I can’t hold it and this bag at the same time, it’s dislocating my shoulder.”
“Stanton Park, look for Mr. Watkins.”
The call terminated. Watkins, oh goody. I hefted the duffle bag over my shoulder and staggered up the street, along Seward Park. Stanton was a few blocks further away. If Watkins was up ahead, that meant Salerno was probably somewhere behind me. I’d rather it was the other way around, as she seemed much more dangerous.
Sweat was pouring into my eyes, more from the fear and adrenaline than from the exertion. This was it, right here and right now, and I was terrified.
I reached the corner of Orleans and Division, the moment of truth. Stanton Park was to the northwest, Ruby and Martin were waiting for me, hopefully, due east.
I paused at the corner, and pulled out both the phones. I took the Sim card out of my smart phone and replaced it with a regular one that I had bought at Osco when I bought the bandages. I dropped the old sim card on the sidewalk and crushed it with my heel. I hefted the flip phone in my hand for a moment, and then threw it as far as I could into Seward Park. It landed in some bushes.
With that, I hefted the bag over my shoulder and headed east along Division as fast as I could go.
The clock was ticking now. Obviously, the flip phone had some sort of tracking device in it. When it stopped moving they would search the park for me and find only the phone. Hopefully this would be Selena Salerno, and I would lose my tail. If there were more than one of them behind me, or Selena was tracking me by sight instead of GPS, this was going to get a lot harder.
I kept up the pace as best I could, not daring to look over my shoulder until I crossed over to the other side of the street, to the entrance of the Near North Branch Public Library. I couldn’t help but glance behind me.
Standing on the corner where I had been moments before, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket and matching pants, was Selena. She looked at me with a big smile, and then blew me a kiss.
Damn.
Thirty-one
I entered the library and quickly moved to the back, where I could see Martin waiting anxiously at a study table, his laptop open and on. He waved at me, but I veered to the side and down an aisle into the reference section. There was a big table holding maps and oversized atlases, and I pulled the duffel bag off my shoulder and stuck it underneath. Wow, it felt good to not be carrying that anymore! I put my shoulder bag underneath as well.
The bag was visible to anyone who came down the aisle, but desperate times call for a penny earned or something like that.
I raced back around the end of the aisle and careened around another corner to where Marty was waiting.
“Kay,” he whispered, “let me see it, quick!” but I ignored him and went to the large window that overlooked a back alley. I unlocked the window and pushed it open, then I unclipped the screen and let it fall into the bushes a few feet below, which fortunately made little noise. I didn’t want any innocent librarians being harmed in the making of this feature.
Martin was pulling random wires out of his jacket pocket. “Kay, I need to see the jack, come here.”
I rushed to him, but instead of showing him the bracelet I picked up the laptop in one hand and grabbed his arm with the other.
“No time!” I hissed and dragged him across the room and into the men’s bathroom.
“What’s going on, Kay!” He grabbed the laptop from me like I was maybe not handling it with quite the reverence it deserved.
“Sshh! Get in the stall, quick,” I said, and pushed him in, following right behind. I edged around him and then climbed up onto the toilet tank. “Sit!” I commanded, and he turned around and sat. Good dog.
“Oh my god,” Marty exclaimed. “Who are we hiding from?”
“Everyone,” I hissed. “Just be quiet and—oh crap!”
The green light on my bracelet had just turned yellow.
“Kay, we are running out of time, we’ve got to get out of—”
Martin’s raised voice had muffled the sound of someone entering the bathroom, but now we both heard the footsteps on the hard floor.
“Sir!” a man’s voice commanded. “Sir, is there someone in there with you?”
I looked at Marty and made the phone sign with my thumb and pinky against the side of my head.
“No, no. I’m just on the phone.”
“Sir, I must insist that you not use the phone in the restroom, or anywhere in the library.”
“I’m sorry, it’s very important. Bitcoin is skyrocketing and I’ve got to get this deal done.”
“Nevertheless, sir, I must insist!”
Just then the door squeaked open again and shoes clip clopped into the men’s room.
“Ma’am!” said the librarian, aghast. “I must insist that you leave here at once.”
“You certainly do insist a lot,” said a melodious, familiarly accented voice. Oh boy, this was it. I was outmatched by her before, I doubted I could beat her now while crouched in a bathroom stall. I held my breath.
“I’m just looking for a ring I lost in here last night,” she said, and I heard a creak of leather as she knelt to look under the stalls.
“Last night!” the librarian was losing his cool now. “You shouldn’t have been in here last night, either.”
“I go a lot places I shouldn’t,” said Selena, standing back up.
Marty took this moment to say loudly into his phone: “No, I can’t be there until at least 7pm, I’m on the other side of town. Just hold the deal for me okay? Goodbye.”
“Ma’am, you need to leave here now, or I will call the security guard. You can leave your name at the desk, and if your ring turns up we will contact you.” His voice faded as he and Selena left the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind them.
I exhaled, and then nearly giggled. I was sitting on the back of the toilet with a leg draped over each of Marty’s shoulders as he sat there facing the stall door. It looked like he had been giving me a piggie-back ride when he had to stop and use the toilet.
“Nice job,” I said, and ruffled his hair with my hand.
He stood up and helped me off the toilet.
“What do we do now?”
I held up my wrist to show the yellow light.
“We’ve got to stall for time. Hopefully Salerno has gone out the window and in the wrong direction, because we have to get over to Ruby fast.”
Marty tapped his latop. “Why aren’t we doing it here?
“Yellow light means Plan B. Let’s go.”
“Wait, what is plan B?
“B is for bonkers.”
“Bonkers?”
“You can say that again, McFly.”
Thirty-three
We left the money bag where it was. It was possible Farnham had put some kind of trace in it, and if so, Watkins or Salerno could shadow Farnham’s people when they came for it. I didn’t want to be holding it when that happened. And, I didn’t have time to drag that sucker around anymore. Money is no good if you’re dead. Ancient Czech saying.
We went straight out the front door. If she thought I was still in the library, we were dead for sure, but nothing happened. We rushed across the street to the parking lot of the Gold Coast Animal Hospital, and spotted Ruby’s car in the back corner. As we approached, she jumped out and gave me a tremendous hug.
“What’s happening? I’ve been frantic!” She looked down at my wrist and saw the giant bracelet, with the light glowing yellow. “Kurva! What do we do now?”
“Plan B, did you bring everything?”
“We can not do that. It’s ridiculous.”
“Kay,” Marty interrupted. “Over here, please.”
He had set up the computer on the hood of Ruby’s Subaru wagon, and as I stepped over he plugged a wire from the computer into the jack on the bracelet. The yellow light on the bracelet flickered for a moment, and we all held our breath, but we didn’t explode, and the light became solid again, so Marty got to work hacking.
Ruby was standing behind us, her eyes sweeping the street, her hand in her pocket where, I assumed, she carried a gun. It was sometimes hard to remember she had been a street officer once, but she was securing the scene like a pro.
“Talk to me Marty,” I said, as his fingers flew across the keyboard.
“Ahh, it’s looking a little harder than I thought,” he admitted. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was set in a deep frown.
“We are on a schedule here, man.”
“I thought we would be doing this when the light was green.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Ah,” his eyes lit up. “Right, right! I should have seen that.”
“Martin!” growled Ruby, without turning around.
“I’ve figured it out,” he crowed. I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s going to take about five minutes,” he added.
Crap.
“That’s way too long,” I whined and pounded my fist on the car. “We need to buy some more time.”
“What should I do,” asked Ruby, ready for business.
“Get the stuff out of the car, and let me borrow your phone.”
“No,” she said, aghast.
“Just in case. I think I can buy us the time, but we need to be ready. If that light turns red we’ve only got 10 seconds before it explodes.”
Reluctantly, Ruby left her post and went to the hatchback of her car. From inside she removed a bungee cord, a quart of Gatorade, a plastic Osco bag, a mini tape recorder, a roll of duct tape, and the broadsword. She brought it all up and laid it on the hood of the car.
Despite his concentration on the keyboard, the sword caught Martin’s eye and he gave a little cry of surprise.
“That’s Gina’s! I specifically asked you not to touch that!”
I swallowed a huge gulp of Gatorade. “Sorry, buddy, that’s the least of my worries.”
The realization hit him, and his eyebrows shot up.
“Oh, no. Oh no, no, no you can’t do that!”
“If the light turns red, I’m doing it.”
“You’ll bleed to death.”
I pointed to the sign on the side of the building. Gold Coast Animal Hospital. “No I won’t.”
“It’s an animal hospital!” Marty protested.
“They do amputations, my neighbor used them last year.”
“On dogs! Not people!”
“How much different can it be?”
“You can’t.”
“I’d rather lose a hand than be dead, but if you hurry up with that thing we won’t have to worry about it.”
“Right, right,” said Marty and turned quickly back to the laptop.
I took another huge swallow of Gatorade, finishing the bottle off. I had to be hydrated.
“I’m going to call Aldo now,” I said to them both. Ruby handed me her phone.
“Keep your eye on the bracelet, Ruby. If the light turns red, you hand me the sword and you run. Both of you, run. I’ll do the chop, throw the bracelet over the fence, and be right behind you.”
“Let me stay and do it.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“We could do it now,” Ruby offered. “While it’s still yellow. It would be safer.”
She made sense. But I was, after all, very attached to my hand. And I was scared. I felt it would be a lot easier to make that move when the immediate alternative was death.
“No,” I decided. “Marty’s got this, I know he can do it. This is just the backup plan.”
Martin made a noise in his throat that could have been described as a whimper, and his fingers seemed to move even faster.
I dialed the phone.
Thirty-four
“Yes, who is this?”
“Aldo, it’s me, Kay Riley.”
“Oh, my goodness, Miss Riley. Are you okay? Ferris Farnham just called me.”
“I’m okay.”
“He called to warn me. He said you might be heading back to Illcom to try and blow me up.”
“No, but it’s true, Selena Salerno tackled me and put an exploding bracelet on me.”
“That’s what he said. I’ve been frantic to reach you, but your phone went dead. I can help you!”
“I know, you’re the only one that has defused one of these things, but I don’t want to put you in danger.” I couldn’t help but pace back and forth, causing Martin to shoot me a dirty look when I accidentally tugged on the cord attached to the bracelet. I stood still. “The light has turned yellow, Aldo, because I stupidly dropped the phone Selena gave me and it smashed on the sidewalk. I was dragging this stupid heavy bag of money around and I lost my balance. Now she thinks I’m trying to get away. She’s going to blow me up!”
“You must come to me at once. I can send a car for you if that helps, so you don’t have to carry the money.”
“Thank you, Aldo, that would be great.”
“You still have the money, yes?”
“Yes, I do. I figure as long as I still have it, she won’t detonate the bomb. I’ve seen one of these things blow up and it would definitely destroy all the cash as well.”
“Okay, good. Where are you exactly? I hear dogs barking.”
I turned and looked at the animal hospital. I’d been so focused, I hadn’t even heard them.
“I’m on West Scott; I’m right outside the park where I’m supposed to meet them. There are people with dogs playing in the park.”
“Okay, my dear, do not panic. I’ll have a car there in two minutes. Don’t go into the park.”
“But the light is yellow, Aldo.”
“Don’t worry about that, stay exactly where you are.”
He hung up the phone.
I looked at Martin.
“We’ve got two minutes.”
Thirty-five
“That’s going to be close,” Martin said in a panicked voice.
“Ruby, get the bungee,” I commanded. I got the plastic bag ready, and pulled a long strip of duct tape off the roll and hung it off the side mirror of the car.
Tourniquet, cut, throw, bag over the stump, tape, run to hospital. This could work. And then I’d finally have a nickname besides “Red.”
If I was lucky, I was going to get one more chance to talk my way out of this. If I wasn’t lucky, I was going to be Stumpy.
Ruby tied the bungee cord around my forearm, just above the bracelet. I didn’t need to tell her to make it tight; Ruby didn’t do things half way. She, too, was sweating, and her face was set in a mask of disbelief and horror. I felt bad. How had we gotten here? Was I sure none of this was my fault, or was there something I could have done along the way to avoid all this?
Ruby pulled me closer to the car, and placed my forearm against the hood so that my elbow and upper arm remained off the car. I looked at my hand, orange in the late afternoon sun, and it already seemed disembodied and alone.
Ruby picked up the sword and hefted it.
“I will do this,” she said.
“You need to get out of here!”
“No, this thing is too heavy for you to swing with one hand, and the arc is all wrong.”
“Ruby, you can’t.”
“Almost there,” said Martin. “All. Most. There.”
And then the phone rang again and I almost dropped it in fright.
“Aldo!” I said in a panicked voice as I answered the phone.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“I’m at the Starbucks across the street. I didn’t want to stay on the sidewalk in case Salerno showed up looking for me.”
There was a long pause.
“You’
ve known, for how long?”
Damn it. Time to tap dance.
“Quite a while, Aldo. I think since the baseball game.”
“So that little speech you gave in Farnham’s office was just meant to throw me off?”
“So you were listening!”
“Of course I was.”
“And Salerno and Watkins work for you.”
“Of course they do.”
“And Pershing has nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, well, they might now, now that both companies are floundering from all this chaos. It’s not really my concern anymore.”
“Right, I don’t get that part.” I looked frantically at Marty, but he was so focused on his keyboard that he didn’t look up. “If you give the document back to Farnham, you won’t be the head of Illcom anymore, isn’t that what you wanted?” Keep him talking. Villains like to monologue, right?
Aldo chuckled.
“Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it? A case of be careful what you wish for. All those years of creating new and innovative projects, just to watch Carter and Ferris take all the credit, make all the money—”
“You must have done pretty well, yourself, though…”
“Honestly, I made some poor investments. That’s what the five million dollars is for. Anyway, turns out being a CEO is not my cup of tea. It’s a pain in the ass, actually. No peace and quiet, no chance to get any work done. Just constant inane details.”
“You’re a big picture guy.”
“Exactly. So instead of running the businesses, the five million dollars. Two million pays off my debts, the other three million carries me comfortably for the rest of my life.”
“You really are a criminal mastermind.”
“And you’re stalling, Riley. It’s time to wrap this up.”
Marty popped his head up and smiled, giving me a big thumbs up. Then his computer beeped, and he frowned, and lowered his head again.
“Well, of course I am. Unlike you, I never asked for any of this. But I’ve been a cop long enough to know that delivering the money to you wouldn’t have gotten me out of trouble.”
Chicago Blue: A Red Riley Adventure Page 15