“Sneaky, very sneaky, indeed,” Linda smiled as she sat back in the seat and tried to relax as he backtracked, went on and off a series of interchanges, and finally got on I-90, the Northwest Toll Road. “I give, you’ve got me all turned around,” she said. “Where are we going now?”
“Out of curiosity, I want to drive past my office.”
“You aren’t going inside, are you? That doesn’t sound very smart.”
“All I want to do is take a quick look from the outside. Maybe I can see in some of the windows, look around the parking lot, and get a feel for what’s going on inside. With all my contacts gone I feel completely cut off.”
When they finally merged into the “through” lanes and headed west, she turned her head away and looked out the window. “Uh, look, Bob, not to keep flogging a dead horse about this ‘darling soon-to-be ex-wife’ stuff, but since we are getting to know each other a little, if your marriage is dead as a doornail, why are you still wearing the wedding ring? I took mine off the day I threw him out. You have no idea how good that made a ‘sweet young thing’ like me feel.”
“A sweet young thing like you?”
“Don’t get smart!”
“You mean this?” he asked as he held his hand up in the air and looked at the ring. “To tell you the truth, I almost forgot I was still wearing it, but you’re right.”
“It’s hard to miss, and you need to make up your mind; because that’s something I don’t do.” He was about to ask her what that meant, when she added, “You know exactly what I mean; I don’t get involved with married men or men who can’t decide if they’re married.”
“I didn’t know we were getting involved,” he tried not to grin even more.
“We’re not! Now stop that! I have a couple of firm rules, and ‘unmarried-married guys’ like you are right at the top of the list,” she said, but that only made her more flustered. “Don’t take that wrong, I said it… in case, for some completely inexplicable reason, we ever…”
“I completely understand. Technically, I’m still married; but it’s long over and we’re well on our way to a divorce.”
“Well on our way? You know how many times I’ve heard that one?”
“Not from me.”
“Look, you know what a girl’s like when she doesn’t get her daily fix of gossip. Come on, you can trust me. Tell me what happened.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to say, I haven’t trusted anybody since sixth grade?”
She covered her eyes. “Did I really say that?”
“I may never forget.”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
“All right, all right, you know that old Johnny Cash song? How’s it go? ‘We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout…’ ”
“Yeah, I ate one of those, too.”
“Not like this one!”
“All right, but how did you two…”
“How does anybody? I can’t explain it. The first year or two were fantastic, until her father got sick and he left the company to me, of all people.”
“Well, I never ate anything like that.”
“I doubt anybody has, but she couldn’t handle it and the marriage crashed. So what happened to yours?”
“Well, nothing nearly that interesting. My husband decided the eighteen-year-old interns in his office were a lot more fun than I was.”
“I guess that happens too.”
“Not to me it doesn’t. I threw him out, filed the papers, and never looked back.
“And you have a daughter…”
“Ellie,” she beamed. “She’s six years old, and she’s my life.”
“That’s nice. I like kids, but Army Special Ops and family life usually make a bad fit. Besides, Angie hated kids, and frankly I never really gave it much thought.”
They cast furtive glances at each other across the front seat and he could see how nervous she was. Finally, she turned away and closed her eyes. “All right, let me get this all out. I’m twenty-nine years old, married for three years and divorced for five more. When this thing is over, maybe you’d let me cook you dinner or buy you a drink or something. You seem like a nice man, and… well, I thought I’d better say it while I have the chance.”
“That would be very nice. I’d like that.”
“You would?” she opened one eye and looked at him. “And you really are getting a divorce? Not that I mean anything by that, but I’m not stupid.”
“Yes I am really getting a divorce. Here, you don’t believe me?” he asked as he managed to pull the wedding ring off, rolled the window down, and tossed it out.
“Whoa!” she sat back, wide-eyed. “I didn’t mean for you to do something like that.”
“Maybe you didn’t, but you have no idea how good it felt.”
Bob got off I-90 at I-290 near the big Woodfield Shopping Center and headed down the side roads toward the Toler TeleCom building.
“I still don’t think this is very smart,” she told him.
“All I’m doing is sizing up the opposition, doing a little recon.”
“And if they catch us?”
“Why would they? No one will recognize the car, the license plates, or us if you scooch down a bit,” he said as he drove in through the rear parking lot entrance and slowly circled the building. It was midday, but there were far fewer cars in the lot than he expected to see. It looked like Angie’s house cleaning was in full swing. He pulled in and parked near the building’s left front corner under a large tree with a clear view of the lobby and the Toler TeleCom offices.
Looking into the lobby, he saw a woman he didn’t recognize sitting at the front desk, and two men in blue blazers walking around inside. Private security, no doubt. At least these guys were younger, with buzz cuts and matching blue blazers with logos on the breast pockets. They were definitely a cut above Scalese’s men at CHC. It looked like Angie was pulling out the stops to protect her little empire.
“Let’s go,” he told Linda as he backed up and slowly drove out of the parking lot. “I’ve seen enough.”
He drove down the road and headed back north toward the Kennedy Expressway, until he saw a Shell gas station with a pay phone on the sidewall near the restrooms.
“If you’re getting gas, I’m hitting the little girl’s room,” Linda told him.
“Why do women always say that? The ‘little girl’s’ room?”
“All right, I’m going to the almost-middle-aged woman’s room and take a pee. Is that better?”
“I guess that does lack the ‘cutesy’ charm. Anyway, while you’re doing that, I’m going to make a couple of phone calls.”
“Who are you going to aggravate this time?”
“No one, I hope. I’m trying Charlie’s number again. After that, I should probably check in with George Grierson, my lawyer.”
“Your lawyer? It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s going to say, but I should probably check in anyway.”
She left him at the phone booth and stepped into the nearby Women’s Restroom. “Guard the door D’Artagnan, and kill anyone who follows,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been reading Dumas?”
“Me? No, Ellie is,” she called to him over the transom. “She’s into the Three Musketeers and runs around the house with a toy sword and a towel tied around her neck.”
“Nice to see she’s reading,” he said as he dropped some coins in the phone.
“You got that. The girl is not going to grow up like her mother.”
Bob knew there was no sense in calling Charlie’s office number. If Angie did fire him, Charlie would be long gone by now. He tried Charlie’s cell phone, but the call rolled over to voice mail, as it did the last time he tried. He tried Charlie’s house, figuring he’d be home by now, but the call went to his answering machine like the others. Finally, he dialed George Grierson’s number. His secretary said he
was tied up in meetings all afternoon, but as soon as Burke gave her his name, it was amazing how fast she tracked George down and how fast the lawyer got on the line.
“Are you nuts Bob?” the otherwise mild-mannered lawyer came on the line, shouting.
“Everybody keeps asking me that today, but I’m fine George. How are you doing?”
“Very funny, very funny. Nothing ever seems to worry you, but this time it should. They’re looking for you everywhere — the FBI, the US Attorney, the Chicago cops, and half the police departments in the north suburbs. You gotta turn yourself in and let me see what I can work out, Bob.”
“Relax, they’re a long way from catching me.”
“Yeah? What they’re going to do is shoot you on sight, and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.”
“That’s fine, here’s what I want you to do, George. Call Peter O’Malley for me.”
“The US Attorney? You’ve been talking to him? I guess that’s great news.”
“Maybe. Tell him I have Eleanor Purdue’s files — reports on their foreign manufacturing, the scams, the spreadsheets, who’s on the pad, and all the other stuff she put together on Greenway and CHC for his Grand Jury. Most of it is on a 32-gig flash drive. If he wants it, he needs to call off the dogs, all of them. I’m still putting the last few pieces of it together, and if I get shot by some overeager cop before I do, well… tell him I’ll turn everything over to him later tonight or first thing in the morning. You two can work out the details. But if he wants it, I want a complete walk for me and Linda Sylvester.”
“How nice that you remembered little old me,” she said as she came out of the restroom, snuggled up next to him, and wrapped herself around his arm again. “No prison time? You know, men have used a lot of different pickup lines on me, but that’s a first. How sweet.”
“Who’s that?” Grierson asked, still flustered.
“The aforesaid mentioned, Ms. Sylvester. Say ‘Hi’ to George, Linda.”
“Hi George. It sounds like Bob keeps you busy.”
“You have no idea. But Bob, are you sure O’Malley is going to know what I’m talking about, when I phone him?”
“Oh yeah, he’ll know, George. Look, I gotta go.”
Linda leaned in. “He usually says, ‘Rolling stones gather no bullets.’ ”
“Ignore that woman. I’ll talk to you later,” Bob said as he hung up.
He turned toward her, their faces only inches apart. “He might be my lawyer, but I would rather he not know everything I’m up to.”
“We aren’t up to anything yet, but you owe me, big time, and now I have a witnesses,” she smiled demurely up at him. “Shall we go?” she asked.
“Yeah, let’s go see if Charlie’s home and I can borrow his computer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Charlie lived in a modest, Dutch colonial on the fringe of Wheeling, Illinois. He was in a newer area of town where the houses and lots were bigger, but the subdivision was laid out across hundreds of acres of former cornfield. The resulting developments lacked the mature trees, vegetation or any semblance of character to be found in the rest of Wheeling and the older communities to the south, such as Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, or Winnetka, much less Evanston. Bob approached Wheeling from the south on Route 53, turned east on Dundee Road, and then passed through a series of larger subdivisions. As he neared Charlie's area, he made a series of slow, circling passes around his neighborhood, coming closer each time, but always staying a block or two away from Charlie’s house.
“Bogie at 10 o’clock,” Linda said, nodding toward a Village of Wheeling police car parked on a side street, and she ducked down on the seat.
“ ‘Bogie?’ You’re trying way too hard,” Bob laughed as he drove by, but the police car did not move.
“Must be on a donut break. Or maybe they’re not expecting us.”
“What they’re probably expecting is a Toyota with a couple inside,” he said as he turned and drove up Charlie’s street.
“We’re a couple now?”
“Don’t let the camouflage go to your head,” he told her as he drove around the neighborhood. The street appeared empty and there were no suspicious cars parked on either side. Nonetheless, he passed Charlie’s house at a conservative twenty miles per hour. “The Dutch colonial with the green shutters on the right, that’s his.”
“There’s no way you can go in there in broad daylight, Bob.”
“You watched me operate once, and suddenly you’re the expert?”
“That is not like Eleanor’s house. There are no trees or bushes for you to hide in, and it’s broad daylight. Besides, I didn’t watch you. I sat in the car driving around in circles, terrified, praying you’d come back.”
“This isn’t any more or any less dangerous than Eleanor’s, it’s just different and requires a different approach, that’s all” he answered as he turned the corner and drove down the street to the rear of Charlie’s. Halfway down, he saw a dark, late-model Buick parked against the curb with two men sitting inside. “As we drive past, see if you can get a look at them,” he told her.
“Want me to smile, too?”
“If you want to. I’ll have my face turned the other way. As we get close, if they look like a couple of beefy, middle-aged Italians in cheap sports coats, like the clowns who work for Tony Scalese, I want you to turn away too, so they can’t see your face, either.”
As they passed the Buick, she said, “No, I’ve never seen them before. They look younger and much better dressed, in suits, with short haircuts. So I smiled.”
“I’m sure it made their day, but from your description they must be Feds.”
“Sheesh, that’s even worse. What’re you gonna do now?”
“The address of the house we passed is 239 Yarborough. Remember that.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Why?”
“You’ll see,” he told her as he drove out of the subdivision and back onto West Dundee Road where he soon saw a 7-11, pulled in, and parked. They walked inside. Near the cash registers, he saw a pay phone hanging on the wall and walked over to it.
“Pay phones are beginning to have some real advantages over cell phones,” she said as she snuggled closer.
“I’m sure they do. What I want you to do is Dial 911.” She held out her hand for a quarter, but he said, “It’s a free call. Sound flustered and worried. Tell them you live at 239 Yarborough Street and say there’s a dark Buick parked in front of your house with two men sitting in it. Say one of them has a gun out, some kind of pistol. They’ve been sitting there for an hour now, and you’re getting very worried. Say you have kids and you’d like the police to come by and check them out.”
“And if they ask for my name?”
“Tell them you don’t want to get that involved, but the Buick is sitting in front of 239 Yarborough. They can’t miss it.”
“You’re being very sneaky again.”
“Hopefully, the Wheeling Police don’t talk to their neighbors, and certainly not to the State cops or to the Feds, and they’ll send that squad car we saw sitting around the corner to check it out, probably with some backup.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to accomplish for us?”
“Well, with the police focusing over on Yarborough, you’re going to drop me off in front of Charlie’s house. I’m going to walk up his front sidewalk and through his front door, and none of them will ever be the wiser.”
“I don’t know,” she said as she scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s going to work out here.”
“Why?” he looked over at her
“Well, this is the gun-toting, white, Republican part of Cook County up here; as opposed to the gun-toting, black, Democratic big city part down there,” she said as she threw a thumb over her shoulder. “I don’t think some story about a guy sitting in a car with a gun is going to get them too excited.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Maybe,” she sa
id with an impish smile as she punched the numbers 911 into the phone, and waited until the operator answered.
“Oh my God!” she said breathlessly. “Is this the police? Look, there’s a car sitting in front of my house with two men inside, and… well, I don’t know how to put this, but they’re exposing themselves, and my kids… Look! It’s a dark car, a Buick, I think, and it’s parked at 239 Yarborough. They’ve got dark suits on and they both look really creepy, especially the way they keep looking at the neighborhood kids… No, no, I’d rather you don’t have my name, not with my kids involved.… Uh, oh, I can only see one of their heads above the dashboard now. You’ve got to send some police cars over here, before more kids come by,” she added and then hung up and turned toward Burke with a big grin on her face. “You don’t think that was too over the top, do you?” she asked.
He looked back at her, opened his mouth and began to speak, but then stopped, not knowing what to say. “So they think you’re only a receptionist.”
“Yeah, well, I do some of that too,” she smiled.
“Let’s get back over to Charlie’s. I have a sneaking suspicion that half the cops in northeast Illinois are about to descend on Yarborough Street, and I want to get there before they shut the whole neighborhood down.”
“All right, but once you get in the house, how are you going to get out?”
“All I need is a couple of minutes, and they can’t have that mess on Yarborough sorted out that quickly. I’m coming back out Charlie’s front door the same way I went in, taking a right on the sidewalk and walking down the street until you come around and pick me up.”
“That’s pathetic. They spend all that money sending you to government sneaky schools and you’re going to walk in and out the front door?”
“With any luck at all, yes. Now let’s go.”
As he expected, the Village of Wheeling police car at the corner was gone, and they could see sets of flashing lights through the trees and back yards one block over. She stopped in front of Charlie’s house. Bob got out of the Taurus and slipped on a thin pair of latex gloves as he walked up the path to the front porch as Linda drove away. Charlie bought the house the year before, and the lock on the front door was a run-of-the-mill, builder-quality, Kwikset model. Bob told him after he moved in to replace that crap with some quality locks and deadbolts, reinforce the doorframes, and put in a good alarm system on the doors and windows, but those were some of the many things the overweight bean counter never got around to doing. In a way, though, that was a good thing, because they wouldn’t begin to slow down anyone with Bob’s training. His lock picks were in in his hands before he reached the door. He slipped them in the lock and opened it in about three seconds. As he did, his trained eye immediately saw other faint scratches around the keyhole. They could come from many sources — from the initial construction and installation through an intruder’s fumbling hands. Still, they put him on edge. Without looking back, he opened the heavy door and slipped inside.
Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers) Page 24