Guardian Angel

by Sara Paretsky

  Gammidge had a single night-light shining on their back entrance. I shrank back against their heavily padlocked door to keep from casting a shadow. The noise from the expressway and the canal would drown any sound I made on the ledge, but I found myself tiptoeing, clinging to the corrugated metal of the Gammidge walls. On my right a barge suddenly hooted. I jumped and stumbled. I could see the guys in the pilothouse laughing and waving. If anyone was waiting around the corner, I hoped they assumed the signal was directed at them.

  My cheeks burning, I continued my stealthy approach along the lip of the canal. When I got to the clearing between Gammidge and Diamond Head I dropped low into a thick clump of prairie grass to look around the corner.

  Trucks were backed up to three of Diamond Head’s loading bays. Their engines were running, but the bays behind them were shut. No lights were on. Cautiously lying on the damp ground, I squinted through the grass. From this distance, in bad light, I couldn’t make out any legs or other human appendages.

  I hadn’t seen trucks at the place since my first visit there last week. Since I didn’t know anything about Diamond Head’s business flow, I couldn’t speculate on whether that meant orders were slow. And I couldn’t guess why the diesels were running—whether preparatory to picking up a morning load, or waiting for someone to empty them.

  I was tempted to hoist myself onto the loading platform in hopes of finding a way in through the bays. The thought of Mrs. Polter made me cautious. It seemed pretty clear that she was watching me for someone. If it was Chamfers maybe he’d promised her a fire engine all her own if she called him when I showed up again. He could have the Hulk who’d chased me last Friday waiting in the back of one of the trucks to jump me. The Hulk didn’t strike me as patient enough to put on an indefinite stakeout, though. I imagined one of the managers sitting in the truck with the Hulk, holding him on a leash: “Down, sir! Down, I say!” The picture didn’t make me laugh quite as loudly as I’d expected.

  My knees and arms were getting wet from the muddy grass. I looked around at the canal—I didn’t want someone startling me into falling over the side. The concrete lining the canal would make it hard to climb out. Crouching low, I moved from the clump of grass to the back of Diamond Head. No one shot at me or even called out.

  The rear doors, which slid open to allow access to barge traffic, were bolted shut with some fairly sophisticated locks. I didn’t want to spend the time it would take to undo them: it was a pretty exposed place to stand for an hour or more. And the expressway wasn’t loud enough to mask the sounds of burglary from anyone waiting on the inside.

  I padded quickly along the walkway to the side of the building and peered around the edge. The windows of the assembly room still stood open, their panes gleaming black in the dark. The bottom sills stood about five feet above my head.

  Using my pencil flash I checked out the terrain underneath. This side of the factory faced west, away from the canal, where the sun could bake the ground to a firmer clay. The tall grasses that covered the area were thinner and browner here. I carefully culled a lane about a yard wide below the nearest window, pulling away empty cans and bottles and stowing them around the corner of the building.

  When I thought I had an obstacle-free zone, I rehooked my flashlight to my belt. I studied the window, trying to make my leg muscles absorb the height I’d have to jump. It was about the distance of a lay-up, and I’d proved only last week I could still play basketball.

  My fingers were tingling and my palms damp. I wiped them on the sides of my jeans. “Okay,” I whispered to myself. “This is your lane, Vic. On ‘three.’ ”

  I counted to three under my breath and charged up the path I’d cleared to the window. About four feet shy of it I started my jump, arms extended, pulling myself through the air. My fingers caught on the bottom of the sill. Sharp metal ledges cut my palms. I grunted in pain, scrabbled for a handhold, and hoisted myself up. Move over, Michael Jordan. This here is Air Warshawski.

  32

  Swinging Evening

  Perching on the metal runners lining the window, I used the flash briefly to make sure I wasn’t going to fall onto a spindle or some other death-dealing machine. Except for the radiators lining the walls, the floor beneath was clear. I turned, grabbed the sill as comfortably as I could, lowered my legs into the room, and let go.

  I landed with a soft thud that jolted my knees. Rubbing my sore palms I crouched behind one of the high work tables, waiting until I was sure the noise of my arrival hadn’t roused anyone.

  The assembly room door had a simple latch lock, open on the inside. I pushed back the catch on my way out: if I needed a quick escape route I didn’t want to have to pick even a simple lock. No one was in the hall. I stood by the door for a long moment, straining to pick up breathing or some restless twitch on the cement floor. The width of the factory lay between me and the trucks. In the stillness of the building I could hear their engines faintly vibrating. Other than that all was calm.

  Fire lights placed at wide intervals gave the place a faint green glow, as though it were under water. The murkiness upset my sense of place; I couldn’t remember how the assembly room connected to the plant manager’s office. I took a wrong turn down a connecting hall. Suddenly the diesels sounded very loud: I was coming to the corridor that led to the loading bay.

  I pulled up abruptly and tiptoed to the corner. I was looking at the cement cavern that opened directly onto the bays. Again the only light came from two green fire blocks. I couldn’t see clearly but I didn’t think anyone was there.

  Although the corrugated doors still covered the bays, diesel fumes were seeping around them. My nose wrinkled as I tried to fight back a sneeze. It came out as a muffled explosion.

  Just at that moment another explosion sounded above my head. My heart hammered against my ribs and my calves felt wobbly. I forced myself to stand still, not to give away my presence by jumping or fleeing back up the hall. And in another second I felt like a fool: the motor operating a huge gantry had sprung to life, its gears clanging like a foundry under full steam.

  The gantry’s tracks crisscrossed the room’s high ceiling. They ran parallel between a wide concrete shelf built about two-thirds of the way up the wall and the doors to the bays. Two perpendicular tracks, each with a gigantic crane hanging from it, connected the two. Presumably the concrete shelf led to a storage area.

  When I’d been here before I’d noticed iron stairs at the main entrance leading to a second story, probably the same area fed by the gantry. It didn’t seem very efficient to me, keeping heavy materiel on the second floor when your work was all down below. Still, that might be the best they could do with the constraints on their space; the construction around the canal was so tightly packed that they couldn’t expand sideways.

  As I squinted in the dim light to follow the crane’s route I noticed movement above me. Someone had emerged from the gloom of the upper deck and was climbing down a steel ladder built into the wall. He didn’t look around but headed straight for the bays and began unlocking the doors.

  I began to feel uncomfortably exposed and started a backward retreat up the hall. Just as I moved from the doorway the loading cavern was flooded with light.

  I looked nervously over my shoulder. No one was behind me. I turned and sprinted up the corridor, hugging the south wall to stay as far from the sightlines in there as possible.

  When I got back to the main hall I stopped to catch my breath and reorient myself. A right turn would lead me to a T crossing; a couple of turns there and I’d find myself back in the administrative offices. Or I could go left, which would bring me to the front entrance with the iron stairs leading upward.

  The trouble was that I wanted to see both places. People loading trucks in the middle of the night at what appeared to be a deserted factory deserved a closer scrutiny. If I chose the office first they might finish whatever they were doing with the trucks before I got back to them. On the other hand, if someone saw me wa
tching the trucks I’d have to flee without seeing Chamfers’s files. Choices, choices. I turned left.

  The floors were so thick that not much noise came through them. I couldn’t hear voices above me, but every few minutes there’d be a dull thud as someone dropped a heavy object. I moved quickly, not worrying that anyone above me would notice my sounds. I even sneezed again without trying to choke it back.

  I grew cautious at the door separating me from the main entrance. Solid metal, fitting flush to the floor, it didn’t even have a keyhole I could peer through. Its dead bolt locked from the outside but could be pushed back by hand on my side. Moving with infinite care, I slid the bolt open … waited a count of ten. No one hollered or came charging at me.

  I pulled slowly on the heavy metal handle, opening the door by a crack just wide enough to see around. It was constructed awkwardly for sneaking, since the handle was at chest height and obstructed the view. I looked around it as best I could. The coast seemed clear. Such noises as I heard seemed to be coming only from the floor above.

  I pulled the door open wider and slipped through it, putting my hand on it to slide it gently shut. The lock clicked in with a faint snap. I froze. I thought I’d slid the bolt free, but apparently it sprang back as soon as I removed my thumb. Now I was locked on the far side with whoever was waiting above me. Since this exposed entrance was a terrible place to work on a complex lock, I’d have to make the best of it. The worst thing to do at times like these is upbraid yourself. You make a mistake, you should tie a knot and go on, not fuddle your wits with recriminations.

  Since the door opened behind the staircase, I couldn’t tell if anyone was on the stairs or not. I could hear voices now, just grunts and faint cries of “Hold it!” or “Shit!” followed by a loud thump.

  I crept out from my sanctuary. The front door stood ajar. Through it I could make out two or three cars, but the angle was too poor and the light too dim to tell whether I’d seen any of them before.

  The door at the top of the stairs, which had been shut on my previous visit, stood open wide. From the bottom I could just make out the first yard or so beyond it. No one seemed to be in the immediate entrance. Hugging the side of the stairs, I went up as quietly as I could.

  I climbed the last few steps on my hands and knees and lay flat at the top to peer ahead. An unlit walkway led from the door to a brightly lit, open area beyond. The grunts and thumps were coming from there. I could also hear the cranes clanking away. A handful of men were slowly moving past the entrance, maneuvering a giant hoop.

  The walkway itself was dug from a small storage area. On either side of me loomed giant shapes about the size of cows. They were probably old machines, but the light from the room beyond cast ungainly shadows behind them; not of cows, but of monsters from the primordial swamp that spawned Chicago. The fancy made me shiver.

  I waited for the four pairs of legs in front of me to finish moving their hoop, then hoisted myself upright and skittered for a nearby shadow. The bulk in front of me was definitely metal, not flesh, and had a thick coating of dust on it. I held my nose firmly to pinch back another sneeze.

  My eyes were accustomed enough to the dim that I could make out the major shapes, but not the small bits of debris that cluttered the floor. The area seemed to have been Diamond Head’s dumping ground for years. As I moved cautiously across the floor I kept running into pipes and bits of wire and other things I could only guess at. I finally got myself into a position where I could see a good chunk of the lighted area.

  I was looking at the big shelf built above the loading dock. This led to a major storage area, which was out of my sightline. There seemed to be four men using hand-operated lifts to move giant spools over to the edge. That, too, was out of my range, but I presumed the gantry was taking them to the dock below, where they could be loaded onto the trucks.

  From the size of the one spool they shoved past while I was watching, I couldn’t believe they could put more than one on a truck. In fact, it was the kind of load usually moved on a flatbed. I didn’t know how they proposed getting them into the trailers, nor yet how to strap them down. I also didn’t know what was on them. What was packed that way? Some kind of coiled metal.

  I craned my neck, trying to see if anything was written on the side. “Paragon” was stamped in such large letters that I didn’t notice them at first. Paragon. The steel company whose controller didn’t want to discuss Diamond Head. Maybe because he knew the motor company was taking Paragon products and selling them on the black market?

  Without warning, the sneeze I’d been suppressing came bursting forth with the intensity of a machine gun blast. I hoped the noise of the belt would drown me, but two of the men were apparently just on the other side of the entrance. They called to the others, their voices all too audible. A brief argument: had they heard something or were they just imagining it?

  I crouched low behind a giant metal plane. The ostrich approach. If I couldn’t see them, they wouldn’t notice me.

  “Oh, for Chrissake, Gleason. Who’s gonna be here?”

  “I told you the boss called, warned me that there’s been a detective snooping around. And he got wind she’s in the neighborhood tonight.”

  The first speaker gave a crack of laughter. “A girl detective. I don’t know who’s a bigger fool—you or Chamfers. If it’ll make you happy we can take a look around—want to hold on to my hand?” The last words came out in an ugly jeer.

  “I don’t give a fuck. You call the boss and tell him you were too chicken to look for snoopers.”

  I slid my hand inside my jacket for the Smith & Wesson. A flashlight beam, industrial strength, pierced the gloom of the storage room. Footsteps approached, retreated, stirring the dust, making my nose tingle unbearably. I held my breath, my eyes tearing. I kept back the sneeze, but the movement rocked me back on my heels; my hand with the gun grazed the side of the metal plane.

  The flashlight beam poked a long finger at me. The skin on my cheeks tingled and the hair stood on my arms. I watched the floor, waiting for the feet to declare the line of attack. They came from the left. I darted out to the right, into the loading area.

  I was blinded at first by the brightness of the light and couldn’t make out anything. The sound was loud enough out here to drown the shouts of the men behind me. I skidded around the Paragon spool and almost bumped into two more men. They were steadying a second reel at the edge of the platform and didn’t look up, intent on fitting a sling around it. As I danced about the deck, figuring the layout, I noticed the label on the reel: COPPER WIRE. INDUSTRIAL GRADE.

  “Stop her, damn you!”

  The men who’d flushed me were bearing down on me. The two in front finished strapping their load and gave a signal to a crane operator on the other side of the room. They turned slowly, surprised, not believing anyone had really been in the back room.

  “Now, just a minute there,” one of them said calmly.

  A hand grabbed at my jacket from behind. I kicked reflexively, gaining a second to wrench myself free, and brandished the Smith & Wesson at the two in front of me. One of them reached out an arm as a man behind me grabbed me again. “Now, honey, let’s have that gun and stop playing games.”

  I fired in front of me and the two men jumped aside. A half turn and another hard kick backed off the one snatching at my jacket.

  The spool was about four feet from the edge of the platform. I jammed the gun into my jacket pocket and leaped. My hands, wet with sweat, slipped on the steel-and-canvas strips of the sling. I scissor-kicked violently, too much so. My legs swung back behind me, arcing my back into a bow. I made myself relax; let my legs sweep forward, waiting for gravity to draw them up. At the height of the swing I hooked a knee over the rod threading the spool.

  My thighs were shaking. I ignored their weak complaining and pulled myself upright, my wet hands trembling as I gripped the slings. I couldn’t see behind me, couldn’t tell what my four pals were doing. I didn’t think they had
guns, at least not up on the platform with them.

  I couldn’t jump down—the floor was thirty feet below me. I looked at the gantry above me. If I could climb the crane cable faster than they could wind it up, I might shinny up and crawl along the tracks to the wall. I was trembling so violently right now I didn’t think I could manage the gymnastics.

  The control booth was on the ground, on the far end of the room from the docks. When I got down I’d have to outrun the man in the booth. And the two men gaping at me from one of the open bays. They both looked big enough to be the Hulk who’d chased me on my first trip here.

  The spool was swaying slightly from my jump. Suddenly it began swinging violently. The crane operator was grinning dementedly. I clutched the canvas stripping. As the arc grew wider nausea rose up in my gut. We were moving toward the side of the building. It was an old gantry system and could only manage about five miles an hour, slow enough for me to figure out their plan: they were going to swing the load around and smash me into the wall.

  The two Hulks from the loading bays were looking up. The sound didn’t carry, but from their body language I guessed they were laughing pretty hard.

  When we got to the wall the crane operator gave one tentative tap to set the load in motion sideways. We swung out from the wall and started back with greater force. Just before we hit I wrenched one hand free from the canvas sling and scrabbled at the wall behind me. I clutched at metal and jumped free from the load. For a terrifying second my left hand closed on air. Dark spots swam in front of me and I grabbed blindly at the wall. An instant after my feet connected with a girder, the copper spool slammed against the building.

  The blow jarred the girder. I was holding on with a death grip. The metal edges cut into my palms. I shut my eyes and made myself unhook one hand … flex it.… Move it down, move my right foot down, fumble for a new toehold.… Unhook my left hand, lower it. My triceps were trembling, but my weight workouts stood me in good stead. As long as I kept my eyes shut and didn’t think about what was waiting for me below, I could keep up the rhythm of clutching and releasing the metal cross-strips.