I glanced up as the massive front door to the mansion creaked open and stopped.
“You’re telling me that map came from the cardinal’s residence?”
“I’m telling you that’s what MapQuest’s records show.”
“What do you think?”
“The guy we’re dealing with is too sharp to make that mistake. I think it’s a setup. Someone routed their request through the cardinal’s IP address.”
“Which means someone’s sending us a message. I gotta go, Hubert.”
I clicked off and scanned the block, looking for a shooter. The door to the residence swung open the rest of the way. Giovanni Cardinal Gianni stepped out onto a small portico and spread his arms wide. Cameras jockeyed for position and the elite of Chicago’s media boiled at Gianni’s feet.
I scanned a second time. Then I reached for the door handle. That’s when the cell phone rang, except this time it wasn’t my phone. And the ringing was coming from underneath my front seat.
CHAPTER 39
I found a prepaid unit taped under the driver’s seat. It lit up red and blue in my hand every time it buzzed, almost like the thing was laughing at me, which it probably was.
“Yeah.”
“Funny how things work, isn’t it?”
I felt a ball of ice form in my stomach and a flicker somewhere deep inside my brain. “What do you want?”
“Look at the cardinal. Bloody great fucking hypocrite.”
My eyes slid over to the mansion. Gianni was still on the front stoop, trying to hold the media hounds at bay. I thought the cardinal looked a bit chagrined. I wondered if he had any divine inkling as to just how bad his day might become.
“Want to see him executed, Kelly?” The electronic voice purred over the line. “Just say the word.”
I searched one more time. Lawns, tree line, cars. Then I opened the car door.
“No,” the voice said.
I froze, eased the door shut, and leaned back against the seat.
“Cardinal doesn’t die today, Kelly. So let’s drive. West toward the Kennedy. And no fucking around. That is, unless you do want to see a bullet in him.”
I turned the engine over, gripped the wheel, and headed toward the highway.
“I was worried you might not find the phone.”
“My lucky day,” I said.
“The camera is taped to your door seam, by the floor on the passenger’s side.”
I glanced over and saw the thin run of wire and a pinhole lens staring at me. I pulled the camera free and threw it into the backseat.
“Know what life’s about, Kelly?”
“Why don’t we cut the bullshit and boil this thing down.”
“Is that the way you want it?”
“That’s exactly how I want it. Leave everyone else out. City, church, feds, everyone.”
“Underneath the other seat you’ll find a flash drive. Play it and then see how you feel.”
The line disconnected. I pulled down a dead-end street, popped my flashers, and reached under the passenger’s seat. The flash drive was black with a piece of masking tape on it. A single word was written on the tape: RACHEL.
CHAPTER 40
Someone is going to die.
I sat in my car and felt that certainty pump through my veins. I took a minute to distill the violence into a more refined form and tucked it away until I needed it. Then I watched the video recorded on the flash drive a second time. Then a third. I picked up my cell phone and tried to call Jim Doherty. No answer. I clicked off and called Hubert. His voice mail picked up. My phone indicated a second call was coming in. It was Rodriguez.
“You done with Gianni?”
“He’s got Rachel.”
“Hold on a second.” There was a pause and Rodriguez came back on the line. “Go ahead.”
“He planted a cell phone in my car. Called to tell me about a flash drive he had planted there as well. She’s on it, Vince. Some sort of video. Looks like she’s beat up pretty bad.”
“You never talked to her this morning?”
“No. She was reading from a script this guy wrote. Said I needed to do exactly as he instructed. Then she read off two addresses. One was Hubert’s. The other was Jim Doherty’s.”
“The cop who gave you the old files?”
“Yeah. Said I should pick one and not worry about the other.”
“You get hold of the kid?”
“No. Hold on, I got another call.” I clicked over to the other line.
“Mr. Kelly, you called me?”
“Hubert, fuck yes, I called you.”
“Sorry, I was just hashing through the rest of this material on the crash.”
“Hubert, I need you to listen to me.”
The kid shut up.
“I just got a message from this guy. He dropped two addresses we should assume are targets. One was yours.”
I waited. “Hubert, you there?”
“You told me to listen.”
“I’m gonna have them send a team over to your apartment, but it might be a while. For right now, I need you to lock your door, and don’t let anyone in. No one. Unless it’s me or someone with a badge. You got it?”
“Yes.”
“You have a weapon in the house?”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“I have a steak knife.”
“Get it. Lock the door and get the knife. Stay in the house and you’ll be fine.”
“This guy is probably playing us, Mr. Kelly. He likes to do that.”
“Stay in the house, Hubert. Wait for the cops.”
“Right. But, listen, I dug up some more interesting stuff …”
“I can’t right now. Put it all on a disk or something and send it to me. But stay in the house until the badge gets there. Okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Kelly.”
“Good kid. I’ll talk to you …”
I clicked off and got back on the line with Rodriguez.
“Vince, that was Hubert. He’s okay.”
“I’ll get someone over there.”
“Not yet. This guy realizes I’m headed to the cops and maybe he starts killing people.”
“He’s already killing people, Kelly.”
“There’s a way to play this. But it’s gotta be just me and you.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna find Rachel.”
CHAPTER 41
I fidgeted in the back booth of a carryout place called China Doll while Rodriguez watched images flash across my laptop. Rachel, bruised and beaten, staring into the camera, her eyes telling me where she was, her heart wondering when I was going to come get her.
“What are you thinking?” the detective said after he’d finished.
“I told Hubert to lock his doors and sit tight.”
“What about Doherty?”
“Tried his cell and home. No answer.”
“You thinking he’s the target?”
I nodded.
“I can get a squad down there in ten minutes,” Rodriguez said.
“If Jim’s not dead already, anything other than me showing up alone will likely kill him. And Rachel along with it.” I nodded to the video. “On the other hand, our guy’s not expecting this.”
“What are you talking about?”
I cued up the footage and played it from the top. Rachel’s face came into focus, her hands cupping her chin and partially obscuring her face.
“See that,” I said and stopped the video.
“See what?”
“She doesn’t start speaking right away.”
“So what?”
“Listen to what’s going on in the background.”
I hit PLAY. First there was nothing but her breathing. Then the echo of a church bell tolling.
“Now look at her hands,” I said. “She’s showing us the face of her watch.”
Rodriguez took a closer look at the digital readout. “Seven
a.m. I’ll be damned.”
“Smart girl,” I said. “And that’s not all.”
I hit PLAY again. Rachel started to speak. Underneath her words, a siren ebbed and flowed, sometimes getting closer, then moving away, then coming very close so she had to raise her voice to be heard. Rodriguez glanced across the table.
“That’s a fire engine,” he said. I nodded.
Rodriguez got on his cell phone. Five minutes later, he had a list. And we had some options.
“I took a ten-minute time frame for this morning,” the detective said. “Centered it around seven.” He showed me his list. “There were three firehouse calls. One in the Loop. One on the Northwest Side and one on the Near North.”
I put my finger on the third address. “This one’s three blocks from Cabrini.”
Rodriguez nodded. “Maria Jackson was grabbed there. Let me see that video again.”
He double-speeded through it until he found the image he wanted. It was a wider shot, revealing a piece of the room behind Rachel.
“The wall behind her.” Rodriguez pointed to a section of crumbling drywall. “At the very edge of the frame, you can just see the hole.”
I looked closely. The detective was right.
“Tunnels,” I said. “You thinking high-rise?”
“If it is, there’s only one left standing in Cabrini.”
I knew we should call for backup. I knew we should coordinate with the task force. I also knew Rachel was maybe less than a mile away. “Give me an hour before you call in the troops.”
Rodriguez shook his head. “Fucking Kelly. Let’s go before I change my mind.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. How do we play it once we get inside?”
“If he’s there, he dies.”
“That’s what I figured.” Rodriguez pulled out a snub-nosed revolver and laid it on the table. “Just in case.”
I slipped on a pair of leather gloves. Then I picked up the gun and put it in my pocket.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 42
The building sat fifteen stories high on an otherwise empty lot near the corner of Division and Halsted. Its outer porches were covered over in steel mesh, its pale concrete skin stitched with graffiti. The lower floors were boarded up, while the top two featured large black holes where windows once stood.
Rodriguez and I approached along Division. A couple of kids watched from a breezeway across the street and then melted into a two-story low-rise.
“Gangs usually tunnel between apartments on the top two or three floors,” Rodriguez said. “I’m thinking we start there and work down.”
“This place supposed to be empty?” I said.
The detective shrugged. “Don’t count on it.”
We came up on a back entrance. The plywood that covered it over had been pried loose, and we slipped inside. Dim light and a current of warm air greeted us. The high-rise might have been a shell, but the city was still heating it and providing electricity. We picked our way through the lobby, sectioned off with scratched Plexiglas. Metal mailboxes scored with bullet holes ran along one wall, and the linoleum floor was covered with broken glass and a handful of syringes.
Rodriguez motioned up and took the lead. We climbed the staircase in single file, guns drawn. An elevator door stood open next to the fourth-floor stairwell. I glanced down into the black hole. A set of eyes looked back.
“What the fuck?” A head popped up from the hole, hands already behind his head, gaze fixed on the barrel of my gun. “You guys five-oh?”
Rodriguez pulled the young man out of the shaft and shoved him up against the wall. The kid was maybe fifteen and held a narrow, angled head atop a precariously long neck. He wore loose baggy jeans and an oversize Chicago Bulls jacket.
“What’s your name?” Rodriguez said.
“Chubby. You five-oh?”
“Shut up.” Rodriguez took out a small flashlight and shined it into the shaft. All eighty-five pounds of Chubby had been sitting, or maybe sleeping, on the top of the elevator car that sat just a few feet below us.
“How long you been here?” I said.
“I come in once, maybe twice a week. Get warm. Sleep a little.”
“You seen anyone around?” I said.
“What you mean by ‘anyone’?” Chubby’s voice rose at the prospect of perhaps having a card to play.
“A guy who doesn’t belong,” I said. “And a woman.”
Chubby shook his head. “No woman. Seen a white dude. Maybe yesterday. Don’t think he saw me, but he was coming from upstairs.”
“You get a look at the guy?” I said.
Chubby smiled. “White dudes all look the same to me.”
Rodriguez grabbed the kid by the collar. I glanced at the detective, who let the kid go. Chubby stepped back and watched both of us closely.
“You know which floor the white guy might have been coming from?” I said.
“I’d say top floor. No one else up there for sure.”
“Why’s that?” Rodriguez said.
“No wood on the windows. No heat. Colder than shit up there.”
Rodriguez jerked his head toward the stairs. “I need you to go down into the lobby and wait. You’re not there when I come down, I come looking for you. And that ain’t good.”
Chubby glanced back toward the elevator shaft. “I got some shit down there.”
“Forget it,” Rodriguez said. “Now get the fuck out of here before I lock you up.”
Chubby didn’t care about his stuff. Chubby also wasn’t moving. “You slick boys goin’ upstairs, best take me with you. I know how it works.”
“How what works?” I said.
“The layout. Nigger can shift right down the hallway for you. See if your boy’s there and tell you exactly where. Now, how much that worth?”
I put my gun to his nose, and Chubby’s grin fell apart at the seams.
“You want to help?” I said.
Chubby kept his eyes on the gun. I took that as a yes.
“Do just what we say and don’t say a word unless we ask you a question. You got it?”
Chubby nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Get behind us and follow.”
And so we began to climb again, traveling on the edge of Dante’s circles—also known as Chicago public housing. Twice we heard a groan, once a thick whisper and some quick footsteps. Each time, Chubby slipped away, only to return with a nod to keep climbing. Eleven flights later, we hit the top.
“This is it,” Chubby said, hunched in the stairwell. “No heat up here. Only safe place for a white man.”
I edged my head around the corner and took a look down the corridor. Our guide was right. The wind was whistling through blown-out windows, dropping the temperature to whatever it was outside. I could only see two units on my left. Neither had doors on them. I ducked back into the stairwell.
“Any of the apartments up here have doors,” I said.
Chubby shook his head. “Not likely.”
“You think you could take a look for us?” Rodriguez said.
“Sure.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Just walk down the hall and right back. Nice and slow. We’ll be watching.”
I stepped back and motioned with my gun. Chubby eased past us and around the corner. Thirty seconds later, he was back.
“Know exactly where your boy is.”
I felt my heart jump and my fingers itch.
“How so?” Rodriguez said.
“Last apartment on the right,” Chubby said. “Got a door and maybe a lock on it. Gotta be your boy.”
“That unit tunneled out?” I said.
“They all got tunnels up here,” Chubby said.
“Stay here,” Rodriguez said.
I crept around the corner and moved down the hallway, the detective on my shoulder. Chubby was right. None of the units had doors, until we got to the last. We stacked on either side. I took a deep breath and nodded. Rodriguez rais
ed his boot and kicked in the door. I went first, ducking low and scooting along the wall. It was warmer in here, fetid, with fractures of light cutting up the floor. I saw a shape and moved toward it. Somewhere behind me, Rodriguez yelled “Police.” I was turning over a body and staring down at a young black man, eyes open, dead. There was a second boy close by. I took off my glove and felt for a pulse. Blood greased my fingers as Rodriguez ripped the shade off a window covered over in plastic. The apartment’s north wall had been boarded up, sealing the unit off from the rest of the floor. The opposite wall had a huge hole in it. Rodriguez ducked through it and popped back out.
“Bedroom. Clear.”
An empty chair sat in the middle of the main room. A second interior door stood ajar to my left. Rodriguez eased the door open with his foot and ducked in.
“He must have moved her.” The detective’s voice drifted back through the unit. I was staring at the chair Rachel had sat in just a few short hours ago.
“Kelly, you hear me?”
I kicked the chair across the room. “I heard you. He knew Rachel had tipped me on the video. Knew I’d come here.”
“Couldn’t have taken her too far,” Rodriguez said and paused. “Kelly, come in here.”
I walked into the third room. Rodriguez had his back to me and was running his flashlight over what looked like a bed. I moved up behind him and felt my throat tighten. The mattress was stained with blood.
“Looks like those stains have been here awhile,” Rodriguez said. “There’s more on the floor. I’m thinking Maria Jackson.”
The detective turned toward me. He held a buff-colored envelope between his fingers.
“What’s that?” I said.
“It was taped to the wall over the bed. Got your name on it.”
I turned the envelope over. There was my name in block letters. Inside was a single photo. It was an old shot. Denny McNabb wore a White Sox hat and Peg had what looked like a can of Old Style in her hand.
“Who are they?” Rodriguez said.
“Jim Doherty’s neighbors.”
“Someone’s playing games.”
“Yeah.”
Rodriguez sighed and kicked at some stray glass on the floor. I slid down against the wall and studied the photo.
The Third Rail Page 14