by Wally Duff
“And why do you do this?” Linda asked.
“We do it to perform, but I also act as the emcee.”
“Like for the Imperial Windy City Court,” Molly said.
“Exactly, but Rick and I are the official hosts and in charge of the entertainment, which is one reason you’re here, to see our show rehearsal.” He turned and walked toward a spiral staircase to our left. “Follow me, kiddies, we are going to have some serious fun.”
138
“This is the Arena,” David said, as we entered the room. “The owners have been kind enough to close it down for tonight so we can block out our staging.”
The room was as big as the one downstairs, but there was a full stage at the far end where several women in ball gowns were walking back and forth. Rick was dressed in a black jump suit. He had a headset on and was talking to a group of women and men off to our left.
He said something to them and walked over to us.
“Salza, you need to get up on stage,” Rick said. “We need to run though the entire show without stopping this time.”
Rick turned to us. “So glad you could be here, but let me tell you, it would be easier to work with all men. There’s always way too much drama with this group.”
“Rick, aren’t they all men?” Linda asked.
“They are, but when they’re in character, some of them become such divas, I can’t begin to tell you.”
He checked his watch and clapped his hands at the group by the stage. “Everyone in position.” He rotated the microphone from the headset down to his mouth and spoke into it. “Clarence, cue the music. Howie, ready the lights.”
The lights came down, and the music began playing. Salza strutted out to center stage and stood with a mike in her hand. Rick waved the music down and Salza began the introductions.
The stage technicians blew several of their cues or didn’t get the music started on time so there were multiple starts and stops, especially with the performers who lip-synched their lyrics. The show was entertaining, but the constant interruptions were beginning to bug me.
The last production number ended, and the lights came up. Rick walked over to us. “What did you think of the show?”
“Fabulous,” I said.
“It still needs work before we go up for real.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“We have to run through it again.”
He must have seen the strained look on my face. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
“How about arranging a few interviews for me with the cast members, maybe next week?”
“Then you’ll write an article for the show?”
“I’m happy to do it. It’s not as if I have anything else to do right now.”
I felt a tug on my sleeve.
“Check out the lady over there by the bar,” Molly said.
She was short and wore a tight-fitting, slinky black dress with dark hose and high heels. Her black hair was piled high on her head, displaying her long, dangling diamond earrings. She had on heavy eye makeup. She chattered animatedly with several performers.
One of the performers spoke to her and pointed at the piano a band member had been using. The lady sat on the unoccupied stool and began to play, softly at first and then with more gusto. A few people stopped to listen. Most kept talking. The piano player seemed happy to be playing.
“I love that song,” Cas said.
“It’s Rachmaninoff’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’,” Linda said.
“Do you play the piano?” Cas asked.
“I used to be in a band in high school, but we didn’t play music like that,” she said. “I tried to play that same song in college, but it was hard because my hands aren’t big enough.”
The lady continued to play. Several performers moved closer to the piano. She switched to songs from Phantom of the Opera. A few of them sang along.
“She seems to know a lot of people here,” I said.
“Small wonder,” Molly said.
“You know her?” Linda asked.
“Kind of. I’ve seen her before.”
“Here at The Max?” I asked.
“No, I’ve never seen her here.”
“Then where have you seen her?” Cas asked.
“On a DVD.”
“Did she make a movie or something?” Linda asked.
“Did she ever,” Molly said.
“Have I seen it?” I asked.
“I tried to show it to you, but you said you didn’t want to see it,” Molly answered.
“I’m lost,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“She was in that Russian guy’s DVD!” Molly exclaimed.
139
Adrenaline slammed through my system. This was the break I needed. The lady finished playing. The performers standing around the piano applauded. She stood up and did a curtsy. A young lady handed her a drink.
“I have to get to her,” I said. “She’s the key to my story.”
“Which story are we talking about now?” Linda asked.
“Zhukov’s,” I said. “I think she’s the one who killed him.”
Instinctively, I looked for my backpack but realized I’d left it in my mommy van, which was in the parking lot. “Cas, do you have your Taser or spray?” I asked.
“No, I left them at home,” she said. “Does she know what you look like? Maybe you can sneak up on her.”
“Probably won’t work. I think she was there the night I discovered Zhukov’s body. She had to have seen me.”
The lady glanced around the room. Her gaze stopped when she saw us. Her eyebrows shot up. She turned around and moved quickly behind the curtain on the stage.
Pushing my way through the mass of performers milling around the area, I stood on my toes and looked left and right, but the lady was gone. I turned to a tall woman with white-blond hair. She wore a black ball gown.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is there a back way out of here?”
“There’s an elevator at the end of the hall. It’s the one we use to bring up our props.”
“Where does it stop?”
“In the alley behind the building.”
I reversed my course, ran back into the main room and down the stairs to the first level. I sped out the front entrance of The Max. A door slammed in the alley, which was to my right, around the corner of the building. I heard running footsteps.
Following the sound, I rounded the corner of the building into the alley and saw the woman sprinting away from me. She turned the far corner and disappeared from my view.
I rushed to that end of the alley and turned right into the parking lot. I saw her speeding toward North Clark Street. The cement was wet from the recent rain, and my flats should have given me better traction than her high heels, but she was going faster than I was.
Following her toward North Clark, I saw the reason she was pulling away from me. Her heels were laying in the gutter next to a dumpster. They looked familiar. I slid to a stop and bent down to examine them at exactly the same time I heard a shot being fired and a bullet pinging on the building’s wall behind my head.
The heels were my black Rolando Hidden-Platform Christian Louboutin pumps. They had saved my life.
140
Two more shots hit the same wall as I dove behind the smelly dumpster. I gasped for breath, both from the sprint and the terror of having a killer try to blow several holes in my head.
Rolling to my left, I picked up my heels and hid behind an SUV. The blaring sound of hard rock music was audible each time a patron went in or out of The Max, but that was the only noise I heard other than the cars whizzing back and forth on North Clark Street.
What was missing was the noise of an engine starting up. The piano player hadn’t left by car, at least not one that was close. She was on a busy street. I hoped she wouldn’t begin blasting away with her gun if I followed her.
Abandoning the safety of the dumpster, I ran to my mommy v
an, threw the shoes inside, and grabbed my backpack. I pulled out the Glock and racked a round into the chamber. If she continued to shoot at me, I could now defend myself and, if necessary, fire back.
I put the gun into the backpack and slung it over my shoulders. Loping forward to North Clark, I turned left. The sidewalk was full of people walking in both directions. I didn’t see the woman.
Two young men brushed by me. I held up my hand to stop them. “Did you see a woman come running out of this alley?” I asked
“A short lady with a darling black dress?” the taller one asked.
“Yeah, and she didn’t have on any shoes.”
“Are you a cop?” the other one asked. “If you are, then we do not want to be involved.”
“I’m not a cop. That bitch stole my Louboutin pumps and I want to have a serious talk with her.”
“That is so trashy,” the first one said.
The second one pointed over his shoulder. “She went that way, and I think she turned to the left at the next cross street.”
Following his instructions, I ran to the end of the block and turned left. There were several brick condo buildings on both sides of the street. I spotted a large drop of blood about twelve feet directly in front of me. I sprinted to it. She’d cut her feet running away from me.
It was now almost ten o’clock, and it was hard to see any blood spatter on the sidewalk, even with the streetlights. I pulled out the flashlight from my backpack. I shined the bright beam on the sidewalk, and about every three or four yards I saw what appeared to be another drop or two of blood.
It’s her.
People walked past me going both ways, and dodging them didn’t make it any easier. One guy riding a bicycle almost hit me when I didn’t look up as I followed the beam of my flashlight. My total focus was on the trail of blood.
The bloody drops went for one more block and increased in size, making it easier to follow. One more block and the smears turned left into a three-story condo building. A bloody footprint was visible through the locked front door. It led down the hall toward the back of the building.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, I removed my backpack and took out my lock pick gun and torque wrench. I opened the lock and stepped inside.
I closed the front door behind me and put my equipment and flashlight away. After pulling out the Glock, I slung my backpack over my shoulders. I checked the gun to make sure I still had a bullet in the chamber. I held the gun in front of me and followed the blood trail to 1-D, the last door on the left.
A puddle of clotting blood was smeared on the carpet in front of the door. There was a back exit to my right, but I didn’t see any blood there.
Taking in a deep breath to control my rapid breathing, I tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.
Zhukov’s killer was inside.
141
Carter won’t be happy.
This was stupidly dangerous and I knew it. But this was my story, and the woman inside had all the answers. Slipping off my backpack, I squatted down and reached up to push open the door.
There were no lights on inside, and I didn’t sense any movement. Not knowing the layout of the condo was a major problem. She could be hiding anywhere, and she had a gun.
“I know you’re in there,” I said. “I’ve already called Detective Janet Corritore of the Chicago PD. If you were still there after you killed Zhukov, you might have seen her. She’s on the way.”
No sounds.
“I have a gun, so you’re trapped,” I continued.
I took in another deep breath. My pulse rate slowed down.
“Be smart,” I said. “There’s no reason to do any more shooting.”
There was no sound from the darkened room. Reaching into my backpack, I took out my flashlight. I turned it on and quickly lobbed it into the room, hoping the woman would shoot at it.
Nothing happened.
Standing up, I reached around the corner of the doorjamb and felt for a light switch. I found one, flipped it up, and quickly returned to the hall. I squatted down with my gun in front of me.
Peeking through the open door, I saw that the overhead lights provided ample illumination. I looked around the doorjamb and didn’t see any movement. To my left was a stuffed chair, a table and lamp, and a couch.
“Okay, I’m going to wait right here until the cops come.”
But I did the opposite. Pushing the lamp off the table on my left, I dove into the room, rolling to my right. I came to a stop behind another stuffed chair. The pounding in my ears from my hammering pulse made it hard to hear, but I didn’t detect any sounds.
I jumped up and swept the Glock back and forth as I scanned the room. It was small, with an efficiency kitchen to my right. There was an open door across the room. I knelt down and picked up my flashlight. Keeping the gun in front of me, I advanced toward that door.
I hid behind the safety of the doorjamb and held the flashlight up as high as I could and shined the intense beam into the room. There was a bed and chest of drawers, but otherwise it was empty.
Flipping on a wall switch, I made a more thorough search of the bedroom and bathroom. Both were empty. I went back into the main room and hunted around again, but Zhukov’s killer was gone.
142
I picked up the lamp I’d knocked over and shut and locked the front door to the condo. The decorating scheme was generic rental, with a blue couch, two green stuffed chairs, and a small kitchen table with two metal chairs.
The bedroom wasn’t much fancier. There was a bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a chest of drawers. The small closet was filled with a woman’s clothes. I checked out the labels. The dresses were the same size and from all the major couture designers. So were the shoes and purses. She’d spent a ton of money on getting dressed up but nothing on furnishings.
Opening the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, I found high-end cosmetics and multiple pricy lotions for skin care and rejuvenation. Expensive soaps and shampoos were in the tub/shower combination, but there were no towels.
I went back to the front door. There were dried blood smears on the carpet. They led into the bathroom and then disappeared.
“How did you get out of here?” I wondered to myself.
The wastebasket in the bathroom was empty, as was the one in the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets were also empty. The refrigerator held four bottles of Crystal champagne. There were two bottles of Boodle’s gin and one of Absolute vodka in the freezer, along with ice cubes, but no frozen foods.
She was a party girl who liked to dress up and drink with her visitors but never ate here.
What am I missing?
I went back into the bedroom and began going through the chest of drawers. La Perla seemed to be her choice in panties. The bras were a different matter. They were all heavily padded.
The answer was in the next drawer down. There was one men’s shirt, three pairs of men’s underwear, one pair of men’s socks and one pair of jeans. There was a bike rider’s multicolored jersey.
The biker!
The woman from the club had run into the condo and gone into the bathroom, where she applied Band-Aids to her feet after wiping them off with towels. She rinsed off the makeup with a face towel. She went into the bedroom and changed into men’s clothes and shoes. She took the towels and Band-Aids with her and walked out the back exit door, which is why I didn’t find any blood there.
My killer was a man. Now all I had to do was find out who he was.
143
The Hamlin Park Irregulars were waiting for me at the table when I returned to The Max. David and Rick stood at the bar with their friends. They had their backs to me.
“Did you catch her?” Linda asked, when I sat down.
“Him,” I said.
“Him?” Cas said. “I saw a woman run out of here.”
I pointed at David, who was still Salza. “He was dressed like David. The killer ran, and I followed. He changed into men’s clothes in a c
ondo near here, probably walked, or more likely rode a bike, past me on the street, and I didn’t recognize who it was.”
“Wow,” Linda said. “This is a weird case.”
“Easy to solve,” Molly said.
We stared at her.
“I think David and Rick know who he is,” she said.