We walked quickly, me pressed to his back like a jockey on a Thoroughbred. Only I was two hands taller. Outside the door, I gave him my key card.
“Open it,” I said.
“You’re going to shoot me.”
“I might,” I said. “Open it.”
He disengaged the lock but didn’t budge. “Move, dickhead.” I shoved him with a foot to his ass. He stumbled forward into the living room. No one opened fire or rushed out. I followed him in and kicked the door shut.
“Sit.” Indicating the sofa. “And no bleeding on the rug. They cleaned it once. I’m not paying twice.”
He sat. Backhanded his face. Eyed the blood, uncertain what to do next.
I crossed to the desk, unloaded and set the Beretta on the blotter. Placed my Glock beside it.
“Who are you?” I remained standing, wanting the advantage of height and the glare off the glass.
No response.
“Having to repeat makes me cross. Being cross makes me jumpy. You don’t want me jumpy.” I picked up the Glock.
The monk remained silent. One of his eyes was already swelling shut. His right cheek was bloody, and a fresh stream was running from his nose.
“What’s your name?”
“Suck my dick.”
“Ethnic. Quaint. Okay, Suck. What’s the deal?”
He stared at me, stoic. I guessed his age at mid- to late twenties. Hard to tell with the bad hair.
“Fine. You’re shy. I’ll start. Here’s an interesting factoid. I’ll get twenty-five grand for your sorry ass. And my employer isn’t picky about the state of your health.”
“I need a doctor.”
“That’s good. You’re sharing.”
“May I at least have a Kleenex?”
I gestured at a box on the far end of the desk. Almost flinched from the pain. Almost.
The monk pushed to his feet, chin elevated, fingers pinching his nostrils. Three steps, then he feigned reaching for a tissue. At the last second twisted and lunged for my throat.
I was ready this time. I slipped behind him, crooked his arm back and up sharply while simultaneously hyperflexing his wrist. Squeezed. The bones dislocated with a sickening pop. I released my hold.
The monk dropped to his knees, shriek deflating into a moan. His hand was hanging wrong, his thumb bent at a very odd angle. I noticed that the hairs on his fingers were blond and thick.
“Rookie move, Suck.” I pointed at the couch.
He resumed his seat, wincing and gingerly cradling his arm.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He stared, face pale, jaw set.
“Maybe that one’s too hard. We’ll come back to it. Why are you here?”
More silence.
“I could do the other hand.” No way, but I didn’t let it show. “Happens a lot, I hear. People trip, snap both wrists.” I didn’t know if that was true, but it sounded good.
“Eat shit.”
“Must hurt.”
“Kiss my—”
“If you answer my questions I’ll call for a medic.”
“Let me leave and none of this happened.”
“It’s not going to play that way. What’s your name?”
“Fuck you.” Not as forceful as he wanted. I guessed his pain was much worse than mine.
I took the Bnos Aliza stills from my purse and chose the remaining two males. A lot could change in a year. And the image was crap. I couldn’t be sure. I was still comparing features when someone pounded on the door. Wryzniak had come through.
I went to the bedroom and tucked my Glock behind the flat-screen. Returned. The monk hadn’t moved.
“Come in!” I yelled.
It was Harvey and Fix, the same pair who’d responded to the shooting.
“So we meet again.” Harvey actually said that.
“So we do,” I replied. “This gentleman needs attention.”
“What happened to him?”
“Tripped.”
“You’re one tough cookie.” He actually said that, too.
“I am.”
“Who is he?”
“He won’t say.”
As before, Fix manned the phone. When he’d disconnected: “The hotel doc’s on her way.”
“He was in your suite?” Harvey asked.
“No.”
“Why’d you beat him up?”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“Was he armed?”
“On the desk.”
“What about you?”
I shook my head. Would have pulled out the pockets of the fleece but the theatrics weren’t worth jostling my shoulder.
“Your buddies are en route,” Fix said.
“Capps and Clegg?”
Fix nodded.
We waited in silence until the doctor arrived. Mocha skin, short black hair, five minutes out of med school. She wore a silk blouse, pencil skirt, and carried a vintage double-handled physician’s bag. Her name tag said DR. JEFFERSON. The Ritz really wants you to know the staff. I like that.
“Check that guy.” Harvey gestured with a thumb.
Jefferson perched on the couch, drew latex gloves from her kit, and snapped them on. After swabbing the monk’s face with a moist towelette, she palpated his nose. His jaw muscles bunched, but he didn’t cry out.
She checked the wrist, said to him, “It’s a dislocation, not a break. Still, you’d best be examined by an orthopedist.” To Harvey, “May I administer a painkiller?”
“He has to make a statement first,” I said.
“Yeah?” Harvey said.
“Yeah,” I said.
The monk said nothing.
Jefferson was zipping her snazzy leather satchel when Capps and Clegg charged in. Clegg looked at me, then at the monk. “Another twenty-five bills in the bank?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“This one got a tat?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Still, could be a pal of the one you capped,” Clegg said.
“Nothing gets by you.”
Clegg’s lips tucked in and his head wagged slowly.
“This man should be seen by a specialist,” Jefferson said. “Now. Or he may suffer permanent loss of motion.”
“Would be a shame with such a great future behind him,” I said.
Jefferson wasn’t amused. She lifted her bag from the floor and strode toward the door.
“Have a blessed day,” I said to the retreating pencil skirt.
The good doctor declined to return my warm wishes.
“You need us for anything else?” Harvey asked.
“We can handle it from here,” Capps said.
“Have a good one.”
“You’ve been keeping busy,” Capps said when Harvey and Fix had gone. “What’s the story this time?”
I laid it out. “Can you hold him?”
“What the fuck?” The monk came alive.
“On what charge?” Capps asked me, mostly for the monk’s benefit.
“He was packing a Beretta,” I said.
“That’s not illegal,” the monk said. Realizing his mistake, “And who says the gun’s mine?”
“The weapon could be unlicensed,” I said. “Or stolen. He could have an arrest record. Or psychiatric issues.”
“Like that stops anyone in this country.” Clegg, master of sarcasm.
“There’s always assault,” I said.
“Are you serious?” The monk’s pallid cheeks were lighting up red. “You attacked me! You broke my fucking arm!”
“Doc says it’s not a break,” I said.
Capps looked to Clegg. Clegg shrugged “whatever.”
“We can hold him for forty-eight,” Capps said. “Then it’s charge him or kick him.”
“You’re locking me up?” The monk was doing outraged, which really wasn’t working.
“Are you staying at this hotel, sir?” Capps asked him.
The monk glared.
“N
o matter. Guest registration is easy to verify.”
“Probably got up here with a stolen key card.”
“MO for the guy you capped,” Clegg said.
Capps refocused on the monk. “What’s your name?”
More glare.
“What were you doing in the hallway?”
“Waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
“Suck my dick.”
“He likes to say that,” I said.
Capps and Clegg exchanged another of their looks. “I’ll call for an ambulance,” Clegg said. “Wouldn’t want accusations of police brutality.”
While Clegg spoke on his cell, Capps took cuffs from his belt, clamped one side onto the monk’s good wrist, the other onto a chrome crosspiece at the end of the sofa. Then he nodded toward the bedroom. I went in. He followed.
“You okay?”
“Ducky.”
“You look like hell.”
“My gimp shoulder took a hit. I’ll live.”
“I have a couple of thoughts I’d like to share. First off, the Ritz isn’t pleased. The only reason you’re not out is Drucker’s pull.”
“She knows?”
“Layton Furr is a very conscientious employee.”
“I didn’t kill this guy.” Tipping my head toward the living room.
“Management appreciates that. And, truth be told, so do I. Best-case scenario, he and his buds are small-time goons with IQs lower than their moral standards.”
“And bombs.”
“Perhaps.”
“And an abducted kid.”
“Perhaps that, too.”
“Worst-case?” I asked.
“They’re terrorists with bigger aspirations. Perhaps part of a network that’s managed to stay under the radar. Until now. We’ll sweat this prick hard.”
“Make him give it up on Stella.”
“The kid’s probably dead.”
She was alive. I felt it in my soul. Didn’t say it.
“I want to view the Bnos Aliza video.”
Capps hesitated, then, “My partner and I don’t want you here, Ms. Night. Working for profit.”
I started to object. He cut me off.
“We also don’t want you dead.”
“Meaning?”
“These people have tried twice. In all likelihood, they’ll come at you again.”
“I expect so.”
“I know you’ll take measures. Those measures must not involve more corpses.”
“You have my gun.”
Capps’s face shut down. I thought he was through, but he spoke again.
“We’ve learned some disturbing facts about you. I hope the press doesn’t learn them, too. So far the hotel has kept things quiet. But think, Ms. Night. How often are people gunned down at the Ritz?”
Through the door we heard the arrival of the EMTs. Voices.
“Gunned down by a woman with an expunged juvie record and”—tight head wag—“a less than exemplary military file.”
I felt my carotid throb. Willed my face neutral.
“I appreciate the trauma that a difficult childhood inflicts.” Capps’s voice went barbed-wire cold. “But I will not have you working out your issues on my patch. Do we understand each other?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
Capps flicked a smile. “Have a nice day.”
I heard but didn’t hear the swish of Capps’s soles. The clank of the cuffs. The rattle of the gurney. I stood paralyzed, heart plowing, chest burning. Face-to-face with my life. Again.
My mother’s features congealed in some overwrought tangle of neurons, the few splinters of her story I’d managed to pry loose. A teen nanny lured from Dublin to Manhattan, undocumented, a pedophile’s fantasy. Her flight to the streets. Her encounter with a charismatic guru, a pathological narcissist promising salvation, ultimately demanding death.
My brain offered no flashbulb images of my father. It held no memories, just fragments of his tale, reluctantly yielded. A tall black man, unholy, banished for spreading his seed. For me?
Time passed. No idea how much. Then, slowly, the quiet registered. The kind of quiet made up of empty space and a thousand sounds of the present. The minibar humming. TV dialogue floating through a wall. The muffled buzz of some unseen electronic device.
I drew the required inhalations. Got a Scotch and downed half the little bottle in one pull. Fought the fiends back into the recesses where I keep them captive.
When the Scotch was gone and my pulse was normal, I considered the big king bed. The Jacuzzi. The colossal TV. My shoulder said yes. My head said no.
After collecting my wig from beneath the sideboard, I descended and trudged to the Tremont. A long hot soak and a couple of Advil and I was feeling almost human. Propped on the bed, I thumbed a number into my Walmart mobile.
Far away, a phone rang twice. A voice answered.
“Hey.”
“You busy?” I asked.
“In general?”
“The next few days. Maybe longer.”
“A couple of deliveries. One boat trip. Nothing I can’t rearrange if you need me. You know that.”
“I do.”
“That’s our deal.”
“That’s our deal.”
“You in trouble?”
“Never.”
“Talk to me.”
I did.
Ten Days
Some have left, others have arrived. Strangers.
That night they drag chairs from all over the house. She sits in one, a good girl living only for the word. The mission.
His voice thunders, a jungle drum pounding out a battle call.
Though the language is oblique, one thing is clear.
It’s coming.
Soon.
The Crossing.
Again, the Leader sends her to bed before the gathering ends. He also must leave. A few others. She wonders why. None of them has made a troublesome query. Nor does she anymore.
His eyes meet hers as they rise to go. They tell her nothing. Since coming to the new place he has been too busy to talk. Or, sensing her craziness, he is avoiding confrontation. That’s how he labels her misgivings.
Is she crazy?
She has to know more.
She makes the right sounds. Washing up. Flushing. Closing her door.
Then she creeps back to sit at the top of the stairs. She pictures herself, a small dark shadow in the gray oozing from a window far down the hall.
She listens, breath shallow, every cell still.
Just crusade.
The usual veiled rhetoric.
Future order. Return to the path.
Then her whole body goes cold.
Sacrifice of innocents. Act of love.
A question. She’s unsure who poses it.
The answer is charged with anger, not love.
Death. The sole solution.
The air goes out of her lungs.
Another question.
More words she can never unhear.
No exceptions. Babies. Children. Total commitment.
She works to inhale.
Her brain pulses.
No.
No.
No.
I woke with a shoulder so stiff I had to loosen it manually using my right hand. An exercise I did not enjoy. The wound had bled, so I changed the dressing and popped a couple more Advil before attempting to dress and tug on the blond wig. Also a less than pleasant experience. I’d decided against the Vicodin. The pain was like old times. New times.
Spring had yet to arrive in the city beside the lake. According to my phone, afternoon temperatures would soar to forty-eight. Rain was falling. Hell, maybe that was spring in Illinois.
I skipped breakfast, too anxious to eat. My fourth day here and still nothing on Stella. Where was this kid who was haunting my dreams by night and living in my head by day? The Bnos Aliza bombers knew I was poking around. Hell, I was shooting people. Had they murdered her
because she’d become a liability to them? Because they feared testimony she might give?
Because of me?
Time was slipping through my fingers. I had to make a breakthrough.
I rode the Red Line north to Lawrence and, cautious, took a zigzag route from the “L” station, keeping an eye out for signs I was being followed. I saw none. If they were tailing me, they were good. Based on their performances at Foster Beach and at the Ritz, I doubted that.
I grabbed two coffees to go from a café on Winthrop, added a Snickers from a pharmacy. As I passed a Chicago Housing Authority building, several sidewalk entrepreneurs offered to sell me some really good shit. It was 8:15. Though it sounded appealing, I declined. I had caffeine, chocolate, and peanuts. I also had props. If my quarry glanced into the courtyard, she’d see a badly dressed blonde reading Tolstoy in a drizzle.
By ten the second coffee was cold, a condition that did nothing to improve its flavor. Which I imagined was fairly close to Arghandab runoff. Though, full disclosure, I’ve never drunk from an Afghan river.
I poured the dregs on the ground, slipped the book and cardboard cups into my purse, and crossed to the bay-fronted building. Risky, but the Advil had worn off and the candy was gone. I was amped and needed to move.
I climbed the five steps to the porch and entered. The front door gave onto a small foyer with a tile floor sincerely in need of scrubbing. Four brass mailboxes formed a square on the left-hand wall. Beside each box were a buzzer and a grimy glass rectangle covering a handwritten name.
Four apartments, three up, one in the basement, I guessed. Or maybe one of the floors was divided. I read the names: B. Nakulabye, RR, T. Fugakawa, T. & F. Leighter, J. Kerr.
J. Kerr was on two. Bingo.
I pressed the buzzer. A voice came through the little round speaker, tinny and distorted but definitely female.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Hawthorn?”
“Sorry?”
“Mr. Hawthorn.”
“He moved.”
The intercom went dead.
I exited and crossed back to my bench. Five minutes later Kerr came out and headed west on Argyle. I tailed her until she turned left at Clark. Watched until she boarded a bus. Then I hurried back, entered the foyer, and pressed the bell for J. Kerr.
No answer. I pressed again. A third time, laying on a full ten seconds. Nothing.
I tried the door. Of course it was locked. I appraised. The building was old. The lock was old. Piece of cake.