Authors: J. A. Konrath
P
ERFECT. ABSOLUTELY PERFECT.
The male stripper Laugh-O-Gram showed up with the package right at the scheduled time, and wore the meat shop T-shirt Alex had made for him, using the inkjet printer and an iron-on silk-screen design. She hopes the guy spent the five hundred bucks she paid him yesterday to make the trip from Milwaukee, because he certainly wouldn’t be spending it now.
Quite a lot of damage a few pounds of plastic explosive can cause. The house is trashed, and Alex can see several dead bodies inside. It would be fun to sit and watch the ambulances come, the corpses removed, but Alex has business to take care of.
Big business. The original plan. The real reason she’s in Chicago.
She tucks away her cell phone, checks her watch, then grabs her gear, which is resting on the dead body in the backseat. A few police cars whiz by, sirens blazing. Perfect. The authorities, and the media, will be going crazy over the bombing. Which means they’ll pay less attention to what she’s going to do in about sixty seconds.
Alex pulls up her hood, dons her movie star sunglasses, gets out of the car, and removes the M18A1. She holds it and the cord in one hand, the plastic trigger in the other, and waits for the truck to arrive.
It’s a minute late. Understandable, given all of the police traffic. There are other cars on the road, but Alex doesn’t give them any unneeded attention. She’s got tunnel vision, focusing on one thing and one thing only: the armored money truck, heading her way.
When it’s within twenty yards, Alex steps out in front of it, raising her hand up. The truck slows. Alex walks forward, waits for it to stop, then drops the M18A1 down onto the street and kicks it under the truck’s front end, directly beneath the engine.
She backpedals, playing out line, and then hits the detonator while the truck is shifting into reverse.
The M18A1 Claymore mine does what it was made to do: fire seven hundred steel balls in a sixty-degree outward pattern at 1,200 meters per second.
Not enough to seriously damage the truck, or hurt its occupants. Not even enough to crack the engine block or sever the drive train. But enough to shred the armored vehicle’s electronics under the hood.
It won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Moving quickly without rushing, Alex heads to the rear of the truck, sticking her cone of PENO onto the back door lock. She unwinds some cord, stands clear, and hits the sparker.
The armor is thick, tough. But so is a Sherman tank’s, and the plastic explosive makes easy work of the door, blowing it open so it hangs outward on its hinges. Alex waits alongside the truck, out of the line of sight, for the hopper to come out. A trained professional, one with enough experience to follow this training while in combat situations, would take cover and wait inside for Alex to enter. But an average guy with average training would want to get the hell out of there.
This guy is average. He fires twice, then comes jumping out of the cargo hold and racing down the street. Alex shoots him in the back. She approaches the truck low, on an angle, and makes sure there are no other guards. The driver wisely stays in the front cab. He’s protected as long as he doesn’t come out.
Alex isn’t concerned about him for the time being. If he wants to try to be a hero, she’ll deal with it. What has her attention are the canvas money bags on the floor of the cargo area. She has extra PENO and detonators with her, in case she had to deal with safes, and also an extra Claymore in case this truck turned out to be a bust and she needed to find another.
Alex uses her folder knife to cut open the first bag, and one look confirms that a second robbery won’t be necessary. The bag is loaded with banded stacks of twenties. Maybe ten thousand dollars’ worth.
And Alex counts twelve bags in the back of the truck.
She opens up the army duffel, begins stuffing in bags. She fits five, and can sling five more over her shoulders. The last two she has to leave behind—she doesn’t have time to make two trips. The driver has already called it in, and even with all the commotion the bombing has caused, the cops will be here soon.
Alex heads for the alley, following it through to the parking garage, waddling up a flight of concrete steps, and loading everything into the Prius. Almost home.
As she pulls down the circular driveway, heading for the exit, she hears police sirens. She stops at the exit gate, lowers her window, and sticks the parking stub into the slot. The automatic machine flashes twelve dollars—a ridiculous amount to have to pay for parking less than an hour. Alex reaches for her purse, but it isn’t on the passenger seat. She looks around the Prius, on the floor, in the back, and her purse is nowhere to be found.
The hotel. She left it back at the hotel.
“Is there a problem?”
The voice is coming through a speaker, attached to the gate machine. A parking lot attendant.
“No,” Alex says. “Just looking for my cash.”
Alex unclips her folder knife, cuts open the nearest bag of money. Something catches her eye, and she checks the rearview and sees the guard is coming up behind her, holding a walkie-talkie.
Alex considers killing the guard, but there’s the possibility he has a partner, and has already called in her license plate number. That could get linked to the armored car robbery, less than a block over, and Alex will be pulled over by the first cop who sees her.
She fishes out a wad of fifties, breaks the seal. The guard is getting closer. If he looks in the car, he’ll see the bags of money. If he looks really close, he’ll see the body still in the backseat.
Alex shoves a crisp fifty into the slot. It sucks up the cash, then spits it out. Alex tries again, with similar results. Then she notices the sign on the machine.
Only accepts $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills.
The guard is almost at her back bumper. Alex practically laughs at the absurdity of it. She’s got maybe a hundred grand in the car, but can’t find twelve lousy bucks.
She slits open another bag, and fate smiles on her—it exposed a sheaf of twenties. Alex peels one off, sticks it into the machine, and the gate rises.
Alex waits for the road spikes to go down, then hits the gas, pulling out of the parking lot, swerving to avoid an oncoming police car, and tearing down the street, driving as fast as the Prius can handle.
T
HE FEEBIES ARRESTED ME AT THE HOSPITAL.
“I’m sorry,” I told Special Agent Dailey as he put on the cuffs. In front of me, not behind. Professional courtesy. “Coursey was a good man.”
Dailey looked positively haggard, the neutral expression he constantly wore replaced by a drawn-out, faraway look.
“He’s the one who answered the door. He told Sergeant Benedict to stay back.”
“Where is Herb?”
“Intensive Care. He just got out of surgery.”
“Can I see him?”
“I have orders to bring you in.”
“Please,” I said.
“I can’t. The SAC wants you in custody.”
“He’s my partner. You know how important that is.”
Dailey stared at me, then nodded. He took my elbow and escorted me down the hospital hallway. His grip was heavy, but I felt it had less to do with me running away, and more about giving him something to cling to.
There were guards in front of Herb’s room. One of them was Tom Mankowski. He was in a rumpled, filthy suit, standing almost a head taller than me. His blue eyes appraised me kindly.
“I was at the neighbors’. When the car pulled up, we were ready to move in. But Sergeant Benedict told us to hold off. He thought it was some steaks you were sending him. Actually, that saved a lot of lives. We lost three, but it would have been four or five more if he didn’t order us to stand down. Me included.”
I nodded at him, turned my attention to the door.
“Ten minutes,” Dailey told me.
I went inside.
Herb was under an oxygen tent, the clear plastic windows looking futuristic and strangely cheap. Ban dages were swathed around his chest. Two tubes were taped to his face, one going up his nose and the other jammed down his throat. Another tube—I guessed it to be a drain—snaked out through his ban dages, taped to the bed rail along with his IV. His eyes were closed, puffy. The steady
beep beep beep
of his vitals drilled into me, accusing, blaming.
Bernice was slumped in a chair next to him, some gauze on her forehead, her hand under the tent and clutching her husband’s. When she saw me she stood up and threw her arms around my waist.
I couldn’t hug her back because of the handcuffs, but I put my head on her shoulder.
“How’s he doing?” I managed.
“Critical. His chest is all messed up. The bomb—it was packed with roofing nails.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“They wouldn’t give me a clear answer. I had to scream at the head surgeon. He told me…” Bernice sobbed, her body shuddering. “Jack, his chances are fifty-fifty.”
Fifty-fifty. The toss of a coin.
“I’ll find her,” I said.
I expected her to tell me that’s what she wanted. That I’d better.
I was wrong.
“No,” she said. “You should let this go.”
Bernice drew away from me, teary eyes staring back at her husband.
“We were talking about you earlier, Jack. The Job is killing you. It has been for years. Herb’s seen it. He’s watched you die, a little each day.” She paused. “You need to quit.”
“I have to finish this, Bernice.”
She looked at me sadly. “Oh, Jack, there’s always one more thing you have to finish. One more crime to solve. One more perp to catch. Someone hits, you hit back. You’re always hitting back. Sometimes, the best thing—the sane thing—is to just walk away. That’s what Herb wanted you to do.”
“He wanted me to quit?”
“He wanted you to be happy. And you’ll never be happy if you keep heading down this path. Happiness isn’t having complete control, Jack. Happiness is realizing you don’t have any control at all.”
I stared at my partner, a lump in my throat, and everything everyone had told me over the last few days suddenly made perfect sense.
And I knew what I had to do.
I had to let it all go.
“I have to go, Bernice. But I understand. When he wakes up, tell him…tell him I…just…just give him this.”
It wasn’t easy fishing it out of my purse with my hands cuffed, but I managed, pressing it into Bernice’s hands. She held it up.
“Your badge.”
“Last night…” I took a big breath. “Bernice, last night, I almost…I thought it was the only way, you know, to stop the pain. But I don’t need to die. Only part of me does. The cop part.”
“You’re resigning?”
“I’m done. It’s over. Tell Herb I love him, and I quit, and I’ll be over next week for Turduckinlux.”
Bernice smiled sadly. “He’d be so proud of you right now, Jack.”
“Take care of our boy, okay? I’ll be back soon.”
I heard yelling from the hallway. I gave Bernice another hug using just my head and neck, and then walked outside.
McGlade, pointing his prosthesis up at Mankowski.
“I told you she’s my sister, and if you don’t let me—Hey, Jackie, tell this very tall piece of shit who I am.”
“It’s okay,” I said to Tom. He nodded, backed off.
“Sis, the last cell phone—it’s
moving
.”
“I don’t care anymore, Harry.” I turned to Dailey. “I’m ready.”
“Can I have a private brother/sister moment, Special Agent?”
Dailey nodded. Harry whispered to me.
“You don’t get it. If it’s moving, that means Alex has it on her. It’s the last phone. We can track it right to her.”
“It’s not my problem anymore. I just quit the force.”
“You…
what
?”
I reached into my pocket, took out the cell phone Alex had given me. The leash she’d been using to lead me around.
“Here. Take it. I don’t care what you do with it.”
The act was so liberating I actually felt about fifty pounds lighter.
Special Agent Dailey led me down the hall, away from a bewildered Harry McGlade, and into the parking lot. I got into his car and we drove to the federal lockup for booking. The arrest papers were drawn up, I was printed, mug shots taken, and I was placed in a holding cell, all the while unable to get the serene smile off my face.
I should have given up years ago.
A
LEX YAWNS, STRETCHES, AND OPENS HER EYES.
The hotel room is dark, but sunlight is peeking in through a crack in the drapes, illuminating the stacks of money laid out on the floor in thousand-dollar piles.
There are eighty-seven of them.
Alex smiles her half smile at the sight of it. She’d been hoping for at least forty thousand. That’s the number quoted in the e-mail exchanges. The number she needs to start her new life.
Truth told, Alex had no idea how much money armored trucks carried around. Long gone are the days of cash payrolls, and bank transfers are made electronically with the press of a button. But she assumed with the constant stocking of ATMs and currency exchanges, and the cash flow generated by the shopping on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, money was probably being hauled every day.
She assumed right.
Alex rolls out of bed, uses the washroom, then flips on CNN. The Chicago bombing is still the main story. Alex’s scarred mug shot is shown, her hair shorter and black. They also mention the armored car robbery, but her name isn’t brought up in connection with that, just that the robber is tall, muscular, with dark red hair. The driver’s description. He managed to ID her hair color beneath a hood, but for some reason didn’t realize she was a woman. Fear does funny things to memory.
Alex changed her hair last night, stopping at a drugstore and buying some bleach. She’s now a perky blonde.
Eighty-seven grand can make even a stone-cold killer downright perky.
Now it’s time to get out of town, disappear. Yesterday, things had been too hot. Alex narrowly missed a roadblock before getting back to the hotel. It should be safer to move today. But first, one last thing to deal with.
Jack.
Alex dials, ready to offer the lieutenant her condolences. The victims’ names haven’t been released yet, but her fat partner is surely one of them. The roofing nails were a special touch, a nod to one of Jack’s high-profile cases Alex read about while in Heathrow. Icing on the irony cake.
But Jack doesn’t answer. A man does. A man Alex can’t stand.
“Hiya, freak show. How’s the psycho business?”
“Where’s Jack, Harry?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you, because you’re crazy and your face looks like a slice of country-style ham. If your nose was a side of hash browns you’d have a line of fat people chasing you with forks.”
Alex frowns, uncomfortably aware that only half of the muscles are working. “Put Jack on.”
“That’s a negative, ham-face. She’s done playing with you. But I’m not. I’m coming for your loony ass. In fact, I’m knocking on your door right…about…
now
.”
Against all common sense, Alex focuses on her hotel door.
“Gotcha, sucker.”
Alex grits her teeth. “If you don’t put Jack on—”
“Blow me. I’m walking up to your door right now. You ready? Here I come. Almost there. And
heeeeeere’s
Harry!”
Again, Alex stares at her door, annoyed that she’s buying into this stupid game.
“Gotcha again! Die paranoid, you bitch.”
Harry hangs up. Alex fights the urge to open the door and check the hallway. It’s ludicrous. Harry has no way to find her. She’s in the hotel under a false name. There’s no way to trace the cell phone daisy chain.
Right?
But Harry—goddamn Harry—sounded so sure of himself. When Alex first met him, she thought he was dumber than a crate of melons. And while she never really amended that initial impression, she doesn’t want to underestimate the irritating little bastard. Her plan was to lure Jack to a secluded location and grab her. But now Alex just feels the need to get the hell out of Chicago. The sooner, the better.
She starts stuffing everything into her duffel bag, including the empty canvas money satchels. It’s heavy, unwieldy, the zipper threatening to burst. Alex slings it onto her shoulder, heads for the door, remembers that her face is exposed, and creates a makeshift babushka out of a white pillowcase. It looks ridiculous, but better to be remembered as eccentric than scarred.
The hallway is clear, the stairwell is clear, the lobby is clear, and the parking lot is clear, except for some idiot in a Winnebago blocking the exit. Alex chucks the duffel bag in back, starts the Prius, and drives up over the curb to get past the RV moron, and wonders where to head next.
Wisconsin is out of the question. She’s almost as pop u lar with cops there as she is in Chicago. She also left a trail in Iowa, and going back now would be unwise. Michigan is a possibility. Plenty of privacy in the woods. A secluded farm would work too.
A farm.
Actually, for a final showdown, Alex’s old homestead would be a perfect place. Private, out of the way, easy to set up. And she’d get a thrill out of seeing their farm one last time.
Alex heads for I-90, and Gary, Indiana.
Soon, this will all be over. Alex isn’t sure what she wants to do next. The possibilities are limitless. Hell, she could even get a regular job, become a respectable citizen. Perhaps even join a police force somewhere. Wearing that cop uniform was a lot of fun.
It’s cold enough outside for Alex to switch on the heat, but that makes the smell from the backseat more pronounced. She opens the windows to compensate, and wonders if she should stop for deodorizer. Or at least something to cover the corpse, other than the blanket currently performing the task. Alex reaches around, tugs down a corner, and catches a quick glimpse out of her back window.
That damn Winnebago is following her.
Adrenaline jolts her. Maybe it isn’t the same one. There have to be dozens of them on the road, and they probably all look similar.
She glances at her rearview, trying to see the driver. He’s too far back, and his windows have a light tint to them, making it hard to see inside.
That clinches it. The RV back at the hotel had tinted windows too.
Could it be the Feds? They’re known for doing stakeouts in vans and trucks. But a Winnebago seems too conspicuous, too elaborate, even for the FBI. This thing is the size of a bus. No one would be stupid enough to use a recreational vehicle for surveillance, except maybe…
Harry McGlade.
“Is that you, Harry, you pain in the ass? Let’s find out.”
Alex turns at the next light, taking Touhy Avenue around the airport, then turning onto South Mount Prospect Road. This is noman’s-land, acres and acres of undesirable property, too close to O’Hare to be habitable. Many have tried, as evidenced by the crumbling and torn-down buildings in these empty lots, but the sound must have been too much for even the factories to endure.
Alex hangs a sharp, fast right onto Old Higgins Road, the Prius cornering bravely, and then a quick left into an abandoned lot, weeds poking up through the cracked asphalt. She jams the car into park, hops out palming her Cheetah stun gun, and sprints back to the ditch near the entrance to crouch in the tall grass.
The Winnebago slows down as it nears, crawling by the lot, the driver obviously spotting the Prius. Alex runs up behind the vehicle, grabbing onto the rear ladder, pulling herself up as it rolls past. The rungs are round, sturdy, easy to hold. The RV comes to a stop, and Alex climbs up the back side and onto the roof. As expected, there’s a hatch. She slides over to it on her hands and knees, the slight noise she makes lost in the overhead roar of jet engines. Happily, the hatch is open a few inches, probably for air circulation. Alex lifts it up and slithers forward on her belly.
The smell is awful, a cross between a zoo and a truck stop toilet. Definitely Harry. Alex swings inside and drops onto the sofa. A scream, to her left, and she spins around, Cheetah poised and ready to strike.
It’s a monkey, in a cage. And the scream isn’t directed at her. It’s directed at what appears to be a damp sweater, which he’s earnestly humping.
Yes, this has to be Harry’s RV.
She creeps forward, to the cab. The door is closed. She can imagine McGlade sitting there, staring at her car, wondering what to do next. But she isn’t sure he’s alone in there. Jack might be with him. Better to know for sure before attacking.
Alex looks around, finds a Ping-Pong paddle covered in mud. She picks it up.
Yuck. That isn’t mud.
She wipes her hand on the carpet, but that’s damp with something even worse. Now seriously grossed out, she frantically searches for a towel. The only thing nearby is that sweater in the monkey cage, and Alex decides she’d rather light herself on fire than touch that splotchy thing. She crinkles her nose, decides to just deal with it for the time being, and then throws the Ping-Pong paddle at the cab door.
“Dammit, Slappy, how did you get out of your cage?”
The door opens. McGlade appears. Alex jams the stun gun into his belly, dropping him to his knees, then whacks him alongside the head with her elbow, getting all of her weight and muscle behind it.
He crumples to the floor, landing on something squishy. Serves the asshole right.
Alex checks the cab for other passengers. It’s empty. The monkey screeches again. He’s still raping the cardigan, but his eyes are now locked on her, the filthy little pervert. Alex considers giving him a little zap with the Cheetah, but she has more pressing things to do, like restrain Harry.
But first things first. Alex hurries to the bathroom to wash her hands.
She really hopes McGlade has soap.