I sighed. “Yeah.” We crossed the street to begin the trudge back to the truck. Nearly three now, we saw neither traffic nor pedestrians. I thought about the forlorn hope of hailing a cab as I turned to give one last look back at the bank. Doing so, I almost crashed into an overturned trash can. I managed to twist my ankle, avoiding the pile of leftover debris.
“That's it!” I shouted. “The dumpster!”
“What?” Scott sounded annoyed. “He's not hiding in an overgrown trash can. You looked, remember.”
“That's how he got in. It's next to the sidewalk on the street side, so all the tracks on the sidewalk would be mushed together. Fred wouldn't notice it. It's too far back. You can't see the dumpster from the restaurant.”
We hurried back to the bank. We examined the snow on the lid.
“It's been snowing hard for a while,” I said. “I don't remember for sure, but when we got here before, I think there was only a thin film of snow on the dumpster, and you can get up on the top of this thing without stepping into the alley. Somebody brushed away the snow and tracks from one of those windows.” I pointed to the openings on the second floor.
Scott looked doubtful. I scrambled onto the dumpster. It creaked rustily but stayed in place. Two windows offered possible entrances. Carefully I inched to the nearest one on my right. I didn't want to show myself to someone inside. The second-floor opening revealed little. Someone had driven nails into all the sides of the window pane. I inched to the left. I did not shout with joy, but I beckoned Scott up. We teetered together on the lid. I glanced at the 3 A.M. street. Nothing disturbed the fallen snow. I pointed toward the window. Little mounds of disturbed snow lay heaped on the sill. I rubbed the sides with a gloved hand. I had to lean close to see. The absence of nails was suggestive, recent skid marks conclusive. There was no doubt the window had been used recently.
“We're going in,” I said.
I got a litany of nasty possibilities from Scott, including too dangerous, call the cops, breaking the law.
“We can't stand here like this arguing,” I said. “Remember the other night? By the time the cops get here and maybe get a warrant, the women could be gone again. And Jerry might be here.”
I watched bits of snow land in his hair and on his face. His deep voice rumbled several more objections before he finally gave a grudging okay.
I reinspected the window. No light shone from within. If it was an entrance, I doubted if anybody slept in such a room. If they'd posted a guard we were in deep shit. For a few seconds I thought about Sally Holroyd, the woman Monica had mentioned who had terrorist training. I didn't want to try my rusty fighting skills against her youthful madness.
The window rose with surprising ease and silence. They'd oiled it. The opening was approximately two feet by four. An old-fashioned window from when they'd built the place seventy years ago, wide enough for the gargantuan woman of the other night. I eased inside. Scott followed quickly. He shut the window. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The window let in enough light so I could see we were in a former bathroom. Cracked urinals on the left side told me it was a men's room. Someone had ripped out the dividers between the stalls on the right. The lidless toilets gaped at us. I listened intently. I heard Scott's breathing and the rustle of his jacket. The muffled swish of a car's tires passing outside penetrated into the darkness. Nothing from inside the building.
The place smelled musty and even felt somewhat comfortable after the storm and cold outdoors. The beaded glass in the door didn't let in any light from inside the building. We eased across the floor. The cold doorknob turned with an unpleasantly loud creak, but the door itself moved noiselessly as I pulled it forward inch by inch. Dark eddies and swirls lurked in the unlighted corridor. An occasional lighter grayness, remnants of beams of distant streetlights, softened the shadows in a corner or two. I let my eyes adjust to the dimness. I listened carefully. Not a sound.
Because of the slope of the hill back from Clark Street, the rear of the building had four floors visible from the alley in back but only three in front, plus a small tower nestled one story up in the back. I didn't know if there were basements and sub-basements to explore. Plus we were inside illegally with no guarantee that a renegade terrorist with a lethal weapon didn't wait at the end of our quest. Fortunately, the possibility of a sleepless neighbor calling the cops was remote. On this side of the street after the bank came the alley, then the Northwestern railroad tracks, two stories high. Across the street, shuttered businesses offered no threat. At 3 A.M. the deserted snow-encrusted streets offered a grim protection.
Finally fully in the doorway, I tried to get my bearings. To the left, a lengthy corridor stretched past shut and silent doors. The darkness made the end indiscernable. To the right, next to an elevator, a narrow staircase led up.
“They were on the top floor last time.” I felt Scott's lips brush my ear as he whispered and then pointed toward the stairs.
It was as good a guess as any. The building wasn't as complex as the last one, but I presumed it had its eccentricities. I didn't want a repeat of last time.
Up we climbed. Each creak of the damn stairs froze us into tense moments of listening. My eyes rose above the level of the next floor while still climbing. I carefully scanned the lengthy corridor. It matched the one below: airless and dank with no sign of human habitation. We turned and climbed the next flight of stairs. I peered to the right. Here the elevator shaft had no doors. The opening gaped into nothingness. On the other side of this empty space, the hall turned abruptly to the right. I inched to the opening. Greater darkness than that which we were now in filled the shaft. For an instant I wondered why my fabled jungle training hadn't included the simple idea of going to an Osco Drug Store to buy a cheap flashlight.
Listening at the edge of the blackness, I thought I heard several muffled bangs and perhaps a murmur of laughter. I couldn't tell if the noise came from above, from below, or was maybe just a trick my overstrained senses played on me.
The stairs we had ascended ended on this floor. The long corridor to the left offered no nooks and crannies to hide behind. I pointed to the right. Scott nodded. I eased to the other side of the hall. I thought I heard a foot shuffle ahead and reached back my hand to halt Scott, but he was closer than I thought. We bumped. He stumbled. For a second he teetered toward the four-story fall. I grabbed him back. He hit the wall with a resounding thump. For several eternities neither of us moved. I strained every sense for a hint of human habitation, rushing pursuit; even the sound of a scurrying rat at this point might ease the tension. Total silence.
Retreat was pointless. We pushed on. The corridor now twisted through several turns. Each time I listened before looking around the next bend.
After the second turn we found a janitor's closet. Propped on the floor, no longer connected to any pipes, was a washbasin deep enough for buckets to be filled in. A string mop with three remaining strands kept the sink company.
Along one of the corridors, one of the doors had had the beaded glass smashed out of it. We looked through and saw an empty room. Farther on, after a third turn, we came to a doorless room. It had no floor for several feet just inside the doorway. If we'd entered unknowingly, we could have dropped painfully far. I tried to see down, but no light escaped from below. Against the walls stood scaffolding on which sat several paint cans. I detected no scent of paint old or new. Somebody may have started a rehab and never finished.
Two more turns and the corridor dead-ended at a massive door. This had to be the entrance to the small fifth-floor tower we'd seen from outside. I felt along the edges. In the darkness I touched the knob and tried a gentle twist. It wouldn't move. I continued my explorations by feel. I discovered hinges along the left side. The door opened inward. I tried yanking at the pins with my gloved hand. I couldn't get any kind of grip. I took off my gloves, to try and pry better. In frustration I pulled too hard. The pin popped out and clattered to the floor while managing to open a gash in my hand.
Still I listened for any sounds of approaching humans. Was that the old building creaking distantly or a stealthy footstep inches away from the last corner a couple yards behind us? There was no possible escape if the troops came up behind. We had to go forward. In frustrated silence I pulled, tugged, yanked, twisted, and grabbed at the pin of the second hinge. The sweat on my hands prevented any kind of grip. I moved so Scott could give it a try. I sucked at the blood seeping from my wound. After a minute the pin rasped softly into the palm of his hand. He crouched to reach for the third hinge. Did I finally hear a rat patter nearby or was it a slithering footstep meant to be silent? Ears playing tricks or not, I wanted out of this building.
Scott couldn't budge the last pin. I tried again. No luck. He worked at it again, swearing continuously under his breath.
“Let's go,” I whispered.
“We're in. We're finding what we need to know before we go.” He stood up. “Hold the door up by the handle.” I obeyed the barely audible command. The door was loose, and I could hear the metal click in the two empty hinges. Scott put his shoulder to the door and shoved hard. With a sharp crack and clang the pin broke, the knob popped out of my hand, and the door fell. The sound echoed horribly.
“Fuck,” I said.
He concentrated on moving the door aside. Quickly I joined him. Finished, we returned to see an entryway followed by a short flight of stairs that led up to a modern door with an emergency bar, fortunately on our side. Before I could reach the top of the stairs, the door abruptly swung open from the other side. The gargantuan woman named Stephanie, who'd sensed our presence two nights ago, gaped at us. Her bulk blocked a feeble light that glowed from behind her.
“You!” she bellowed.
I rushed up the last two steps and put my shoulder into her midsection to blast her out of the way. Instead of moving her, I sank into her. She grabbed my arm and flung me into the room: a tactical mistake, with Scott now in front and me behind. In the tiny room by flickering candlelight I saw she wasn't the only
one present. A small person with its back to us lay huddled in the corner. From the jacket I knew it was Jerry. I didn't have time to call out or go to him because Stephanie lurched into me. Scott had hold of one arm and half of her torso. She struggled madly with him. We might be in good shape, and he especially strong, but she out weighed the two of us combined by at least a hundred pounds. I managed to grab a leg and a handful of hair. I twisted both. She yelped and let go of Scott and turned her fury on me.
In a larger room I could have outmanuevered her. In the confined space she had the advantage. On the other side of her massiveness I saw Scott go to Jerry.
Groggy and unsteady the boy rose. He took a wobbly step, recognized Scott, and flung himself into his arms. The bulk saw my look and turned to attack them, so I struck. I managed to entangle her feet and over she toppled, missing me by six inches.
I grabbed one of her hands and bent her fingers almost double backwards to immobilize her with pain. She squawked and gasped. I saw her readying a full-throated roar.
I stuffed the corner of a nearby blanket in her gaping maw. Scott whipped his belt off and quickly wrapped it around her ankles. She struggled violently again, but her immobilized legs prevented renewed hostilities. Moments later we had her hands uncomfortably secured to an old radiator.
Panting hard I turned to Jerry. He had a black eye. He threw himself into my arms and I hugged him close.
He said, “I knew you'd get here, Uncle Tom.”
With all the noise, I presumed we had scant seconds to flee. Quickly I checked Jerry. Other than being scared, dirty, and cold, he seemed okay. We got the hell out of there. Back the way we came, more careful than ever and more concerned because we knew for sure now that the women were here.
At the elevator shaft there was no doubt about the sounds of humans stirring below. Seconds later, footsteps echoed at the far end of the long corridor.
They used no lights. For a few seconds I wondered why. I guessed because they still feared detection and couldn't risk random flashings, which might be observable from outside.
I listened at the steps and heard no sound from below. “Jerry, is there another way out?” I asked in a whisper.
“I don't know,” he said. “Sorry. Maybe on the ground floor. I was pretty confused when they dragged me up here.”
Ominous shadows moved in the darkness down the corridor toward us.
We rushed down the stairs; Scott in the lead, Jerry in the middle, and me bringing up the rear. The darkness kept us from full speed, but our eyes were accustomed enough to the dark to make decent progress. Down a flight of stairs and into the third-floor corridor. Silence reigned in front of us, but there was a thunder of pursuit above us. At the top of the landing we paused for a second: still nothing from the steps below. Down we hurried toward the second floor and the exit.
The darkness and our need for haste produced the disaster that followed. One second I felt steps beneath my feet. Then, from in front, I heard Scott say, “Oh, shit!” along with assorted curses from numerous other voices. I didn't have time to stop or attempt a retreat. I tripped over Jerry and sprawled into a mass of struggling bodies. I couldn't tell how many of them
assaulted us. I wasn't even sure which way to punch. Fortunately they were similarly hampered. Random elbows, feet, fists, and fingers probed and gouged. I heard voices calling from just a few feet above us. Reinforcements for them.
“Jerry!” I yelled.
“Here.” I heard his voice not more than a foot away on my right.
I groped in the darkness and grabbed his arm.
“Scott!” I yelled and heard only grunts for an answer, my lover's indistinguishable from the others. The troops from above clattered into us. I managed to keep a grip on Jerry, but it limited my ability to fight. I managed to claw my way down and off the stairs. For a second the mass of bodies parted right in front of me.
Walter Payton slicing through an opposing team in his glory days was as nothing compared to the moves I made then. I kept hold of Jerry. Moments later, free of the mingling mob, we raced down the second-floor corridor. For a few seconds they didn't pursue.
“Where are they?” I heard total fury in Priscilla's voice.
I wanted to turn back to make sure Scott was safe. Then I heard his voice, I thought from a distance, perhaps the stairs. “Run!” he yelled. “I'll meet you outside.”
“Never!” Priscilla bellowed. And the chase was on. The corridor ended in a right-angle turn. My feet slipped briefly at the sharpness of the turn, but I steadied my hand on the wall. I felt more than saw Jerry next to me. This hall ended in a door with a broken exit sign above it. On the other side of it I tried to find something to jam it shut. No luck. The stairs led down. Hands pulled on the knob, trying to yank it out of my hand. I held tight. Fists began to pound on the door.
“Keep going,” I ordered Jerry.
“Where?” he panted. Sometimes I wish he wasn't as independent and stubborn as his uncle. I could barely see his features in the dark, but I caught the glint of his eyes.
I didn't want to hold this position too long. I feared they knew
other ways to come up behind us. I turned the knob. Instead of resisting the next furious yank from the other side, I shoved the door inward. I heard curses, yells, and falling bodies. Jerry and I turned and ran.
Down the last flight of stairs we flew. On the ground floor of the old bank, we turned to the main doors. A moment's inspection confirmed the view from outside: solidly boarded up and tightly nailed shut.
Into the main lobby. To the left were the old teller's windows, serrated blocks of fake marble, dust encrusted and empty. To the right occasional mounds of debris were all that remained of where bank officers once sat. Sounds of pursuit came from the front. Desperately we hunted for a rear exit. Finally, in the darkness at the back we faced two gaping doorways. Neither emitted any light. We chose the one on the right. After a short hall, steps abruptly started down. I didn't like this, but we couldn't go back. As we reached the bottom of the stairs a faint glow began to show ahead of us. Outdoor light, I hoped. We rushed past a series of cubicles with frosted glass walls that reached three quarters of the way to the ceiling.
The light grew. “I don't like this,” I said. It felt wrong. We had to be in a basement. I couldn't imagine where the glow came from.
We turned a corner. The vault of the old bank gaped at us. The door leaned against the wall on our right, unhinged and crumbling. A prosaic floor lamp gave enough light for us to see sleeping bags, a couple of folding chairs, clothes strewn on the floor, a hot plate piled with a few miniature pots and pans. Bad choice.
The enemy appeared at the opening behind us, Stephanie and Priscilla, walking slowly toward us. Two other women stood in the doorway. I wondered if one of them was the terrorist.
Priscilla began. “Give upâ”
I launched myself at Stephanie aiming to push her into the women at the door. “Run!” I yelled to Jerry. In seconds I was in
the middle of a flailing mob of bodies. No high school, college, or pro football pile-up could match it for closeness, violence, or pain.
For an instant I managed to get on my feet. I glanced around for Jerry, didn't see him, and took a step to run. Too late. Priscilla grabbed my right leg. I toppled over. Stephanie got a large chunk of her body on top of my chest. I felt searing pain, bellowed, then passed out.
I woke staring up at a light. I hurt all over. I tried to move my left arm. Pain leaped up and down my side. I tried my right arm. I could barely move it, but the pain wasn't as great. Despite the agony I ordered my feet to move. I heard a groan, realized it was me. I managed to bend my legs at the knee and got my feet flat on the floor. I turned my head to the right and saw wall. I tried to the left. Stephanie sat there with a two-by-four in her massive paws. She lowered it to my knee caps and tapped gently against their apex.
“Lower, or I break them,” she said.
I eased my knees back down.
“He come around, Stephanie?” I lowered my chin and saw the top third of another woman.
Stephanie grunted a yes.
“If he moves, sit on him. Crush every bone in his fucking body.” This woman wore a black warm-up outfit. Lying on the ground, I had a distorted view of her height, but I thought she must be the short woman we followed three nights ago.
“Did they get the other two?” Stephanie asked.
“No. They're gone. We've got to blow this dump in minutes. Priscilla insisted on one last look-through. Stupid. That kind of decision can cost a good unit valuable time and lives.”
Less than a minute later, all six women assembled in the little room. Three of them began rapid packing. Their swift work led me to believe they must have had practice drills. Now I knew how they had moved so fast out of their church hideout.
In all the chaos Prentice did not appear. The little shit had escaped again.
Priscilla had come in last. She and the woman in black stood in the doorway arguing. The others ignored them.
“Your goddam brother led them here,” the woman said.
Priscilla stabbed a finger at her. “Just like you did at the church, Sally.”
“I was protecting you,” the other snapped.
Stephanie stood up. Much to my surprise she walked up to the other two, grabbed them each by the back of the neck, and bonked their heads together.
Both women bellowed and tried to assume defensive postures. Stephanie kept her grip. “They can hear this bitch fit all the way from the Loop. You can fight later. Now get your goddam shit together. We're leaving in half a minute.” She flung each woman away from her and turned to me. Her bulk looked even more enormous from where I lay. She lumbered over and peered down.
Almost involuntarily I tried to hunch away. I couldn't completely stifle the moan of agony the pain caused.
“Do we bust him some more, kill him, leave him, or what?” Stephanie asked the room at large.
I surveyed the women, all of whom looked at Priscilla.
“Kill him,” Sally said.
“Not yet. Bring him along,” Priscilla ordered.
Her leadership prevailed. I passed out once during the drag and shuffle as they forced me up to the second floor exit. The shove out the window caused maddening pain, severe enough to keep me from passing out again. Fortunately, I landed on my right side on top of the dumpster. Wildly swirling snow lashed my face as I attempted to rise. The yank from the dumpster into a waiting van was more painful. They tossed me, their sleeping bags, and assorted belongings on the cold metal floor in the back of the van.
I lay gasping for breath, never imagining such pain could exist. I thought playing football in high school and for a year in college had inured me to pain, but this was incredible. Doors slammed. The interior of the van darkened. We began to move.
“Back up the alley, not down,” a voice ordered.
“I'm trying,” Priscilla said.
I heard the whir of tires stuck in snow. Where were Scott and reinforcements? Maybe he and Jerry were still hidden in the building.
“Rock it back and forth,” Sally commanded.
“What the fuck do you think I'm trying to do?” Priscilla snarled.
Seconds of whirring passed. “Get out and push,” came the sharp command from in front. Stephanie and the others piled out. Moments later the van began to inch forward. With them preoccupied, I tried boosting myself to my knees. The upward movement and the rocking van caused me to slip. Grasping my left side with my right hand, I barely managed to keep from screaming in agony.
I heard shouts from outside. Doors flew open. They all piled back in. The van slewed left, straightened, and began to move. Stephanie saw me halfway up, gave me a friendly smile, and tapped two fingers against my left side. I cried out and collapsed in pain.
“What's that?” I heard through the haze of pain.
“The macho hero wanted more.” Stephanie snickered, then took some rope from around a sleeping bag and tied my hands. From the floor I could make out occasional streetlights. The going seemed extremely slow.
“How deep do you think the snow is?” One of the women in back asked.
“Four inches, maybe more,” came an answer.
“It's drifting badly,” Stephanie said. “We won't get far. Where are we going?”
Silence as we all strained to hear from the front seats.
“How the fuck should I know?” Priscilla said.
“Good planning, sister.” Sally snickered.
A small woman in her fifties, who hadn't spoken before, leaned forward from the third back seat nearest to me. “Where did that kid come from? How come only some of us knew about
him? I joined this group for sisterhood, protest, and righteousness, not to cover up somebody's stupid mistakes.”
“This whole thing has been one stupid mistake after another,” Sally said.
“Then why don't you go back where you came from?” Priscilla said. “We're sick of you and your terrorist-expertise shit. Go back to fucking boys and selling out your womanhood. The only kind of pro you are is the kind that walks the streets.”
In a voice that demanded attention Stephanie said, “Where are we going?”
Silence.
She spoke again. “We can worry about political correctness later. Where are we going?”
“The newspaper,” was Priscilla's curt reply.
They fought about the advisability of that until the van sideswiped what I guessed was a series of cars. Then silence reigned for several minutes. Listening to the murmur of the tires over snow gave me an odd perspective. Priscilla, our driver, wasn't used to winter weather. She alternately sped ahead, and rode the brakes, slipping and sliding in a variety of directions, often punctuating the more sudden jolts with shouts and curses at opposing drivers. If the snow was continuing to fall at anything like the rate I'd caught a glimpse of, roads that hadn't already begun to close soon would.
Between bouts of pain, I worried about Monica, sleeping at the paper. Would they find her?
For ten minutes of badgering, Priscilla evaded the answer as to why she needed to stop at the newspaper. It took a near mutiny and a particularly violent jolt and swerve for her to say, “Money. We fucking well have to pay for food and gas, don't we?”
This brought silence. My head rocked back and forth in a wide groove on the metal floor. Heat from the surrounding bodies, more than the feeble puffs of warmth coming from the van's heating system, was melting the ice and snow underneath me. The dampness had reached the back of my head and
soaked my right pant leg from calf to butt. The snow hadn't filled in Chicago's famed potholes. Each rumble over one caused pain to sear through my chest. As rigid as I tried to hold myself, I couldn't prevent damp, pain, and misery. Any escape was far beyond my capability. I hoped Scott and Jerry had got away in time. Unfortunately, it seemed, so had we.