“I have a rule,” I told him. “Always look at your laundry carefully before you wash it. You never know what you might find.”
I’d swear his ears flattened back against his head as though I’d blown a great wind in his face. “Tell Ms. Poynting I took a rest room break,” I added, then rubbed my palms on my pants once more and followed Chen.
Chapter 29
Chen had ducked through a door and left it ajar. No one was in the hall, so I slipped in after him and closed the door behind me. It was a tiny office, no larger than the cardboard office he’d had Where The Sun Don’t Shine. The desk was the same and the soundproofing, which once lined the box, now lined these walls. The same lamp was pointed toward the ceiling, and Chen was standing by the far wall looking at a small video window, which displayed a view of Fate Street dazzled with sunshine and tiny people.
“I thought you were dead,” Chen said.
“Why did you send your hounds to kill me, Chen?”
He turned away from the window and pondered me for a moment. “They’re not my hounds. They were Arno’s hounds, as you call them, and now they work for my new boss.”
“They tried to kill me.”
“I didn’t know he’d sent them until they were already out tracking you down. I hadn’t heard anything else, so I thought they’d killed you. There’s nothing I can do, though. I run a news agency, Benny. That’s all I do. The Pirates use it to their advantage when they want to, but mostly it’s just a news agency.”
“I thought Denise owned Up Your News.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Technically, but the Pirates don’t necessarily care. In fact, they prefer someone else to actually own it. It makes the accounting easier and gives their operation a hide of respectability. She’ll sign whatever they need her to sign.”
“So why kill me? Where do I fit in?”
“You were Arno’s enforcer and his brother. They don’t know you killed him. They’re worried you might come after them thinking they did it, or thinking that you should control Up Your News because your brother did. They expect you to ask for some of the profits, maybe the files.”
“Tell them I don’t care about that stuff at all. They can have Up Your News and everything that goes with it.”
“Why would they believe that you would really stay hands-off? It’s easier and cleaner to just kill you. That way there’s no one to come back and bite them in the ass. You’re a liability they aren’t going to risk. You lose no matter how you look at it, Benny.”
I started pacing, but at least I resisted biting my nails. If there were only one person who wanted me dead, I could deal with it. If the whole organization wanted me dead, then I worried that Chen was right, I was going to lose. “Did they pay Arno to have me kill people?”
“No, actually, Arno paid you directly. When people got in his way, he used you. You used forgets to avoid your troubles, he used you to avoid his. I guess the Pirates knew he did that once in a while, but he must have had protection from some higher ups or something, because no one ever made a play for his income. Maybe they were just afraid of you. Up Your News made money for him in net protection and in blackmail. We’re a respected news agency, but Arno would have us run peculiar stories once in a while. He used those items to show people who hesitated to pay him just what he could do if they didn’t pay. He used people like Rela and Mike as spies. They don’t usually carry guns. In fact, they used to be pretty good investigative journalists. They would do infiltrations and investigate the gov, you know, the risky stuff. But they liked the danger too much and Arno took advantage of their danger fetish and used them to spy.”
“How much money was Up Your News helping Arno make from blackmail?”
“I have no idea. We pay our people better than any other agency, which is one of the reasons we can uncover so many juicy stories, but I don’t know how much Arno made on side jobs or what he did with the money.”
Some of that money was in a couple socks in Carbide’s laundry basket at that moment.
“Who’s your boss now? Who took Arno’s place?”
“You could just leave Chicago. Hop a train and go to Cleveland.”
I could also break Chen’s neck, then wait to see if anyone else was interested in me. “Who’s your boss, Chen?”
He studied me, then sighed and turned to the door. “You’re going to get me killed, Benny. You’re going to get me killed. Is that what you want?”
“Who is your boss?”
“I only know him by his initials. Everyone calls him JB. He’s not formally my boss yet, though. I think they’re still arguing over who should take over Arno’s enterprises. I guess JB thinks it’ll be him, since he went and stole Arno’s office, but he’s been hesitant to do any more just yet. He hasn’t come and told me I work for him, for instance. I expect he will soon.”
They were pressing me and so far I’d played defense, but if I was going to survive, I had to change that. “If they’re so worried I’m going to take over at Up Your News, maybe I should.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with.” Chen walked past me to the door. “I’m sorry, Benny. I’ve got to go. If I’m caught in here with you, then we’re both dead.”
Chen grabbed the doorknob, then turned his head back to look at me. “If you take him out in some dramatic way, a way that impresses people, you might be able to hang onto Up Your News, the power that goes with it, maybe even your life. You need to get a hold of Arno’s records. He must have had ways of keeping the rest of the Pirates at bay.”
“How can I talk to you again?”
“You can’t, you’ll be dead. Carla’s been given your number.”
Chen walked out the door, leaving it partially open. I heard him say, “It’s clear,” and I walked out after him. He was down the corridor, already distancing himself from me.
Chapter 30
Carbide and I worked the rest of the day moving Anita Poynting’s belongings into her new apartment. When we were done, I was still alert, but I felt more physically exhausted than I had when I first went to Carbide’s place. Once we were back out Under The River and on the way home I asked him to walk us past the north entrance of the Warren where I hoped Arno’s office materials were. We walked by a low, grimy doorway. He Indian-eyed it and told me they had moved the office materials to the room behind the third door on the right as you walk down the hall.
“The door’s palm locked and gas locked and has a touch alarm. If you even touch the door, the entrance guard will be right there in ten seconds.”
“OK,” I said. “What are the walls made of?”
He stopped suddenly. I walked another two steps then turned and looked at him. Carbide just stared at me, then he shook his head and walked on looking at the ground. “I’m not sure of the material. It probably isn’t very sound proof, but I know that when we set the desk down, Art let his end down too fast and we punched a hole through with the corner.”
“Do you remember the desk, what it looked like?”
“It’s dark red or maroon with gold wire embedded in the top. The wire formed a bird design or something, maybe some bamboo plants.”
We stopped at a Chinese carry-out place on the way back to the apartment. Carbide paid. Back at his apartment we ate hungrily, then while Carbide was in the shower, I retrieved my socks. I called Denise and convinced her to talk to me long enough for her to affirm that Carbide’s description of the desk he had moved matched Arno’s desk.
I sat down to think out how I was going to get Arno’s records out of the secure area, and fell asleep. I shouldn’t have done that, because when I woke up a couple hours later, I ached everywhere except for the tip of my nose and a small area on the top of my head. Even my face hurt. I took a long shower, trying to steam out the wrinkles in my plan and my muscles.
Carbide was up and working at his PAL. “We did all right today, Benny. You worked pretty hard except for a few lapses. Can you work again tomorrow?”
I tried to avo
id a loud groan as I eased myself down into the chair, but one escaped anyway. “My character has no motivation any more. I wouldn’t be believable in the part.”
“Didn’t think so. Well, thanks for the one day. It helped. One of the two guys I used yesterday should have recuperated by now.”
He made a few phone calls. Both of his helpers were enthusiastic about working the next day. Their enthusiasm made me wonder how much money I’d passed up. Carbide looked satisfied and pulled out a couple of beers.
“So what’s your plan?” he asked.
“Plan?”
“Yes, plan. What’s your plan for doing whatever it is you have to do.”
“Now that’s what I call fishing.”
“Fishing or not, I think you’ve involved me. Either you’re doing something for profit or your doing something for revenge, or you’re doing something to protect yourself. Which is it?”
It was a good question. One I hadn’t thought out. Chen was right that I could just leave. Especially since I had enough money and in a different town they wouldn’t know who I once was. So why wasn’t I on a train? Why was I instead looking for the man who stole Arno’s stuff and who, presumably, tried to kill me and was still trying to kill me? In a word, Carla.
“A little revenge, a little protection for myself and for others.” If JB needed an enforcer, Carla would fit the bill nicely until, like me, she became unreliable.
“No money in it?”
“No. Well, probably not, at least money is not the objective. I have all the money I need.”
“Yeah, you’ve always lived cheap.” He looked pointedly at his couch.
“What’s next door to the storage room that you moved the stuff into the other day?”
“You mean as you leave the Warren, closer to the rest of Under The River?”
“Yes.”
“There are two rooms between the Warren entrance and that room. They’re both used to store inventory for Ray’s, the junk store that takes up the space just outside the entrance to the Warren against the west wall of Under The River.”
“Are those rooms as well protected?”
“Well, you still need to get past the guard and the sniffers and anyone else who happens to see you go in, but the locks aren’t much. They’re just standard gas locks. In fact, you can buy auto-pickers right there at Ray’s, if you ask him nice, if you have enough money. It’s the guard and the reputation of the Warren that keeps his stuff safe.”
I already knew Ray would sell me a gas-lock picker. How I knew that, I wasn’t sure, but I also knew of a few other shops that would sell me that kind of tech whether I asked nice or not. “Have you been in the one closest to the room with the office stuff?”
“Yes.” He seemed interested now. He leaned forward enthusiastically, wanting to be in on the idea part of the operation. Carbide was still at the edge of plausible denial should I be caught, but he obviously hoped I would explain it all when everything was over. If I was still alive, it would be the decent thing to do.
“What’s along the common wall?”
“Oh, you’re going in through the wall. That’s not bad. The door’s very well protected, but you could probably just cut right through the wall. Ha. That’s good.”
“What’s along the common wall?” I asked again, ignoring his second guessing.
“If you’re looking to hide your entry, there’s an old steel safe about halfway back that’s been there for years. No one would want it, and it’s too heavy to move out. It’s on wheels, but I wouldn’t want to move it up the stairs and, besides, the lock would be an easy pick.”
“Will it still roll?”
“I suppose.”
“Try to imagine what would be on the other side of that wall from the safe.”
“Let’s see, well, empty wall I guess. That’s not good, is it?” He looked disappointed with himself, like he was failing me and that failure was important to him. I had a strange feeling then. One that I hadn’t felt before. Carbide was acting as though he was impressed by me, as though he wanted me to succeed, as though he was helping without any motive other than helping a friend, or maybe to be part of a joint project. The whole time from when I showed up at his apartment to now, he acted in every way as someone would act toward a friend or maybe as a team member would toward a team captain. Yet, he was a stranger to me in most ways. I knew I had forgotten parts of our history. I only remembered him calling once in a while to ask if I wanted to make some extra money moving or delivering stuff, but we apparently knew each other better than that. I liked having a friend. I hoped I wouldn’t get him killed.
“Draw what you remember.”
Carbide sat down at his PAL and pulled up a blank screen, sketched out the walls, then drew in the doors and placed the safe. He drew in shelves of lamps and hoses and rope and cement figures along the rest of Ray’s side of the wall. The other side of the dividing wall he drew as a clear line for about half the distance back, then he placed the desk, followed by some bookcases and then a few stacks of boxes. There wasn’t anywhere, at least based on Carbide’s estimation and memory as shown by the drawing, where there was something against both sides of the wall to cover a hole. Also, it had been a few days since they had stolen and moved Arno’s office and several weeks since Carbide had helped Ray move a human-sized papier-mâché gargoyle into his back storage room.
“How would you get past the guard anyway, Benny? I mean, it’s a nice idea, but you have to get past the guard and have enough time to open the lock. Even with the picker, that would take, say, thirty seconds. That’s a long time. Then you have to get out. A distraction might work once, but I don’t see it working twice.”
Carbide had hit on the biggest problem. Worse, I had to leave with some unknown quantity of records, maybe a PAL or memsticks. I just didn’t know.
“Do Ray’s people go in and out freely?”
“I think they only go back there when he’s with them. Mostly he does business off his tables and out of the closer room. The far room, the one you want to sneak into, contains seasonal things and the stuff he can’t sell, but just can’t bear to get rid of.”
“You think he would sell the space with everything in it?”
“You have the money for that?”
“I’m just wondering”
He looked at me and chewed his lip a bit. “I think he would be suspicious if someone offered.”
I tried to remember Ray. I didn’t deal with him because he wasn’t discreet, that much I remembered. Using him to get into that room seemed like a bad idea from the start.
“Can you get into that part of the hall from the back?”
“I don’t know. The corridor continues back some and turns south, but I’ve never been beyond the third room.”
Clearly, I needed a map and I’d never heard of there being one. “I might be wanting to help you move stuff tomorrow after all,” I said.
“You can’t go sneaking around back there, Benny. They all know each other. Anybody they don’t know, they stop, maybe before they shoot them, maybe after. They would have no problem hiding your body in the river mud.”
“They didn’t stop us when we were moving furniture. I could get lost one day, and found the next, all I need to do is carry a couple lamps or maybe a stuffed badger.”
“Benny who? I never met any Benny. I’ve never seen him before in my life.” He said it with a smile, but I also knew he meant he would indeed deny any knowledge of me except that I helped him move stuff.
“When are you leaving in the morning?”
“Five. This guy gets up late.”
“Wake me up. I’m going with you.”
Carbide looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything.
I put my disguise back on. It made me look heavier and slower, but didn’t really disguise me that well. The head rag made my ears stick out and made me look a bit stupid, I thought.
I distributed a thousand around my outside pockets and went shopping.
Chapter 31
I was balancing my whole plan on the head of a pin. That pin was the assumption that Arno’s office was still stored in that room, that JB hadn’t gone through everything yet because he hadn’t gotten permission from the people higher up in the River Pirate organization, and that I could spend enough time in the storage rooms to steal what I needed and not get caught.
OK, maybe it wasn’t the best plan. I’d never thought of myself as a planner. Actually, I wasn’t really a doer either, but I blinked myself with that Benny, Benjamin thing. I recalled Carla’s pronunciation of Ben-ja-min and tried to act like a professional.
Egon Mert was a map dealer. I went to him first. Egon made and sold building maps that included alarm systems, guard locations, which doors were locked, and at what times. His maps were expensive, but he kept them up to date and accurate. He liked special orders. Egon sat in a walled-off nook not far from the South Entrance.
It took some talking to get past Egon’s assistant, but he finally went behind the wall and told Egon my name, and that I wanted to see him. The assistant returned and waved me in, but once inside stood silently staring at me, ready to handle any problems, while Egon and I talked.
The walls of Egon’s shop were lined with waist-high blue cabinets containing wide shallow map drawers. He had a large table at one end of the room and a desk with two comfortable looking guest chairs at the other. The table and the cabinets were well lit with focused lights allowing the desk area to feel more comfortable with an easy, soft light. The room was warm.
“How’s business, Egon?” I said, settling down into a cushioned chair.
“Business is fine Benny, and how is your business?”
Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest. I didn’t even try to answer. “I need a map.”
Egon looked me over. “Maps aren’t inexpensive, Benny. Perhaps you should check the used market.”
“I can pay, Egon. I need a map of the Warren.”
The assistant let slip a puff of astonished air. Egon didn’t change expression at all. “No, Benny. You don’t need such a map, and I will forget that you came to me asking for one.” He glanced meaningfully at his assistant, who grunted.
Walking Shadow Page 18
