Devine was still loading his luggage into the back of the minivan when our driver turned to ask us where we were headed. Andrew started to answer, but I elbowed him in the ribs. He let me do the talking.
"Driver," I said in my most serious voice, "follow that cab."
Andrew cringed and began shaking his head with a mixture of shame and embarrassment.
"What?" I whispered.
"That is so lame."
"Well we are following that cab, right?"
"Yes, but—"
The driver, whose name was Mukhtar, flashed me a pained smile. "Lady, we cannot do that. I need a destination to write in my log. You know, like a hotel, or a museum, something like that." His accent was mild, almost English.
"Just start driving, and we'll think of something," I said.
Andrew was looking down at the floor and chuckling.
"What?"
"You're like Thelma and Louise all rolled into one."
I shrugged. The car finally pulled out of the taxi line and was, in fact, following Devine's cab, at least for now.
Andrew lurched over to one side and reached into his back pocket. "Chicago's a lot like Vegas," he said. "In fact, they invented this."
"Invented what?"
Andrew leaned forward and slipped two crisp twenty-dollar bills onto the front seat. Mukhtar's eyes darted ever so briefly in their direction.
"Thank you, sir."
Andrew allowed himself the tiniest smile of satisfaction but didn't lord it over me. I sighed. As someone whose mortgage was paid every month with tips, the idea to tip the driver probably should have occurred to me first.
The forty bucks worked, because fifteen minutes later we were still within a block of Devine's cab, which had been heading southeast. It was a little before nine in the evening with a hint of pink still peeking over the slightly overcast western horizon. Even this long after the rush hour, we weren't making very quick work of the roads. I had asked Andrew a few questions about the area we were in, but I gave up after he was unable to answer any of them, the excuse being that he'd gone to DePaul University, on the north side, and we were on the west side.
"It's different when you have a car," he said. "When you're a student, you stick close to campus."
I shrugged and watched out the window as we passed block after block of off-brand discount outlets, fast food joints, and check cashing places. This wasn't the ritzy part of town. Mukhtar had been on his cell phone the entire time, talking nonstop in a language I couldn't even identify, much less understand.
We finally slowed when Devine's cab pulled off of Mannheim Road onto Cermak Road, a large avenue clogged with some unusually aggressive drivers.
"This one I know," Andrew said. "Anton Cermak was the mayor here in the thirties. He took a bullet intended for FDR right before Roosevelt became president. Imagine how differently things would have turned out."
As a trivia buff (and overall nerd) I never turned my nose up at seemingly useless information like that. "So he gets a street named after him. Not a bad deal, I guess."
We turned east and then north again after no more than a few blocks. It was an industrial road populated with medium-sized factories and warehouses with large, mostly empty parking lots. A railroad line ran parallel to the road. The traffic was lighter here, and there weren't any taxicabs besides ours, but the impending evening darkness gave us some much-needed cover. Mukhtar, easing off on the gas, seemed to sense that he should hang back a little more. He came to a complete stop when Devine's cab made a right turn into an unlit parking lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
"What should we do?" Mukhtar directed the question at Andrew. Although I had done all the talking with Mukhtar, it was Andrew's forty bucks that held the floor.
"Stay here, and we'll see what happens."
Mukhtar looked skeptical. I wasn't going to get beat to the punch twice, so I whipped out my purse and handed him a few more twenties. He took them, somewhat reluctantly, and offered a curt nod of thanks before turning the meter off. The car idled a little roughly, generating a concerned look from Mukhtar.
Andrew piped up. "Yeah, that's it."
"Excuse me, sir?"
Andrew pointed. "Can you get out and play with the engine a little bit? Or maybe you want to use the jack and pretend you've got a blown tire."
Both Mukhtar and I were frowning in incomprehension.
"We need to have a reason why a cab is stopped here on an industrial street at nine fifteen at night."
Mukhtar nodded again and shut the car off. He got out the driver's seat and stretched his body languidly, as though preparing for a yoga session. He reached back in, popped the hood, and began fiddling with the engine.
Andrew opened his door. "Stay here," he whispered.
From our vantage point, we couldn't see where Devine's cab had stopped, but it was a fairly good bet that he was inside. Andrew made his way slowly toward the building.
It was dark, and I was in a strange part of a strange city, but I didn't come all the way out here to sit in the backseat of a cab. I jumped out and told Mukhtar we'd be back in ten minutes. I figured he'd wait, since we still owed him our fare. Andrew had already gone around to the side of the building on our right, but on the left a well-lit service garage was wide open. I figured if I ran into anybody, I could just point to our fake-broken-down cab and tell him I needed to use the phone.
The garage had an old Mercedes truck parked inside and a few giant, plastic drums, but otherwise it was empty. The first door I tried was locked, but the second one opened into a dark, concrete stairway leading up and down. As I clanked my way up the metal steps, the echo filled the stairwell around me. That's when the unbelievable stench hit me. It was probably from some kind of industrial solvent, but it smelled like someone had stuffed a pile of rotten fish with garlic and then doused the whole thing in vinegar. My eyes were starting to tear up from the smell, but from the window on the first landing I could make out Devine's cab parked out front. The cab appeared to be running.
The landing opened into a large, high-ceilinged room lit only by an emergency light in the far corner. Signs written in some Asian language I couldn't identify flapped in the breeze of a massive air conditioner that kept the room as cool as a refrigerator. From what I could make out in the dim light, there were a few large circular vats surrounded by catwalks. Above them were perched what looked like giant blenders. A warm and foul-smelling mist was rising from the vats, causing my lung capacity to shrink with every breath.
Before I could get out of there, I heard the soft creak of a door opening beneath me and footsteps echoing in the stairwell I had just come up. I froze for a second but quickly decided to find the darkest spot I could reach. Unfortunately, the room was wide open except for the stinky vats, and the only spot where it was pitch black was in the corner where one of the blender thingies completely blocked out the emergency light.
I climbed up the catwalk, which was slick with some kind of slime, and I crouched down, perched only inches from a bubbling witch's brew of noxious glop. It even sounded disgusting as it gurgled and bubbled. I couldn't imagine what kind of foul concoction was brewing in there, but I'm pretty sure it was banned under the Geneva Convention. I was fighting back my gag reflex when someone entered the room. Crap, I thought. I wasn't going to be able to breathe much longer, and soon enough an involuntary cough escaped me.
Whoever had entered the room decided to investigate the sound and was now pointing an insanely bright flashlight right at me. Blinded by the light, I crouched into an athletic posture, ready to pounce if necessary.
"Raven," a voice hissed from behind the flashlight. "What the hell?" Andrew wasn't happy.
I sighed. "Turn that thing off! I'm going blind!"
"I thought I told you to wait in the car."
"Well I wasn't going to just sit there. That driver was giving me the creeps."
Andrew offered me his arm to help me up. I grabbed at his hand, but when I
shifted my weight to stand up, my foot slipped on the catwalk, and I found myself plunging underneath the guardrail into the dreaded cauldron of viscous liquid. In a split second my face was submerged in the disgusting goo, and I flailed about for a few seconds before I was able to right myself, suspended waist deep in its frothy, oatmeal-like consistency. I spit out the briny substance that I'd inadvertently inhaled and then slowly trudged over to the side of the vat. Given the raunchy smell, I was amazed that I hadn't been eaten alive.
Andrew reached down to grab my hand and managed to pull me up mostly by my shorts, and I flung myself onto the catwalk and coughed up half a lung. I thought I detected the faintest of smirks on Andrew's face.
He looked me up and down in the dim light. "Careful, this floor is pretty slippery."
I made a face at him, but given the lighting and the fact that I was covered in sludge, I'm not sure he noticed it. "Aren't you a little worried about me? My friggin eyes are burning holes in my head. What the hell is this stuff?"
He chuckled. "I thought you knew. Don't worry—it's just kimchi."
"It's what??"
"You know, that Korean stuff. It's like sauerkraut, only they put all sorts of junk in there. Hot peppers, chili powder, garlic. There's a great place in Chinatow—"
"You're giving me restaurant recommendations? Now??? Let's get out of here and find somewhere I can wash up."
"Not yet," he whispered. "We've got to find Devine. That's the only reason I came up here."
"You lost him?"
"Kind of. There's a little studio in the basement near the front. He got his photo taken by some Korean guy he called Juno, and then this guy spent a couple minutes playing with it on a computer and printing it. I think it's got to be a fake passport or something like that. No one would go to all that trouble for something easy like a driver's license."
"Nice work," I said, still spitting fermented cabbage out of my mouth. I wrung my hair out and tried to press the moisture out of my shirt and shorts, with little success.
"But then he and the Korean guy went in back and never came out. I thought they might be up here, but I guessed wrong."
I pointed toward the stairwell and forcibly moved Andrew out of that stinking room. "You can see his cab out there. Still running."
Andrew took a peek. "Not for long. He's leaving. Let's go."
He turned and flew down the stairs, and I had no choice but to follow. We raced back to the cab, hoping Devine didn't get away from us.
Mukhtar was leaning against the car. Luckily, it was dark enough that he couldn't see that I was soaking wet and covered in little strands of cabbage. He fixed us with a tired expression that I interpreted as Pay me my money and get me the hell out of here. I tried giving him one of my best smiles, but he remained immune to my charms. He spoke again to Andrew.
"The fare is twenty-nine forty. Plus, you know—"
"We're good for it," Andrew said quickly. He reached into his pocket and showed Mukhtar an impressive wad of cash. Mukhtar's eyes finally showed an expression other than skepticism or outright disdain. He nodded somberly and opened the rear door of the cab for us. We jumped in, and Mukhtar stepped on it without needing to be told.
"You're a walking ATM machine," I whispered admiringly.
"That's redundant."
"Huh?"
"The M stands for machine. So you just called me an automated teller machine machine."
I arched my brows at him as I buckled up. "I think everyone knows what ATM stands for. It's just an expression." Mukhtar caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He was on my side.
Andrew shrugged. We caught up with Devine's cab, trailing him by a block and a half so it wouldn't be too obvious.
"How long are we going to follow this guy?" I asked.
"Depends," Andrew said. "The truth is, I have no idea. I just know that, for now, we can't let him out of our sight, or we'll lose him forever. He's got a passport now, so he could disappear to Ecuador or Zar— Zin—"
"Zambia?" I offered.
"Yeah, that's the one."
We passed several minutes in silence and found ourselves back on Mannheim Road, this time heading north.
Eventually, Mukhtar looked up in the rearview mirror. "Excuse me, but what is that awful smell?"
I cringed. In the dark, my sopping wet hair and clothes hadn't been noticeable. But the smell was still rank.
"Sorry," I said sweetly. "I had a little accident back there."
Mukhtar's eyes grew big. "What kind of accident?"
"I fell into some liquefied cabbage that happened to be fermenting. Apparently, it's considered a delicacy in some countries," I added helpfully. "Don't worry—I'm okay."
"Lady, if I have to have the seat cleaned, it's going to be three hundred dollars." His eyes were fiery, even in the dim, reflected light. "I am going to smoke now," he announced. His tone suggested that there would be no debate on the subject. Mukhtar lit a long, thin cigar and inhaled deeply. He held the smoke in his lungs another second and then puffed out a thin beam of white smoke.
I gulped, but I figured the three hundred bucks could reasonably come out of Ethan's retainer. After all, falling into cabbage was just part of the job.
Andrew nudged me. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting out of the country right now. We're heading right back to O'Hare."
"I don't have a passport," I said.
Andrew clenched his jaw. "I do. But we don't need two people on this. You need to get back to Vegas and see what else you can come up with. I'll let you know what happens with Devine."
I didn't have much choice unless we went back to the kimchi factory and got me a fake passport of my own. That wasn't going to happen.
Stopped at our third red light in a row, Mukhtar made a call on his cell phone.
"You get to travel like this a lot?" I asked Andrew.
"Mostly, we just stick closer to Vegas. Reno, Tahoe, Laughlin sometimes. Although I tend to wind up in L.A. three or four nights a month."
"Must be hard on the marriage."
Andrew chuckled. "Not anymore."
"What do you mean?"
He let out a big sigh. "My wife's moving out and taking our kid back to Seattle, where she's from. Desert's too hot for her, I guess."
I had never heard of a marriage breaking up over the weather, but my cousin Ella got dumped after six years of marriage because she couldn't make soft-boiled eggs the right way. I wasn't going to press him. It was obviously a touchy subject. But an interesting one nonetheless.
It soon became obvious that Devine was, in fact, headed back to the airport. Mukhtar managed to slide in to the departures line right behind Devine's cab, and when we stopped, there wasn't a lot of time for chitchat. With one eye on Devine removing his luggage from the cab in front of us, Andrew whipped out his wad of bills and began fingering through them. Even though our meter was only at ninety-one dollars, he handed three crisp hundreds to Mukhtar.
Mukhtar bowed appreciatively. "Thank you, sir." Apart from a sniff of disapproval, he studiously ignored me. Given what I'd done to his backseat, I couldn't say I blamed him.
Andrew grabbed his small travel bag and fished out a worn Cubs baseball cap that changed his appearance just enough to allow him to keep following Devine. There had been no indication that Devine ever noticed Andrew before, but I supposed Andrew wasn't going to take that chance. He told me he'd be in touch and eased himself into the airport, leaving me standing on the sidewalk with nothing but a tiny purse and the damp, stinky clothes on my back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
As it turns out, a major international airport is not a bad place for a girl who's just crawled out of a vat of fermented cabbage. The gift shop in the main lobby of the airport had several offerings of Chicago-themed clothing, and even some sweatpants that weren't overly offensive. I whipped out the plastic for some dark-green sweats, a T-shirt, and a thin navy-blue hoodie from the discount rack that said "Da Bears" on it. Underwear and socks would have t
o wait.
I checked the departures board and found more than a dozen flights to Vegas, but only one of them, United 3722, was leaving before midnight. I already had United's number in my recently dialed list, so I punched it up on my phone and waited a few minutes before getting through to a person. Completely booked. Unfortunately, the next flight out was at 6:10 the next morning, but she could get me on board for a shade less than $400. I took it.
With no luggage to check, I wandered over to a United kiosk and printed out a boarding pass for myself. With more than six hours until I boarded, I considered finding a room at an airport hotel (if only to take a long, hot shower), but the logistics of all that made me cringe. And I never slept well in hotel rooms anyway. So I trudged my way through security, which was still a mess even though it was after ten o'clock.
It was one of those days. A black, rail-thin TSA agent nodded ominously at me and waved me over to the left of the metal detectors. Oh, fun. I was going to get a pat-down.
"Your lucky day," he said, unsmiling.
"You have no idea," I mumbled.
He led me to a little gray room near the benches where people put their shoes back on. Waiting for me inside was a rotund, grandmotherly woman who stood no more than five feet tall. Her pink, bespectacled face made her look like Mrs. Claus, except that she was wearing white latex gloves and her eyes weren't twinkling. They were bored.
I assumed the position with my legs spread in front of her, and she started by crouching down low and checking my still-damp shoes and socks. As she made her way north, she muffled a cough. After an involuntary "Jesus Christ" escaped her lips, she crinkled up her face and pinched her nose with her left hand. When she turned her head up to look me in the eye, I winked. I didn't know what else to do. The poor woman was getting the full kimchi effect now, and there was nothing either of us could do about it.
Apparently she needed both of her hands to pat me down properly, so holding her nose was not a viable option. Her solution was to move two steps back, take a deep breath, and then, while holding her breath, she gave me the fastest pat-down the O'Hare airport ever saw. She grimaced at me when it was done and then turned away and exhaled loudly, gasping for breath. A little dramatic, I thought. But then again, maybe she didn't like Korean food.
Vegas Stripped (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 2) Page 14
