by Osborne, Jon
Langley was tall and black; Williams was short and blonde. The Odd Couple of the FBI, their fellow agents called them. Like Williams, sweat streaked down Langley’s face despite the chilly afternoon air. And he too was breathing heavily from the heart-pounding footrace they were just about to bring to a thrilling end. In his mind’s eye, he couldn’t help but picture medals, ribbons and an elaborate ceremony where the FBI served shrimp cocktail and real cocktails in their honor for being the ones to finally bring down Jack Yuntz – the bloodthirsty youthful lunatic who’d murdered nearly fifty people so far during his brief career as a killer.
Langley scanned the alleyway. It was long and wide, maybe a hundred yards from one side to the other, ending with access to Phillips Road on the far side. No way Jack Yuntz could have made it all the way across already. He’d only been about thirty yards ahead of them when he’d turned into the alley himself.
Nothing, though. Not even the faintest trace of human movement coming from the alleyway that Langley could detect. No fleeing suspect with the tails of his long black trench coat flapping wildly behind him in the stiff breeze.
Langley squinted his dark brown eyes in confusion, not understanding what was going on here. That was when Annie Williams tapped him on his shoulder. Tilting her head, she motioned to the large blue that was sitting halfway down the alley and lifted her thin eyebrows on her forehead.
Langley nodded. Made sense. Nowhere else for Jack Yuntz to go. Nowhere else for him to hide. “Yep,” he said. “Good thinking, partner. Let’s do this.”
Williams grabbed Langley by the arm to stop him, still wheezing as she attempted to catch the last of her breath. ‘We need to be careful here,’ she said, choking out the words between deep inhalations. “He might be armed. Probably is armed, considering all the people he’s shot so far.”
Langley screwed up his handsome face into a mask of disgust and stretched his muscular neck. “Well, I can promise you this much: that little fucker isn’t going to shoot us. Maybe the other way around if he doesn’t cooperate with the arrest, but fuck him. I ain’t going out like that and I ain’t letting you go out like that, either, sister. So just follow me.”
Langley took the lead as the two agents moved cautiously down the alley toward the dumpster with their guns still drawn. Papers and various bits of garbage fluttered past, driven along by the steady wind that was coming from the direction of Phillips Road. Reaching the dumpster a few moments later, Langley glanced over at Williams before taking in a deep breath through his nostrils and flipping open the black plastic lid. Springing backward three feet, he pointed the barrel of his weapon inside. Williams did the same five feet to his left.
“Freeze, motherfucker!” Langley screamed, lacing his deep voice with the proper degree of intimidation. “FBI! You’re under arrest, fuckwad!”
Langley frowned when his words simply bounced right back into his ears from the empty metal container in front of them. “What the fuck?” he sputtered, completely dumbfounded. Who the fuck were they chasing here? Harry Goddamn Houdini?
Williams moved past Langley to the far side of the dumpster. She shook her head in exasperation and nodded down to the manhole located there. “Looks like Alice scurried down the rabbit hole,” she said. “Resourceful little bitch.”
Langley closed his eyes in frustration. Putting away his Glock, he reached into his pocket and dug out his cellphone before punching in a number. Thirty seconds later, he’d relayed the details to the four other agents who’d been watching Molly Yuntz’s school. Then he shoved his cellphone back into his pocket and turned back to Williams. “No choice but to go in after him,” he said. “It’s a shitty job, but I suppose somebody’s got to do it.”
Williams slipped her own Glock back into the rear waistband of her jeans. Approaching the manhole cover, she leaned down and inserted her tiny fingers into the small access recess; started to pry off the cover. “Yep,” she said. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this in this particular instance – but ladies first.”
CHAPTER 26
Jack finally descended into the foul-smelling, pitch-black darkness below him, maybe thirty feet down, deciding to make one last-ditch effort to escape. And why not? There was no point in giving up now when there still remained a chance – however slight that chance might be – that he might somehow make it out of this oversized toilet relatively unscathed. He wasn’t a pussy, after all, never had been a pussy, even when he’d been just a little kid standing up to the schoolyard bullies that had constantly taunted him for his so-called “nerdy” interest in chess, usually giving back to them every bit as good as he’d gotten. Sometimes even better.
At the very least, he needed to try here.
The revolting smell of raw sewage filling his nostrils grew even stronger as he reached the bottom of the slippery ladder, making him retch painfully. Filthy water, ankle-deep, seeped into his combat boots and further numbed his already frozen toes. Temples pounding, Jack felt for the slimy wall at his right and began following it north, headed back in the direction of Molly’s school and doubling back on his trail like a hunted fox might do, seething as he went. Judging by the seemingly friendly tone coming from Mrs. Macklin outside Molly’s school, his little sister had made amends with the woman following what had been a decidedly rocky start. After everything he’d done for Molly – after all the people he’d killed for her – she obviously didn’t appreciate a single goddamn thing he’d done. Didn’t appreciate the way he’d put his own life on the line for her.
Jack gritted his teeth in annoyance. Fine. If that’s the way things were now, then that was just the way things were now. Fuck Molly. He’d let live her happy little life with her new family while she pretended that her previous family had never even existed. That was her own form of death. Knock yourself out, kiddo. Have fun with the rest of the Cleavers in your deluded little fantasyland.
Forging ahead into the darkness, Jack had made it about a hundred yards or so down when his shoulder suddenly banged into an unmoving obstruction that was jutting out from the slimy wall, stopping him dead in his tracks. Behind him, the clattering of the manhole cover he’d entered five minutes earlier sounded on the pavement above, causing his heart to flip over inside his chest at the unwelcome noise. The FBI agents in pursuit had finally figured out where he’d gone. Good for them. Clever little fucks. Resourceful little fucks.
Jack felt along the obstruction he’d just banged into. His fingers wrapped around a slippery metal rung. Another ladder.
His hammering heart jumped up into his throat. Adrenalin flooded through his veins. Getting his bearings, he shimmied up the rungs just as quickly as he possibly could manage without losing his grip and falling back down into the rank darkness of the sewage corridor below.
Reaching the top of the ladder ten seconds later, he pushed and pushed with all of his might in a frantic effort to dislodge the manhole cover above his head, but the manhole cover wouldn’t budge. The muscles in his shoulders burned with the effort, sizzled with the effort, sang a prolonged and soul-bracing song of exquisite physical pain as he continued to push with everything he had. Finally, the manhole cover started to give way just as one of the agents hit the filthy water behind him with an eerie, echoing splash.
Jack redoubled his efforts at the heart-stopping sound, not knowing where the manhole would let out, not even really caring. If the agents caught him, so be it. He’d given it his best shot here and he’d gotten a lot farther than most other boys his age would have. He just wished like hell that he’d at least brought along a small handgun with him so that he could go out in the final blaze of glory that his concerted efforts over the past tumultuous year of his life so obviously deserved.
The manhole cover finally clattered onto the pavement above Jack’s head with one last concentrated push, just as its partner down the corridor had done a moment earlier. Drawing a welcome breath of fresh air deep into his tortured lungs, Jack readied himself mentally for the next step in this modifi
ed game of chess before daring to stick out his head, preparing himself to make one last frantic dash for freedom in an effort to escape the agents’ greedy clutches against all the seemingly insurmountable odds that had been stacked up against him.
Readied himself to make one last frantic dash for freedom so that he could finish off this deadly little game of modified chess his way.
PART VII
“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” – Jessica Rabbit, in the 1988 animated movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
CHAPTER 27
Wednesday; 8:10 a.m.; downtown Cleveland
Twenty-six years old, five-foot-ten even when she wasn’t wearing heels (which as a rule she never did anymore) and embarrassingly well-endowed, Claire Wexler primped in front of the oversized vanity mirror located in the bathroom of her exposed-ducts loft apartment in downtown Cleveland – but in the opposite way most women did.
Claire wasn’t vain. Not even a little bit. Never had been even when – at the relatively tender age of thirteen – she’d undergone the “magical change” that all women underwent during their teen years. Boobs sprouting from cherries to plums to oranges to grapefruits (she’d stopped approximating them to produce at that point in her life, hadn’t seen the sense in it anymore). Hips, butt and thighs filling out with a little bit of extra meat. The thoroughly unwelcome and colossally annoying entertaining of that first monthly visit from what her mother had so awkwardly termed “your special little friend”.
Still, despite this complete – practically determined – lack of pride in her appearance, Claire knew how attractive most other people considered her. Pretty hard to forget about it when you were constantly being reminded by representatives of the male gender ranging in age from nine all the way up to ninety-five. Literally. It hadn’t been too long ago that she’d found herself getting hit on by an old man in his mid-nineties at a nursing home over in Parma where she’d been investigating an insurance-fraud case – just the third or fourth case of her fledgling career.
Grinning up at her with a gummy smile while he’d sat in his power wheelchair and fiddled playfully with his tiny joystick, he’d asked, “Can I give you a ride somewhere, sweetheart? No charge, of course.”
Claire had rolled her bright green eyes in response to that hopelessly lame overture, just as she rolled her bright green eyes remembering it now. Sadly, though, that hadn’t even been the first time she’d been subjected to that particularly clever line. The last time had been when – just about four months ago now – a shiny yellow Lamborghini driven by a trust-fund baby in his early twenties had pulled over to the curb beside her while she’d been walking down Prospect Avenue in order to go grab a quick bite to eat during her lunch break. Activating the tinted power window on the driver’s side of his expensive vehicle, the man-child had slid down his mirrored aviator sunglasses smoothly on the bridge of his nose before delivering what he’d no doubt thought would be the knockout blow, one that would most likely sweep Claire right off her feet and directly into his daddy’s private jet before they winged their way on down to the Caymans for a little bit of well-deserved R&R: an all-too-rare chance to escape the daily pressures of their thoroughly overly privileged lives. To answer his supremely cocky and tooth-gratingly irritating overture, Claire had simply pulled aside the left-hand side of her navy-blue blazer to display the butt of her Bureau-issued Glock tucked into a holster there. A tad bit of overkill, perhaps, but it had seemed to get her point across well enough, sending her now red-faced suitor screeching down the street away from her in a smoking trail of burning rubber.
Claire smiled at herself in the mirror now as she recalled the entirely satisfying encounter, but then the smile ran abruptly away from her pretty face as she studied her reflection more closely.
She shook her head in disapproval and pressed her full lips into a firm line, unhappy with her appearance despite the fact that most women would’ve killed to see the woman who was looking back at her from the mirror. Grabbing a thick beige rubber band off the counter in front of her, she pulled back her fiery red, shoulder-length hair into a painfully tight ponytail and slipped a pair of prescription-free eyeglasses featuring heavy black frames onto her face in an effort to help conceal her naturally high cheekbones. Much like heels, Claire never wore make-up anymore, either – especially not to work – so that cut down considerably on her prep time each day. It was convenient, to say the least. So convenient that she often wondered why more women didn’t follow her lead.
Then again, most women probably hadn’t come out on the other sides of their magical changes looking like living, breathing replicas of Jessica Rabbit.
Claire frowned at her reflection some more and shook her head again in exasperation. This just wouldn’t do. Taking in a deep breath to give herself just a little more room, she fastened the top button of her white blouse snugly around her throat, nearly choking herself out in the process but nonetheless managing to hide what little skin had been left showing. Then she studied her reflection again. A little better, but not much. Still, it would need to do. She needed to get this show on the road here. She had a very busy day ahead of her today.
A very important one, too.
Claire sighed heavily at the complete unfairness of the world as she hurriedly shoved her toiletries back into drawers. As infuriating as the aggravating realization might be for to get to grips with, though, she knew that looks mattered in this world. They mattered a lot. Especially for females – the supposed “weaker sex”: often having a direct impact on women’s paychecks. Total bullshit, of course, but what could she do about it? Nothing. Not directly, at least. That was just the way the world worked, however shitty those workings might be. Blissfully, though, thanks entirely to the wide safety net provided by her family’s enormous wealth, she’d never needed to worry very seriously about money herself. One less thing, as Forrest Gump might say. And she knew for a fact just how lucky that made her. Supremely lucky. Because much like coming out on the other sides of their magical changes looking like Jessica Rabbit clones, most women probably hadn’t been born into fourth-generation pretzel fortunes, either. So money wasn’t the reason why Claire did her job. Not even close.
No, she did her job for other, far more personal reasons.
Turning to her left and slipping her feet into a pair of comfortable flats that were sitting next to the bathroom scale, she finally exited the bathroom. Just outside the bathroom door, Mischka and Milo waited for her – and none too patiently, either. Her year-old Morkie puppies hopped up and down excitedly and repeatedly at the sight of her, making heartbreaking little yelps of need and scratching her shins with their tiny little claws in the process. Claire shook her head in bemusement and bent down to give them their demanded doses of love before the poor things died of twin heart attacks brought on by unconscionable neglect. “Relax, guys,” she said sternly. “Relax.”
Mischka – a black-and-tan puff of fur who favored the Yorkshire Terrier side of his heritage and who’d weighed in at just four measly pounds during his last checkup at the vet’s office the previous week – waved a miniature paw in front of his face, almost as if to say, “Ah, go on.” For his part, though, Milo wasn’t quite so bashful about giving and receiving affection. A good bit plumper than his adopted brother at a solid seven pounds and having almost pure-white fur that only accentuated his huge brown puppy-dog eyes (which somehow possessed the uncanny ability to stare directly into Claire’s soul whenever he was angling for a second treat), Milo tended more toward the Maltese side of his heritage. Friendly. Faithful. Loving.
And above all else: downright needy.
Milo rolled over onto his back for a quick belly rub while Mischka continued to pretend that he didn’t want any part of the embarrassing PDA going on. Claire gave them both quick rubs behind their ears before rising to her feet again. She didn’t want to be late for work today. Bill Krugman would roast her on a spit. “OK, guys,” she said, wagging her non-manicured right index finger at
her dogs while they continued to wag their little tails happily back at her in return. “You two characters be good today.”
Claire paused and lifted her eyebrows halfway up her smooth forehead, giving them a long, meaningful look to underscore the seriousness of her point. “If you two get into any of my stuff while I’m gone today, I’m putting you right on Craigslist just as soon as I get home, and that’s a promise. For free. You guys have been chewing me right out of house and home lately.”
Both her Morkies cocked their heads quizzically to the right side at the same time, not seeming to understand Claire’s words and making her want to scream with the overwhelming cuteness of if all. It was just about enough to make her want to call in sick to work so that she could spend the whole day with them. Not an option, though. Nice as he was most of the time, she highly doubted Bill Krugman would have understood.
With her pups following closely at her heels, Claire made her way quickly through her huge living room that featured thirty-foot-high ceilings and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway of her converted-warehouse digs before locking the heavy front door behind her. Mischka and Milo immediately began scratching at the wood from the other side, wanting desperately to go with her, no matter what their destination might be. Claire heaved a heavy, heartfelt sigh of longing as she walked over to the creaky old elevator at the south end of the corridor and pulled up the flimsy metal gate before stepping inside the car and maneuvering a rusty lever over to the ground-floor position. The ancient gears cranked to life with a pained groan before the car lurched once and she began the slow descent.
