Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  He grabbed an updated version of Charlie’s Asus notebook computer -- one without a bullet hole -- a portable printer, a set of screwdrivers, some accounting software, a wireless Wi-Fi adapter, two flash drives to make additional back-up copies, and two burner cell phones. As they stood in the checkout line, Linda waited quietly with her CHC credit card, while the cashier rang up each item and Bob stacked the boxes back in the cart. The total came to slightly over $1,500 dollars, but Linda was right. In the end, all that Best Buy required was an ID check. When she showed the cashier her driver’s license and corporate ID card, the charges flew through with no delay.

  “Do you think we should we send Dr. Greenway a Thank You card?” Bob asked.

  “You can kick him in the nuts as far as I’m concerned,” came her quick reply. “In fact, I hope you do, and hard!”

  “Sheesh. ‘Hell hath no fury,’… but I get the general idea,” he chuckled.

  Tony Scalese stormed back out of Greenway’s office, feeling as if the walls were closing in on him for the first time in his life. He was a gritty street fighter, but this bastard Burke was proving to be far more formidable than he expected, and his options were narrowing. Rather than wait for the elevator, he ran downstairs to the first floor reception desk, shoved a startled Patsy Evans aside, and pawed through the drawers, looking for any personal items that Sylvester might have left behind. In the bottom drawer, he found make-up, a Kleenex box, a paper bag with a clean blouse and underwear, a pile of newspaper coupons, some fashion and travel magazines, and a long row of pill bottles — the type of things he’d expect to find in a woman’s desk.

  “Is this crap yours or hers?” he asked brusquely.

  “Those are Linda’s things, but I don’t think you should…”

  “Shut up!” he snapped as he picked up the pill bottles and quickly read the labels. There were the common over-the-counter medications like Tylenol, Midol, Motrin, antihistamines, and cough and cold stuff, but he saw prescription bottles of Xanax, Paxil, and Imitrex as well. Being in the “drug” business himself, Scalese knew his pharmacology. Those were the heavy-duty stuff for anxiety and migraines. Working here with Larry Greenway ready to pounce on her at any moment, he could hardly blame the woman.

  When he pulled open the other drawers and began pawing through them as well, Patsy Evans finally objected. “Hey! Some of that’s my stuff, you have no right…”

  “Yes I do. And if you don’t like it, go upstairs and take it up with Doc Greenway. I’m sure he’d love for you to tell him all about it,” he grinned at her, and she shrank away.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing else to be found in the desk drawers other than some pay stubs, company annual reports, marketing material, pens, staplers, Post-it notes, and other routine secretarial supplies. Frustrated, he stood up, getting angrier by the second, as he scanned the desktop one last time. There! Sitting right in front of him the entire time, was a framed photograph of a cute, young, dark-haired girl, maybe five or six years old.

  “Is that yours?” he said as he pointed at the photograph.

  “Mine? Oh, no, that’s Linda’s daughter, Ellie,” Patsy replied, shaking her head.

  That was when he remembered Linda Sylvester had a daughter! Scalese smiled, realizing he had found his leverage on Sylvester, and through her, on Burke.

  He turned and ran up the emergency stairs to the second floor, where the Human Resources Department was located. Their department receptionist looked up and began to say something to him until she saw the expression on his face and quickly turned back to her computer screen. He blew past her desk and strode on to the closed door marked “Henrietta Jacobs — Manager.” Without knocking, Scalese opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him. Jacobs was a thin, attractive, black woman in her mid-forties. She sat behind her desk talking on the telephone as he burst in. She was in midsentence when he walked up to her desk, took the phone from her hand, and hung it up. Stunned, she stared up at him, open-mouthed, as if an avalanche had fallen on her, not knowing what to say. He leaned forward and placed both of his big paws on her desk, intentionally towering over her and intimidating her.

  “Mr. Scalese, that was…”

  “I don’t care. Get me Linda Sylvester’s Personnel File,” he ordered, watching her eyes grow wide as she tried not to lose it. “Now!”

  “Her Personnel File? You know that’s confidential. I’m not allowed to…”

  “Henrietta,” he glared down at her. “Do you like working here? Because I don’t give a rat’s ass about rules, privacy laws, or much of anything right now. I’m Chief of Security, this is a security matter, and I’ll give you one minute to get me that file. If you don’t, I’ll have someone else get it, or I’ll get it myself; but then I won’t need you any more, will I?”

  She blinked once, twice, and then quickly rose to her feet. She walked across the room to a bank of file cabinets, opened one of the middle drawers, and pulled out a thin green file folder. “Here,” she said as she placed the folder on the desk. “But this is highly…”

  Scalese dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand, and didn’t wait. He opened Sylvester’s folder and began to paw through the sheets until he found the sheet of paper he was looking for — her Personal Data Sheet. “You can type, can’t you?”

  “Me? Well, yes, I…” she said, beginning to look even more worried

  “Good. Get out a sheet of CHC letterhead stationery, the good stuff, and type what I tell you.” Jacobs quickly placed a sheet of embossed company letterhead stationery in the paper drawer of her printer and sat down at her desk behind her computer keyboard. He scanned the form and saw that Linda Sylvester was divorced, with a daughter named Ellie enrolled in Warren Heights Middle School in Des Plaines, and she had been given sole custody.

  “Address the letter to… Doris Falconi, Principal, Warren Heights Elementary School, Des Plaines, Illinois. Here’s the address,” he said as he leaned over and showed her the form.

  Realizing there was no choice, Lawrence Greenway finally extricated himself from his soft leather couch, pulled on his suit jacket, straightened his tie and attempted to make himself look as presentable as possible under the circumstances. As he left his office and headed for the elevator, he passed Tony Scalese’s office and saw the door stood half-open and that Scalese was not there. He stuck his head inside and saw Scalese’s god-awful sharkskin sports coat hanging carelessly over one of the chairs. Greenway stuck his head back out in the hall and listened intently for a second or two. He heard nothing, so he quickly stepped over to the chair, picked up Scalese's coat, and felt the pockets. In the right front jacket pocket, he found his signature stiletto switchblade knife. Using his handkerchief, Greenway pulled the stiletto from Scalese’s jacket pocket and dropped it in his own, quickly re-hanging the jacket over the chair.

  He turned and quickly walked out of the office and down the hallway to the fire stairs, and he began to smile. “Two can play this little game, Anthony. Yes, two can play, and we’ll see how you like it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Warren Heights Elementary School was located in an older, wooded section of Des Plaines, not more than a twenty-minute drive from Indian Hills in midafternoon traffic. Tony Scalese parked his “satin cashmere metallic” pale gold LS 460 Lexus in one of the visitor’s spaces behind the school. The car was new, and he loved it the moment he drove it off the dealer’s lot. Sweet! The deal was even sweeter, because one of Salvatore DiGrigoria’s shell companies owned the dealership and wrote the Lexus off as “stolen off the lot.” They then billed their insurance company and Scalese hadn’t paid a dime. He thought it was a classy ride nonetheless. It came with so many bells and whistles that even after three weeks he kept the Owner’s Manual open on the passenger seat. The car’s color was freakin’ gold! The pompous faggot of a sales manager who sold it to him called it “satin cashmere metallic,” making Scalese want to puke. Hopefully, none of “the boys” heard that. Oddly enough, after a
few weeks the name grew on him. What he liked most about the car, however, was that it wasn’t a Lincoln, a big Continental, a Cadillac stretch limo, or anything else that screamed “Big Freakin’ Wop-Mobile.” Sitting behind the wheel, it made him look and feel like a successful businessman, which was exactly how he pictured himself.

  As Scalese drove past the school and into the parking lot, his head swiveled back and forth looking for cop cars or that old beat-up Taurus he saw Linda Sylvester driving as they sped away from the CHC building a little while ago; but he saw nothing. There was a long line of bright yellow school buses snaking through the parking lot and down one of the side streets, queued and ready for the flood of kids about to pour through the school’s side doors. He looked at his watch. It was 3:15 p.m. School wasn’t out until 3:30, so even if Sylvester and Burke were coming to pick up her daughter they wouldn’t show this early.

  Satisfied, Scalese got out of his car, straightened his jacket, and walked quickly and confidently toward the school’s back door. Stepping inside, he found himself in an "air lock" between the outer door and a secure, steel-clad inner door. To one side was a thick glass window, which looked into the school office, a small counter, a buzzer, and an intercom, just like the afterhours window at the bank. A harried, middle-aged secretary stood on the other side, head down, thumbing through a stack of papers.

  He stepped up to the window and pressed the bell. “Pardon me,” Scalese smiled as he asked, “Is Principal Falconi around?” he asked.

  “Honey, this isn’t really the best time…” the secretary finally looked up over the top rim of her glasses and saw a handsome, 6’4”, 240-pound block of Italian granite towering over her. “Oh, sorry,” she said, flustered. “I thought you were…”

  “That’s okay, Jenny, I’ll take it,” a tall, thin older woman in a business suit said as she stepped up to the counter next to the secretary. “I’m Doris Falconi. You are…?”

  “Scalese, Anthony Scalese,” he smiled as he handed her his business card. “I know you’re busy, so I’ll be brief. I’m Director of Security for Consolidated Health Care, where Linda Sylvester works. I believe her daughter, Ellie, is one of your students,” he said as he pulled a cream-colored business envelope from his jacket pocket. “A little while ago, Linda was subpoenaed to testify later today in front of a Federal Grand Jury regarding a former employer. She’s not in any trouble, but she won’t be home when Ellie gets off the bus. Our President, Dr. Greenway, assured Linda that we’d pick Ellie up and bring her back to the office until she returns later. This letter should explain everything to your satisfaction.” Scalese said as he handed her the envelope.

  The Principal opened it, looked at the typed letter on heavy, embossed CHC stationary, and began to read:

  Ms. Doris Falconi, Principal

  Warren Heights Elementary School

  713 West Central Ave.

  Des Plaines, Illinois 60016

  Dear Mrs. Falconi:

  Unfortunately, I’ve been called away on official business and won’t be home to meet Ellie when she gets off the bus. I know this is a bit unusual and he is not on my signature list, but please allow Tony Scalese, our Director of Security, to pick Ellie up this afternoon.

  Thanks for everything,

  Linda Sylvester

  “As she says, we know this is a little unusual…”

  “Oh, these days, nothing’s all that unusual, Mr. Scalese,” the Principal replied as she handed him back his cards and kept the letter. “The letter and signature appear in order, so if you’ll wait a minute, I’ll have Ellie brought out to you when the bell rings and the kids line up for the buses.”

  “Here, keep my card, too. You never know who might ask,” he told her.

  As he waited, he looked through the glass into the school office and the hallway beyond. He was surprised at how clean, bright, and quiet the hallways seemed. Admittedly, his experience with public schools was limited, but this wasn’t how he remembered Hancock Elementary School in Cicero, at least not while he was a student there. Whether class was in session there or not, his school was a chaotic place — harsh, noisy, and dimly lit, with worn linoleum tile floors, institutional green walls, fights in the hallways, clouds of cigarette smoke billowing out of the open restrooms, and bad food in the cafeteria. He smiled as he looked around at the well-lit, pastel colors and brightly carpeted hallways here.

  Behind him in the air lock sat a handsome, early-American maple bench, which looked as if it just came from an Ethan Allen showroom. Des Plaines was obviously much farther away from Cicero than he could ever have imagined. He took a seat on the bench near the door and waited, drumming his fingers on its turned-wood arm. They had a much more solid, functional bench in the principal's office at Hancock, as he remembered. He was sent there so often that his mother thought they'd give it to him as a graduation present.

  Finally, the bell rang for the end of the class, and the once-quiet hallways on the other side of the security door outside instantly turned into bedlam with running feet and young children’s voices everywhere. Two minutes later, a teacher pushed a small, six-year-old girl with bobbed hair and a pink Cinderella backpack through the door.

  “You're picking up Ellie Sylvester?" she asked. “Okay, well, I gotta run,” and disappeared as quickly as she came.

  The little girl looked up at Scalese, studying him suspiciously, as only a small child can. She barely came up to his waist. “You know, you have your mother’s eyes,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying as he reached his hand out to her. The little girl looked up at him for a long moment, studying him and thinking it over. Smart girl, he thought. You can fool an adult woman and you can fool a cop or a judge, but you can’t fool a little kid. They can see right through you. Finally, she took his hand and they walked out the door into the parking lot.

  Scalese smiled. Yep, Des Plaines sure enough was a long way from Cicero; but in Hancock School, they weren’t stupid enough to let a Mafia hit man walk into a public school and walk out hand in hand with a six-year-old girl. Then again, in Cicero they saw a few more of them.

  Outside and a half-block down the busy street, Bob Burke and Linda Sylvester sat in the front seat of the stolen Taurus. They were slumped down, their eyes at dashboard level, watching the long line of school buses waiting along the side of the elementary school.

  “Her bus is usually the tenth one back,” Linda told him. “They line the kids up inside and the teachers bring them out by class and bus route.”

  “You sure you can handle this by yourself?”

  “I’ve picked her up like this a half-dozen times. That’s what they’re all doing,” she pointed toward a cluster of women standing on the sidewalk where the kids pass by. “With young children, things always come up at the last minute, so don’t worry. The teachers know me, and getting her shouldn’t be a problem,” Linda said as she got out of the car and slowly walked to where the other mothers waited.

  Maybe so, he thought, as his eyes continued to scan the street and the rear view mirror, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Even from a half-block away, he saw lines of happy kids come out, one after another, and quickly board the buses. Two buses would leave and another two would pull up, ready for the next group of kids. Every now and then, one of the waiting mothers would intercept one of the kids, give a few hugs and waves, and walk away toward the parked cars. Gradually, the crowd of women thinned until Linda was left standing there alone. Finally, when the last two buses pulled up and began loading, she walked over to one of the teachers and began talking. Bob sat up as he saw the conversation became more and more animated. Linda’s hands went to her waist, her arms began to wave about, and from her expression he could tell something was very wrong. Her meeting with the teacher ended, Linda turned, ran up the sidewalk to the front door of the school, and dashed inside.

  To Bob’s consternation, she did not look his way or give any hint as to what was going on. Then again, the more he thought about it, he was probab
ly the last thing on her mind at that moment. He debated what to do, whether to continue to wait or get out and follow her into the school. The latter was what he preferred, but with his face spread across the front pages of all the daily newspapers and on the TV news shows that morning, he couldn’t take the chance. Finally, he gave her one more minute. When she did not immediately reappear, his left hand went to the door handle and he was about to get out and follow her inside when he heard the Taurus’ rear passenger-side door open. The old instincts immediately took over. His head snapped around, his left hand closed into a fist, and he was leaning forward, about to cold-cock whoever it was who came in, when he heard a familiar voice call to him from the back seat.

  “Whoa! Stand down, Major. I’m one of the good guys, remember?” It was Chicago Police Lieutenant Ernie Travers holding up both hands in mock surrender as he squeezed his long legs into the rear seat and closed the door.

  “You sure about that, Ernie?” Bob asked as he stopped his arm a few inches from the big cop’s head. “This isn’t a good time to screw with me.”

  “Yeah, I can see that; and you can see my hands are empty. No gun.”

  “I already did, but you didn’t bring any friends, did you? Like the SWAT team or some shooters up on the roofs?”

  “Even if I did, those guys couldn’t hit their own asses with a shotgun. But no, I’m alone; and I came here to help.” Bob looked back at him, even more skeptical. “Look, I know you didn’t kill the Fowler girl or any of the others,” Ernie continued. “I know that, and I know Greenway’s people and that idiot Bentley set you up.”