When Clay made his tour of the hospital, a hand printed sign on a sheet of notebook paper had been taped to the inside door switch. It read, Do Not Touch This Switch – Leave In Automatic Position. Clay removed the sign, turned the switch to the off position and once again the door was inoperable.
At eleven o’clock a closed van work truck with the name Ace Garage Door Company newly painted on the sides, pulled up to the service entrance at the rear of the hospital. The driver waited several minutes for the door to open, got out of the drivers seat, walked down the ramp and thru the pedestrian door. In seven minutes the door opened. He yelled for his helper to drive the truck inside. The two of them removed the electrical switch cover to check the wiring connections, looked at the electric eye transmitters and receivers for another fifteen minutes. The lead mechanic next retrieved a step ladder from the truck, stood it in the door opening and mounted the ladder to adjust the spring tension. Being short, the six foot ladder wasn’t high enough for him to reach the mechanism. After almost falling off the top step of the ladder the man threw down his tools and had a cussing fit while kicking the door frame, folded the step ladder together and threw it back into the darkness of the building, all the time still cussing.
At eleven thirty, three women in ill fitting nurse’s uniforms walked through the door of the employee’s lounge to the patio and over to lounge chairs near the railing. All three began to disrobe in preparation for sunbathing.
The three women Joey had recruited from a strip club got down to their string bikinis in a flash and began to bend and stretch while rubbing sun tan lotion on themselves and each other. All three turned their lounge chairs toward the wooded area and laid back to bask in the sun. After a few minutes, a tall thin blonde with a forty inch bust removed her bikini top, sat up and began to apply tanning lotion to her boobs, rubbing her breast for much too long a period. When she reclined back on the lounger she continued to slowly rub her stomach and inner thighs.
Clay had been watching the enemy guard in the woods at the back of the building through binoculars and thought the man had likely come in his shorts, judging from the way he was prancing around and holding his crotch. And, as planned he had lost all interest in the two men attempting to repair the malfunctioning door.
The lead mechanic had yelled for his helper to turn the truck around and bring it forward, directing him to park the truck in the door way, under the raised garage door. He pulled a milk crate from the back of the truck, climbed to the top of the truck, stood on the crate, and with his helper steadying him appeared to adjust the spring tension.
As planned, three of Joey’s men along with Dr. Levitt and one floor nurse, wheeled Tony’s bed down the corridor and on to an elevator. They got off at the basement floor in the X-Ray department. Dr. Levitt made an excuse to go into the office with the nurse to review Tony’s record. The men assigned to accompany Tony pushed his bed down the hallway and out a door into the receiving and service area. Another bed with a “patient” who, at a short distance, resembled Tony was taken back inside the building and down the hallway to the X-ray department. The exchange took less than four minutes. As he had been instructed, Dr. Levitt joined them a few minutes later without the nurse and escorted the imposter back up to Tony’s room where Anna was waiting for them.
Tony was awake, and had been told of the plan to get him out of the hospital. He was in some pain, but had given his approval of the move and had told Anna “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be alright. I'm a tough old shit.” To Clay he added “Be careful, but get the bastards who did this to me.”
Two paramedics hired to accompany Tony during the transfer took over his care as Tony was moved from the bed to a mobile stretcher. The white sheet and top cover over him were replaced with dark blue materials. With the bright sunlight outside the building it was impossible to see into the darkness of the basement, especially with the truck filling the entrance and the men on top of it moving around blocking the view. The paramedics moved the stretcher over to the truck, staying out of the line of sight through the doorway, loaded Tony in the back of the truck and took their positions with him. Clay and two of Joey’s heavily armed soldiers joined them for the short ride. The two ‘mechanics’ finished the adjustments, loaded their equipment and pulled the truck out of the basement, up the ramp and left the hospital grounds. A block away from the hospital a lead car and a tail car joined them.
They made a two mile drive in just under eight minutes, pulled into an alley, and drove to the back entrance of an automobile body shop; one of Tony’s legitimate businesses. The entire crew of the body shop had been taken out to lunch as a reward for having high productivity for the past year. Four days earlier an ambulance belonging to one of the garage’s standing customers had been sideswiped by a truck and had been brought in for body work and repainting. The ambulance and the truck were both in the shop side by side being worked on. The ambulance was repainted in a new color scheme with a fictitious Illinois company name and would be repainted to the original paint scheme when it returned the next morning. Inside the garage with all doors closed, Tony was transferred to the newly painted ambulance. Joey’s most trusted driver was at the wheel, with Clay in the passenger seat. The paramedics and two soldiers rode in the back with Tony. Observers up on the roof of the garage had watched the repair truck approach and continued to look for signs of anyone following the truck to the garage.
When the all clear was given, the ambulance left the garage at fifteen minutes past noon with the lead and tail cars, and drove to the Thompson Medical Research Hospital in Wisconsin. When the ambulance and lead car left to return to Chicago the four trusted soldiers stayed behind to watch over Tony throughout his recovery. The two paramedics were rewarded handsomely, along with being threatened with a slow and painful death for them and their entire families if anyone learned what had just transpired.
At two o’clock the decoy patient, along with his records, was transferred from the hospital bed to a mobile stretcher, escorted to the Emergency Room entrance and loaded into a waiting ambulance. Joey and two of his men rode in the back of the ambulance with the decoy. The “patient” quickly dressed and armed himself as soon as they were underway. As the decoy ambulance pulled away from the hospital grounds they were met by their waiting lead and tail cars and two motorcycle policemen. Joey had been able to hire the two off-duty policemen by paying them an exorbitant sum to get their motorcycles from the police garage for a one hour ride to the Indiana state line. At the last exit on Interstate Highway 90 before the caravan got to the state line the policemen left the highway, leaving the decoy vehicles on their own. Since Joey and Clay were the only two people who knew ahead of time they were driving to Michigan, there was no chance of an ambush being prepared ahead of them. But Clay was certain at least one chase car would have been kept ready by the Russians, just in case Tony was moved to another location. The caravan got onto highway 94 in Indiana and stayed on it into Michigan. They switched to Interstate Highway 196, running along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
After a thirty minute drive the three vehicles exited the interstate onto a black topped two lane county road. When the ambulance and escort cars exited Interstate 196 a red Chrysler New Yorker with three men inside followed, staying several hundred yards behind the group. Getting away from the shoreline the land flattened out. Deep drainage ditches had been dug along both sides of the narrow black top roadway for rain water and snow melt runoff. Clay and Joey had found a stretch on the road where no side roads intersected for a distance of one and one half miles, with no houses in between. As the red Chrysler passed a side road, a tractor truck with a car carrier trailer pulled out behind them. Another truck blocked the road behind it and two men put out a sign reading ‘Road Closed for Black Topping’.
The driver of the tailing car was staying just close enough to the ambulance to not let it get out of sight. He paid little attention to a stake bed truck used for hauling grain; it was up ahead on the left side
of the road in a field entrance lane. As the car approached the grain truck, the truck pulled out onto the black top in front of the car. The truck hit the car’s left front fender and side, forcing it into the right side ditch. The ditch was steep enough to cause the braking car to plow into the far bank and come to a quick stop after traveling a short distance along the ditch. As the occupants of the car recovered from the impact and started exiting, three men stood up in the back of the truck bed and began firing shotguns and automatic rifles at the victims. The tractor trailer with the car carrier trailer arrived before the shooting was finished and parked at an angle across the roadway. Two of the men who had been shooting put down their weapons, took a cable from the grain truck and attached it to the rear frame of the car. The car was pulled out of the ditch, back onto the roadway, and the three bodies were crammed into the trunk. One of the shooters started the car, and in spite of the heavy damage done to the right front end, maneuvered it up the ramp onto the car trailer’s lower level.
The following morning at seven o’clock Clay and Joey arrived at Tony’s farm, driving the car carrier with a single red Chrysler as the load. They went to a wooded bottoms area where a fifteen foot deep by twenty five feet long trench had been excavated with a bulldozer the day before by the man who managed the farm. Joey backed the trailer up to the fresh excavation and Clay backed the Chrysler off the trailer and down the steep incline to the bottom. The diesel engine of the ancient Caterpillar D-8 bulldozer struggled to start, but finally fired off. Joey ran the heavy machine down in the hole and on top of the red Chrysler, collapsing it into a burial vault for the three entombed bodies. After making several runs into the hole pushing dirt to cover the car, Joey stopped the machine, climbed down from it and walked to the edge of the hole where he unzipped his pants. While pissing on the grave of the men buried beneath him he said to Clay “It’s better than the bastards deserved.” When Joey finished filling the unmarked gravesite, they returned the bulldozer to the shed where it was kept. Thirty minutes after leaving the farm Joey pulled the tractor trailer into the first truck stop he saw where he enjoyed a full breakfast; Clay ate a bagel and drank coffee in silence.
Clay and Joey were near the warehouse site well before seven o’clock waiting to see if the Russians would again leave for dinner at the same restaurant, as they had the week before.
Joey asked Clay, “Who the hell died now?” when he saw the new three piece pin striped suit and coordinating shirt and tie Clay was wearing, complements of Anna. Clay smiled at the good natured ribbing, but didn’t reply.
At ten minutes of the hour, the first car pulled out to the street and waited for the black Cadillac and the tail car to exit the warehouse. But this time Clay was in a car following and observing them first hand. From the warehouse to the Tri-State Toll way the cars used the left lane on the four lane streets, and even maintained position on the approach to the toll way. The three car Russian convoy stayed close together when traveling, staying in the left fast lane as much as possible, driving over the speed limit but usually with the other faster traffic. The three cars acted as a precision drill team, moving through traffic in unison. If traffic was heavy the rear car would cut between cars first, and hold traffic back until the other two cars entered it's lane.
The security firm had arranged to put a cameraman in a large wooden box secured to a flat bed truck. Even in the waning evening light he was able to get pictures of everyone in all three cars as they slowly passed.
The Russians followed the same route into downtown Chicago as they had the previous week and went to the same ethnic restaurant. As the three cars entered the parking lot of the Moscow Club, Clay instructed his driver to continue driving ahead slowly. Two blocks away he spotted an Italian restaurant and told the driver to park. As he, Joey and Danny Vitelli walked toward the entrance to Martoni’s Bar & Grille, Clay stopped and took Joey aside. “I’ll be gone an hour or more and meet you back here. I’m going to the Moscow to observe our Rusky up close.” As Joey began to object Clay stopped him. “I’ll be careful and not draw any attention; I know what I’m doing. We need all the first hand information we can get.”
Turning and walking away from Joey cut off further discussion. Crossing the first street he looked to the opposite end of the block and saw several women at the corner. “Hookers,” he thought. His original plan was to pose as a businessman having dinner alone. But he might need to consider a change to a businessman enjoying all the city had to offer. A women companion, even one of dubious reputation could be a positive addition.
Evaluating the whores as he approached, he selected the one dressed the least provocatively, even though she came in second for looks and figure. If she didn’t have a gutter mouth and had enough sense to behave like a high class escort instead of cheap trash they might pull it off. She appeared to be about twenty five, give or take four or five years. As they discussed price he decided she would do. She initiated the haggling at fifty for an hour, or seventy five for the night, probably thinking the young businessman might be a high roller. He quickly set his price at thirty dollars with another thirty for the hour they would spend at dinner before renting a room. As they walked away from the other women, amid whistles and lurid remarks, he laid out his expectations for her behavior. Inside the Moscow Club he informed the maitre d’ they would be joined by another couple shortly and therefore would require a table for four. As he was speaking he surveyed the dining area and noticed an alcove off the main room with glass bead curtains across the opening. Eight course looking men sat at two tables on each side of the alcove, four at a table. Those would be the body guards.
Clay declined the first table they were offered, and with the help of a twenty pressed in the hand of the maitre d’, was seated at one across from and slightly to the left of the alcove. Clay positioned his date, Bonnie, across from him with her back to the alcove. He had a good view of the two coveys of guards and into the small room while still appearing to look at his date. During the next hour he was able to observe the group behind the beaded curtain; five men and one woman were being served. Later Clay didn’t remember what he ordered and barely remembered how it tasted. He carried on a light conversation with his rental whore for appearances sake, but focused his attention around her and across the room where loud talking could occasionally be heard; in Russian of course. Half way through his meal the beaded curtain parted and a strikingly attractive brunette passed through. She couldn’t really be described as beautiful, but exuded a commanding presence. Clay sensed she would be strong, controlling and maybe even cruel. The woman had been seated with her back to him and he could finally see the person who had been doing most of the talking. While Sophia Toscovich had been blocking his view, Clay had observed a lot of hand gestures and finger pointing from the hidden figure he was sure was Ivanoff Toscovich. Obviously this was the man in charge. The loud talking and gesturing could be over the news “The Big Italian” had escaped from the hospital right under their noses; and the fact three of his own men had disappeared hours later. Clay was unable to see the man’s facial features clearly in the candle lit room but was sure of light colored hair and a medium build. What he could clearly discern in the dim, flickering light was an open shirt and several heavy gold chains draped across his chest.
Sophia again passed through the glass curtain and took her seat at the table. “Shows over,” thought Clay as he downed his drink. “I’m ready to leave” he said to Bonnie. She was surprised at his quick decision, but said “OK, lets go” pushing her unfinished meal away but downing the rest of her wine.
Outside Bonnie took his arm, “My, aren’t you the impatient one” she said. “Yeah, aren’t I” was all he could think of in reply as his thought were interrupted.
At an alley in the next block, he pulled Bonnie into it and behind a trash dumpster. Unzipping his pants he told her, “Give me a blow job right here and we’ll call it even.”
After giving Bonnie an extra twenty dollars he crossed the s
treet to get back to Martonis. Inside, he found Joey and ordered bourbon on the rocks and told him what he had seen.
Sunday afternoon Joey walked into Clay’s office in response to his summons. “Sit down. Joey this is a list of items we’ll need by Friday. Some of the cars and trucks will need to be stolen and hidden somewhere until then. Have a mechanic check them out to be sure they’re all reliable; can’t risk having any of them break down. Take a few minutes to review the items on the list because some will require modification. You’ll see a large number of guns, ammunition and large capacity ammo clips. They may not be readily available. Estimate how much cash you’ll need and tell Anna, she already knows the plan. When you’re done reviewing the list I’ll go over what I’ve got planned for Mr. Ivanoff Toscovich and his crew.
“I can see from this list it’s going to be a loud surprise” Joey said as his big square face broke into a grin from ear to ear. “It appears we’re close to the part you promised me.”
On Monday morning Clay, Joey and six of Joey’s most trusted men met upstairs at the saloon to review the pictures of all the Russian soldiers they had pinpointed.
Joey, through his police contacts, had license numbers of the cars they had been following traced, learning the names and addresses of fourteen more members of the other gang. Most of those names turned out to be of Russian and Polish origin. Unknown to those men, their pictures were being taken as they entered or left the warehouse and their homes; they would also soon be dealt with.
Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy Page 7
