Dead Birmingham

by Timothy C. Phillips

  Hallelujah, I sang to himself. We might just make it, yet.

  Chapter 33

  The Foreigner nodded to himself. These urchins certainly are clever. He had almost missed it. Concealed in the ceiling of a broom closet, there it was, the secret way to the upper floors. The tiles in the ceiling had been carefully removed and replaced as the covering of a trap door. A rope tied to the knob on the inside allowed whoever entered to pull the door shut behind them. Ingenious. Well, almost.

  It was dark as pitch in the room above. Did he risk using his light? There might easily be another trap waiting on him in the darkness, and this one might be something a tad more dangerous.

  * * *

  Across the street, Scott LaRue watched the three men go down the back alley. They had beaten him there. They were cops, no doubt about that. He saw the state plates on the car, and the blue light on the dashboard.

  So, the cops were on the scene. That was good news, anyway, but they were in the way. He couldn’t risk coming clean with them about the whole thing. They would take him into custody to sort out the details, and that would never do.

  Scott knew that he could still beat them to the top, and get Angel and the others out. He knew a better way in, and another way down. He could go right around the police, and whoever else might be there, as they would have a very difficult climb, and it was dark and there were many obstructions in their path. And besides, he also had to get the box back; it couldn’t fall into their hands. Forget his mission to the antique shop. He had to keep it. If they got it back . . . then all of this would have been for nothing, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Up the fire escape and across the roof of the old theater he sped, to a balcony beneath a glassless window. A barely visible cord hung down; he grabbed it now and gave it a tug. Down slid a knotted rope. Though tired, fear had given him the adrenaline rush that it took to climb: tense, nightmarish strength. He shinnied up the rope in seconds and was through the window and running across the darkened floor. He knew the way by heart, and he had personally removed every obstruction that might slow him, if he ever had to make it down in a hurry, and in total darkness. Now he was going up, an eventuality he had never foreseen. With any luck, they would all soon be coming down the same way.

  He took the western stairwell, because it was closer. He was now on the sixth floor. Soon, he would have to start using the special ways that he and the others had made, and the police would be slowed down, maybe even stopped altogether by the blocked doors and other obstructions that Scott and the others had put into place against just this kind of day. With luck, he could reach the others, get that infernal box—the source of all his troubles—and get the others out via the theater roof, while the cops were still climbing blindly inside the building. But he would have to hurry, for time was almost gone.

  As he climbed, he listened to the little voice in his head: I know what’s in that box, now—my own goddamned ruination.

  * * *

  “It looks like this is a service entrance of some kind. Comes right up behind the stage.” Broom, Mack and I all had flashlights out, and their bright beams scanned over the disintegrating interior of the Cabana Theater.

  “Looks like the fat lady sang in here quite a while back,” Broom wisecracked. He directed his light up the aisle and toward the lobby. “The hotel is over there. Let’s go.”

  We reached the lobby and the wide stair. We took in the layout of the lobby.

  Mack and Broom pulled their guns in unison, sensing that they were about to cross some line. Broom glanced at me.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring a weapon.”

  “I’ve got my old forty-five. I was hoping I wouldn’t need it.” I shrugged and pulled the gun from my shoulder holster. “If you can’t beat ’em,” I said, my voice echoing faintly in that big, dead place.

  “That’s my old partner,” Broom said. Then he nodded toward the concierge’s desk. “There are stairs up there, and another stairwell across the lobby. We’ll need to sweep the place. Roland, if you will assist Mack with one side, I’ll take the other. That way, we each have radios. The first one to make contact with the kids radios the other immediately.”

  “Will do.” I started across the lobby for the far stairs, Mack right behind me.

  “You guys be careful,” Broom called after us. Then, he stepped into the darkness of the stairwell. “Let’s all be careful.”

  Chapter 34

  The hunt. The resistance. Acts in a play. The final act is swiftly approaching.

  The Foreigner had climbed to the next floor, only to discover that his quarry was not there, either. He would have to search the twenty-first floor for a hidden way up, also; and, of course, the twenty-second.

  But then, my darlings, what then?

  He wondered if any of them were armed. In America, everyone seemed to possess a firearm. He should use caution. If they fired on him in one of the cramped passages, they might get lucky. But something told them such an event was unlikely. They lived by their wits, these children, not by force.

  He had a second pistol strapped to his body, besides the Walther PPK that he now carried in his right hand. In a web belt beneath his tasteful cobalt gray suit coat, he had fifty rounds of ammunition in spare clips. Of course, he also carried a couple of knives. He would need those, and soon. He had grown more brazen in his search, now, because time was pressing. He pointed his flashlight directly into the opening, and he could see the ceiling of the room above. He braced his foot against the wall and hoisted himself up, into the space. Another floor lay between him and his quarry. And that was all.

  * * *

  Mack and I stood in the wide corridor, listening. About the only thing we heard was each other’s breath.

  “How many more floors, Roland?”

  “Just two.” We stood in front of the locked doors of the west staircase.

  Mack tested the doors. “Looks like they’re barred from the inside.”

  I nodded. “They would be. It makes sense that these kids probably made themselves some ways in and out that others wouldn’t know about. Makes it hard for them to get surprised by unwanted company.”

  “Well, let’s just hope that saves their bacon,” Mack grunted. “Of course, that isn’t going to make it any easier for us to find the way up. My bet is, they would be in the ceilings. Maybe a hole with a rope dangling down, something like that. You want we should split up?”

  I thought for a second. I had no radio, so I would have no way to notify Mack and Broom if I found the kids first. “Okay, but if you find it, don’t leave the floor without me. I’ll search the west side, you search the east. We’ll meet back here, by the elevators in say, fifteen minutes.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Mack crept slowly down the hall to the double doors that separated the east side of the floor from the west. “Good luck.”

  I stood alone in the empty hallway. I am a big man, and I have been called brave, but as Mack disappeared into the darkness, I suddenly felt awfully alone.

  * * *

  The man they called The Foreigner had made it up into the opening when he heard several things. It took him a few seconds to separate and identify the sounds. First, he heard scampering above him. Perhaps on the floor above, or the very top floor, which was where he expected the children to be. Also, however, because of his unique vantage point of squatting between floors, he also heard the sound of a door being forced open in the western stairwell.

  Someone was coming up, one of the policemen, no doubt. The double doors down the hall, which he had closed ever so carefully behind him, creaked open. Someone was coming his way. A policeman would methodically check every room, he knew, just as he had done, to find the children’s secret entrance. Fine, he thought, let him come. He knew that he was invisible in his current position, to anyone passing by down below.

  * * *

  Detective Francis Anthony McMahon was a thorough man. He went about everything he did
systematically. If a case required him to read the telephone book, he was able to do so, taking meticulous mental notes as he went along. He could recall hundreds of numbers off the top of his head; license plates, addresses, and much more. He was a dogged cop, always starting at A and working his way down to Z, knowing that the answer to question lay somewhere in between.

  So it was that his systematic nature led him to check all the rooms on the floor, looking for what he knew must be there—a hole in the ceiling that skinny kids could squirm through to reach the next floor. He made minimal use of his flashlight, even though every room he walked into brought out cold sweat. The old hotel was a tower of darkness, and any room could hide sudden, merciless death. He stopped to listen often. He heard nothing. He methodically checked the ceiling in every room in every suite. He felt for a draft of air, a drip of water. Nothing.

  He came at last to the end of the hall. Only two suites left. He went to the one on the right, as he had done all the way down the hall.

  Better make it quick; Roland’s probably through with his sweep by now.

  He stepped into the main room and glanced at the ceiling. There was enough light filtering in from across the street to show him that the ceiling was an unbroken plane.

  Of course they wouldn’t break through out here. They’d put it where there was something to step up on. Bet it’s in the bathroom.

  He looked into the hallway that led to the rear of the suite. For the tenth time he took a deep breath and walked into the black yawning mouth of an unlit hallway. There was a closet on either side of the hall. Both were open, empty black rectangles that yawned like upright graves. He shined his flashlight into the one on the right, and suddenly he felt a stabbing pain go through him, and he was just as suddenly aware that he was horizontal, his face buried in musty carpet a half inch deep in dust. It was very hard to breath. Now he heard the shot, somehow, echoing around the room.

  Oh dammit, I’m shot!

  Mack tried desperately to bring his gun up into a firing position, to turn over, to roll out of the killer’s field of fire. He never heard the second shot, as it was aimed much too precisely.

  Chapter 35

  Broom was losing patience with this entire screwy case. He was getting winded. He was no spring chicken, of course, but he was also a very big man, and that fact was no asset on this long, vertical climb. Also, he was trying to be conservative with the use of his light, which might easily be seen from the hotel’s east wing. This had caused him to stumble twice, once over a long abandoned mop bucket, and the second time over a roll of carpet. Both had been left in the middle of landings. Broom smiled to himself. Probably to slow down big lumbering cops, should they ever come. Or maybe hired killers.

  Broom had just mounted the twenty-first flight of stairs when he heard shots, above and to the left of where he was standing. The shots were muffled, but not silenced. Broom froze in his tracks.

  He’s here. He found them first. God in Heaven, let me get to them before it’s too late!

  Broom whipped out his radio, cramming his light into the elbow of his right arm, gun in hand. He backed slowly into a corner.

  “Mack come in. Mack, we have gunfire. What’s your location?”

  There was no answer. Mack was in trouble. Maybe Roland too. Broom pushed against the door, felt it give an inch or so and then he felt resistance.

  “Detective Broom to Dispatch.”

  “Dispatch, go ahead.”

  “Be advised shots fired and possible officer down at 221 21st Street, abandoned structure, Name’s going to be the Cabana Hotel. Cannot raise partner, have armed perpetrator in the building, advise responding units to proceed with all caution.”

  “10-4. Units enroute.”

  “10-4. Advise officers that they’ve got a long climb.”

  “Will advise.”

  Broom set his jaw. He had been one of the largest college halfbacks the American college system had ever seen, one of the strongest, too. He backed up to the end of the landing and ran at the door, low, shoulders squared.

  Hang on guys, I’m coming.

  * * *

  The Foreigner listened to the police banter on the radio he had taken from the policeman he had just killed. So, there would be more on the way, and soon. That made his job very difficult, though not impossible by any means. He could use the radio against them. He had also taken the dead policeman’s gun and badge, which might also prove useful.

  Now he was moving swiftly through the rooms on the twenty-second floor. Just one last hidden door to find, and then the game must be brought to a swift end. No time for play. Regrettable, but expediency was the iron law by which he lived.

  He finally came to a bedroom where there was something odd about the ceiling tile. He examined it closely for a couple of seconds, then let his light fall on the aged bureau beneath it. There were footprints there in the dust, quite recent ones. He looked at the ceiling tiles again. A repetition of the craftsmanship in the closet. Several tiles had been carefully removed and then replaced over a concealed trap door. They were arranged in such a way that when the door was pulled shut from the other side, they fit neatly back into the staggered pattern of the ceiling. Except that whomever had gone through last had been hasty, and had not shut the door all of the way. It hung open about a quarter of an inch. He smiled. At last, he was finally going to meet his young friends face to face.

  * * *

  I had heard the shots, and ran immediately down the hall to where the double doors separated the west and east wings of the Cabana. “Mack!” I shouted, my gun out. I flattened against the wall. “You okay?”

  There was no answer. I grimaced, and went out into the darkness, running low, gun first. I scanned through the rooms quickly, a nightmarish run made slightly easier by the fact that Mack had left every door through which he had gone wide open. In the dim light, I could see that the door to the left at the end of the hall was still closed. Mack had never made it there. His methodical approach was showing me the way.

  Good man, Mack.

  I went down the hall at a gallop, and flattened against the jam the way they had taught me in the police academy, all those years ago. “Mack! You all right?” Still no answer. “Birmingham Police, put down your weapon and come on out!” I may have felt a little guilty. I hadn’t been a cop for years, but the gunman wouldn’t know that.

  Of course no one came out. I heard a vague thud above me, somewhere. I went around the corner, gun out again, and quickly squared the room, gun hitting every cardinal direction. Nothing. Then I was in the hallway, where I found Mack. He was on his side, and there was a lot of blood.

  “Aw, Mack . . . no,” I whispered to myself. I felt for a pulse, and found none. His face was already cool to the touch. I found his flashlight and scanned the closets on either side. Steeling myself, I looked Mack’s body over. The shot that had clipped him had come from above, angling down into his back. The second had made a mess of his right temple. Also from above, as he would have been down from the first shot. I looked up into the left closet. There appeared to be no opening there.

  I reached up and pushed on the ceiling tiles. I felt them give. I started to climb up, but then knelt back down and felt along Mack’s belt for his radio. It wasn’t there. I also noted that his badge was missing. The radio was a problem, in that now I had no way to communicate with Broom. But it also meant that the killer could listen in on police movements. I looked down at Mack one last time before I began my climb, and a great surge of rage and grief overwhelmed m.

  Well you won’t know my movements, baby, and that’s too bad for you, because here I come.

  I tucked the light into my belt, and pushed up on the ceiling tiles. A makeshift door opened upward. Taking a deep breath, I found a purchase for my hands, and, grunting, pulled myself up into that yawning darkness.

  * * *

  Scott LaRue was rushing now, rushing because he had heard the shots that killed Detective McMahon, and could not guess who
had fired them, or who they were shooting at, but he knew he was the cause of it all, and only he could bring it all to an end.

  Oh, Angel, be all right! He rushed along toward his hiding place, almost by memory alone, through the darkened halls of the ancient hotel, where once his dead friend Mule had discovered him staring at an antique box, trying to wish it open. And they had concocted a foolish mission to recover the key that had sent Mule to his doom, and now that same doom was upon them all, because he, Scott had done nothing to halt its progress.

  Scott turned the corner and almost ran into Angel, Yim and Dextra. Angel screamed in fear and then her eyes widened in recognition. She rushed to hug Scott, then pushed him away in sudden anger. Dextra reached past Angel and grabbed the front of his shirt. “You bastard! Mule’s dead.”

  Scott put his hands up and shook his head sadly. “It’s all my fault. But listen, you have to get out of here. The man who killed Mule is in this building.”

  “Why don’t you just give him back what you stole, Mr. Super Shoplifter?” Dextra hissed. “Then he’d just go away!”

  “No, he won’t. He’s come to kill us all. That’s why I am going to give him the item back, while you girls get away.”

  “Scott, no! He’ll kill you, won’t he?” Angel pleaded.

  “Maybe. But Dextra’s right. It’s my fault, so you guys get out of here, and let me handle it. Go down the east side of the hotel and out to the theater roof.” Scott stopped for a second. “Where’s Bone?”

  “He and Yim went boosting a couple of days ago, and he never made it back. Yim says a man was tailing them.”

  “Dear god. Not him, too. Go, go now, there’s no time left.”

  He hugged Angel. “I’m sorry Angel. I love you.”

  “How will I find you?” she asked, hurt and anger and a million other things in her eyes.

  “I’ll find you. I love you. I have to go.”

  Scott turned and ran down the hallway, with just one last look behind him. The girls had turned and were leaving in the other direction. Good. Just one thing left to do, Scott thought, and with a deep breath he ran to his secret hiding place, and the source of all his sorrows.