Time's Up

by Janey Mack

  With five brothers who liked to lock me in as well as out of everything, the snap gun had proven to be the smartest fifty bucks I ever spent growing up. Contrary to the movies, picking a lock was tough, not the technique as much as having steady hands under high adrenaline.

  It was called a snap gun for a reason. It was damn loud. My hands were sweating.

  Hank’s Law Number Four: Keep your head.

  I freed the tension wrench, a slim bent piece of steel, from the handle of the gun and slid it into the lock. With the wrench in place, I put the needle nose of the snap gun into the lock, took a quick breath, and then pulled the trigger fast and hard.

  The gun jumped in my hand, as the needle nose struck the pins upward to hit the shear line. The metallic clicks blasting like fireworks, ringing in my ears.

  It took eleven snaps—twenty-three seconds—to unseat the lock.

  Olly olly oxen free.

  With a final look down the hallway, I twisted the tension wrench, opened the door, and stepped across the threshold. The stopwatch in my brain started ticking, drumming, actually, as I closed the door behind me.

  With a flashlight, gloves, and infinite care, I rapidly searched the kitchen. I checked the freezer, the fridge, cabinets, and under the sink. I even pulled the liner in the kitchen trash can to see if Clark had squirreled something beneath.

  Zip.

  Flynn was sure these hits were connected. I needed something, anything, that showed Thorne Clark and Keith Nawisko were related.

  I cycled through the dining room—the table the only furniture to show signs of life with a bowl of wrinkling apples—and made my way into the living room. West Elm cream-colored sofas with red pillows and CB2 artwork. Design magazines in a galvanized tub. A stop sign hung above the fireplace mantel.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The apartment was a modest two-bedroom remodel with open kitchen, dining nook, and great room that wasn’t great enough to hide something Flynn and Rory might have overlooked.

  The BOC’s evidence team had paid the most attention to the smaller bedroom/office. Thorne’s computer and laptop had been removed, as evidenced from the dust pattern and cords left behind on the desk. The file cabinet had been emptied, as well. I went into the bedroom. A flick of the flashlight showed a low profile bed, with a pair of New Balance mule sneakers serving as slippers on one side of the bed.

  I went to the dresser. Aside from a giant Mason jar of change on the dresser, an ancient kitschy kangaroo ring and wallet caddy, Ray-Bans, and a stack of catalogs, nothing. I checked under the mattress, as well as the bed and pillows. No photos.

  Zero.

  The only signs of personality left in the apartment were the clothes in the closet. Brooks Brothers shirts and suits, Levi’s, pithy Threadless tees, and Target underwear.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Clenching the flashlight between my teeth, I went back to the dresser and started rifling through the dresser drawers, running my hands along the undersides. Talking myself down in looped internal monologue. Nobody lives here. Keep calm. Room by room. There has to be something.

  Except that I’d been in the apartment almost ten minutes and had turned up less than nothing. I gagged on my flashlight and kept looking.

  Apprehension prickled my skin. The eerie feeling you get that someone is watching you, because someone is.

  I clicked off the flashlight and crouched down beside the bed.

  A hulking black shadow loomed in the doorway.

  I skittered backwards, tripped over the tennis shoes, and crashed into the bureau, tipping over the giant Mason jar of change, which rained onto the floor in a hideous symphony.

  Oh Jesus. Game over.

  “A little noisy for a cat burglar,” Hank said.

  It took me a good thirty seconds to catch my breath.

  “You through here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, buzzing from the heady cocktail of shock and mortification with a twist of relief. “Am I?”

  He grabbed my arm and manhandled me into the kitchen. “You want to get hurt? Caught? Or both?” He smacked the tension wrench I’d left in the door on the counter.

  I winced. I’d left the wrench in the door so I wouldn’t have to use the snap gun again to lock it. A stupid and lazy mistake.

  Hank tossed a crumpled piece of paper on top of the wrench. I turned on the flashlight. A computer screen shot: grassed.com. Top Twenty Places to Hide Your Stash. “What’s this?”

  “Clark’s web history.”

  “But the CPD has his computers.”

  “More than one way to skin a cat, Sunshine.” He moved to the center of the dining room table and reached beneath it. “Number sixteen.”

  #16: The drop leaf in the dining room table.

  The ingenuity of drug addicts is sadly impressive.

  Standing at either end, we pulled the table apart. Four bank-wrapped stacks of fifty-dollar bills sat atop a composition book on the unused wooden panel. Hank slipped the book into his jacket and pocketed the money.

  “What is it?”

  “No,” he said.

  “But—”

  “What are you doing here?”

  I pressed my lips together. Two can play at this game.

  “Goddammit,” he muttered and moved in tight, his face inches from mine. “Wise up. You may be a McGrane, but you’ll never be one of the boys.”

  Funny how not much in life is crueler than the truth.

  A sigh squeezed its way out of my chest.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “I, uh . . . think I’ll clean up the pennies, first.”

  “Always look for the smoothest point of ingress.” Hank climbed out of the window onto the fire escape. “Basic recon. I’ll leave the stairs down.”

  I walked back into the bedroom, lifted the fallen jar off its side, got down on my hands and knees, and started scooping change into it as quickly and quietly as possible.

  It wasn’t as though I could tell my brothers about Hank or what he found in the table.

  Suck-tastic.

  Tonight definitely made the top ten of Most Imbecilic Things I’ve Done Lately.

  Finished, I stood up and nudged the kangaroo caddy to make some space for the jar on the dresser. It didn’t move. I bumped it harder, and it tipped.

  I set the jar down and picked up the caddy. A silver ring hung from the tail, the belly held two pair of cuff links, one set with the mayor’s election logos, the other his fraternity. I slid a finger underneath.

  A photograph fluttered down to the dresser. It had been taped to the base. Thorne Clark smiling with his arm around a hard-looking blonde with sly eyes.

  I’d seen her before.

  The woman who gave the nod to the men who’d dumped the guano in Coles’s campaign office.

  I flipped over the photo. A phone number was scrawled across the back.

  Maybe tonight’s adventure hadn’t been so stupid after all.

  Chapter 20

  I woke up the next morning to a mostly empty house. Flynn and Rory were sandbagged at work with a murder-suicide. Da had locked himself in the office, which meant no access to the family system to try and figure out who the blonde was or back-trace the phone number. I took a picture of both sides of the photo and debated texting it to Flynn.

  Working out did nothing to lessen the thoughts ping-ponging in my brain. What to tell my brothers? What not to tell them? And Hank. Always Hank. I got off the treadmill.

  When the universe is against you, it’s best to hunker down and hoark out.

  I spent the afternoon on the couch in Da’s den, drinking sugar Coke, eating sea-salt pita chips and Milk Duds, while binge-watching old episodes of Wire in the Blood.

  “What’s going on in here?” Da poured himself a whiskey and eased down next to me.

  “Guilty pleasures.”

  He ran a hand over my hair, then took the box of Milk Duds off my lap and shook some into his hand. “Aye. We two haven’t had a p
roper sit in donkey’s years.”

  My Coke caught in a choking snort. “Who are you, king of the leprechauns?”

  He smiled and waggled his brows. The phone rang. Da glanced at the caller ID and handed it to me.

  Hank Bannon.

  I let it ring twice more. Eyes alight, Da nestled deeper into the couch.

  “Really?” I said, but I was secretly glad he was staying. I’d be less . . . less. I clicked the phone. “Hello?”

  “Miss McGrane, please,” said the sultry voice I was pretty sure I despised.

  “Speaking.”

  “Mr. Bannon would like a meet.”

  Oh, would he? I chewed my lip and glanced at Da. “When?”

  “A car will be there in fifteen minutes.”

  That sounded ominous. I angled for a hint. “Dress code?”

  “Come as you are.”

  Gee, thanks. “Okay.” I hung up and tossed the phone on the coffee table.

  “So the fella says jump . . .” Da said.

  I put my hands on his cheeks and tried to salvage some self-respect. “Ach, me poor, innocent Da. Cain’t ye see I aim to run the lad to ground, all the while making him think it be his idee?”

  Da rolled his eyes and shouted at my back as I sprinted from the room. “That’s the worst brogue I’ve ever heard.”

  Upstairs, I got cuted-up as fast as possible before throwing on a girly dress with a flouncy skirt and battered Frye cowboy boots. I twirled once in front of the mirror. Fresh and innocent when I felt anything but.

  A strangely familiar man in a suit and sunglasses assisted me into the back of a navy BMW 5 Series and drove me to the shipyard warehouses. He didn’t speak. A single word. Which didn’t exactly aid in my quest to ID him.

  He stopped in front of a crumbling brick building with the single weathered word Refrigeration legible. Sunglasses opened my car door and together we walked to the entrance. He unlocked the door and I followed him down a shadowy hallway. Overhead, the few working fluorescent lights buzzed and snapped.

  Talk about showing a girl a good time.

  We stopped at a steel door. Sunglasses knocked twice, then inserted a key and swung open the door. Hank waited in front of a white tiled wall, wearing a grimy white T-shirt, torn desert camo pants, and black boots.

  My mouth went dry. Filthy and sweaty never looked so primal-sexy. I scanned the rest of the room, trying to get frosty.

  A bare bulb on a wire hung above a card table with a laptop and two chairs. “Nice.” I raised my chin. “I like the Saw VI vibe you got going on here.”

  Hank smirked.

  Sunglasses moved behind me to the card table. As he leaned forward to pull out the chair, I caught sight of the thinnest of lines that ran along the edge of his hairline, down the temple, and around his ear. The penny dropped. He’d trained with Hank. One of his short-stint rehabbers. Only when I’d seen him, his face had been littered with shrapnel.

  “How was the drive in?” Hank said.

  “Silent.” I crossed the gritty cement floor and took the proffered seat.

  Hank jerked his head at Sunglasses, who walked toward the door.

  “Salvatore looks terrific, though,” I said. The slight hitch in the driver’s step confirmed his identity. The door opened, closed, and locked behind him. “Where was he? Beverly Hills?”

  “Brazil.” Hank walked over to the table. “The best reconstruction guys are in South America now.” He sat down and pushed the closed laptop in front of me.

  I opened the computer. The browser was open to www.hillbuzz.org, Kevin Dujan’s underground city gossip column. The webpage had the operator’s coding open. The blog hadn’t been posted yet.

  Will Windy City bus drivers soon be wearing burkas? Chi-town’s illustrious mayor Talbott Cottle Coles is poised to sell off yet another bite-sized chunk of Chicago Labor to the Saudi invasion known as Dhu West. Why? To fund his reelection, of course.

  Squawk on the street says Eddie V cried “fowl” in spectacular fashion.

  “The chicken shit at Coles’s office,” I said softly. Duh. Times a thousand. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Who’s Eddie V?”

  “Eddie Veteratti. Runs Chicago’s Labor Union. Runs it exactly like Tony Lombardo did for Capone in the nineteen-twenties.”

  I kept reading.

  But slinging shit is all the rage this time of year. So while the Local #56 staunchly denies any and all rumors, it makes you wonder. Is Monday night’s memorial service for murder victim (sic) Keith Nawisko or the bus drivers’ union?

  Hank reached across the table, pushed Delete, and the post disappeared. He closed the laptop.

  “Flynn and Rory caught the Nawisko case,” I said. “The Bureau of Organized Crime took it over.”

  “Naturally.” Hank ran a hand along his jaw, his scruff making a faint rasping sound. “They know who did it.”

  Whoa. “Do you?”

  “One of Coles’s enforcers.” He leaned back in his chair. “It wasn’t a sanctioned hit.”

  And you know that how, exactly? I pulled the picture of Thorne and the blond woman from my pocket and flipped it onto the table. “Who is she?”

  Hank’s breath came out in a soft hiss. “Violetta ‘Vi’ Veteratti.”

  “Eddie’s wife?”

  “Sister.”

  “Thorne Clark was Flynn and Rory’s case.” I tapped the photo. “The BOC took that one, too. What’s the connection?”

  “There isn’t one. Maybe they’ll get it back.”

  “But Clark was a professional hit.” My nose crinkled in confusion. “According to the ME’s report, they used hardcast wadcutters. Low muzzle flash and signature. Limited power but up close, a buzz saw through bones and meat.”

  “Placement?”

  “Right between the pockets.”

  Hank shook his head. “An old hitter’s trick doesn’t an assassin make, Sport Shake. The Union sell-off was never going to happen.” He picked up the photo and put it in his pants pocket. “Clark was working for Vi.”

  “Then who killed him?”

  “Freelancer. Not connected.” Hank shrugged. “Ex-military, maybe. Dangerous.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You’re a nice girl.” His voice deepened. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Poke me in the eye with a stick, why don’t you? “Me, neither.”

  My knee started bouncing under the table. I wasn’t going to roll over that easy. July McGrane’s Rules of Engagement Number Four: Keep them off balance. I took a deep breath. “Will you go to the Dhu West Gala with me?”

  He hadn’t been expecting that.

  The best cops and lawyers are proficient when it comes to the ask-and-wait. I, however, had not inherited my family’s mad skills and had to count so as not to prattle on like a drunken parrot on crack. I tapped my fingers on my thigh, keeping time.

  Ten seconds.

  Twenty.

  “When is it?” he said.

  “Two weeks. Friday.” I started counting again. Sixteen seconds.

  “What about the guy with the Bullitt?”

  “I’m not looking for a date, Hank,” I fibbed. “I just need someone to watch my back.”

  More silence.

  “Maisie . . .”

  “Forget I mentioned it.” I felt sick. And small. And stupid. Tears blurred my vision. I sighed. “There’s blood on your shirt.”

  Hank looked down at the fine mist of red across his left shoulder and back up at me. “It’s not mine.”

  I know that.

  “Please.” He reached out and ran his knuckles down my cheek. “Let it alone.”

  “I-I can’t.”

  He dropped his hand. “Salvatore!”

  The door unlocked and opened.

  I guess that’s my cue.

  Chapter 21

  St. Hyacinth Basilica was a magnificent redbrick three-towered Polish cathedral with an opulent Baroque interior. A spectacularly lofty backdrop f
or bus driver and Union leader Keith Nawisko’s memorial service.

  Thanks for the tip, Hank.

  While it wasn’t his intention, he’d given me a real lead and the time and place to pursue it. One of Coles’s crew murdered Nawisko, and Eddie V’s guys hadn’t killed Clark. But just because they weren’t linked in a way that Hank cared about didn’t mean the cases weren’t connected.

  I knew in my gut Flynn was right. Someone who knew Nawisko and/or the Local #56 would have plenty of motive. A person who might even be at this memorial service.

  Dressed in a dark and demure Carmen Marc Valvo wool crêpe jacket and pants, I’d capped off my look with a pair of clear glass, rim-free spectacles. Which weren’t glasses at all, but an innocuous forty-megapixel Tech-Secure camera that took panoramic pictures by remote—a fake MP3 receiver that also served as 30 gigs of storage with an LCD playback screen.

  One of the best things about living in a house full of men are the toys.

  Two hours early, I’d discreetly reconnoitered the basilica. The arched stone entry of the western transept was the ideal vantage point to take pictures of the attendants in the nave.

  I meandered into the sanctuary. A pair of old ladies knelt before St. Joseph, votive flames glimmering in the dim light.

  Couldn’t hurt. I put a twenty into the little brass collection box and hedged my bets, lighting a candle in front of St. Anthony, patron saint of seekers of lost articles, and another in front of the patron saint of justice, St. Francis.

  A trio of suited ushers wearing St. Hyacinth Basilica name tags passed through en route to the nave. I ran a final equipment check in the bathroom and took my place. Organ music filled the church with a swelling, powerful sadness.

  It wasn’t difficult to locate members of the Local #56. Those who weren’t wearing blue nylon jackets were pulling at their shirt collars flashing gaudy blue-stoned union rings, faces full of impotent anger.

  I snap-snapped away, tipping my head back to catch the non-Catholics who’d taken the stairs and watched from the eastern wing. The service went on. Coughing sounded above me. The only blind spot. I’d have to swing all the way around to the opposite transept to get a shot.