Time's Up

by Janey Mack

“Maisie?” Tommy said.

  “Go,” I said. “Just go.”

  He scuttled down the corridor and away to the lobby. I dug in my clutch for my phone, only to remember I’d left it with Lee. Great.

  At the end of the hall, past the restrooms, was a guest phone bank—three wall-mounted open partitions each with their own phone. I chose the phone at the far end and called Flynn. “How fast can you get to the Jake Hotel?” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I think Wesley Peterson of the CPD killed Thorne Clark. And he’s here now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m by the bathrooms at the north end of the hotel. I don’t have hard evidence, but Peterson was the guy who vandalized my cart and left the bullet. The killing fits. His father’s a bus driver, and he was at the memorial service.”

  “How do you know this?”

  I almost said Narkinney spilled his guts. But for some reason I answered, “A little dog pissed on my leg.”

  “What about the guy that tried to run you over? Are they working together?”

  “Jeez, how would I know?” I said, rocking back and forth on my toes. “This is where you guys come in and connect the dots detective-style.”

  “Rory and I will be there in under ten. Do me a favor, will you? Go in the bathroom, lock yourself in a stall, and wait until we get there.”

  Are you frigging kidding me? I thunked my head against the partition. “But Cash and Lee—”

  “Maisie, please. For me,” he said, managing not to say or else.

  “Fine.”

  I pressed the metal button on the cradle to hang up, then dialed the first three digits of Hank’s number. I pressed the metal button again. What’s there to say, anyway?

  A meaty hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to see Peterson, nostrils flared, huffing like a bull.

  Uh-oh.

  “You think you’re so goddamn smart, dontcha?” He jabbed a thick finger into me, hard, right below my collarbone. He dragged his finger up my throat and leaned in until we were almost nose to nose. “You don’t have shit.”

  What I wouldn’t give to step back.

  “Oh yeah?” I said, praying he hadn’t heard my conversation with Flynn. “Once our negligence lawsuit hits, you’ll be lucky if the CPD ever lets you write a parking ticket.”

  “And you wonder why you’re not a cop, you stupid whore.” Peterson grabbed me by the throat, dragged me out of the partition, and slammed me against the wall. He grunted and pressed himself against me. “I know you know.”

  Since I’m already in hot water, I may as well start cooking.

  “Narkinney told me everything,” I rasped.

  Peterson’s face darkened. His hold loosened, and he gave a bark of laughter. “That rookie ass-wipe doesn’t know shit.”

  Hank’s Law Number Fifteen: Get tighter to get loose.

  I lunged, grabbing him around the girth.

  “What the—?” He let go of my throat and spun off the wall, trying to push me off. I let him, getting enough space to land two sharp pops to his kidney.

  “Bitch!” He grabbed my ponytail and yanked my head back. I tried to spike my foot down into his calf. My heel glanced off his shin and tangled in his ankle holster. I pitched backwards, falling, taking him down on top of me, crushing the wind from my lungs.

  Peterson straddled my chest, pinning my arms with his knees.

  I bucked and squirmed.

  “I’ve been restraining jacked-up dust junkies for twenty years.” He laughed. “Keep trying. It’s turning me on.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Yuck. I quit moving and started to scream.

  He slapped a sweaty palm over my mouth and pulled a small switchblade from his pants pocket. He was breathing hard. Harder than me, even. “What to do, what to do?” He tapped the tip of the blade against my forehead over and over. “There oughta be a warning label for cunts like you.”

  Trapped beneath a wing-puller. Not good.

  A horrible light danced in his eyes. “My first choice is cunt, but bitch has more letters.”

  Maybe if I squirm, it’ll be less legible. Icy sweat trickled down my neck.

  He smiled. “You gonna cry now?”

  Hank’s Law Number Thirteen: Anyone can endure expected pain.

  I’d be damned before I made a sound for that fat fuck.

  His small porcine eyes narrowed in concentration, tongue poking from between his teeth like some special-ed sadist. He creased my forehead with a straight downward cut.

  Bitch it was, apparently.

  The single, searing slice felt exactly like a curling iron burn. Except for the thin trickle of warm blood slicking down into my ear.

  Peterson leered. “Not laughing now, are ya?”

  “Nh-nn,” I said into his hand.

  “That’s right. You’re gonna shut the fuck up. About everything. Or else I’m gonna—”

  A human bullet knocked Peterson off me.

  My brother Rory was on his knees beside me, pulling me upright, shaking my shoulders. “Maisie? You okay? Maisie?”

  The unpleasant squelching sounds of fists hitting flesh filled my ears.

  “Jaysus, you’re bleeding.” Rory felt around in his jacket pocket. He removed a handkerchief and pressed it to my head. It smelled of gun oil. “Oy!” He shouted at Flynn, “Don’t croak him.”

  I looked over.

  My brother had Peterson in a chokehold, face stop-sign red. Flynn slackened his hold and forced him to the ground, cuffed him, and removed the Springfield Armory service pistol from Peterson’s holster. “I’m thinking attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, battery . . .”

  Peterson started swearing. Flynn dug his knee into his spine. Peterson groaned and stilled.

  Rory helped me to my feet.

  “Where’s his backup?” I asked.

  Flynn frisked him and found a Smith & Wesson K-Frame revolver in his ankle holster. He grinned at me. “Give her a pair of gloves, Rory.”

  Rory, who’d been in the process of putting on his own gloves, waited until I jammed his handkerchief down the front of my dress. He tossed me a pair, then picked up and bagged the switchblade.

  I snapped them on. Flynn handed me the gun and I opened the cylinder. Five Buffalo hardcast lead wadcutters. “One short,” I said.

  “I’m betting the one I have at the station is from the same lot.” Flynn hauled Peterson to his feet.

  “Doesn’t prove anything,” Peterson snuffled through his broken nose.

  “True, but the morgue still has the ones you left in the mayor’s staffer. I’m guessing a mutt like yourself is too goddamned cheap to have bought a new piece. Or even changed the barrel.” Flynn grinned at me.

  Peterson blanched.

  “Nice feckin’ police work, Snap,” Rory said. “Want to come downtown with us and book him?”

  Not really, no.

  “Uh . . .” I glanced at my watch. Only twenty-three minutes had passed. “I think I’m going to stay. I’m pretty sure I’m getting an award.”

  “For what? Blowing Coles?” Peterson spat a mouthful of blood on the carpet. “Have a nice ride on your knees in the limo.”

  Rory walked over and punched Peterson so hard in the stomach he fell to his knees and started to retch.

  Flynn stepped around him. “Get a couple of Band-Aids from the front desk and don’t drink too much.” He kissed my cheek. “Trust me, there’s nothing worse than a comedown and cocktail hangover.”

  Chapter 48

  The concierge of The Jake took one look at me and marched me straight into the office. After two minutes of swearing I did not want an ambulance and would not be filing charges against The Jake, he had one of the sous-chefs clean me up and apply four pieces of barely noticeable skin-colored stitch-tape from the first aid kit.

  I walked into the lobby exhausted and jittery. Goddamned Peterson.

  There was no way I was ready to go back into the ballroom. Hoping to take the edge off my adrenaline in t
he dank Chicago air, I pushed through the heavy wood front doors.

  A red-jacketed valet sat at his empty station, playing with his phone, back conspicuously to the drive.

  Fifty yards away, at the far side of the circle, parked tail-up on the curb, in front of a fire hydrant and blocking the egress, was Coles’s black Lincoln limo.

  Of course it was.

  I walked over to it, angling for a peek into the illegally darkened driver’s-side window.

  Empty.

  I turned on my heel. Dozen came around the outside of the hotel, cigarette pinched between his lips, zipping up his jodhpurs.

  “They have bathrooms inside, you know,” I said.

  He spat. “No pissing on the Tallywacker’s dime.” Dozen took a long drag on his smoke and waved the cigarette in the general direction of my head. “Mixin’ it up again, Bluebird?”

  I dropped into a three-point boxer stance and threw a couple quick punches. “That’s me.”

  He shook his head. “Yo, that shit go dumb last week.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I laid that whacked-out sumbitch all nice and cozy at the Local #56.” Dozen smacked his lips and smiled. “Shoulda seen the office girl. Man, did she lose her shit.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Yo, well that’s what a mutherfucker gets for interfere’n.” He sucked the cigarette down to the filter, plucked the burning tip from his lips, and flicked it in a graceful arc toward the rear tire.

  The glowing ember fell like a fading firework. A tiny reflection glimmered in the wheel well. A glint of something that didn’t belong there.

  Dozen moved toward the door.

  “Freeze!”

  His hands shot up. “Christ, you sound like a fuckin’ cop!”

  “Step away from the vehicle,” I said, feeling equal parts ridiculous and scared.

  Arms still up, Dozen stepped back onto the curb. “Now what?”

  Praying I was wrong but full of the gut-twisting foreboding I wasn’t, I fished a compact out of my clutch.

  “You lookin’ a lil’ pale,” Dozen said.

  “Catch.” I tossed him my bag. Compact in one hand, I hiked my Halston cocktail dress high on my thighs with the other and dropped gingerly to my knees. I peeked up under the rear wheel of the limo. Nothing.

  “Damn, girl, I could break you off something proper.”

  Nice. On my hands and knees in the gutter and you’re checking out my ass.

  I opened the compact and reflected The Jake’s lights up into the wheel well. Three galvanized pipes with caps, cable-tied together.

  Jaysus H.

  My hand began to shake.

  Hank’s Law Number Six: Don’t fear fear.

  Fighting the urge to drop the compact and get the hell out of there, I slowly moved the mirror closer to me. A woven strand of black, yellow, and red wires protruded from the cap of one pipe. The wires ran into a small plug at one end of a glass vial with a shallow puddle of silver fluid at one end, duct-taped to a magnet. A mercury switch. Motion activated.

  Ballsy, stupid, and goddamn serious.

  If Dozen slammed the driver’s door hard enough, it might’ve gone off. Probably could’ve when he closed the door behind the mayor. Definitely would’ve when he pulled off the curb.

  I tilted the mirror to a different angle and ran the back up the length of the bomb. Scrawled across the bottom pipe in black Magic Marker was the ultimate “screw you.” A message—Courtesy of the #56.

  Only cocksure idiots would sign a bomb. But how could they be so sure with a mercury switch?

  I adjusted the mirror again.

  A tiny red light blinked at the opposite end of the mercury switch. They’d doubled down with a remote.

  I slowly removed the compact.

  Dozen loomed overhead. “You a’ight, Bluebird?”

  The three words I learned at the Police Academy blared front and center in my brain—recognize, retreat, and report.

  Dozen held out a hand and my clutch to me. I took them both, and he pulled me to my feet. “Car bomb,” I said. “A whomper.”

  I surveyed the deserted cobblestoned courtyard, hotel entrance, and tiny slice of street visible through the gates. Depending on what the pipes were loaded with, it could take out more than the front of the hotel.

  I opened my clutch and closed it. Stupid phone was still in the dining room.

  Dozen marched in place without lifting his feet. “Goddamn motherfucker sonsofbitches asshole—”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “It’s in the goddamn ride!”

  I grabbed him by the arms. “Look at me.”

  He stilled and I let go. “Don’t let anyone out of the hotel.”

  I sprinted across the courtyard to the valet station. “Hey, you!” I shouted, startling the red-jacketed kid off his stool. I grabbed a silver luggage cart and pushed it over. “Give me your phone. Now.”

  Startled, he handed me his phone. I dialed 911, hustled behind the station, and tossed orange road cones onto the cart. The phone kept ringing. The valet stared at me. “Car bomb,” I said. “We’ve got to block off the drive.”

  The valet kept staring.

  “Now!” I shouted. “Move!”

  The kid jumped as if stung and started loading sandwich boards and wet floor signs onto the cart.

  The operator answered. “Nine-one-one. What’s the address of the emergency?”

  “The Jake Hotel. Car bomb in the front drive.”

  “Please repeat,” the operator said.

  “Car bomb at The Jake Hotel. This is Maisie McGrane. My father is Captain Conn McGrane. Homicide. The bomb’s on a mercury switch and on remote.... Pretty sketchy handiwork.”

  “A-course it’s sketchy!” Dozen shouted. “Some janky-ass fool rigged my ride!”

  “Please stay on the line.”

  “I can’t. But I’ll give you to someone who can.” I handed the phone to the valet and waved Dozen over. “You two—block off the drive and sidewalk—hell, block off the whole street. Do not come back to the hotel.”

  Dozen took hold of the cart with a running start. The valet sprinted alongside, phone at his ear. “What you gonna do?” Dozen called over his shoulder.

  “Keep everyone inside the building.”

  Chapter 49

  Lee and Cash shot out the massive lobby doors with guns drawn and Talbott Cottle Coles sandwiched between them in full protective bodyguard detail. A TV crew complete with a couple of photographers were tight on their heels. Sterling, Bliss, and Daicen brought up the rear.

  Cash and Lee halted at the pillars on either side of the door, pinning Coles between them, scanning the courtyard.

  I sprinted toward them, arms out wide. “Stop!” I shouted. “Freeze!” The limo was twenty yards behind me. The hotel twenty yards ahead. “Car bomb!”

  “This?” Talbott snorted. “This is my so-called assassination attempt? Let go of me!” He jerked his arm from Cash’s grip and shoved past Lee. He stormed toward me with fierce brows and flared nostrils. “You.” He pointed. “It’s always you.”

  “Hey!” Cash shouted.

  “Sir,” I said. “There’s a bomb—”

  “Sure there is. The ad campaign’s not enough, eh?” He jostled past me, knocking his shoulder into mine, heading straight toward the limo.

  You stupid son of a—

  I launched myself at Coles and took him down in a flying tackle that would’ve done J. J. Watt proud. We hit the cobblestone drive with a heavy thud.

  I lay there, on top of the mayor of Chicago, listening to the faint chatter of camera snaps from the front door.

  At least I’m not wearing a thong.

  Mind bending, really, how thirty underwear-flashing seconds can feel like thirty thousand.

  Finally, Coles grunted and pushed himself onto his forearms. “There better be a fucking car bomb, you stupid little publicity slut. This is a six-thousand-dollar Versace tuxe—”

  White l
ightning burst through the limo.

  Whoomph!

  The blast wave whip-slammed us into the drive.

  It felt like a giant spoiled child had stomped on me, wanting every concussed inch of my flesh to know exactly how furious he was.

  And then it was gone.

  Dust and grit misted over everything. Thick black smoke turned the mist to noxious fog.

  Coles and I lay facedown on the cobblestone drive. My ears were ringing, pulsing with blood. My entire body loose-limbed and numb.

  I lifted my head and looked back at the hotel.

  Cash and Lee were on their feet, shaking themselves like a couple of big dogs after a swim.

  “Remote!” I yelled. “It was set off by remote!”

  Cash lifted his chin and hit Lee in the chest. The two of them took off at a run, sprinting down the drive, scanning the area for the triggerman.

  Daicen and I exchanged thumbs-ups and then he and Sterling began to untangle the mayor’s unhurt and terrified entourage.

  Coles struggled beneath me.

  I was still on top of him. “Sorry.” I rolled off and knelt beside him. My body throbbed like I’d been strapped to the speaker at an AC/DC concert.

  I put my hand on his back. “Are you okay, sir? Can you hear me?” My ears were ringing so loudly I couldn’t even hear myself.

  With the smallest of purposeful motions, Coles scooped handfuls of dust and grit off the ground before clenching his head as if in pain. Camera-ready trauma testimony, disheveled but not distressed.

  Oh, he’s fine, all right.

  I supposed he deserved it. The bomb was under his limo, after all.

  Bright lights glared from the hotel doors.

  Cameras rolling. Nifty.

  I sagged and sat back on my heels. Coles got up on all fours, opening and closing his mouth wide, trying pointlessly to pop his ears.

  “Sir?”

  He rose up on his knees and stared me right in the eye. “You saved my life, McGrane.” He put his hands on my face and kissed me hard on the mouth.

  Bleah. I need a wet wipe and Listerine.

  “I owe you,” he said, in full-on Mobster. “A big one.”

  “I’m sorry?” I said. For cripes’ sake. He’s looped.

  “Jesus! You do this—thing. You save my life.” Coles shrugged a single shoulder, complete with moue, and looked to the heavens. “Now I do for you.”