Somehow I managed to unlock the van and crawl inside. Next step: Make certain I didn’t flood the engine. This van didn’t like deep cold temperatures, making it a stupid vehicle to have in the middle of a Chicago winter. I kept planning to sell the damn thing, but it was useful in my work, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to get rid of it, nor could I afford anything else.
It started right up, but I knew better than to shove the gearshift into reverse immediately. This stupid van had stopped dozens of times, usually whenever I was in a hurry.
I took the opportunity to lean over, open the glove box, and remove my gun. I checked to make sure the gun was loaded. I kept the safety on. Then I put the gun and an extra magazine in the pockets of my coat. Fortunately, the gun I used was designed to be concealed and not go off. I just usually chose not to do it. I hated carrying a gun this way, but I saw no choice at the moment.
I yanked the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway, fishtailing on the ice. Two winters in Chicago had made me a better winter driver, but I wasn’t as good as the natives. I spent most of my adult life in Memphis where no one knew how to drive in snow and ice. I usually stayed home when the weather was bad.
Now I had to somehow drive carefully and get to the Starlite Hotel before Lacey disappeared. And I had to do it without attracting the attention of the one or two cops that occasionally came to Chicago’s South Side. It would be just my luck if one of them pulled me over, to find me panicked with a loaded gun in my coat pocket.
Fortunately, I drove this route almost every day, sometimes twice in one day, and I knew it well. I knew that once I got out of the neighborhood, the streets would be plowed and salted enough so that there wouldn’t be a lot of ice. I knew that at this time of the day the traffic would be minimal, and I knew how to time the traffic lights so that I could hit every single green.
I concentrated on that, and tried not to think about what could be happening to Lacey. She was thirteen going on trouble, Franklin liked to say, and he didn’t know the half of it. She had developed a full-grown woman’s body in the past two years, and she liked showing it off. She wore inappropriate clothes she borrowed from friends, put on too much makeup, and was boy crazy. Often, when I picked her up from school, she came out still wiping the makeup off her face and adjusting the more demure outfit she had left the house in but had stored in her locker for the day.
Jimmy had told me that she had been hanging out with the wrong people, and he said she sometimes cut class. He kept telling me that she was going to end up badly, and I didn’t listen. I figured she had triggered his fears from his mother.
His mother, who had been a prostitute for Jimmy’s entire life. She had gotten pregnant in high school—or maybe junior high school—and the baby’s father abandoned her immediately. Her family threw her out, and she raised Jimmy’s brother Joe by herself, turning tricks and trying to make ends meet.
By the time she had gotten pregnant with Jimmy, she had two or three clients per night. She had no idea who Jimmy’s father was, and neither did he. She kept disappearing throughout much of his life, but his older brother took care of him until Joe got involved in gangs and drugs, and the last time Jimmy’s mother disappeared, Joe was already out of the house.
Jimmy had stayed in their crummy apartment until the landlord evicted him, and then he finally had to tell me the truth about what happened. Until that point, I was just the guy who worried about this street kid and occasionally bought him meals. I tried to help him find a permanent home, but Martin’s assassination ruined all of that, and brought us here.
That trauma, I had believed, made Jimmy leap to the wrong conclusions about Lacey. I had dismissed him, rationalized his opinion away, and hadn’t paid attention.
I should have listened. Jimmy was one of the most intelligent kids I had ever met, and he saw things I didn’t want him to see, things I didn’t want to see. We had our last conversation about Lacey in October, of all things, and at that point, Jim had used language he learned from his mother, phrasing things in a way that made me so uncomfortable, I never pursued any of this again.
I turned everything over and over in my mind, and added to it the Starlite and its proximity to the school. Chicago had more than five hundred public schools and nobody cared that the schools in the Black Belt were in horrible neighborhoods. I hadn’t even given the Starlite’s proximity to the linked grade school and junior high school much thought, thinking the neighborhood gangs were the real problem for the kids.
After all, why would johns and pimps and small-time thieves be interested in kids?
Why, indeed.
I turned right just before I got to the school, fishtailing again. The streets were icier here and I had to pay attention or I’d make some kind of horrible mistake. The Starlite had a parking lot, but it hadn’t been plowed since the last snowstorm, so I just parked kitty-corner in front of the restaurant.
Then I jumped out, slamming the van door shut but not locking it. The ice on the sidewalk here had broken in chunks. I ran across it, hearing it crack and praying that I wouldn’t fall. I didn’t see Keith outside. Nor did I see a pay phone anywhere close.
Then I cursed out loud. Of course I didn’t see a pay phone. Places like the Starlite had pay phones on every floor, for their indigent residents to use if they needed to make a call. Keith was waiting for me inside. Or maybe he had gone to the school for help.
I could only hope he wasn’t inside the Starlite. Because I had no idea what I’d do if I found some creep with his hands on Lacey.
The Starlite’s glass front door was yellow with cigarette smoke and age. I couldn’t see inside. I pulled my gun and yanked the door open. As I stepped inside, I flicked the safety off.
I could barely see, what with the cigarette smoke and the dim lighting. The place stank of alcohol, sweat, and semen. To my right was the registration desk, if you wanted to call it that.
I pointed my gun at the man behind it. He raised his hands, eyes wild.
I was about to demand him to let me into the room with Lacey in it when I saw movement. Beside the desk were stairs and on them were Jimmy and Keith helping Lacey down, one painful movement at a time.
Her blouse hung open, revealing the edges of a white bra. She wore a skirt so short that at first I thought it had been torn off her. The go-go boots on her feet looked like Jackson Pollack had designed them.
Then I realized that she was dripping blood.
It took all of my self-control to stop my free hand from going to my mouth. All the way here, I had thought about what could happen, but faced with the evidence—or just the beginning of the evidence—on a girl that I loved like family provoked a dozen emotions in me all at once.
My reactions would not help her right now. The only thing that would help her was to get her out of here.
I put the safety on and shoved the gun in the pocket of my coat. Then I walked toward Lacey and the boys slowly, so I didn’t startle her.
I surveyed the lobby as I did so, ready to grab the gun if I needed to. But no one looked threatening. In fact, no one looked. The man behind the reception desk thumbed through receipts as if nothing unusual had happened, as if someone pulled a gun on him everyday.
Maybe someone did.
“Lacey,” I said as gently as I could, as neutrally as I could.
“Some guy hurt her, Uncle Bill.” Keith Grimshaw, short, not into his growth yet, spoke so loud that I was sure they heard him outside. I’d never seen this little boy—still eleven and unused to the evils in the world—so very angry. “We gotta call the cops. We gotta—”
“Not now,” I said in that same calm voice. I glanced at Jimmy. The last thing we needed was for him to encourage Keith. I had to get them out of this horrible place first.
Jimmy’s gaze met mine. It was level, and he seemed even calmer than I felt. But there was something adult in his face, something determined, something that I had never seen before. And then it vanished. His lower lip shook.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t—”
“Jim saved me, Uncle Bill.” Lacey spoke for the first time. Her voice was clear, her chin raised. “He beat the guy up and sent him away. Jim saved me.”
That was why they were coming down the stairs together. Because Jimmy had somehow gotten her out of one of those upstairs rooms. I didn’t want to know how he had done that. Not here, anyway. I needed to get them to the door.
“Uncle Bill,” Keith said, and I knew what was coming next. He was a good kid, raised right. He still believed the police could help him. More to the point, he believed they would.
I shushed him, because I had no words of comfort for any of them. Then I leaned forward and picked up Lacey. She was lighter than I expected, and I could feel the stickiness of blood against the hand cradling her thighs.
Oh, baby girl, I thought. What the hell did he do to you?
And then I shut that thought down.
I carried her out of that hellish hotel and into the thin, cold sunlight. Jimmy and Keith followed.
They helped me put her in the back of the van, and then they sat on either side of her, as if they still needed to defend her.
I wiped my hands on my coat so that I could grip the steering wheel, and then I drove a badly injured thirteen-year-old girl and her eleven-year-old defenders to the nearest hospital.
THREE
THE LAST TIME I had brought a badly injured woman to this hospital, I had had Laura Hathaway with me. Laura—rich, white, connected—had managed to get the doctors to act quicker and more efficiently than I ever could have.
But, then, that woman had had an illegal abortion, which, in the doctor’s eyes, made her a criminal.
Lacey had been raped.
I hoped that the fact—and her age—would make this easier.
But I still needed Jimmy and Keith with me, so no one thought I was the one who had hurt her.
Unlike the last time, I knew the way to this emergency room. I drove as quickly as I could, taking main roads only because I knew that they’d be plowed. I had to leave the care of Lacey to the boys, but I also had to let them know what we were going to do.
“When we get there,” I said, “I’m going to go with Lacey. The hospital won’t let you boys come into the exam rooms.”
“Smoke,” Jimmy said. “I ain’t gonna leave—”
“It’s hospital policy, Jim.” I turned the van onto the road closest to the emergency entrance. The road’s surface had been plowed bare. I sped up. “It’s better not to argue about that, and to get Lacey treatment as fast as we can.”
“I’m okay, Uncle Bill,” Lacey said. Her voice was wavery and tired. She was definitely not okay. “Just take me home.”
“I’m not doing that,” I said.
“Then don’t tell my dad.”
“Dad’s got to know!” Keith still sounded too agitated for my tastes.
“No, please,” Lacey said. “Please.”
“I’ll deal with your dad,” I said to Lacey. I turned onto the narrow access road, heading quickly past the small Emergency sign with its red arrow. “In fact, Jim, when we get there, you need to call both Althea and Franklin. Get them here as fast as you can.”
“And the cops,” Keith said.
He wasn’t going to let that go.
“I’ll make sure we catch this bastard,” I said.
“Uncle Bill.” Lacey sounded tired. I wondered how much blood she was losing. “Take me home. You can tell Mom.”
“We’re here now,” I said, and parked the van right next to the emergency entrance.
I got out, pocketed my keys, and heard them clank against the gun. There was nothing I could do about that at the moment.
Jimmy got out as well, and held the door open. Lacey had her head down, and she was shivering. Jimmy had wrapped his coat around her shoulders, and Keith had put his across her legs.
I reached in. She cringed away from me, and I hoped that was because I wasn’t doing what she wanted rather than because she was afraid to be touched.
“No,” she said, her voice trembling.
I ignored her. I put one foot inside the van to brace myself, then slid my arms under her and pulled her against me. Her shivering increased, and she closed her eyes. A tear slipped down one cheek, and mixed with blood I hadn’t realized she had on her face. In fact, blood coated her carefully ironed hair, and the corner of her mouth was swelling.
The bastard had hit her, more than once.
The anger I’d been keeping in check rose, and I bit it back. I eased her out of the van, making soothing noises as I did.
“Uncle Bill,” she said, but I didn’t know if she was telling me not to carry her inside, if she was relieved I had her, or if she even knew she had spoken.
I spun and walked down the well-shoveled sidewalk to the main doors marked EMERGENCY ENTRANCE ONLY in solemn red. The doors had been automated since my last visit, and they opened for me. But unlike my last visit, no one greeted us.
“Need help here,” I said, and a white attendant in blue scrubs peeked out of one of the nearby treatment rooms.
Then he disappeared, and I felt that anger I had bottled up rise to the surface. I was about to yell again when the attendant wheeled out a cot.
I hurried toward him, and put Lacey on it. Then I raised the bars on one side, in case she wanted to climb off. The attendant did the same on his side.
“What have we got?” he asked me.
“She was badly beaten,” I said, “and, I think, raped. I don’t know for certain. My son called me for help—”
“You boys?” the attendant asked Jimmy and Keith.
“Me,” Jimmy said, coming up to my side, “and yeah, he was on her when I got there.”
“Jim saved me,” Lacey said again, ever so faintly.
The attendant looked down at her. Her skin had turned gray and her eyes were closed.
“I think she’s losing a lot of blood,” I said.
He nodded, then started moving the cot. Jimmy grabbed the back and after a second, so did Keith. We all pushed it toward one of the treatment rooms.
“I’m sorry, boys,” he said, “I’m afraid you can’t go any further. And you, sir, are you her father?”
“Her uncle,” I lied.
“Then you can come with us if you want, but you might not want to see—”
“I’ll come,” I said as we pushed the cot inside the small treatment room. I was glad for it, rather than having her go to one of the more public treatment areas.
The boys didn’t leave. I looked at both of them. “Please, make those calls.”
“No,” Lacey whispered, but I was going to pretend she wasn’t responding to my orders to contact her dad.
“And Jim,” I added, “when you’ve reached them, call Marvella. I need her.”
Marvella Walker was my neighbor. She worked with rape victims and helped some women get safe abortions. She knew how to help women in ways that I couldn’t even fathom.
“Not Laura?” Jim asked.
“Not yet,” I said. I hoped not ever. I would call Laura if I ran into problems here at the hospital. Laura’s connections would ensure that Lacey got the proper treatment, but at the moment, it looked like I could handle this. “If we need her, I’ll call her.”
“Okay,” Jim said.
Two nurses had already found us. I realized the attendant had left, maybe to get more help. One nurse was examining Lacey’s head to see where the wound was.
“That blood on her head,” Jimmy said, “it’s the guy’s blood. I hit him really hard.”
We all looked at Jimmy. He was coming into his growth, but he was still well under five feet tall. I hadn’t really thought this through: Someone as small as Jimmy had fended off a fully grown man?
“You can’t stay,” the nurse said to him, and I nearly yelled at her. I stopped myself just in time. I wanted to say that we needed him, that he knew things we didn’t, and then I thought of Lacey. She pro
bably didn’t even want me here, let alone her cousin and her brother.
“I’m goin’,” Jimmy said.
“We don’t got money for the phone,” Keith said to me, peeking his head in. I reached into my pocket as Jimmy grabbed his arm.
“I got enough,” Jimmy said, pulling him away. “There’s a waiting room, right?”
“I’ll find you,” I said, and then I turned my attention to Lacey.
She was pushing the nurses away. I took her right hand. “I’m right here, Lace,” I said.
“Uncle Bill,” she said, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“She’s bleeding badly,” I said to the nurse across from me. She was thirtyish, with set features and sad eyes. “We’ll need to do something pretty quickly.”
“The boy said the blood wasn’t hers.”
“On her head,” I said, trying not to panic. “Look at her boots.”
They were smeared. The blood on them was almost black. Some of the blood on her legs was drying, though, and I hoped that was a good sign.
“How old is she?” the other nurse asked. She reached for Lacey’s skirt. Lacey hunched up.
“It’s okay, honey,” the nurse said. “You want to move your skirt for me?”
She sounded very tender. Lacey took the edges of her skirt in her bruised hands and pulled it up just a little. Her underwear was gone. I looked away.
“That’s good,” the nurse said. “How old are you, honey?”
Lacey shook her head and buried her face in the pillow. The first nurse took that opportunity to investigate the back of her head. It had left bloodstains on the pillowcase.
“She’s thirteen and a half,” I said. “Her birthday’s in June.”
I didn’t know why I added the half. Maybe I wanted her to be older. Maybe I wanted her better able to cope with what was ahead of her. Whatever the reason, I was surprised at the nurse’s shock.
“Thirteen?” She put her hand on Lacey’s forehead. “Poor baby.”
Poor baby, indeed.
“Where was she attacked?” she asked.
“In a building near her school,” I said, hoping that would be enough. “I guess the boys saw the man take her aside and—”
Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 2
