“Oh, they are,” Sinkovich said. “Just not the kind you’d expect. I see some of you ladies got ski masks. I suggest you use them. Those what don’t got them, you keep your heads down. You don’t want no one to get a picture of your face. They got regular cameras in there and they got Polaroids, and you don’t want some jerkwad, pardon my French, to take your Polaroid, and escape out the back with it before we get to him. Because he’s gonna take that Polaroid to his bosses, and they’re gonna find someone what knows you and can identify you and they’re gonna make you pay.”
My stomach twisted. I hadn’t realized that.
Sinkovich turned toward me. “They probably already got a Polaroid or two of you, but Marvella tells me you prettied up your face some, so they ain’t gonna go after you, not for this.”
I nodded.
“So, ladies,” Sinkovich said, “here’s your moment. This’s not a game. It’s gonna be rough and someone’s gonna get hurt. Might even be you. If we’re not careful, it’ll be after the fact. So if you’re gonna leave, you do it now, before we get there. Ain’t no one gonna think bad thoughts if you walk out that door this instant.”
The women stood very still. I moved out of the way of the door so that anyone who wanted to leave could leave.
No one did.
They didn’t even look at each other. They didn’t even try to measure each other’s willingness to go in. They seemed ready to go.
Sinkovich took a bite of his donut. He watched them while he chewed and swallowed. Then he ran the back of his hand over his mouth, just like Jimmy would have.
“Really?” Sinkovich said. “You’re all committed to this little mission, even though it could cost you big time?”
“We’re committed,” one of the women said.
“Although,” another woman said. She stepped forward. I saw that it was Kim, the woman who had kicked my leg out from underneath me. “I got one request.”
“Just one?” Sinkovich asked.
She nodded. “Stop calling us ladies. It’s insulting.”
He glanced sideways at me, as if to say, Broads. What can you do with ‘em?
“Well,” he said after a moment, “I’d promise ya I wasn’t gonna do that, but I’d break my promise prob’ly in ten minutes. I ain’t gonna think about the right way to refer to you people when we’re on this raid, and you can’t think about it neither. Marvella tells me some of you ain’t fond of men, and I’m sure most of you ain’t fond of cops, and then there’s the whole white/black thing that Bill here keeps schooling me on. I’m just a walking bundle of stuff you hate to be around, which is why I got the experience of going into places like this and you don’t. So you’re gonna listen to me, and I’m gonna get you and them poor teenage girls out alive. And then you can teach me how to talk all you damn well please, okay?”
Sam grinned and turned her head away. Marvella bit her lower lip. A couple of women smiled. But Kim’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. Beatrice put her hand on Kim’s shoulder.
“He’s right,” she said softly. “Later.”
“I don’t like this,” Kim said.
“Then you can go home,” Sinkovich said. “Ain’t none of you gonna offend no one if you go home. Because if you leave now, what we know is this: You ain’t committed to the task. And this task is probably the hardest thing you’re gonna do. It’s dangerous and we gotta move fast, and ain’t none of us got time to take care of one of you what gets the heebie-jeebies, got that?”
I closed my eyes on “heebie-jeebies.” That man had an ability to zero in on the most offensive terms possible.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” Beatrice said, with amusement in her voice.
“Okay.” Sinkovich shoved the last of the donut in his mouth, and had to chew with his mouth half-open. He gestured for everyone to come near.
They moved forward slowly, some looking at Marvella as if she were the one who had lost her mind.
“I don’t know you girls from Adam,” Sinkovich started, then made a small irritated noise. “I mean ladies—fuck!—people, oh, pardon my French—you see? I can’t think about this crap right now.” He took a deep breath and started again. “I don’t know you people from Adam, so I gotta trust you on something. I need four groups. I need the restaurant group. I need the group that’s going to the sixth floor and getting those kids out. I need a group to start on floor five and clear out the entire place, and I need muscle to go with me and Bill.”
“We don’t need any help,” I said.
“The hell we don’t,” he said. “We’re going in like a bulldozer, you and me. We’re clearing blinds, we’re clearing bathrooms, we’re clearing the entire first fucking floor, and we’re taking out whoever’s in our way.”
“I thought Bill was going to go in saying a raid was coming,” Paulette said.
“And, missy, I told you, them blinds are for raids. They’d fucking fill up with security guys who would be so damn happy that you warned them cops were on the way. Wrong-o. This is why you need me. I got a badge. I got plain clothes, and you ladies, no offense, look like young men in your little black outfits. That’s a good thing. They’re gonna think half of you are rookies on your first assignment. That’s even better.”
“I don’t want them to think at all,” I said.
“Which is why, first thing we do, you and me, is trash out them blinds and smash the cameras.”
“The first thing we do is cut the phone lines,” I said.
He rolled his eyes at me. “The first thing we do inside is smash out the blinds. And we need some backup, good backup.”
“Do you want someone who can handle a gun or is good in a fight?” Marvella asked.
“Yes,” Sinkovich said.
My turn to roll my eyes. “If someone here is good at both, like Sam said she was, that’s what we need.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said to me.
“How many people do you need on your team?” Beatrice asked Sinkovich.
He looked at me and shrugged. “We just need two, right? Because we’re gonna be moving fast.”
“Two’s good,” I said. Then I stepped forward. “Before we go any farther with this, though, I’m going to be very clear. You get to empty the floors, but I’ll be following. And I’ll be the one with the matches. No one else. I want the rest of you out of the hotel as soon as the girls are rescued. No arguing.”
I looked at Sinkovich.
“And that includes you, Jack. I want you out.”
“I ain’t leaving you, Bill.”
“You are,” I said. “Because I’m going to take this from a rescue mission to a felony and you need deniability. All of you do. You honestly say that you had no idea what I did in those rooms if I did anything at all. Do you got that?”
Heads nodded. All except Sinkovich.
“Jack?” I asked.
“I don’t like it none, Bill,” he said.
“Well, I don’t like you being here either,” I said. “But I’m going to put up with it, as long as you agree to that.”
He sighed. “Jesus, you’re a hard-assed son of a bitch.”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “And this is my operation. I don’t want any of you to forget it.”
FORTY-ONE
WE TOOK FOUR VEHICLES to the Starlite, all of the vans and one pickup truck. I drove my van. Sinkovich rode with me. I already informed him that he would leave with someone else. He didn’t agree or disagree. He just looked out the window as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
The women divided themselves between the vans and the truck. We agreed that the other panel van would park directly in front of the hotel. The sign on the panel van was for coffee and supplies, the kind of coffee most often used by restaurants. Apparently, the van had belonged to some traveling salesman, and the car dealership where one of the women worked as a secretary had repossessed it.
I almost protested its presence, figuring it could be traced back to her, and then I decided not to worry a
bout it. There were dozens of these vans all over the Midwest. There would be no proof that this particular van had been involved in this particular operation, unless someone took down the license plate number. That would take a bit of work, because I checked: The license plates were covered with slush and muck from the Chicago winter. Just like mine were. Only I covered my plates with dirt deliberately.
I hadn’t even noticed what the logo said until someone pointed it out to me. It was hard to read in the dark, and we really didn’t have to worry about what people could see in the daylight. We had to be done before sun-up, or this plan wouldn’t work at all. The sun didn’t come up until seven fifteen or so. If we weren’t long gone by then, something would have gone horribly wrong.
I parked in the school lot. I wore a ski cap and thin gloves. In one pocket of the greatcoat was my gun and extra magazines, and in the other, a whole mess of tools, including wire cutters and a small flashlight. I held those now.
I hurried across the street, keeping my head down. The streetlight above the entrance to the school parking lot was too bright for my taste. Sinkovich had offered to come with me, but I wouldn’t let him, figuring two of us would be more conspicuous than one.
But I needed to work fast, and I had to make sure I cut the telephone wires. I hadn’t seen a phone in any of the rooms. There was probably one wired into the penthouse, and I wouldn’t worry about that. It had probably been spliced from one of the downstairs lines. That was the only way it made sense, since I knew no one wanted those girls on the sixth floor to have access to a phone.
I figured there had to be at least two boxes, maybe three. One would be for the restaurant and two for the hotel, maximum, in case the hotel did want phones in all the rooms.
But a hotel this old probably had its own internal system and one large line coming into the hotel. An internal switchboard would route calls to outside lines; that way the hotel could charge for each call made.
I was counting on that. I was also counting on the fact that the switchboard was no longer in use. The phones inside the hotel probably had buttons that would access the various lines. I would wager most of those buttons on the phones themselves weren’t even active.
I started searching at the end of the hotel farthest from the school, and used my flashlight, going up and down the exterior wall on the first story. I was looking for both the electrical box and the phone box. I didn’t want to cut the electricity. That would definitely clue someone into our little operation.
Cutting the phones first was dicey enough. I had to start with the phones I figured got the least amount of use at this time of day. That was why I was cutting the restaurant last.
The metal phone box was in the exact center of the hotel’s back wall, near a much larger metal box. That large box had to be the electrical lines. Someone had kindly shoveled a path to both boxes. They were locked. I had expected that. I had brought my burglar’s tools, something I hadn’t used in months.
Before I hauled them out, though, I peeled off the glove on my right hand and felt for the ridge between the two pieces of metal. The metal was so cold that my finger hurt. But there was a slight space, which I figured might have happened.
After surviving decades in the heat of Chicago summers and the deep cold of Chicago winters, this metal had to be fatigued. If I was lucky, I would be able to break the box open with just a little force.
I took out a screwdriver and wedged it into the opening. Then I tugged.
For a moment, I thought the metal wouldn’t give. Then it broke open with a squeal that sounded like a child screaming.
My heart pounded. I shut off the flashlight for just a moment, then looked around very slowly, trying to see if anyone else heard the sound.
No lights had gone on in the buildings across the alley. No one opened a window above me. No one shouted.
I took a deep breath, and regretted it. The frigid air dug into my lungs as if I had swallowed a bucket of ice.
I turned the flashlight back on and stared at the cables. They were loose. Rather than guessing which one went to the phone company and which one went inside the hotel, I cut everything. I took a chunk out of the middle of all of the lines, and dropped those pieces into the snow.
Then I put my gloves back on and wiped away everything my finger had touched. I doubted anyone would come here and take prints off this box—I doubted the box would survive our plans—but I had to be careful, just in case.
Then I slid the wire cutters back into my pocket and shut off the flashlight, letting my eyes adjust. I slowly walked back to the alley.
When I reached it, I took out the flashlight again, and scanned the rest of the hotel’s back wall. I saw no other boxes.
Which only left the restaurant.
That would be harder. People were awake, sipping coffee, taking out garbage, cooking on that filthy grill. I had to make sure I stayed out of sight.
My feet had already become blocks of ice. I worried as I scanned. Logically, the restaurant’s phone and electrical boxes would be on the back wall, but it looked like the kitchen entrance got a lot of use. I didn’t want to open that gate, go between the trash cans, and try to cut the phone lines right next to that kitchen door.
It would all depend on when the restaurant’s boxes got wired in, and whether or not the company service people cooperated with the owners of the restaurant. I’d seen boxes in this city that were wired all the way around the building, as far from the street lines as possible. Usually it had been done that way at the request of a landlord or building owner who wanted a quick and dirty way to shut off utilities to get rid of a recalcitrant client inside.
My flashlight found both boxes, nearly hidden by a gigantic snow drift. The drift piled up against the fence holding the trash cans, but the boxes were on the alley side.
No one had shoveled a way to them, but meter readers had stomped their own path over the winter, and it hadn’t snowed since the last reading.
I walked in someone else’s iced-over footprints, and fortunately, whoever he was had bigger feet than I did. Even though the ice crunched beneath my boots, the sound wasn’t gunshot-loud. It only seemed loud to me.
The box was closer to the kitchen door than I wanted it to be. I could hear banging pots, and conversation. The smell of bacon drifted toward me. My stomach growled until I realized that what I smelled was burned bacon. Someone had probably just tossed it out.
Strangely, this box wasn’t locked. I opened it easily. I didn’t even have to remove my glove. Then I cut the lines, tossed bits of them into the snow, and closed the box again.
I shoved the wire cutters into my all-purpose coat, then picked my way out, stepping in the ice my boots had already broken.
I reached the alley in no time. I bowed my head just enough that I could still see what was ahead of me and on either side, but not enough to look like a guy in a hurry. More like some poor schlub on his way to work, walking to a car he’d parked too far away.
Sinkovich stood near the school’s fence. Even though he wasn’t in uniform, he looked like a cop. His posture, his air of wary watchfulness, his do-not-fuck-with-me attitude, all screamed that he was official, that he was in charge.
When he saw me, he beckoned behind him. The coffee van drove carefully out of the school parking lot and moved to its spot directly in front of the hotel. When the driver saw the rest of us on the sidewalk, she would give the word to her team. They were the ones who would hurry up the stairs.
I waited for Sinkovich on the sidewalk across the street. As the remaining women joined him, he crossed the street like a cop leading a parade. Faces were hard to see in the dim light, and I hoped everyone remembered to keep their heads down as we went under the working streetlight on the corner.
They reached me quickly, and we marched up the rest of the block, me and Sinkovich in the lead. As we rounded the corner, I thought I saw movement in one of the windows across the street. But as I stared at it, I realized that I was probably se
eing our reflections as we scurried under that streetlight.
The coffee van blocked the entrance to the hotel. As we approached, the doors opened. I ignored the women and headed straight for the hotel. I pulled open the glass double doors just like I had two days ago, with more strength than I needed.
As per our agreement, I went in first. The guy behind the desk gave me a bleary look, then opened his mouth in surprise. He was the same guy who had been on duty, if that was what you wanted to call it, the day Lacey got hurt.
I reached across the desk, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and slammed his face into the riser that separated him and me. Then I dragged him over the desk.
He was smaller than he looked, thin and wiry, not that it did him any good. I tossed him on the ground, and held him in place as Sam tied his hands behind his back with the rope the women had brought. They had brought a lot of rope, all cut into good tying length, probably more than we needed.
Then she shoved a scarf in his mouth and tied it tight.
I pulled him upright. His forehead was bruised and bleeding, his eyes frightened. Sinkovich waved a badge in front of his face.
“Police raid, you fucking son of a bitch,” he whispered.
Then Sinkovich headed behind the desk and stuck out his hand. “Wire cutters,” he said to me.
I handed him mine as the women spread out around us, going to their various stations. They crept up the stairs, ski masks on, heads down, moving more quietly than I ever believed possible.
The restaurant crew broke left and headed through the bar. They looked as wiry as the desk clerk, and a whole hell of a lot tougher.
I told myself it was because of the black they wore. But they moved like a unit.
I tried not to worry about them.
Something clattered beside me. Sinkovich tossed what looked like a doorbell on top of the desk.
“Knew they had to have one of these,” he said.
A warning bell that let the upper floors know something was going on. It probably was a doorbell with extra long wires.
Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 30
