Sirens in the Night

by Bradley, Michael;

  “You sure picked a doozy to pop your cherry on,” Peter said to the blushing young officer.

  Samantha turned to the representative of Rhinehold Construction. “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  Henderson slid his yellow hard hat from his head, and rubbed his high forehead with his hand. The blonde hair was thinning along the top of his square head. Henderson’s muscular arms stretched the fabric of grey t-shirt he was wearing underneath the yellow reflective vest that rested over his broad shoulders. His dark blue jeans, although permanently embedded with stains tracing the history of dozens of construction sites, looked freshly laundered, and his tan steel-toed Timberland boots appeared to have been recently cleaned, showing only a faint coating of construction dust around the toes.

  “We were preppin’ to pour a new floor down here. Friday morning, I had a couple of guys breaking up the old concrete with jackhammers. One of them broke open that hole.” Reseating the hard hat on his head, Henderson added, “A lot of these buildings, they’re built right on top of older ones. It’s, uh . . . not unusual to find hidden rooms and stuff. Happens all the time in this city. Our foreman, Steve Rafferty, climbed down to check it out.” He gestured toward the hole. “He found that hatch sealed and all chained up. When we find shit like this, our standard operating procedure is to call the historical society.”

  “Why?” Peter inquired.

  “It’s an agreement we have with ‘em. Keeps us from damaging anything important. A pain in the ass is what I call it. They come, check it out, and give us the okay to keep workin’.” Henderson paused for a moment, watching as two forensics officers began to climb down the ladder into the hole. “Nobody could come out ‘til Saturday morning. We don’t work weekends, so Steve agreed to come down and let ‘em in. Me and my guys got here this morning, found the job site open . . . and those things down there.”

  “Who opened the hatch?” asked Samantha.

  Henderson shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know.”

  Peter Thornton asked, “Where’s Steve Rafferty? Can we talk to him?”

  Henderson fell silent for a moment, trying to maintain control of his emotions. His voice cracked as he replied. “Down there.” He gestured toward the ladder. “He’s the one in the Eagles sweatshirt.”

  Samantha glanced at Peter, and then back toward Stanley Henderson. She noticed the pained lines on his face. His quivering lips hinted at an emotionally charged frown, which seemed to balance perilously between anger, sadness, and confusion. Samantha said, “If this is some kind of joke—”

  “I swear! That St. Christopher medal around his neck? He always wore that. His kid gave it to him a few years back.”

  Samantha gestured back toward the dark hole. “Hang on a sec. Those bodies got to be at least six months old. You can’t possibly tell me that one of them was alive last week.”

  Henderson became agitated as his careful balance of emotions began to crumble. “Look, I can’t explain it. Steve hasn’t been seen since Saturday morning. Call his wife if you don’t believe me!”

  Trying to calm the assistant foreman, Peter Thornton replied, “I know you may think that’s the body of your friend, but Mr. Henderson—“

  Henderson’s voice rose with emotion as he interrupted, “I’ve worked with Steve for eight years. I know him when I see him. It’s the same bald head, same necklace, and same wedding ring. I don’t know how, but one of those things down there is Steve Rafferty!”

  Chapter Two

  The clock on the bedside table beeped loudly as its alarm blared throughout the small bedroom. A man-sized lump buried under the sheets and blanket of the king-sized bed slowly shifted, inching its way toward the source of the obnoxious noise. A hand crept out from under the sheets, and smacked at the bedside table until it found the alarm clock. With a gentle swat of the fingers, the alarm stopped. Forcefully kicking the sheets and blanket off the bed, Jack Allyn stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom with glazed, sleep-filled eyes. He let out a long sigh, and then glanced at the glowing numbers on the alarm clock. Seven thirty-five at night. Jack sighed again, and went back to staring at the ceiling. Despite having gone to bed at noon, he felt as if he had gotten no more than three hours of sleep. Even after more than a year, he had still not adjusted to working the overnight shift.

  Swinging his legs off the bed, Jack sat for a moment, giving his mind a chance to clear from its sleepy fog. As he did every evening when he awoke, he wondered where things had all gone wrong. His career in broadcasting had been on an upward trajectory for years. He had started working part-time at a small station in Schenectady, New York as a weekend on-air personality. He had been young and eager back then, and his raw talent had shone from the very first day. It hadn’t taken him long to be picked up by a Classic Rock station in Allentown, Pennsylvania, working the Midday shift. From there he moved on to Charlotte, North Carolina, working for the number one Top Forty station in the city. “Afternoon Drive” was what those in radio called the afternoon shift from three to seven, and that was where Jack had truly begun to make a name for himself. His witty banter with listeners and fast-paced personality had made him a minor celebrity throughout the Charlotte listening area. When he wasn’t on the air, requests for Jack to appear at concerts and events kept him on the go constantly. And his good looks certainly hadn’t hindered his chances with his female listeners.

  Jack Allyn was naturally tall and trim, which was good since he found exercise to be abhorrent. His crisp blue eyes and the shoulder length blonde hair framed a long, sculpted face which helped add to his popularity with the ladies. Whether he was partying at the hottest nightclub or hanging out backstage at a concert, it hadn’t been unusual to find Jack out in public with a different woman on his arm each night, making him the envy of many around Charlotte. But to him, every one had been just another in a long string of meaningless flings. He had spent several years in North Carolina, and had even been nominated for a Marconi Award, the biggest accolade in radio broadcasting. He didn’t win, but just to be nominated was enough for him.

  Although he enjoyed his time in Charlotte, Jack Allyn had larger aspirations. When the number one Top Forty station in Dallas came calling, Jack didn’t hesitate to make the move, taking the Texas radio market by storm. He quickly established himself as the dominant afternoon on-air personality throughout the city. As in Charlotte, his popularity in Dallas brought with it a string of blondes, brunettes, and redheads, who he rotated in and out of his life with nonchalant ease, his brief liaisons never lasting more than a few weeks at most.

  After three years of working the afternoon drive in Dallas, Sinclair Satellite Entertainment had approached Jack about syndicating his highly successful afternoon show to radio stations throughout the country. Having spent his childhood listening to some of the biggest names in radio syndication, like Howard Stern, Rick Dees, Casey Kasem, and even Shadoe Stevens, the thought of joining their ranks was a dream come true.

  He didn’t know how it had happened. Between his professional success and apathetic attitude toward his personal relationships, Jack had become arrogant and a bit conceited. He often wondered if there was perhaps some truth to the old adage of pride coming before the fall. The negotiations with Sinclair Satellite Entertainment had gone better than he could have expected, and they had promised a contract by the end of the week. It had been a Wednesday, and Jack had felt like he was really in the groove that afternoon on his show. Somehow, between punching up songs on his studio computer and talking dirty to a female listener on the phone, Jack broke one of the cardinal rules of broadcasting. He said “fuck” on the air.

  He was pulled from the Dallas airwaves within a half hour, fired within ninety minutes, and Sinclair Satellite Entertainment stopped returning his calls. With the utterance of one word, he had gone from being radio’s golden boy to a pariah. Word travels fast in the broadcasting business, and Jack struggled to find another top f
orty station that would hire him. Now, a year and a half later, the only job he had been able to find was doing the overnight shift at WPLX, a relatively small Easy Listening station in Philadelphia. Jack often tried to tell himself that he was still working in big market radio, but every time he had to play a Celine Dion song, it felt like yet another piece of him died.

  Rising from the bed, Jack crossed to the large window, which spanned an entire wall in his bedroom. He drew aside the curtains, and gazed down upon Philadelphia’s South Street. Even for a Monday night, the street was bustling with college students, teenagers, and twenty somethings. The eight-block stretch of the street just past Eighth Street had always been known for its “bohemian” and “punk” atmosphere, with an urban mix of bars, takeout restaurants, sex shops, and retailers that catered to hip hop fashion, punk fashion, and urban culture. Jack’s fourth floor apartment building was on the corner of Eighth Street and South Street, placing him just at the transition point between the residential area that was most of South Street, and the more commercial part of the street. Even four floors up, he could hear the horns honking and the revelry of those on the street below.

  Realizing that he was standing in the window wearing nothing but his boxers, Jack pulled the drapes closed and switched on the light. He walked into the bathroom and gazed in the mirror. His shoulder length hair had been replaced by a shorter cut, which swooped from the right down over his left eye. His chin retained two days of stubble, which he decided would become three days of stubble by tomorrow evening. He still had his trim physique, a fact for which he was grateful. Sliding his boxers down his legs, Jack stepped into the shower.

  _______________

  As Jack Allyn closed the door to his apartment, he heard the whine of the motor and the vibration of the cables bringing the elevator car up the shaft at the end of the hall. There were only four apartments on this, the top floor of the building; Jack’s being apartment 4A. He turned the key in the lock of his door, gave the knob a quick jiggle to make sure it was locked, and then turned to watch the elevator doors. The apartment building, which was built in the 1920s, had been restored with all the latest amenities. But the owners had tried to keep some of the building’s old charm by keeping the old elevator in service. Jack stared at the caged door as the elevator car slowly rose into view, halting with a slight jolt when it reached the fourth floor. He heard the inner door being pulled open, followed moments later by the outer door. With an expensive looking leather laptop bag in his left hand, a tall handsome man with broad shoulders, dark clean-cut hair, and a distinctively chiseled chin stepped out of the elevator.

  “Jack!” he exclaimed. “Headin’ to the station?”

  Jack smiled. “What else do I do at this hour?”

  The man laughed. Jason Spinacker lived in 4C, the apartment next to Jack, and had been in residence before Jack moved in. The thirty-two-year-old was wearing a black pinstripe suit and an expensive silk shirt with his tie hanging loosely around his neck. Jason worked for Hildebrand Financials, one of the larger wealth management firms in the city. The two men had met a week after Jack had moved in, hit it off instantly, and had been friends ever since. During the week, Jason and Jack frequently met in the hallway as one left for work and the other returned home.

  The two stood face to face in the short hall. “How’s the stock business?” asked Jack.

  “Up and down more times than a hooker on a good night,” Jason replied, with a loud laugh.

  “Little late tonight, aren’t you?”

  Smiling, Jason replied, “One of the senior guys is retiring. We had a little shindig for him.” He paused, frowned for a moment, and then smiled once again. “Well, I say shindig . . . Bad booze. Bad food. Terrible company. It was very painful. Kind of like having a tooth pulled without anesthetic.”

  Jack snickered at his friend’s analogy. Jason always had an odd sense of humor, which seemed to go right along with a wild streak in the well-dressed businessman. For all his fine suits and professional acumen, Jason, at heart, liked a really good party. He also had a taste for the finer things in life—including liquor and women. There had been more than one morning where Jack met Jason’s latest “conquest” in the hallway as she was on her way out.

  “You jockin’ at the club this weekend?” asked Jason.

  Jack nodded. “Every Friday night, as usual.”

  “I’m planning to be there.”

  “Great,” said Jack as the two men parted company—Jack heading to the elevator, and Jason to his apartment.

  _______________

  Walking two blocks down on South Street, Jack stopped before a small restaurant and glanced up at the neon sign above the door. The sign bathed the sidewalk in red and green hues. It should have read “Geno’s Pizza”, but the “e” wasn’t working so the sign read “G no’s Pizza”. Jack stepped inside the small restaurant, and found an empty booth. The floor was composed of alternating white and black tiles that had a greasy coating on top, which couldn’t be washed off with even the most intense mopping. The Formica on the tabletop of his booth was chipped and scratched. The dirt and grime in the small restaurant often made Jack think that the place was moments away from being shut down by the city’s health inspector.

  A short, heavyset Italian man approached the booth and smiled at Jack. His balding forehead was glistening with a faint layer of sweat, and a stained white apron was tied around his bulging stomach.

  “Jack! My best customer! How ya doin’?” the man asked.

  Jack returned the smile. “Good, Geno. Good.”

  “I was tellin’ my old lady last night ‘bout you.” The man wiped his hands down the stained apron. “Told her you were more regular than the cockroaches.”

  Jack shook his head, and replied, “I’ll take the usual, Geno.”

  “One chicken cheesesteak with fried onions and peppers comin’ right up. You want onions rings with that?”

  “Of course!” Jack smiled. “Come on, Geno. I’m your best customer you said. You should know that by now.”

  Geno made a rude hand gesture and a few exclamations in Italian, which Jack was certain he’d be better off not understanding, before smiling and returning to the kitchen to work on the order. Jack sat quietly in the booth and gazed out the window at the people passing outside. Sitting in Geno’s had become part of his routine over the past year, just as getting up at seven thirty, or meeting Jason in the hallway had become routine. It bothered Jack to think that his life had become just a long list of routines. He watched as people passed the windows of the small restaurant, many on that Monday night looking like something out of a freak show. There were the shaved heads, the spiked mohawks, and the multi-colored hairstyles. Then there were the ones with so many piercings that Jack wondered how they would ever get through an airport security checkpoint. He had seen his share of odd stuff throughout his years in broadcasting, but he always told himself that some of the stuff he saw on South Street was, by far, the oddest.

  _______________

  At eleven fifteen, Jack Allyn pulled his Harley Davidson into the parking garage of the Osgood R. Flimm Building in downtown Philadelphia, and raced up the ramp past row upon row of empty parking spots. On the second level, he drifted the motorcycle into a spot right by the elevator, which he took to the twentieth floor. Off the elevator to his right was a pair of glass doors with the WPLX logo etched in each. Using his security badge, Jack swiped it through the slot in the security panel next to the door, which clicked loudly as it unlocked. Once through the door, Jack could hear music quietly filling the hallway from the speakers embedded in the ceiling tiles. He cringed at the sound of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song”, and gritted his teeth as he walked toward the broadcast studio. The “On Air” light above the door wasn’t lit, so he pushed the door open, and walked on in.

  The broadcast studio at WPLX was not a large room to begin wit
h, but once the control console, computer, and other equipment were added, it looked exceptionally cramped. Just inside the door was an L-shaped counter, which covered one wall and extended halfway down another. It was waist high, providing the personalities the option to either sit in the high chair provided, or stand. In his heyday, Jack had always preferred to stand, giving him the freedom to move during his high energy show. But these days, he used the chair because there was no need for high energy during his broadcasts.

  Centered on the counter was the broadcast control console, or the “board” as it was called. The console contained a series of sliding controls and buttons on a slightly upward sloping surface, all of which were used to control the sound level of the various audio sources in the studio, such as the studio computer system, microphones, digital editor, and even CD players. Hanging just to the right of the console was a touchscreen computer monitor used to control and play the commercials, music, and station jingles during the broadcast. And, to the left, hanging from a boom clamped to the backend of the counter was the microphone. The Heil PR-90 Pro Broadcast microphone was suspended in the middle of a round frame of thin tubes, hanging from four rubber bands that acted as vibration absorbers. A thin layer of dust had accumulated on the stack of three CD players to the right of the console. With everything digitally recorded in the computer system, the CD players were rarely ever used any more. Next to the CD players sat a Zoom R8 2-track digital recorder, itself looking like a mini version of the control console with slider controls and illuminated buttons.

  Sitting at the console with his feet up on the counter was a man with long grey hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was wearing faded blue jeans, a tie-dyed t-shirt, and flip-flops. When Jack walked into the studio, the man’s legs dropped to the floor and he quickly rose to his feet.