In the living room, Turner inspected Scott’s World Series MVP trophies and Cy Young awards. He nodded appreciatively. “I played baseball in high school,” he said. He smiled as he took a seat on the couch. “I pitched, but not in your class.”
“Why’d you give it up?” Scott asked.
“I went for one of those mass tryouts the White Sox had one summer. Instead of being the star from my team, I was one of four hundred who thought his fastball could strike out the side. It couldn’t.” He smiled ruefully. “So I became a cop. I like it.”
He settled himself on the white leather couch and said, “You boys have been pretty active.”
“Wouldn’t you be if one of your family’d been kidnapped?” I said.
He held up a hand. “I’m not criticizing. Not yet, anyway. I will tell you this. While there is no longer overt opposition to a murder investigation, I’ve never felt such pressure from the higher-ups to go easy. That’s one thing. But the pressure also comes in weird indirect ways too. It’s like being beaten to death with an all-day sucker. Reports that usually take an hour take a day. If they used to take a day, they take a week. Only somebody with powerful clout could pull those kinds of strings. Every little bureaucratic inconvenience somebody can put in my way in investigating this has been there. Plus I keep hearing about
you guys. Your friend Prentice complained to the beat cop. Our guy wasn’t too sympathetic. Prentice had no witnesses and wasn’t willing to show any bruises from the torture.”
Scott said, “I tried to twist his dick and balls off.”
Turner said, “You’ve got to let the cops handle this.”
“They haven’t solved it,” I snapped.
“Neither have you,” he countered. “What you have done is piss people off or scare them away. I admit I wouldn’t be pursuing this, at some danger to my career I might add, if I didn’t believe you. However, I’m not going to risk my job for a couple of fuck-ups. I’m not going to tell you to stop. I know you won’t. This is a warning. If you’re caught in anything even slightly illegal, you’re dead meat. Besides shit from me and the rest of the police department, whoever’s behind the cover-up—and we all suspect the Church—has more power than even the most popular baseball player.”
“They’d hurt us?”
“Oh, yes, but in subtle ways. It’d be as if they were slicing off your skin layer by layer. Painful torture and eventual death. They won’t call a press conference to denounce you. I’ve seen the Church do this kind of thing before. Somebody will be a friend of the owner of the team, and with a whisper in his ear, suddenly you find yourself traded away. That’s one small example of a thousand kinds of revenge they might take. Be careful. Go easy.”
We thanked him for the warning.
“I’m also here to tell you that Father Sebastian was poisoned.”
We gaped in astonishment.
“The Catholic Church isn’t the only institution around here with hidden powers.” He said that, like the HIV test, other parts of the autopsy had been done before official word came down to cool it. “My source wasn’t able to find out what kind of poison,” he said. They planned further tests. For now, they were questioning all the people at the rectory who might have had access to his food.
I couldn’t see Mildred and Harriet Weber as murderers.
We told him all we knew. He left around eight-thirty, after a final warning.
The members of the Faith Board of Directors arrived within fifteen minutes of one another, a half hour after Turner left.
Neil came first. He permitted himself a detailed inspection of the decor in the living room and kitchen. We didn’t take him on a tour.
“How butch,” he murmured, descending the steps to the fireplace alcove. “All it needs is a white bearskin rug, and I’d orgasm as I stand here.”
“Please don’t,” I muttered.
“And I love the paintings. Who did you get to do them?”
“A friend,” Scott said.
Neil swished over to inspect the signatures. “Never heard of him,” he said, peering at the painting.
“He’s probably never heard of you,” Scott said.
Neil harrumphed. He came back to the center of the fireplace area. “What did you boys do to Prentice? To get him over here, I had to threaten the child within an inch of his life.” He pointed to Scott. “He especially doesn’t like you.”
“It’s mutual,” Scott said.
The buzz of the lobby phone interrupted any further rejoinders. Clayton, whom we hadn’t seen since we interviewed him in Bruce’s Halfway There bar, entered, followed soon after by Prentice and Monica, arriving at the same time.
When I’d seated them around the fireplace and we’d gotten them drinks, I explained the situation to them. I concluded, “Bartholomew is dead, Sebastian murdered, my nephew missing. I think one person or group is responsible.” I paced the room as I spoke. They sat on the matching white leather sofas, Prentice farthest from Scott.
“Has anybody heard from Priscilla?” I asked.
Universal head shakes. I sat on the arm of the couch next to Prentice. He looked up at me, then away. “Where could they hide a kid?” I asked. “This isn’t Beirut.”
“Maybe they went underground like radicals from the sixties,” Clayton suggested.
“Does that still happen?” Neil asked.
“People can and do,” Monica said. “It’s easier than you think.” She explained that without her knowledge the Lesbians for Freedom and Dignity had hidden away for months in the church complex renovation. “You need a group small enough, and people who know how to keep their mouths shut.” She shrugged. “It’s obviously happening in this instance.” She picked up her purse from the floor, drew a gold cigarette case and holder out, looked around the room. “Does anyone mind?”
Scott found her an ashtray while she lit up and struck an elegant pose.
Neil rose, twirled, and flounced to the window. I never found his aging Queen Mother act less amusing. “It’s useless for us to pursue this.” He returned to stand above us. “We shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
“We only did because of Jerry,” Scott said. “I don’t give a shit about your lesbians, your causes, your goddam religion, your goddam priests, or your petty quarrels. I’m not sure I care that Sebastian is dead. Although out of this whole group, he seems to be the only genuinely good person. Bartholomew died and I feel sorry for him.”
“The deaths have to be connected,” I said.
Prentice said, “Why are we here?”
“Because we need help,” I said. “The Church has shut us out. The cops don’t want us to interfere. The only chance left is the lesbian connection. You knew some of these people. All of you at least knew Priscilla. Where would she go?”
Clayton said, “The police asked us the same thing. We’ve already told them all we know.”
“Which is nothing,” Monica said. She twirled her hand and cigarette.
We urged them to try again. To think of anything that they hadn’t thought of when the police questioned them. I turned to
Clayton. “I haven’t had the chance to ask you. Did you know Sebastian was HIV positive?”
He gave me a puzzled look. “No. I don’t believe it. He always defended priests’ being celibate.”
I assured him it was true. I went back to urging them to try and think of anything that might help.
Monica reported that the police search of Priscilla’s apartment had led to nothing.
“Can we see her place?” I asked.
A momentary look of annoyance crossed her face. Then she gave a cold smile and said of course we could.
We talked for another half hour, trying various remembrances. Prentice claimed he knew very little about his sister’s life. I confronted him with the fact that he knew of their secret hiding place. His response was that as far as he knew the place wasn’t a secret. He never knew any of their last names or anything of their backgrounds. “They didn’t plot revolution while I was around,” he claimed.
Scott, Monica, and I shared a cab to the Gay Tribune offices. Night breezes stirred the air as we rode over. Instead of the usual clearing after a winter storm, it’d turned close and clammy. As we drove we could see the tops of the taller Loop buildings obscured by low-hanging clouds that had moved in with the sunset. The weatherman on the cab’s radio said we were between two jet streams. If one moved north, it would probably snow. If the other moved south, it would turn bitter cold.
Priscilla’s apartment proved to be as spartan as she herself was. She had basically two rooms plus a minuscule bath. The bedroom contained a twin bed that had a bright red-checked bedspread. The bed, a simple chair, and barren nightstand were the only furniture. A two-foot-by-two-foot charcoal sketch of a nude woman seen from the side hung on the wall.
The kitchen—living room had a worn old couch and three mismatched faded chairs grouped to face the kitchen table. There was a two-burner stove and a half refrigerator. A door
next to the refrigerator led to a tiny washroom. A person could barely turn around in the shower space. We stood in the kitchen area talking.
“What does she do for money?” I asked.
Monica said, “I don’t know about her personal finances. She never goes out to eat.” She pointed to the row of health food cereal boxes. “She eats here or not at all. A couple of the others used to tease her that she subsisted on gruel.” She smiled bleakly. “Priscilla cares about causes and not much else,” she said.
“I’m not sure I disagree about the causes, just the methods,” I said. I inspected kitchen cupboards and drawers as we spoke. I found three or four soup spoons, a few forks, three plastic dishes, a cereal bowl, one pot, and one pan. “What’s she doing for money?” I reasked.
“As I said, she never spends for food beyond the basics. She buys inexpensive clothes. Her salary from the paper isn’t great, but she could’ve afforded more than this. She may have stashed away a great deal. The police didn’t find any bankbooks or shoe boxes stuffed with money when they searched.” Stuffing money in shoe boxes is an old Illinois political tradition.
The phone rang. We stared at it and then at each other.
Monica glided to the receiver and picked it up. Her hello sounded sultry enough to put half a dozen madams out of business. She listened a moment, then said, “You’re sure?” and waited. She replaced the receiver. “Clayton. He’s seen Priscilla.”
Clayton had gotten off the el at the Loyola stop. He lived in the building next to the el tracks. In the alley between he’d seen Priscilla.
“He said he’d follow her as best he could and call us as soon as she stopped somewhere,” Monica said.
“Where could she be headed?” I asked.
Monica shrugged. “I have no idea.”
We settled in the Gay Tribune offices one floor down and waited for a call from Clayton. Monica sat at a desk, her feet up, smoking cigarettes. Scott sat on a couch in an open waiting
area, leafing through back issues of the paper. I paced the room, willing the light on the phone to begin flicking.
Monica spent some of the time filling us in on Prentice and Priscilla. They were actually half-brother and -sister. Their mother remarried when Priscilla was eight. They’d grown up in Oak Park in a pleasantly upper-middle-class home. With mother and dad working, Priscilla often found herself caring for her little brother. From age twelve to sixteen her social life revolved around her parents’ schedule of evening meetings. Instead of resenting the kid, she’d grown quite fond of him. She told Monica the only one she missed on leaving home for college was Prentice. Brother and sister had a falling out about his hustling but had achieved a reconciliation sufficient to the point that they made a joint coming-out presentation to their mother. This had been three years ago. It had gone badly. Monica wasn’t sure if they’d spoken to the mother since.
The three of us talked about parents and coming out. Two days from now, Scott’s mom and dad were due.
At periodic intervals we tried calling Clayton’s home. I soon began to dread the opening words of his phone message. At midnight we started phoning hospitals. The newspaper had five outside lines. We each took a separate area directory and began dialing. This left open lines for him to get through on. I had just opened the second directory, which was for the western suburbs, when the phone rang. Monica and Scott were in the middle of calls. I jammed down the flashing button.
Clayton sounded terrifically out of breath.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“The Wilmette el station. The end of the line.”
“She’s there?”
“I lost her.”
She’d led him a merry chase. They’d ridden the el from Evanston to the Loop, transferred to go down to 95th Street to the end of the line on the south side, then back again. He’d kept her in sight and a car behind, but he thought she’d spotted him the last time they’d transferred. She’d been talking to a woman
he didn’t recognize on the el platform. Usually he’d had to wait and make a mad dash just before the doors of the train closed so she wouldn’t notice him on the platform. All he’d heard was she was meeting Prentice. She’d gotten off at the Willmette end of the line and stepped into a cab. He hadn’t gotten the number of the vehicle.
I hung up and told the others. I finished, “That shit Prentice knew all along.” We got his home number from directory assistance. No answer. We tried Bruce’s. He wasn’t on duty. I knew he worked for Neil at times. I tried calling him. I slammed the phone down on Neil’s supercilious message. If Prentice had a trick, Neil might know where he’d take him. Monica decided she’d sleep in Priscilla’s apartment instead of going home. She could catch any calls that might come in.
Outside, the mist had changed to a light snow with occasional gusts of wind.
“Following Prentice and torturing him for answers based on a slightly overheard conversation isn’t much,” Scott said as we walked up Halsted toward Fullerton.
“I’m sure that little bastard’s the key,” I said. “I’m surprised you’re not eager to track him down.”
“I’ve been hit in the nuts with a line drive. I know what kind of pain I inflicted on him. He told all he knew.”
I still wanted to check with Neil. The best place to find him was among the reigning queens of Chicago gaydom who held court nightly at the Melrose Restaurant from one until until three or four in the morning.
We found Neil just settling in. He grumbled when we told him we needed to talk. He excused himself and lumbered onto the sidewalk. The snow was deep enough now to show outlines of footprints.
“I want Prentice. Now. Where is he?”
“He only works for me part time. He doesn’t check in every instant.”
“Where is he?” I demanded.
“With a trick, I suppose. I have no idea where.”
“Is he with a rich businessman in a fancy hotel or in a fancy suburban mansion or at an after-hours club?”
“I can’t have my clients disturbed,” Neil said.
“You can have your face rubbed in fresh snow,” Scott said.
Neil drew himself up to his full fairyed fury height. “Listen, you ignorant hick!”
“Neil, please. Remember my nephew. We promise not to bother them. We’ll wait until he’s done. I promise.”
“I got you into this.” He shook his head. “I don’t think he knows anything. I asked him myself. He told me he knew nothing.” I felt flakes of snow melting on my forehead and forming minor rivulets down my cheeks. I swiped at them with a gloved hand. I repeated my plea.
Neil sighed. “Try the Conrad Hilton. It shouldn’t be an all-nighter. You’re probably too late as it is.”
We raced off. We found a cab and took it to Scott’s. There we transferred to my truck. With the gathering snow I wanted four-wheel drive and not cabdrivers to rely on. We took Michigan Avenue. The few cars on the deserted streets swayed and swerved in the deepening snow. We saw no plows or salt trucks. With oversized tires and four-wheel drive, my truck purred through the streets easily.
Neil wouldn’t give us the client’s name. He said it wouldn’t make any difference. The guy would be registered under a fake one.
We parked on Michigan Avenue in such a way that we could see the side and front entrances. I kept the motor running. I put the wipers on intermittent and left the defroster on. We waited less than ten minutes. Neil was right. Prentice had been almost through. The kid sauntered out the front door, leather jacket open. One of the doormen tried to flag down a cab. I thought of driving up and trying to grab him, but didn’t like the prospects with so many witnesses around.
It took longer for us to wait for him to get a cab than it did for him to come out. Besides the fact that it was late, the weather kept every cab busy. Finally one pulled up to disgorge passengers.
Prentice hopped in after dropping a tip into the doorman’s hand.
We followed the cab. They swung out Balbo to Lake Shore Drive, then turned north. At first I feared he might simply be going home. When we passed the Fullerton exit I breathed easier. I knew he lived near Fullerton and Clark. If he was going home, they’d have exited there. We swept north into a gathering wind which now slanted in from the northeast off Lake Michigan. We could see waves crashing on the beaches. In Chicago a northeast wind in winter often means a rising storm and possibly tons of snow. It had been sixty-three degrees the day before the great storm of 1967 dropped twenty-three inches of snow on the city.
The slow going had even the light traffic moving at a crawl. Following was easy. At the end of the Drive they turned north on Sheridan Road. Minutes later the cab stopped under the Loyola Avenue el tracks. I hoped we weren’t in for a protracted chase around the city on the el. Prentice eased out of the cab, crossed the street, and walked northwest next to the el wall. Several cars behind us beeped as we waited for the traffic to clear. I didn’t want to pass or lose Prentice. I pulled into the parking lot for the first apartment house on the south side of the street. Numerous signs warned of towing and fines for illegal parking. I ignored them. We had more important problems. Besides, with the storm, tow trucks would be busy removing cars from snow routes, I hoped. The last thing we heard before turning the truck off was the weather forecast predicting six inches or more of snow.
From the cab of the truck we watched Prentice enter the alley that ran along the concrete barrier of the el tracks. We hurried out of the truck and ran to the shadows of the building on the north side of the street. The wind and snow stung my face as I peered around the corner. Prentice trudged on, keeping to the far side of the alley near the el wall, which afforded some relief from the wind.
We slipped from shadow to shadow behind him. He glanced
around occasionally but most often kept his head hunched between his shoulders in his leather jacket. For three blocks we followed the alley. The damn thing was far too well lit. What I wouldn’t have given for a dark, threatening urban alley with scurrying rats! Several times we had to wait until he rounded a curve before we could move. At Morse Avenue he turned west. With the wind behind him, he moved more quickly. We encountered few pedestrians, but of these a few eyed us suspiciously as we waited in doorways.
Up the hill to Clark Street and then north again. Cars swished slowly by. Snow scrunched under our feet. The steps of those who had passed before us filled rapidly with falling snow.
A half block past Morse, the street offered no more hiding places, and we had to stay hidden longer than usual. We watched Prentice cross Lunt Street at the light. He began to turn to look back and we pushed farther into the doorway. When we looked out, he was gone. No cars passed at the moment so he hadn’t jumped into one. Both sides of the street were empty of pedestrians.
We hurried forward. At the intersection I began a dash across, but Scott grabbed me as a car I hadn’t noticed scrunched toward us from the west.
“Thanks,” I said. “Was he in that car?”
“Only if he had the time to slip into seventy-year-old grandmother drag.”
A few brave souls hurried along the sidewalks. None of them looked remotely like Prentice. We hurried back to Lunt Street and checked it for a half a block in either direction. No luck. On our way back to Clark Street I even opened the top of a dark green dumpster. Empty of garbage and Prentice. We raced carefully up and down both sides of Clark Street, gradually becoming less cautious, staring in the windows of silent businesses as we realized we might have lost him.
We returned to the intersection where he had disappeared. We sheltered on the northwest corner of the street under the overhang of a deserted savings and loan building. It’d gone
belly up a few years before. A larger concern bought them out and moved the operation a block north to a modern facility. They hadn’t been able to rent the place since.
“Where’d he go?” Scott said.
“Here,” I said jerking a thumb at the looming gray mass behind us.
Scott looked at me.
“He couldn’t have gone down the streets or we’d have seen him. We looked in the businesses. Every storefront is occupied and looks legitimate. He couldn’t have reached the next cross street. We weren’t that far behind. It’s the only deserted place around.”
“We’re not breaking into this one unless we’re absolutely sure. Remember what Turner said. No lawbreaking. I’ll go along if, for sure, somebody’s in here.”
I agreed. We made a slow, careful search around the perimeter.
“Look.” Scott pointed to the ground.
I observed two sets of rapidly filing footprints behind us. “That’s us. So?” It dawned on me. Ours were the only prints around the back and side of building. The two sidewalks in front had enough smeared footprints that figuring out which were Prentice’s was impossible.
“The place is shut tight. He’s not in there,” Scott said disgustedly.
A few doors down on Clark Street, across from the Dunkin Donuts, sat a small diner from which I thought we could observe any activity in the bank building. From the pay phone in front I called the Twenty-third District to talk to Turner. He told us not to bother Prentice. He might be a suspect, but he wasn’t guilty of anything yet. After listening to a final warning to leave him alone, I hung up. I joined Scott at a booth next to the front windows. The panes had several layers of encrusted grease and dirt on them. I tried making a hole in the grime-covered pane. After using six napkins from the holder on the
table, I got a streaky view of the driving storm and the black mass of the three-story bank building.
“They’re in there. I know it,” I said.
“What’d he do, fly in?”
I realize Scott is gorgeous, wonderful, tall, handsome, fabulously rich, and very sexy, but at times he’s annoying as hell. This was one of those times. I made the only rational response to his sarcasm. I stuck my tongue out at him.
The waiter, a dwarf, arrived to see this example of modern open communication. He noticed the gap I made in the window.
“Storm’s getting worse.” He spoke in a refined British accent. “What can I get you gentlemen?”
I ordered coffee and a burger. The dwarf turned to Scott. “And for you, Mr. Carpenter?” We got the autograph and handshakes out of the way. As he waddled off to place our order, I took a more careful look around. The only other customer was a guy in a trenchcoat slumped over some coffee at the counter. In good weather he looked like he’d be the neighborhood flasher. The dwarf didn’t reappear, but I heard banging and clattering in the kitchen.
Minutes later he showed up with surprisingly good food. He noticed me peering out the window. I’d had to clear it several more times.
He pointed to the pile of napkins. “Something wrong?” he asked.
I nodded my head across at the bank. “You know anything about that place?”
“Closed a year ago. Had my savings there. Good thing it was insured. They indicted the former president last week.” He snorted contemptuously. “He defrauded the place of tens of millions. He’ll get fined a little, do a short term in jail, and live like a king for the rest of his life. I’d like a try at that.”
“I mean more recently. People hanging around. Lights that shouldn’t be on.”
He moved closer to the table. He stared at me. “You a cop?”
I admitted I wasn’t.
“What’s your interest?”
I explained briefly. He nodded several times. He turned and brought a chair over, which he clambered onto. We saw him at eye level. He wore a dirty apron over white pants and a T-shirt. He wiped his hands on a towel he had hooked in his belt. His shrewd blue eyes examined each of us in turn.
“This is a closed-mouth neighborhood,” he said. “People mind their own business. We’ve got a cosmopolitan mix here. People get sensitive very quickly. We leave each other alone. I have my little kingdom here and live upstairs.” The other customer got up and staggered to the cash register. With deft movements he climbed down, strode to the register, took the man’s money, and returned.
He told us his name was Fred Brown. We listened to a great deal of his family history, which included an uncle who was one of the Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. In three years he planned to retire and move to some low-tax island in the Caribbean. It took forever, but he finally got back to the topic of the bank. He leaned closer, spreading his hands flat on the tabletop. “Something is screwy over there. Once or twice I thought I saw lights around two, after I closed up here. I almost called the cops once, but …” He shook his head. “I thought it was a trick of the streetlights.” He shrugged. “I even went over one morning about nine. The place is nailed shut from top to bottom and all around.” He’d noticed a couple of pleasant young women new in the neighborhood. He didn’t get many customers besides his regulars. Most people didn’t like the looks of his restaurant from the outside. We described the women from the other night, especially Priscilla and Stephanie. He didn’t remember seeing them.
We took a last walk around the deserted bank. We saw only faint traces of our own footsteps in back and in the alley. On the side street the jumble of footprints had almost disappeared. When we got back to the corner of Clark and Lunt, Scott said, “Let’s go home. It’s going to be a hell of a storm. We lost him. We’ll find him again.”
I sighed. “Yeah.” We crossed the street to begin the trudge back to the truck. Nearly three now, we saw neither traffic nor pedestrians. I thought about the forlorn hope of hailing a cab as I turned to give one last look back at the bank. Doing so, I almost crashed into an overturned trash can. I managed to twist my ankle, avoiding the pile of leftover debris.
“That’s it!” I shouted. “The dumpster!”
“What?” Scott sounded annoyed. “He’s not hiding in an overgrown trash can. You looked, remember.”
“That’s how he got in. It’s next to the sidewalk on the street side, so all the tracks on the sidewalk would be mushed together. Fred wouldn’t notice it. It’s too far back. You can’t see the dumpster from the restaurant.”
We hurried back to the bank. We examined the snow on the lid.
“It’s been snowing hard for a while,” I said. “I don’t remember for sure, but when we got here before, I think there was only a thin film of snow on the dumpster, and you can get up on the top of this thing without stepping into the alley. Somebody brushed away the snow and tracks from one of those windows.” I pointed to the openings on the second floor.
Scott looked doubtful. I scrambled onto the dumpster. It creaked rustily but stayed in place. Two windows offered possible entrances. Carefully I inched to the nearest one on my right. I didn’t want to show myself to someone inside. The second-floor opening revealed little. Someone had driven nails into all the sides of the window pane. I inched to the left. I did not shout with joy, but I beckoned Scott up. We teetered together on the lid. I glanced at the 3 A.M. street. Nothing disturbed the fallen snow. I pointed toward the window. Little mounds of disturbed snow lay heaped on the sill. I rubbed the sides with a gloved hand. I had to lean close to see. The absence of nails was suggestive, recent skid marks conclusive. There was no doubt the window had been used recently.
“We’re going in,” I said.
I got a litany of nasty possibilities from Scott, including too dangerous, call the cops, breaking the law.
“We can’t stand here like this arguing,” I said. “Remember the other night? By the time the cops get here and maybe get a warrant, the women could be gone again. And Jerry might be here.”
I watched bits of snow land in his hair and on his face. His deep voice rumbled several more objections before he finally gave a grudging okay.
I reinspected the window. No light shone from within. If it was an entrance, I doubted if anybody slept in such a room. If they’d posted a guard we were in deep shit. For a few seconds I thought about Sally Holroyd, the woman Monica had mentioned who had terrorist training. I didn’t want to try my rusty fighting skills against her youthful madness.
The window rose with surprising ease and silence. They’d oiled it. The opening was approximately two feet by four. An old-fashioned window from when they’d built the place seventy years ago, wide enough for the gargantuan woman of the other night. I eased inside. Scott followed quickly. He shut the window. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The window let in enough light so I could see we were in a former bathroom. Cracked urinals on the left side told me it was a men’s room. Someone had ripped out the dividers between the stalls on the right. The lidless toilets gaped at us. I listened intently. I heard Scott’s breathing and the rustle of his jacket. The muffled swish of a car’s tires passing outside penetrated into the darkness. Nothing from inside the building.
The place smelled musty and even felt somewhat comfortable after the storm and cold outdoors. The beaded glass in the door didn’t let in any light from inside the building. We eased across the floor. The cold doorknob turned with an unpleasantly loud creak, but the door itself moved noiselessly as I pulled it forward inch by inch. Dark eddies and swirls lurked in the unlighted corridor. An occasional lighter grayness, remnants of beams of distant streetlights, softened the shadows in a corner or two. I let my eyes adjust to the dimness. I listened carefully. Not a sound.
Because of the slope of the hill back from Clark Street, the rear of the building had four floors visible from the alley in back but only three in front, plus a small tower nestled one story up in the back. I didn’t know if there were basements and sub-basements to explore. Plus we were inside illegally with no guarantee that a renegade terrorist with a lethal weapon didn’t wait at the end of our quest. Fortunately, the possibility of a sleepless neighbor calling the cops was remote. On this side of the street after the bank came the alley, then the Northwestern railroad tracks, two stories high. Across the street, shuttered businesses offered no threat. At 3 A.M. the deserted snow-encrusted streets offered a grim protection.
Finally fully in the doorway, I tried to get my bearings. To the left, a lengthy corridor stretched past shut and silent doors. The darkness made the end indiscernable. To the right, next to an elevator, a narrow staircase led up.
“They were on the top floor last time.” I felt Scott’s lips brush my ear as he whispered and then pointed toward the stairs.
It was as good a guess as any. The building wasn’t as complex as the last one, but I presumed it had its eccentricities. I didn’t want a repeat of last time.
Up we climbed. Each creak of the damn stairs froze us into tense moments of listening. My eyes rose above the level of the next floor while still climbing. I carefully scanned the lengthy corridor. It matched the one below: airless and dank with no sign of human habitation. We turned and climbed the next flight of stairs. I peered to the right. Here the elevator shaft had no doors. The opening gaped into nothingness. On the other side of this empty space, the hall turned abruptly to the right. I inched to the opening. Greater darkness than that which we were now in filled the shaft. For an instant I wondered why my fabled jungle training hadn’t included the simple idea of going to an Osco Drug Store to buy a cheap flashlight.
Listening at the edge of the blackness, I thought I heard several muffled bangs and perhaps a murmur of laughter. I couldn’t tell if the noise came from above, from below, or was maybe just a trick my overstrained senses played on me.
The stairs we had ascended ended on this floor. The long corridor to the left offered no nooks and crannies to hide behind. I pointed to the right. Scott nodded. I eased to the other side of the hall. I thought I heard a foot shuffle ahead and reached back my hand to halt Scott, but he was closer than I thought. We bumped. He stumbled. For a second he teetered toward the four-story fall. I grabbed him back. He hit the wall with a resounding thump. For several eternities neither of us moved. I strained every sense for a hint of human habitation, rushing pursuit; even the sound of a scurrying rat at this point might ease the tension. Total silence.
Retreat was pointless. We pushed on. The corridor now twisted through several turns. Each time I listened before looking around the next bend.
After the second turn we found a janitor’s closet. Propped on the floor, no longer connected to any pipes, was a washbasin deep enough for buckets to be filled in. A string mop with three remaining strands kept the sink company.
Along one of the corridors, one of the doors had had the beaded glass smashed out of it. We looked through and saw an empty room. Farther on, after a third turn, we came to a doorless room. It had no floor for several feet just inside the doorway. If we’d entered unknowingly, we could have dropped painfully far. I tried to see down, but no light escaped from below. Against the walls stood scaffolding on which sat several paint cans. I detected no scent of paint old or new. Somebody may have started a rehab and never finished.
Two more turns and the corridor dead-ended at a massive door. This had to be the entrance to the small fifth-floor tower we’d seen from outside. I felt along the edges. In the darkness I touched the knob and tried a gentle twist. It wouldn’t move. I continued my explorations by feel. I discovered hinges along the left side. The door opened inward. I tried yanking at the pins with my gloved hand. I couldn’t get any kind of grip. I took off my gloves, to try and pry better. In frustration I pulled too hard. The pin popped out and clattered to the floor while managing to open a gash in my hand.
Still I listened for any sounds of approaching humans. Was that the old building creaking distantly or a stealthy footstep inches away from the last corner a couple yards behind us? There was no possible escape if the troops came up behind. We had to go forward. In frustrated silence I pulled, tugged, yanked, twisted, and grabbed at the pin of the second hinge. The sweat on my hands prevented any kind of grip. I moved so Scott could give it a try. I sucked at the blood seeping from my wound. After a minute the pin rasped softly into the palm of his hand. He crouched to reach for the third hinge. Did I finally hear a rat patter nearby or was it a slithering footstep meant to be silent? Ears playing tricks or not, I wanted out of this building.
Scott couldn’t budge the last pin. I tried again. No luck. He worked at it again, swearing continuously under his breath.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
“We’re in. We’re finding what we need to know before we go.” He stood up. “Hold the door up by the handle.” I obeyed the barely audible command. The door was loose, and I could hear the metal click in the two empty hinges. Scott put his shoulder to the door and shoved hard. With a sharp crack and clang the pin broke, the knob popped out of my hand, and the door fell. The sound echoed horribly.
“Fuck,” I said.
He concentrated on moving the door aside. Quickly I joined him. Finished, we returned to see an entryway followed by a short flight of stairs that led up to a modern door with an emergency bar, fortunately on our side. Before I could reach the top of the stairs, the door abruptly swung open from the other side. The gargantuan woman named Stephanie, who’d sensed our presence two nights ago, gaped at us. Her bulk blocked a feeble light that glowed from behind her.
“You!” she bellowed.
I rushed up the last two steps and put my shoulder into her midsection to blast her out of the way. Instead of moving her, I sank into her. She grabbed my arm and flung me into the room: a tactical mistake, with Scott now in front and me behind. In the tiny room by flickering candlelight I saw she wasn’t the only
one present. A small person with its back to us lay huddled in the corner. From the jacket I knew it was Jerry. I didn’t have time to call out or go to him because Stephanie lurched into me. Scott had hold of one arm and half of her torso. She struggled madly with him. We might be in good shape, and he especially strong, but she out weighed the two of us combined by at least a hundred pounds. I managed to grab a leg and a handful of hair. I twisted both. She yelped and let go of Scott and turned her fury on me.
In a larger room I could have outmanuevered her. In the confined space she had the advantage. On the other side of her massiveness I saw Scott go to Jerry.
Groggy and unsteady the boy rose. He took a wobbly step, recognized Scott, and flung himself into his arms. The bulk saw my look and turned to attack them, so I struck. I managed to entangle her feet and over she toppled, missing me by six inches.
I grabbed one of her hands and bent her fingers almost double backwards to immobilize her with pain. She squawked and gasped. I saw her readying a full-throated roar.
I stuffed the corner of a nearby blanket in her gaping maw. Scott whipped his belt off and quickly wrapped it around her ankles. She struggled violently again, but her immobilized legs prevented renewed hostilities. Moments later we had her hands uncomfortably secured to an old radiator.
Panting hard I turned to Jerry. He had a black eye. He threw himself into my arms and I hugged him close.
He said, “I knew you’d get here, Uncle Tom.”
With all the noise, I presumed we had scant seconds to flee. Quickly I checked Jerry. Other than being scared, dirty, and cold, he seemed okay. We got the hell out of there. Back the way we came, more careful than ever and more concerned because we knew for sure now that the women were here.
At the elevator shaft there was no doubt about the sounds of humans stirring below. Seconds later, footsteps echoed at the far end of the long corridor.