CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

 

 

There wasn't much to look at now. The DA was out of sight almost immediately, but Henry still stood and looked down to the street, almost in a trance. He was sure the next few minutes would be important; he hoped he had misjudged the DA because that would make life a good deal easier. Henry was shaken out of his daze by the ringing.

He grabbed the phone and put it to his ear.

"I see him, Henry; he is going into the alley," Luna said.

"Can you see all the way to the other end of the street?" Henry asked.

"Almost, but there is a car half way down, and four men just got out of it. They look serious."

"Keep watching," Henry instructed. He was almost certain he knew what was coming.

Luna continued her commentary, "Ok, the men are standing by the car doors; Mr. McKinley is still walking towards them. The driver has just walked out to meet him. They look like they are talking. He just handed the man the journal and ohhh," Luna gasped.

"What is it?"

"The man he gave the journal to just hit him. He went down, and now the other guys are dragging him to the side of the alley. Oh, one guy just kicked him," Luna exclaimed with concern.

"Don't worry Luna; I am sure he is ok. I suspected this was his game."

"Ok," she said in a quiet voice, obviously upset by the violence.

"You best head back to the office; I'm going to go get Sylvia and Winston. I'll be back shortly."

Henry hung up the phone after he heard something resembling an ok but much quieter. His suspicion had been confirmed; the leak in the department was the DA. Henry walked around the desk and reached towards the lamp, but he decided to leave it on for Luna. Henry put on his overcoat and hat and walked out of the office. He listened to his own shoes; they didn't sound the same as the DA's expensive ones, and he wondered if he should check on him. Though he now hated the DA and knew that Mike lay in the hospital because of his betrayal, he wanted to make sure the thugs hadn't been too rough. Henry wanted McKinley alive and well. He needed McKinley to think that Henry believed he was robbed by some random thugs. Henry thought he should go check on him but decided he just didn't want to. He was sure the DA would have planned for this. There would be a phone call tomorrow explaining what had happened and how the DA's office was doing everything in its power to recover the journal.

Though Henry didn't like thinking about the DA being corrupt, it did mean one thing: Tommy would back off now. He had the journal, and life would return to normal. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. Tommy had 'a' journal, not 'the' journal.

Winston, with the help of Luna and Sylvia, meticulously filled a journal with jumbled letters and numbers. Now, Tommy 'The Knife' would get a coded journal just as he was expecting. Once he burned it, the problem would be almost completely solved except for the one loose end. The loose end, of course, was Luna's father.

Henry didn't know where Luna and Sylvia's fathers were, but he figured that if Tommy's boys hadn't been able to find them yet that they were probably safe. The plan was simple now. Find the rest of the codex and unravel the real journal. Once Henry knew what Luna's father had on Tommy, he would be able to play the end game. He would be able to get justice for Mike and to put Tommy and the DA behind bars for the remainder of their lives.

Henry waved to Winston across the street, then knocked on the window where Sylvia was on the lookout. As the three of them walked back to the office, Henry brought them up to speed. Neither Winston nor Sylvia had much to say. Something about learning that the DA was in cahoots with the worst gangster in town dampened their mood considerably.

Luna was sitting on the edge of the desk when they got back. Henry laid out his plan for putting things right. He wanted to sound confident that everything would turn out just fine, but he didn't think he could pull it off. He just said his piece, and they called it a day. Tomorrow they would all gather and look over the most recent clue.