Burn Marks

45

A Walk on the Wild Side

Furey’s car was parked halfway up the block. He jerked the driver’s door open and shoved me across the gear box into the passenger seat. I flung up my cuffed hands to protect my face as I fell against the door. My left leg was tangled in the gear stick. I was twisted at an awkward angle, unable to kick at Michael when he thrust my leg onto the passenger side.

At least he hadn’t bothered to pat me down. Maybe he didn’t know I sometimes carry a gun. If I kept my wits, I might still be able to use it.

A handful of people were out on the street, but they turned studiously the other way when they saw me struggling against him-no one wants to be involved in domestic quarrels. I kept biting off the cry to call the cops. After all, Michael was the cops. What would the patrol units do when they showed up and Michael told them I was a violent prisoner?

“I’m not taking any chances with you, Vic-Ernie and Ron were right about you all along. You’re not interested in the things a normal girl is-you just play the odds and wait your chance to jump on a guy’s balls.”

I leaned back in the leather seat. “You’re so brave, Furey, shooting a man old enough to be your grandfather. They have special sessions on that at the Police Academy?”

“Shut up, Vic.” He took a hand from the wheel and slapped my face.

“Gosh, Michael, now I am scared. You and your friends really know how to keep your women in shape. How about fastening my seat belt so I don’t have to go headfirst through the windshield-you’d have a hard time explaining it to Bobby.”

He ignored my request and took off with such a burst that I was flung against the leather. I squirmed awkwardly to fish the seat belt from where it was wedged against the door.

“They kept laughing at me, all the kowtowing I did to you-Ernie said LeAnn talked back to him that way just once and he taught her who was boss. That’s what I should have done with you from the start. Out at Boots’s barbecue they warned me you were acting sweet just so you could nose your way into our business. Carl and Luis took them seriously-but me! I just couldn’t listen!” He pounded the steering wheel, his voice rising and cracking.

I finally managed to snap the metal tongue into its holder. “Three weeks ago, when you told me Elena had been seen soliciting in Uptown, that was a lie, wasn’t it? That’s why you were so insistent I not call Bobby to talk to him about it.”

He turned onto Diversey and moved into the oncoming traffic lane to swoop around the traffic backed up from the light at Southport. “You’re so sharp, Vic. That’s what always attracted me to you. Why couldn’t you be smart and sweet at the same time?”

“Just luck of the draw, I guess.” I tried to brace myself against his sudden braking as he cut back into the right lane. “You said you had my aunt. Where did you find her? Down in one of those abandoned buildings on Cermak?”

He laughed. “She was right under my nose. Can you beat that? Right around the corner in my own neighborhood. Eileen had seen her and told my mother and Mother mentioned it to me at supper last night. She’d gone to hide out with one of her old cronies, but her thirst got to her- she just had to go get herself a bottle. I knew sooner or later, if she wasn’t dead, she wouldn’t be able to put up with that thirst anymore. I just didn’t expect it to be around the corner from me. So I hung out all afternoon and sure enough, round eight o’clock, there she came. I just helped her into the car. She tried sweet-talking me. It was loathsome.”

He did sixty through the park to Lake Shore Drive. I suppose the beat cops knew his license plate, or at least called it in and saw it belonged to a detective. The local traffic didn’t have that inside track and honked ferociously as they had to swerve out of his way.

“Was she loathsome because of her age or her drinking or both?” I asked.

“Women who think they’ve got sexual powers that they don’t are disgusting.”

“She appeals to some guys. Just because she’s not your type doesn’t mean everyone finds her repulsive.”

He turned onto Lake Shore Drive so fast I was flung against him. When I was upright again I said conversationally, “Touching you seems loathsome to me, but I’m sure some women would disagree.”

He didn’t say anything, just took the Corvette up to ninety, diving in and out of lanes around the other cars, making them seem to stand still in a blur of light. I was afraid I was going to throw up when he braked into the curve at the Michigan Avenue exit. He slowed down then-the traffic was too thick for him to keep up so mad a pace.

“You’re cracking, Michael. You’re leaving a trail a mile wide. Even if Roland Montgomery’s your clout in the department, he can’t protect you from the mayhem you’re manufacturing tonight.”

In the streetlamps along the Drive I could see sweat beaded on his forehead. He made a violent gesture with his right hand but the car swerved; he fishtailed and got us back in our lane by a miracle.

“What is it that Roland owes Boots?” I kept my tone level. “And why did he get you to set the fire-why couldn’t he do it himself?”

Furey bared his teeth at me. “You’re not that fucking smart Vic. I went to Montgomery. I found him for Boots. All he had to do was get me the accelerant and make sure no one investigated too closely.”

“What a good boy,” I said marveling. “Is that when they gave you the Corvette?”

“You don’t understand anything, do you? I was prepared-I was willing-you could have lived like LeAnn and Clara-had whatever you wanted-but you-”

“I have what I want, Michael. My independence and my privacy. You’ve just never understood it, have you, that all those things, those diamonds and stuff, just don’t turn me on.”

He got off at the Grand Avenue exit and whipped around the curves to the Rapelec complex. He parked the Corvette well away from the street, behind one of the wooden walls blocking the site.

He jumped out and came around to the passenger door. I had thought I might be able to kick him as I got out of the car but he’d handled a lot of rough arrests in his time-he stood well away from the frame and waited for me to wrestle with the seat belt and get my legs out myself. He put an arm around me in a savage mockery of chivalry and hustled me into the building.

I shivered involuntarily when we moved into the inky corridors. We were on the plank-covered ramp I’d walked three weeks earlier up to the management offices. Beyond the naked bulbs lay the gaping hole of the complex. I wondered where my aunt was, if she was still alive, what tragic end was destined for us.

Furey hadn’t said a word since we’d gotten to the site. I began to feel boxed in by the silence as much as by my cuffs.

To regain my composure I said conversationally, “Was it because McGonnigal told you I had the bracelet? Is that why you came to get me tonight?”

He bared his teeth again in a violent parody of a smile. “You left your scarf at the Alma offices, Vic. I saw you unwrap it when Eileen gave it to you the day we met. You don’t remember it but I do because I thought you were the hottest little number I’d ever laid eyes on. I do want my bracelet back, but I’m not in any hurry.”

“That’s good,” I said calmly, even though my cheeks burned at the idea of being a hot number. “I left it in my apartment. You’re going to need a wrecking crew to get in there. You don’t get it, do you? Not even being a cop can cover your tracks for you when you’ve created this much carnage. Not even Bobby will do it. It’ll break his heart, but he’ll let you go.”

Michael hit me across my mouth with the back of his hand. “You need to learn a few lessons, Vic, and one of them is to shut up when I tell you to.”

It stung a little but didn’t hurt. “I don’t have a long enough lifeline right now to learn new tricks, Mickey, and even if I did, yours just purely make me throw up.”

Michael stopped in the middle of the gangway and shoved me against the wall. “I told you to shut up, Vic. Do you want me to break your jaw to make you do it?”

I looked at him steadily, marveling that I’d ever found those dark angry eyes engaging. “Of course I don’t, Michael. But I have to wonder if beating me while I’m defenseless would make you feel powerful or ashamed?”

He held my shoulder with his left hand and tried to slam his right into my face. As he came forward I kicked him as hard as I could in the kneecap, hard enough to break it. He gave a sharp cry and dropped my shoulder.

I ran down the ramp, terribly hampered by my bound hands. Above me I heard Furey crying out, and then Ernie Wunsch calling down asking what the fuck was going on. I darted into the shadowy interior, tumbling over boards in the dark. I was making too big a racket-no one would have any trouble finding me.

I stopped running and moved cautiously forward until I came to a big pillar, steel with concrete poured around it. I sidled around behind it and stood there trying not to breathe out loud, scrabbling behind me trying to reach my gun. My arms were crossed in their cuffs, though, and I couldn’t reach far enough around.

A powerful flashlight stuck fingers out on the floor around me. I didn’t move.

“Let’s not play hide-and-seek here all night,” Ernie said. “Go get the aunt. She’ll flush her out.”

I still didn’t move. A couple of minutes later I could hear Elena’s breathless voice, squeaky with fear.

“What are you doing? You’re hurting me. There’s no need to hold me so hard. I don’t know how you were brought up, but in my day a true gentleman did not squeeze a lady’s arm hard enough to bruise it.”

Good old Elena. Maybe I’d find a happy death, laughing at her incongruous scolding.

“We have your aunt here, Warshawski.” It was Ron Grasso speaking now. “Call out to your niece, Auntie.”

He did something to make her scream. I flinched at the noise.

“Louder, Auntie.”

She screamed again, a cry of genuine pain. “Vicki! They’re hurting me!”

“We just broke a finger, Warshawski. We’ll break her bones one by one until you decide you’ve had enough.”

I swallowed bile and stepped out from behind my pillar. “Okay, he-men. I’ve had enough.”

“That’s a good girl, Vic,” Ernie said, moving toward me. “I always told Mickey there was a way to manage you if he just looked for it… Keep the light on her, Ronnie. Little bitch maybe broke Mickey’s knee. I don’t want her clawing at me.”

He came up to me and took my arm. “Now don’t you try anything, Vic, because Ron there will just start breaking your auntie’s fingers again if you do.”

“Vicki?” Elena quavered. “You’re not mad at poor old Elena, are you?”

I held out my cuffed hands to her. “Of course I’m not mad at you, sweetie. You did the best you could. You were very smart and brave to hide so long.”

What good would it have done to chew her out for not sharing the whole story with me from the beginning-or at least from her bed at Michael Reese.

“They hurt me, Vicki, they broke my little finger. I didn’t mean to scream and make them find you, but I couldn’t help it.” Her face was in shadow but I sensed the tears beginning to fall.

“No, no, sweetie, I know you couldn’t.” I patted the thin bones in her hands. They were fragile, exposed, as easy to break as sticks of china.

Behind Ron and Elena stood August Cray, the night project manager. “What happened to your security guard? He not in on the kill?” I asked. “And I don’t see dear little Star, either. She and I had such a nice chat this afternoon.”

Nobody answered me. “We’re just going to go for a ride, Vic,” Ron said. “You take it easy. There are three of us here and we can make it mighty unpleasant for both of you if you try any of your cute tricks on us.”

“Just three of you? What happened to Furey? Did I really get his kneecap? A shot like that takes a lot of practice.” I was amazed to hear myself sounding as chipper as a cheerleader. “You know, if he’s gone to the hospital, you’ve got a little problem-if my body’s discovered with his handcuffs on, I mean-it’s going to be awkward for the poor boy to explain that one away.”

“You’re not the only one around here with a brain, Warshawski, so don’t get your underwear in a bundle over that one.” Ernie’s sharper voice came from behind me. “Mickey won’t leave us holding the bag.”

“That’s right,” I said approvingly. “You’re all pals and pals gotta stick together, even unto death, at least the death of a whole lot of innocent bystanders.”

“You’re no little innocent, Vic, so don’t get me shedding tears for you.”

We got to the hoist and they bundled us in. Cray operated the controls while Ron and Ernie hovered close to Elena and me. I wished futilely that I’d learned enough Polish to do more than greet my grandmother Warshawski at Christmas. I could have told Elena about the gun and gotten her to slip it out of my back before Ron or Ernie found it, but if I muttered the news to her, they’d hear me and disarm me.

As we rode slowly up my terror and helplessness increased. I could imagine our end, tipped over the side of the building, the accidental death of an unstable wino and her eager but unhelpful niece. I stopped trying to goad the boys with my bright chatter and slumped down on my heels against the elevator wall, my head in my hands.

“What’s she up to?” Ron demanded.

“I’m sick,” I groaned. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Be my guest,” Ernie said sardonically.

I made retching noises and collapsed on the floor of the hoist, clutched my stomach with my cuffed hands. Elena fluttered down next to me. “Oh, my poor baby, what would Gabriella say if she could see you? She’d never forgive me. I hope I don’t go to heaven when I die, I couldn’t bear to see the look on her face for knowing I got you into trouble like this. Come to Elena, baby, come here, Vicki, just lean your head against old drunk Elena and maybe you’ll feel a little better.”

I sat up and leaned my head against her shoulder. With my voice muffled against her scrawny neck, I told her about the gun. “Wait until we’re out of here and in the dark, then pull it out and hand it to me.”

Fear had sharpened her wits. She didn’t give a sign of having understood me. “Oh, Vicki, yes, whatever you say, baby, just don’t cry. That’s a good girl.”

Maybe she hadn’t understood me. I wondered if I should try to repeat the message, but the hoist had slid to a stop and Ernie was urging me to my feet. Still clutching my stomach and moaning, I lurched on the way out and stumbled against the concrete.

We were on the open deck at the top of the building. Around us steel beams sent blacker fingers against the dark sky. We were up twenty-five or thirty stories. A stiff wind made the girders sway and froze my marrow. The sight of open air in all directions brought on a genuine attack of nausea. I fell down, almost swooning.

Elena was on me like a shot, weeping over her poor little Vicki. While Ron tried to wrestle her away her bony hands felt behind me for my gun. He pulled her up, but she had the Smith & Wesson loose and dropped it in front of me. The sharp sound of metal on concrete echoed a thousandfold in my ears.

Ernie and Ron didn’t immediately realize what had happened. The only light came from the hoist. I could just make out the glint of the metal and scrabbled madly for the gun. I reached it just as Ernie yanked me to my feet. Fumbling it into my right hand, I slid the safety off with my thumb. I wrenched myself from Ernie and turned and shot him.

Cray was still standing in the hoist. When he heard the shot and saw Ernie fall, he closed the doors and started back down. Ron started dragging Elena toward the edge of the platform. I couldn’t make him out except as a bundle of darkness moving along the paler sheen of the concrete. I forced myself to follow him, to fight down the spinning in my head, to place the muzzle in his back and pull the trigger.

A yard from the edge Ron collapsed, falling on top of Elena. I had never killed a man before, but I knew from the way his body lay, crumpled as a dark blob on the concrete deck, that he was dead. I couldn’t bring myself to walk close enough to check-but what would I have done even if he had been alive? My hands were still cuffed and the hoist was somewhere below us.

My aunt began thrashing about, trying to move away from him. That finally brought me over to the body. Even a yard from the edge of the deck my head swam, I shut my eyes and managed to roll Ron from my aunt’s torso, I brought her with me to the center of the platform.

Behind us the crane loomed up. The pale light of the midnight sky glinted from its long swaying arm. I thought of the hole underneath, going down thirty stories to the bottom of the elevator shaft, and shuddered.

Ernie was still alive. I’d shattered his shoulder. He was losing enough blood to want to get help, but he told me there wasn’t any way to bring the hoist up myself. Ernie wasn’t inclined to talk much. I tried asking him about his relations with Boots and MacDonald and why he and Ron did so much for them, but he told me I was a nosy interfering bitch and to mind my own business before it was too late. At the same time he was peeved with me for not climbing down to the ground-he told me they nailed ladders into the openings where fire stairs would eventually be poured.

“You could at least try to get some help,” he complained. “You shot me-you owe me something.”

“Ernie, sweetie, I shot you because you were going to throw me over the side of the building. I’m not climbing down thirty stories of ladders in the dark, specially not with my hands not working.”

At that Wunsch cursed some more, this time at his partners. It seems Furey had given Cray the key to my handcuffs-he’d been supposed to undo me right before I went over-they didn’t want to run the risk of not getting to me before some passerby did. “Now look at that jerk. Takes off and leaves us alone up here to die.”

“I thought you were a real macho kind of guy,” I said disapprovingly. “John Wayne would never have lain around pissing at how rotten his pals were just because he’d taken a bullet.”

Ernie swore at me, then asked me to take off my sweatshirt to wrap him up, he was getting so cold with blood loss.

“Ernie, I can’t get it over my hands. Remember? They’re locked together. Anyway, I don’t want to hang around up here all night with nothing but a bra between me and the cold cruel wind.”

Ernie flung a few more unimaginative epithets at me, then lapsed into silence. I wished Elena would too. Playing a heroine’s role for once in her life, my aunt grew loquacious. She went on as though shot full of pentobarbital, talking about her childhood, her quarrels with her mother, what Tony-my father-said when he cut all the hair off her dolls when she was eight.

After a while I thought I might scream at the emotional inconsequential torrent. Ernie found it so intolerable, he demanded I shut her up.

“She’s driving me round the bend with that drivel,” he announced. In his own living room this probably got instant results. I could picture LeAnn giggling and saying “You’re so cute, Ernie,” but taking her offending friends or children or mother off to the kitchen. I wondered what LeAnn and Clara would do now.

“She’s not doing anything to you, Ernie. Listen to her- it’ll take your mind off your troubles.” I asked Elena to repeat a particularly tangled narrative involving my uncle Peter, a dog, and the neighbor’s flower garden.

I don’t know how much time passed that way when I heard the hoist returning. It can’t have been long, but in the dark, surrounded by the wounded and the babbling, it felt like hours.

I persuaded Elena to stop talking and move with me behind one of the girders. “Just be quiet, Auntie. They may have come back to shoot us and we don’t want to give them any help finding us.”

“Sure, Vicki. You know what you’re doing. Whatever you say. I was never so scared in my life as I was when that boy with the gorgeous eyes picked me up at the liquor store-”

I put a hand over her mouth. “Shut up, darling, for now. You can tell me about it later.”

The hoist groaned to a stop. My hands were thick with cold, I was having trouble remembering which was the right hand and which the left. I counted painfully in my head, trying to figure out how many shots were in the clip. I tried to subdue the tremor in my right hand so I could make all of them count.

I waited for the noise of doors opening or feet on concrete. When a minute had gone by with no sound, I peered around the edge of the pillar. I couldn’t see the box-like car inside the frame. Over the wind in the girders and Elena’s nervous whispers, I strained to hear. Finally I moved away from her in the dark, ignoring her piteous cry.

To my left I suddenly saw a bobbing point of light. I moved toward it cautiously, keeping my weight on my back foot with each step until I was certain I hadn’t come to some unexpected hole.

The light flickered again and went out. Ernie had mentioned a ladder in the stairwell opening. This must be Cray or some other confederate hoping to climb up and surprise us from behind.

My eyes were so accustomed to the dark that I saw the stairwell opening loom in front of me as a darker patch in the black night. I lay on my stomach and watched until the black changed again, a blob crawling up the side to the top. When a hand emerged on the deck I smashed the butt of the Smith & Wesson into it with all my strength.

Cray cried out but leaned against the ladder and brought his other hand up and fired. The bullet went wide in the night but I slid back, away from the opening, as he hoisted himself one-handed to the deck.

I aimed at the dark shape in front of me and fired. Lying awkwardly as I was, the recoil wrenched my right shoulder. I fell over but managed to hang on to the gun. Light shone on me, blinding me, and I rolled instinctively as he shot.

Somehow I managed to get to my feet and around behind one of the girders. Cray kept the light on for a moment but realized when I fired again that it made him as much a target as it did me. When the light went out I dropped to my knees and elbows and scooted to the next girder. I stopped there and listened. Elena had started talking again, in an undertone, the sound just audible above the wind.

“You can get the old woman, Cray,” Ernie called in the thread of a voice. “She’s jabbering away over here. You can find her by the babble.”

Elena whimpered but couldn’t make herself shut up.

“You still there, Wunsch?” Cray shouted back. “Keep the faith-I’ll have you down in no time.”

Cray started circling around behind me in the dark. I couldn’t keep track of where he was. I was tired and disoriented and I clung to my girder without trying to figure out his next move. Suddenly he gave a cry, a scream of such panic that my heart thudded violently.

“What happened? Where are you?” Ernie called out.

From the middle of the deck I could hear Cray screaming, his voice muffled, coming from a distance. He had fallen down the opening for the crane, but the safety nets around it had saved him.