First Class Killing

Chapter 29

I CALLED FELIX FROM THE CAR ON THE WAY TO Monica’s. With the reintroduction of Felix to my life, I’d had to rearrange the turbo-dialing buttons on my cell phone. Felix’s number replaced the Majestic Airlines reservations line. The last electronic vestige of my association with my old airline got bumped down to regular speed dial.

“Hey, Miss Shanahan.”

“Hi, Felix. I’m just checking in. How are things?”

“I had an emergency at the airport. The bag belt broke down, and I had to go in and fix it.”

“We agreed that your airport job takes priority.”

“I know, but it shouldn’t be so much trouble, you know? The problem is, it’s such a lame program. It breaks down all the time. I’m working with the manufacturer to get some of the bugs out. It wasn’t designed to handle variable workload, which is really kind of useless when you think about the fact that it was built for an airline, an operation with variable scheduleand variable workload. It needs to be run against dynamic-”

“Felix.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Have you had any progress on the case?”

“I’ve been looking around Mr. Margolies’s hard drive, and I found a couple of other bits and pieces related to that video. The one with-well, you know. Ohmygosh, Miss Shanahan. That was really something. Do you know that lady?”

I had to pause for a smile. Felix’s outsized competence made him seem so mature, it was hard to remember how young he was. He had hormones that raged like any kid barely out of high school.

“She had her clothes on when I met her.”

The red taillights were lined up for blocks down Commonwealth. “Hold on a second, Felix.” I put the phone down and cut across two lanes so I could turn, take Storrow, and miss the lights. That put me in a long line of left-turners but gave me plenty of time to listen.

“Go ahead, Felix. Did the bits and pieces tell you anything?”

“Just that he uses a lot of layers and misdirection. But I already knew that.”

“You said ‘he.’ You don’t think Monica could have sent it?”

“Well, I’m not saying she couldn’t have. I mean, she could be a hacker, too, that lady in the video. The hacker could be a she, is what I’m saying. Just because she looks the way she looks doesn’t mean…that would be sexist, right? To think that way would-”

“Felix.”

“Whoever he is, he’s the same person who set up that other site you sent me. The one using the reverse proxy server.”

“Wait a second. The guy who set up the scheduling site for Angel?”

“Him, yeah. I call him Web Boy because he’s like a super-hacker. Only he’s a dark force.”

“How do you know it’s the same person?”

“Because he left a fingerprint.”

“A fingerprint?”

“In the code. Hackers are like that. They like to sign their work, you know? For other hackers who know what to look for.”

“I’ll be damned. That means Angel’s Web master is in on this blackmail scheme.”

“Same fingerprints on both the Web site and Mr. Margolies’s stuff, basically. Only I don’t think he was as careful with the video program as he was with the site. If we could find the e-mails that came with it, I could probably tell you who it is.”

“Or”-this was starting to feel significant-“if we could find Monica, then we might be able to get to the Web guy through her. What did you call him?”

“Web Boy, the Dark Hacker.”

As distinct from Felix, the Boy Genius. I liked that. “Maybe Web Boy is the one who catalogues all of Monica’s videos.” Which meant both of them would have something to hide from Angel.

“He could be.”

My light had been green for a while, but the traffic wasn’t moving. When it finally loosened up, it was just enough to get me all the way up to the front of the line, where I was hitting the gas as the yellow light turned red again. I slammed on the brakes and sat back to wait through another cycle.

“Anything else, Felix?”

“Not so far.”

“Good job. Keep working on finding Web Boy. I’ll work on finding Monica.”

It had taken me longer than it should have to find Monica’s address. To its credit, the airline wasn’t too forthcoming with personal details about employees, even to other employees. If Tristan had been speaking to me, it would have been a snap to get it, but instead I had to go through Dan, who knew a Majestic flight attendant who was dating an OrangeAir flight attendant who sneaked it out of the system for me. I had tried to call Tristan several times since the disastrous dustup at the limo. He wouldn’t return my calls. Irene said to give him time. I knew her mainly through Tristan, so I had really lost them both. I missed them. I pictured the two of them on an overnight, sitting on a patio somewhere, perhaps in the Caribbean, having dinner alfresco under a softly swaying palm tree. That sounded a lot better than what I was doing.

No one had answered Monica’s buzzer in her North End building. None of the neighbors knew where she was, so I was climbing the fire escape to her third-floor unit, hoping she was in the habit, as I was, of leaving a window open. It was the right time of year for it. I didn’t think she was hiding in there, but I thought there might be something that would point me in her direction.

The fire escape was tucked into a vertical culvert behind one building and between two others. That and the fact that I had a flashlight were the only reasons I had the guts to climb up there. I crept past the window of the first-floor unit. The guy on the second floor was watching a baseball game. Was it a playoff game or the Series? I couldn’t believe I had lost track. When he got up and left the room, I tiptoed past his window and continued my climb.

When I got to Monica’s window, I found that she was not in the habit of leaving hers open. Or unlocked. That was inconvenient, as was the fact that she had not left on a single light in the place. It was pitch-black in there, worse still because of the outdoor floodlight shining from the building across the alley. Holding my flashlight up to the glass, I blocked off the space around my eyes and peered in. I could just barely make out the silhouettes of a couch and a television and a chair and-

My head snapped back, I lost my balance, and careened back against the railing. The base of my flashlight hit an iron strut and flipped over the side.

A man’s face had materialized directly in the beam of my flashlight, our noses separated by little more than the thickness of the glass. At least I thought it had. It was gone, and now so was my flashlight. It hit the pavement below with a heavy, muted pop. I looked down. I heard tapping. I looked back. The face was there, back in the window, looking even more ghostly in the reflected light from the neighboring building. A cadaverous smile formed and I knew what he was tapping with even before my eyes could register the image. I knew it was a gun. I knew he was tapping the glass with the barrel of his gun.

I lurched toward the stairs and stumbled down. I tried to yell, but anything that took energy away from getting down the stairs was taking too much. Halfway down, I heard the ghoul’s footsteps on the landing. I felt the structure shake. He had climbed through the window. He was coming down the fire escape behind me.

Holding tight to the railing, I took the last set of stairs in two giant leaps. When I hit the ground, I wanted to go right, to head for my car, but he was too close. I could never get to the Durango, get it unlocked, get in, start it…try something else.

I turned left. All I knew of the North End was a few Italian restaurants, the Old North Church, and endless narrow, winding streets and alleys. It would be easy to get lost, or maybe lose him. When I emerged from the alley, I turned toward the sound of cars moving, toward where I thought there would be restaurants and liquor stores and people on the sidewalks.

I heard the scratchy sound of a walkie-talkie. It was in front of me…no, behind. I looked back. The ghoul had made the corner. He was still coming, holding a device, shouting into it. But his voice was coming out…somewhere else. I twisted back around, searched the street, and spotted him. A second man stepped out of a doorway half a block down and looked around until he caught sight of me. He wore a suit, a pinstriped blue suit with a vest, which struck me in that moment of absolute adrenaline overload as weird. He was also squeezing a walkie-talkie, and I realized he’d been standing in front of Monica’s building. I had made a loop back to her front door.

Now he was coming, too, and I took off. He had turned me around, away from the lights, and I was going the other way along a dark and narrow sidewalk, up and down on the curb, around parked cars and parking meters until I came to an opening. It was a yard, a way to get off the street and out of their sight. Then I was through it and into an open field, and I was running flat out again. It was a relief to have the space to move, and at the same time I was thinking if I could see ahead, they could see me. I thought I was going toward the harbor, toward the water, because of the vast stretch of darkness ahead. But a chain-link fence with orange reflector signs came up fast and I knew I was completely off course. It wasn’t the water I had run to. It was a construction zone, a massive construction zone. I had stumbled upon the Big Dig, the world’s biggest road project. With no one around, it looked a lot like the far side of the moon. Only instead of craters and mountains, there were backhoes and wheelbarrows, cement pillars and exposed cables and large mud basins where rainwater had collected.

I didn’t want to go in there, but they were coming. The ghoul, tall and bony, was out front. The other one lagged behind, his suit coat flapping behind him.

I looked for any sign of life. Security guard. Police cruiser. Someone armed would be good, because now they were shooting at me. A round pinged against a metal container a few feet away. I resisted the urge to drop to the ground and roll into a fetal position and went instead up and over the fence. I couldn’t tell where the second round hit, but it got me moving. I crawled on my belly around a thicket of Do Not Enter signs, got to my feet, and lurched down a ramp and into a tunnel.

At first there was enough light for me to make my way. I could see to move easily among the piles of wood and the bags of cement. But very quickly, it got dark, and soon I was tripping over coils of cable and stumbling into bags of cement. I had to move more and more slowly until I was stopped.

“…dark…motherfucker…crazy bitch…”

“Keep…down here…spread out…”

They were in the tunnel with me.

I couldn’t find the direction of their voices. They seemed to be coming from all around. I reached out with both arms and shuffled along until my fingers connected with…machinery…a machine. Cold steel. Solid. I grabbed onto it and felt my way along until I found one of its tires. Okay, a tire I could visualize. I crouched beside it and listened. They were closer. How would they approach? One on each side? Both up the middle? If I could figure that out, I could go the other way…but what if I…what if they…wait.Where was the middle?

I no longer knew where the walls were. I had turned to listen to them and lost my bearings, and now I didn’t know which way to go, and my heart was flapping around my chest, and I seemed to be taking in more air than I could let out. My lungs were about to burst, and it had been a terrible mistake to come down here, because now I was trapped, and they had at least one gun, and I had to calm down.

I turned away and closed my eyes and made myself breathe. Listening to them was causing the panic. I had to make my own plan and that plan had to get me out. I was too scared in the dark. I leaned over with my hands on my knees and eyes closed and listened closely. I pointed myself to where I thought the voices were coming from. When I figured out where that was, I decided they were still behind me, which meant I had to find a way to get behind them.

I got down on my knees and felt along the ground. Nails? Too light. Gravel. Too small. Something hard. Heavy. A brick. A stack of bricks. Too heavy for what I needed.

A crash not far away. “Son of abitch.”

“Shut up. I can’t hear.”

“Like we’re going to find her in here.”

I crawled along the ground, using their noise for cover, feeling with my hands. There was something cold…aluminum or metal…cylindrical with a label. It was a can. Maybe a paint can. Two cans, each with a handle. Perfect.

I grabbed one, but when I reached for the other, I tipped it over and made it clatter. When I tried to catch it, I only managed to make it roll farther. They shouted to each other, and one of them began to drift in my direction. His footfall sounded like leather soles on pavement and I thought it might be the one in the suit. I stabbed at the darkness around me, trying to touch something, to find something to flatten against. I was out in the open, exposed. For all I knew, he would walk right into me.

He stopped. I had to stop. My muscles cramped. The paint can smelled of chemicals-solvent, maybe-and I wished I were a smoker with a lighter. I listened, but there was nothing, which meant that he was listening, too. I began to shake.

Then I heard him wheezing. Even though he was very close by, I felt a small relief that he was the one closer to me. He was struggling to breathe the heavy air and I knew, of the two, he was the one I could outrun, if only I could see where to run.

He stood for a long time. When he finally moved past, my whole body unclenched, and I nearly fell over. I waited for a good long time, until I couldn’t hear him anymore. When I straightened up, I hoped that my bones wouldn’t audibly creak. I took a deep breath and counted to myself.One… I wrapped my hand around the handle of the paint can…two…whirled around, which was not easy in total darkness, and…three…let it fly.

It seemed to take forever to come down. When it did, it hit dead solid on something hard and heavy. The noise boomed like an explosion from deep within a cave.

They yelled to each other. I started to feel my way along, going in the direction I had picked. I put one foot lightly in front of the other, slowly at first, but then it was hard to hold back, hard not to shut down my brain, let my instincts take over, and go crashing out of there as fast as I could. I held back until I saw the light spilling down the ramp. I began to jog toward the entrance, and then a fire kicked in, and I was running full out, and I couldn’t have stopped for any reason. If they were behind me, I didn’t know, because the only thing I could hear was the drumbeat of my own feet pounding the ground, my own heart pushing me forward.

I was flying.

The opening was ahead, the light washing into the dark tunnel like the tide rising onto the shore. I wanted to feel that light on me. The ramp was steeper than I had realized. I was breathing in a rhythm-in-in, out-out-every two steps, but the air seemed to hold less and less oxygen. At the moment when I felt I had to slow down, I heard the shots, loud and sharp, like the crack of an old tree branch snapped off in a windstorm. One of the rounds ricocheted off the ground in front of me. I knew they could see me against the light. I ran left and right in a jagged zigzag, aiming for the top of the ramp. I started to feel that something was pulling me forward, pulling me to safety. The opening was in front of me. I would make it. Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty.

I didn’t even see him.

The collision was monumental, at least from my end. There was no time to stop, to turn, to do anything but plow right into him, which was like running headfirst into a Sequoia. I slammed into his chest. My head snapped back, and I was crumpling to the ground when he caught me. He had me by both arms. If I hadn’t been dazed from the crash, I would have been too spent to do anything anyway, so all I could do was stare at him.

He was big, especially across the shoulders. His head was square. His sport coat looked, in the dim light, to be a dusty rose over a black turtleneck. With a dizzying, disorienting rush of recognition, I realized I knew this man, and if I hadn’t been nearly unconscious I would have been scared, because the last time I had seen him was in Chicago, where his jacket had been lemon yellow. I expected any second for one of his big hands to release my arm and grab me by the throat.

It didn’t.

He turned his thick shoulders and looked down into the tunnel, probably seeing down there what I could hear-my two pursuers coming up the ramp.

“Go,” he said. He let go of my arms and turned me around. “Run.”

I wanted to drop to my knees. I wanted to let my head hang down until I could breathe again, but I could hear the other two coming. I put one hand on my aching side and started moving again, limping back toward the fence. When I turned to look back, he was gone.

I couldn’t get the dust out of my nasal passages. I kept blowing, sniffing, snorting, and mashing my nose against my face. Whether it was in my snout or in my mind, I couldn’t say, but I had an itch there that I couldn’t scratch, and it kept me on the razor’s edge of a sneeze. I smelled as if I’d just come in from a long run, only terror sweat is more pungent and rancid than exercise sweat. Both of my shoulders throbbed, the right one more than the left. I hoped I hadn’t torn something important.

I had found my way to the Fleet Center complex, which led directly to North Station, where there were plenty of people hanging out waiting for commuter trains to the suburbs. I sat on a bench along one wall and watched them. It had been more than an hour since I had crawled out of the tunnel, and I was trying to figure out if it made sense to go back to my car in the North End. It was either that or call Harvey, which seemed almost harder than any other option I could think of.

I was pretty sure the two men at Monica’s had been waiting for her, not me, probably for the same reason as the big guy had been after me…her in Chicago. Blackmail schemes gone awry. This was a dangerous game Monica was playing. Why did I keep paying the price? The big guy must have figured out his mistake, which was why he’d had no use for me tonight.

I did not want to deal with Harvey, so I went outside and hailed a cab that took me to the North End. I gave the cabbie five dollars extra to wait until I got safely into my car.

When I reached up to grab my seat belt, I noticed the business card in the visor. Printed on the front was the name Djuro Bulatovic. Below it was an 800 number. On the back was a handwritten note.

My sincerest apologies. Please call.

They say first impressions are the ones that last. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to think of Djuro Bulatovic as anyone but the man in the lemon chiffon jacket who choked me until I passed out.