Watch Dogs: Dark Clouds

CHAPTER THREE

The Hawk. That’s what they called the north wind that came slashing down the Chicago streets, this time of year. With the sun gone down, now, the wind was colder, bitterer than ever.

It had started when Wolfe had gone into the seediest bar he could find that still had wifi. He was searching through news on his laptop. On the internet jukebox was an old Stones song about “the girl with far away eyes”.

Mick Wolfe listened to the song in a distant way, as he tooled through the web for a way to find a certain son of a bitch. Wolfe was just sitting there at the bar, close to the wall, sipping a boilermaker and searching Chicago news for Verrick.

He glanced at the door whenever someone came in; he was keeping an eye out in case Tranter came looking for him. Tranter—or someone worse.

There on the laptop screen was a picture of Verrick in a powder-blue Italian suit, posing next to a shiny sensor array that was a sample of ctOS-2, the new system Blume Corporation was getting ready to launch. Verrick was Blume’s security head, and this was a security sensor, so it was no shock to see Roger Verrick in the picture, trying to smile and pointing at the metal and crystal cluster. Wolfe wasn’t seeing much else on Verrick that was up to date.

“Hey,” said a sultry voice at his elbow. “I know him! That’s the guy from the Upstairs Room.”

Wolfe twitched a little, managed not to jump out of his seat and turned to look at the girl.

“Ya didn’t even hear me walk up, didja?” she asked, smirking. She had a slight southeast Asian accent, oddly mixed with Chicago working class; was quite small but shapely, her black bob highlighted with silver at the tips, her lips and fingernails painted silver too; her eyes were almond-shaped and chestnut-colored. She had one fist cocked on her hip. “You sure jumped, soldier boy!” She pointed at the U.S. Army tattoo on his forearm.

“I’m not a soldier anymore,” he said, turning to the laptop. Not that kind, anyway. “But you should be, girl, walking up that quiet on people…” Wait, what had she said? “You saying you’ve seen that guy in person, somewhere?” He tapped Verrick’s image on the screen.

“Sure,” she said. “At the Four Clubs. They got a room upstairs—and guess what, they call it the Upstairs Room. Think they’re cute. I could tell you were interested in him, real personal like, the way you were staring at that boring picture. You buy me a Courvoisier?”

That was pretty expensive liquor. But if she knew where Verrick could be found when the bastard was out and about…

Wolfe dug some bills from his pocket. He still had eighty dollars left from the off-the-books construction work he’d done in Kansas City. He put a twenty on the bar. “Courvoisier for the lady,” he told the bartender.

The old man nodded, and shuffled over to get the cognac.

“You can afford Courvoisier?” she asked. “I thought you’d say, how about if I get you a vodka instead! You just got paid, huh? Wanta party?”

“I didn’t say I could afford the Courvoisier,” he said. “But I’ll pay for it.” Wolfe waited till she had climbed up on the stool next to him and had a sip of her drink, then he asked, “So this Four Clubs place… where is it? This Roger Verrick owes me money.”

“I can’t give out the address. That’d get me in trouble. Place is illegal—’course, all the cops know where it is. They’re paid off.”

“Old Chicago tradition.”

“Sure. Anyway… if ya go over to the Loop, ask around near Van Buren, check the scene, I bet ya find it. They won’t letcha in, though. Not unless you got a nice suit at home to put on first—and maybe a razor. You got to look like a high roller to get in there. They got more’n one tough bouncer.”

He’d cross that bouncer when he came to it, he figured. “What’s your name?” he asked the girl.

“Lulu.”

“I’m Mick.”

“Can I call you Mickey?”

“Make you happy, call me Mickey. Look, uh—could you get me into the Four Clubs?”

“Nah, not a chance, they eighty-sixed me outta there ‘cause I wouldn’t let some dumbjacks do something they wanted to do to me. If I go back, Honker’ll pulp my face. That’s what he said he’d do. I don’t even know what pulp your face is but I don’t wanta know.”

“I hear that, alright. This Verrick got anyone special he sees at that place?”

“Sure, if she wasn’t just bragging. Every Friday night, that guy sees Rose Blue. Looks like a model, that girl. Blonde and tall and with the long legs, you know? Dresses in rose color, and blue, when she’s working. Thinks she’s the tippy top, like she got all her clients twisted around her pinky finger…”

Should he try to get into the Four Clubs tonight? He could probably find Verrick if he watched the Blume Building, of course. But he didn’t want to be seen anywhere near Verrick’s turf. Didn’t want to go to that bastard’s center of power unless he had to. It’d be too well protected, too well watched. He needed to catch Verrick off guard.

If a guy wasn’t off-guard in the hooker suite of a mob casino, where was he off-guard?

“So how about that party, Mickey?” Lulu said, elbowing him. “It’s Friday night, time to let your hair down and your pants too.”

“You deserve top dollar, Lulu. Can’t afford it. But here… let me buy you another drink.” He put one more twenty on the bar. That was half his money gone. “You give me your phone number, I’ll get back to you when I get a paycheck…”

“I like that, you’re a guy thinks ahead! Not that many guys think ahead. They think ‘get into her pants right now’. You’re a good guy, Mickey. Hey Harry? Another Courvoisier!”

Walking along the southern edge of The Loop, backpack with his laptop in it over one shoulder, Wolfe turned the collar of his coat against The Hawk. Putting up his collar didn’t help much. The cold wind stung his eyes, burned his ears, made his lips feel numb.

If he could find that casino, he’d get out of this November wind. But he might get tossed back into it pretty quick.

He looked around, saw nothing that looked remotely like a casino—but since it was illegal, it wouldn’t look like one on the outside. There were half a dozen casinos in outlying areas but gambling was still illegal within city limits. Didn’t matter, the Four Clubs was run by, guess who, The Club mob, so it didn’t have to be legal. It just had to be discreet. If Wolfe could find it, he might be able to get Verrick alone…

It was Friday night but not much action in this neighborhood; just the occasional cab passing, and the corkscrewing of trash swept along by the Hawk on this corner of Van Buren. That it was Friday, with Verrick likely at the Four Clubs, was one piece of good luck. And there was another bit of luck who was now getting out of that cab in front of that old, unmarked brick office building on the corner: a tall, modelesque blonde in a rose and blue outfit. She wore a tight, upscale rose-colored party dress, with a light blue short jacket, with rose-glass necklace, rose purse and pumps.

If that was Rose Blue, and that antiquated four-story office building on the corner was the front for the Four Clubs casino, then he just might be within spitting distance of Major Roger Verrick. Retired….

Wolfe crossed under the raised tracks of the L Train, angling to pass fairly close to Rose Blue—close enough he caught a whiff of her rose scented perfume—but acting as if he were planning to head around the corner of the building. He put on the groggy “lost junkie” act he’d sometimes used in Morocco when meeting his CIA contact. He didn’t have to try hard at the moment to come off like a street person. Lulu was right, he looked pretty shabby.

He glanced past the elegant call girl as the door opened for her—someone had seen her through the peep hole.

“Evenin’, Honker,” she told the bouncer.

Honker was the bulkiest thug in a tuxedo that Wolfe had ever seen—and he’d seen quite a few at high-end casinos. Honker had a face that looked like it was carved from sandstone, and fists that looked like they could crush rock too.

“Hiya, Rose!” Honker said.

Not much chance of getting past that big lug right this second, Wolfe thought.

Delta Force training or not, Honker would be hard to take down. Of course, there was always placing a bullet in the back of the bouncer’s head, if it came to that.

Trouble is, he didn’t know what type of guy Honker was. Easy enough to assume Honker was a brute when he worked the door at a mob casino. But for all Wolfe knew Honker could be a family man who couldn’t get another job.

Find another way in.

Honker glanced at Wolfe, as he closed the door behind the girl, seemed to discount the “lost junky” immediately—which was how Wolfe had figured it.

Wolfe strolled around the corner, looking up at the roof of the building. Yeah, a couple of Club wiseguys were standing sentry up there. He could see their bundled-up silhouettes, including their AK47s.

Wolfe kept walking, but he drew slowly in toward the building as he went until he was out of the line of sight of the sentries on the roof—unless they leaned over the wall and looked straight down.

Behind the building was a parking lot. There were several limos in it, along with a gold colored SUV that probably belonged to some minor rapper who was into being a Player, several shiny, low slung Porsches and Jaguars, and one late model Escalade. He saw no beaters, no low-income cars, which told him that the employers had to park somewhere else. There was a sign that said Private Parking Only. It didn’’t say parking for what. A chubby cheeked parking attendant in a black watch cap and overcoat was watching something pink and squirmy on a miniature TV in a little parking lot kiosk. Chances were the parking lot attendant wasn’t going to look up from Bikini Bimbos unless another car drove in.

Wolfe turned, walked down the alley close to the back wall of the building. His boots crunched loudly in gravel as he walked toward a patch of light at a back door. Someone was standing there, smoking a cigarette, keeping the door open enough so they could get back in. Which meant the door locked if it closed and this guy didn’t have a key. Somebody low-level.

Wolfe glanced up, didn’t see the sentries looking down. He walked around the back door as if he were just cutting through the alley—then stopped, staring in sudden recognition at the man in the backdoor. And the man stared back at him with the same mild shock.

It was Kurt O’Malley, an Irish-German guy from the old ‘hood. They’d grown up near each other; they’d shared a six pack or two and double dated, occasionally, just before Wolfe enlisted in the Army.

“Kurt? That you?”

O’Malley was wearing a white jacket, white pants. He was a gangly man with a stubby nose, rusty colored hair and a nicely trimmed goatee. He apparently worked as a bus boy at the casino.

He gawked at Wolfe. “Man, I thought you was in prison!”

“Was. Just a year—Leavenworth. I was framed.”

“Hey man, everybody in prison was framed.” O’Malley laughed.

Wolfe chose not to argue. “Listen, Kurt—I need work. I heard in this place you’re working at here, pretty much everybody has a prison record.”

“The Hell they do!” He sniffed, wiped his nose with a sleeve. “Okay, a lot of guys do. But it’s not like it’s gotta be on your resume, fuh Chris’sakes. You got to pay Santiago to introduce you to the bosses, and maybe they’ll hire you if they need somebody… and maybe they won’t.”

“Who’s Santiago?”

“Kitchen supervisor. You gotta grease his palm and maybe he’ll put you up for a job and maybe not. I borrowed a hundred bucks from my Pop to pay him. This dump gets me more cash than a regular dive though.”

“Not like they give you benefits.”

“You can drink left over booze and eat leftover food and they pay you in cash. Sometimes you can find a poker chip on the floor, cash it in. You really on the down and outs, huh?”

“Yeah, man.”

O’Malley tossed his cigarette butt into the alley. “You come back tomorrow, and I’ll…”

“I’ll need that talk with Santiago tonight, man. Just let me in, I’ll find him.”

“Can’t do that.” O’Malley started to close the door. “So long.”

“You want to smoke a joint, Kurt?”

The door didn’t quite close. O’Malley stuck his nose out again, and glanced up and down the alley “Never could get you to indulge. So you’re into it now huh?” O’Malley looked over his shoulder. “Uh—sure. Just a sec.” He pulled a mop from where it leaned against the wall inside, used the handle to block the door open. “Gotta make this quick! Just a couple of hits…”

Just one hit. An uppercut to the chin.

O’Malley was out cold. The Delta Force training was still there in Wolfe’s hands. Wolfe caught the slumping man, dragged him inside. The warmth of the building’s back hallway rolled over him as he looked around. No one in the hall but a lot of clackety-clack came from the kitchen down the hall, along with shouts for orders, cooks grumbling. Wolfe could smell food cooking, and coffee.

He dragged O’Malley to a utility closet, opened it, shoved him in with the cleaning products. He pulled off O’Malley’s coat and belt, used the belt to tie the busboy’s hands behind him, then shoved an oily rag into his mouth. “Sorry, Kurt,” Wolfe muttered. “I’ll try and remember to let you go when I head out…”

Wolfe took off his own coat, put it in his pack, and put on O’Malley’s white coat. He found an employee’s men’s room, got his shaving stuff out of his pack, shaved and cleaned up as well as he could. He hurried out of the bathroom, and went into the kitchen trying to look busy and purposeful. Everyone was too busy to look him over much; he figured if they noticed him carrying a backpack over one shoulder, they’d figure he was on his way to clock out.

It was the Oxycodone that did it: made Verrick talkative, made him feel something like friendly warmth toward the girl. The back pain got Verrick the Oxy prescription but he tried not to take it too often. Trouble was, “not too often” was getting more and more often.

“Yeah it got ugly in Mali, and uglier in Somalia,” Verrick was saying. He looked up at the red silk canopy over the king-sized bed. The lights were dialed down to half so it was dim but not dark. He smelled of chlorine from the hot tub, which still bubbled over on the other side of the room. He was lying on his side, naked, head propped on one hand. Rose had put on her sheer stuff and was kneeling on the white rug in front of the coffee table, getting high. He could hear the sound of the casino downstairs, coming through the curtained window; croupiers calling numbers, the merged murmur of a crowd. Sometimes there were cocktail parties in this big room for visiting Club bosses. They could open the curtains, and watch the action down on the main floor. If he got up and threw open the curtains he’d be visible from the roulette table and the high stakes poker table and the blackjack table—framed in that window stark naked. That’d throw some gamblers off their game. He chuckled at the thought, and went on, “And one day I just got tired of snipers trying to shoot me in the gullet. I mean, I was risking getting capped for what, for an officer’s pension, and I said Fuck this, I’m gonna change things up. I can quit this and go to work for Blume. Right after that General Van Ness and I got smashed on his Scotch when I was on leave in Algiers, and he tells me about an outfit called Purity. So it all came together.”

“Purity is an organization, Roger?” she asked, as she tapped a powder from a small canister onto the mirrored table.

“That’s… kind of a lodge, you might say.”

“Like the Moose Club?”

He laughed. “Kinda! But real secret. And this one is gonna change the world.”

“How?”

How? That was definitely something he wasn’t going to tell her. He wondered if maybe she’d been leading him into talking about this while he was stoned—maybe she was a federal agent?

No. Couldn’t be.

But he should have her capped anyway just to make sure. Maybe later tonight. Shame… but he was getting tired of her anyway.

He looked at her, checking her out through the rose and blue lingerie; her delicate fingers industriously chopping the china white she liked to snort. He’d told her he wouldn’t get into that stuff, but here he was, taking Oxycodone, not that much different. He’d swallowed some Oxy and one other drug…

He was about to put the Viagra to good use when he noticed a bus boy pushing a cart in through the door.

“What the fuck!” Rose said blearily, losing the ladylike diction she put on for customers. “What’s he doin’ in here?”

“Door’ supposed to be locked,” Verrick muttered, instinctively pulling a purple satin sheet to cover his nakedness. “How’d the hell you get in? Get outta here…’

“Oh sorry, sir,” said the busboy. He didn’t sound very damn sincere. With the drug and the dimness it was hard to see the guy’s face. Verrick blurrily noted that there was a small backpack on the lower shelf of the cart.

“We don’t need anything bussed out of here,” Rose said.

“Might need Verrick bussed out of here,” the busboy said, closing the door behind him—and pulling a small pistol from the pocket of his white coat.

“Shit,” Verrick said. His own .25 backup pistol was in his pants, which were lying on the floor next to the hot tub. Getting sloppy. That’s what the Oxy does to you, you fool! Shoulda had a bodyguard in the hall.

He didn’t like the bodyguards knowing his private business, though…

“How much are they paying you?” Verrick asked. “You seem like a good man to have around. Tell you what. You could make twice as much working for me.”

“Already worked for you,” the busboy said, reaching over with one hand to dial up the light. He did it without looking away from Verrick; without that gun muzzle wavering. Rose moaned when he did that, and scrambled back from the glass coffee table.

“Wolfe!” Verrick burst out.

“That’s right, Major.”

Verrick looked at his trousers across the room. He tried to figure out how he’d get to them—and that pistol. “Hey—you’re going to shoot me, at least let me put my pants on. Rose—hand me my trousers.”

Rose stirred…

“No, uh uh, you make a move, pretty lady, and I’ll put a bullet in you,” Wolfe said.

Rose froze.

“How’d you get in?” Verrick said, stalling. Pretty sure that Wolfe was here to shoot him. Maybe someone would realize Wolfe had gotten in…

“Door lock’s electronic,” Wolfe said genially. “I came equipped for that. Back door, though—that’s an old fashioned lock. So I had to knock some fool out.”

“And you took his place? Resourceful. That offer to work for me still goes.”

Wolfe’s soft laughter was bitter. “Oh, I’ll do something for you, Verrick. You straighten out my life and I very deliberately won’t put a bullet through each of your knees. And I won’t break your spine just above your tailbone. And, I won’t drop a dime and tell every fucking reporter in the country what a thieving, treasonous scumbag you are.”

So Wolfe wasn’t definitely planning to kill him? That emboldened Verrick. “You already tried smearing me in military court. You sent some letters out from that prison too.”

“They didn’t get anywhere, way I heard it. Somebody intercepted them.”

“That’s right. I should’ve…”

“Should’ve what? Had me killed,Verrick? I expected you would. Maybe you could still do it if I decide to leave you alive today. Only you’d have to find me. And you won’t. You won’t find me. But I can always find you. You’re a public figure, Major Verrick! You can pile on the bodyguards but it won’t help you—I can find you. You know I can. I’ll either kill you—or I’ll take the dirt I’ve got on you and broadcast it everywhere.”

“If you had any proof of anything, you’d have done that already, soon as you got out of jail.”

Wolfe hesitated—and Verrick saw a troubled flicker in the man’s eyes. So Wolfe was bluffing about having anything on him the press could use.

“I can still take you down, Verrick,” Wolfe persisted. “I promise you. One way or another. But I’m giving you a chance. If you want me outta your life, you clear my name—and I figure you can do it without going down yourself. There was Captain Callahan…”

Rafe Callahan. Army Captain under Verrick’s command, and Verrick’s partner in heisting the warlord payoff money in Somalia. Callahan was dead now. Verrick had him killed, made it look like an al Qaeda car bomb. “How am I supposed to use Callahan to cover my ass?” Verrick asked. “Am I supposed to say he did it all alone?”

“That’s the concept. He’s dead so no harm done if you lay it all on him. You make a public statement, say you got new information, say Callahan stole the money and not al Qaeda. Tell the courts you realized I was right about the money being stolen—I’ll say you weren’t in on it after all. That I was wrong, when I accused you, it was all Callahan. They reverse my discharge, they give me my pension back. My name is cleared. You never hear from me again.”

“So that’s the deal? Okay—what the hell. Sure. Why not? Maybe it’ll clear things up for both of us.”

Wolfe stared at him. Then he snorted. “Look at you!” He shook his head. “No.” Wolfe shook his head. “Nah. I can see it in your face. You’ll never do it. You think it’ll be easier to kill me. You’re wrong about that, Verrick.” Wolfe tilted his head to one side, thinking it out. “Maybe I need to just take you out. At least I can get that much satisfaction….”

Wolfe raised the gun, aimed—Verrick prepared to jump off the bed…

The door burst open behind Wolfe.

It pushed him off balance and he fired the .38 but the bullet went wide, cracking into the headboard.

Rose screamed.

Verrick threw himself off the end of the bed, rolled, grabbed for his pants and his .25…

“There he is!” Honker’s deep voice from the hall.

Verrick looked up to see Wolfe turning to face the big bouncer standing in the doorway—Honker with a billy club in his hand.

Honker looked at Wolfe’s gun—then ducked to one side.

Verrick resumed digging through his trousers, pulling out the .25 caliber pistol…

“Look out, boss!” Luke Kelly was there, suddenly, in the doorway—a muscular but rangy man in a black limo chauffeur’s uniform, he was Verrick’s bodyguard and driver. Somebody must’ve warned him there was trouble in the casino. Good man!

Luke fired his big .45 at Wolfe, missing as Wolfe ducked to one side. The bullet shattered the window overlooking the main floor.

Verrick heard screams from the casino floor as the shot sent big fragments of window glass onto the tables down below.

Wolfe had flattened to the side of the door, pressed to the wall by the light dial.

Verrick raised the gun to fire at Wolfe, pulled the trigger—and realized the damned safety was on. Shit.

Wolfe fired the .38 and Verrick felt something tug at his right side. He grabbed Rose and pulled her to her feet between him and Wolfe.

“Roger! Don’t!” she squeaked. “He’s going to shoot me!”

“Shaddup, Rose!”

Luke was in stepping into the room, swinging his .45 toward Wolfe—but Wolfe was hammering down on Luke’s head with the butt of his gun. Luke stumbled back. Verrick fumbled with the .25 with one hand, the other holding the whimpering Rose in front of him.

Then the lights went out. It was dark in there except for a patch of light at the door and a dusty little ray coming through the bullet hole in the window curtains.

People were shouting down the hall. “We found a guy tied up in a closet and he…”

Verrick felt his drugginess more, with the lights out—he was dizzily aware of someone rushing past him.

It must be Wolfe. Verrick spun Rose around to keep her shielding him—and then the curtains were gone from the window, flooding the room with light.

Verrick shoved Rose away, turned, stumbled to the window—now he really was standing there naked, though nobody was looking at him—and he saw Wolfe had jumped through, carrying the curtains down to the tables.

There he was, already halfway across the room, that little backpack in one hand, the gun in the other: Wolfe running down the casino’s gaming aisles.

Verrick tried to get a bead on him with the small pistol—he fired. Missed.

Wolfe snapped off a shot at a uniformed security guard—knocked the billed cap off the guard’s head. The security guard dived down and Wolfe ran past him, out the double doors to the front corridor…

Son of a bitch. The guy might get away.

Verrick looked down at his side. Not a bad wound at all.

He turned, grabbed his pants, shouting. “Somebody get out there and stop that bastard!”

Wolfe had to plow his right shoulder into a heavy set black bouncer at the door. The bouncer went Whoof!, the air knocked out of him, and fell out of the way. Carrying the backpack, Wolfe opened the door, rushed out into the night air of the recessed doorway, shutting the door hard behind him.

The shiver-inducing blast of the Hawk almost felt good, now. At least that cold slash of air meant he was still alive. It’d been a close thing in there…

He heard shouting from overhead and remembered the sentries on the roof. How was he going to get past those guys? Soon as he ran out from the doorway they’d shoot him down with those AKs…

Then a vehicle came screaming down the streets, sirens blasting. Cops, already?

Maybe turning himself over to the cops was the best thing—he’d be alive, in their custody. For a while. But for how long, with Tranter and his kind around?

Then he realized it wasn’t a cop car—it was an ambulance. The ambulance veered toward him and up onto the sidewalk, bouncing when it hit the curb. It fishtailed to a stop with a harsh squeal and the smell of burning rubber.

The rear doors of the ambulance popped open and that EMT with the dirty fingernails looked out at him. “Get in, fast!”

Wolfe ran to the ambulance, and dived in the back, backpack in one hand and gun in the other. Bullets ricocheted off the street behind him as the sentries opened fire. Then the EMT had him by the collar, pulled him in, and slammed the rear doors shut.

The ambulance roared away down the street, driven by another, much larger guy up front. A rear window of the ambulance webbed with a bullet impact, then the columns supporting the L Train tracks were in the way, and the sentries couldn’t hit the ambulance.

It swerved around a corner, and Wolfe levered himself to a sitting position.

“Damn, that was close,” The EMT gasped, hunched over as he came and sat down on a gurney near Wolfe. “I tell you dude, don’ think Pearce is paying me well enough for this shit.”

“Pearce? How’d he know?”

“What you think, he hasn’t been following you? Them ctOS cameras, those are his eyes, man! Blume thinks they got that thing insulated against him—naw, no way! The Club still has cameras that watch big shots with the whores in case, it needs to blackmail them. And Pearce can hack the Club’s cameras well as anybody’s…”

“You going to take me to him?”

“Hey I don’t even know where he is—moved to a new safe house. No, I’m dropping you off someplace else you can lay low for a while. But you’re going to hear from Pearce. Oh yeah, you can count on that. ‘Cause you owe him, now, man. You owe Aiden Pearce bigtime, Wolfe.”