WE TOOK FOUR VEHICLES to the Starlite, all of the vans and one pickup truck. I drove my van. Sinkovich rode with me. I already informed him that he would leave with someone else. He didn’t agree or disagree. He just looked out the window as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
The women divided themselves between the vans and the truck. We agreed that the other panel van would park directly in front of the hotel. The sign on the panel van was for coffee and supplies, the kind of coffee most often used by restaurants. Apparently, the van had belonged to some traveling salesman, and the car dealership where one of the women worked as a secretary had repossessed it.
I almost protested its presence, figuring it could be traced back to her, and then I decided not to worry about it. There were dozens of these vans all over the Midwest. There would be no proof that this particular van had been involved in this particular operation, unless someone took down the license plate number. That would take a bit of work, because I checked: The license plates were covered with slush and muck from the Chicago winter. Just like mine were. Only I covered my plates with dirt deliberately.
I hadn’t even noticed what the logo said until someone pointed it out to me. It was hard to read in the dark, and we really didn’t have to worry about what people could see in the daylight. We had to be done before sun-up, or this plan wouldn’t work at all. The sun didn’t come up until seven fifteen or so. If we weren’t long gone by then, something would have gone horribly wrong.
I parked in the school lot. I wore a ski cap and thin gloves. In one pocket of the greatcoat was my gun and extra magazines, and in the other, a whole mess of tools, including wire cutters and a small flashlight. I held those now.
I hurried across the street, keeping my head down. The streetlight above the entrance to the school parking lot was too bright for my taste. Sinkovich had offered to come with me, but I wouldn’t let him, figuring two of us would be more conspicuous than one.
But I needed to work fast, and I had to make sure I cut the telephone wires. I hadn’t seen a phone in any of the rooms. There was probably one wired into the penthouse, and I wouldn’t worry about that. It had probably been spliced from one of the downstairs lines. That was the only way it made sense, since I knew no one wanted those girls on the sixth floor to have access to a phone.
I figured there had to be at least two boxes, maybe three. One would be for the restaurant and two for the hotel, maximum, in case the hotel did want phones in all the rooms.
But a hotel this old probably had its own internal system and one large line coming into the hotel. An internal
switchboard would route calls to outside lines; that way the hotel could charge for each call made.
I was counting on that. I was also counting on the fact that the switchboard was no longer in use. The phones inside the hotel probably had buttons that would access the various lines. I would wager most of those buttons on the phones themselves weren’t even active.
I started searching at the end of the hotel farthest from the school, and used my flashlight, going up and down the exterior wall on the first story. I was looking for both the electrical box and the phone box. I didn’t want to cut the electricity. That would definitely clue someone into our little operation.
Cutting the phones first was dicey enough. I had to start with the phones I figured got the least amount of use at this time of day. That was why I was cutting the restaurant last.
The metal phone box was in the exact center of the hotel’s back wall, near a much larger metal box. That large box had to be the electrical lines. Someone had kindly shoveled a path to both boxes. They were locked. I had expected that. I had brought my burglar’s tools, something I hadn’t used in months.
Before I hauled them out, though, I peeled off the glove on my right hand and felt for the ridge between the two pieces of metal. The metal was so cold that my finger hurt. But there was a slight space, which I figured might have happened.
After surviving decades in the heat of Chicago summers and the deep cold of Chicago winters, this metal had to be fatigued. If I was lucky, I would be able to break the box open with just a little force.
I took out a screwdriver and wedged it into the opening.
Then I tugged.
For a moment, I thought the metal wouldn’t give. Then it broke open with a squeal that sounded like a child screaming.
My heart pounded. I shut off the flashlight for just a moment, then looked around very slowly, trying to see if anyone else heard the sound.
No lights had gone on in the buildings across the alley. No one opened a window above me. No one shouted.
I took a deep breath, and regretted it. The frigid air dug into my lungs as if I had swallowed a bucket of ice.
I turned the flashlight back on and stared at the cables. They were loose. Rather than guessing which one went to the phone company and which one went inside the hotel, I cut everything. I took a chunk out of the middle of all of the lines, and dropped those pieces into the snow.
Then I put my gloves back on and wiped away everything my finger had touched. I doubted anyone would come here and take prints off this box—I doubted the box would survive our plans—but I had to be careful, just in case.
Then I slid the wire cutters back into my pocket and shut off the flashlight, letting my eyes adjust. I slowly walked back to the alley.
When I reached it, I took out the flashlight again, and scanned the rest of the hotel’s back wall. I saw no other boxes.
Which only left the restaurant.
That would be harder. People were awake, sipping coffee, taking out garbage, cooking on that filthy grill. I had to make sure I stayed out of sight.
My feet had already become blocks of ice. I worried as I scanned. Logically, the restaurant’s phone and electrical boxes would be on the back wall, but it looked like the kitchen entrance got a lot of use. I didn’t want to open that gate, go between the trash cans, and try to cut the phone lines right next to that kitchen door.
It would all depend on when the restaurant’s boxes got wired in, and whether or not the company service people cooperated with the owners of the restaurant. I’d seen boxes in this city that were wired all the way around the building, as far from the street lines as possible. Usually it had been done that way at the request of a landlord or building owner who wanted a quick and dirty way to shut off utilities to get rid of a recalcitrant client inside.
My flashlight found both boxes, nearly hidden by a gigantic snow drift. The drift piled up against the fence holding the trash cans, but the boxes were on the alley side.
No one had shoveled a way to them, but meter readers had stomped their own path over the winter, and it hadn’t snowed since the last reading.
I walked in someone else’s iced-over footprints, and fortunately, whoever he was had bigger feet than I did. Even though the ice crunched beneath my boots, the sound wasn’t gunshot-loud. It only seemed loud to me.
The box was closer to the kitchen door than I wanted it to be. I could hear banging pots, and conversation. The smell of
bacon drifted toward me. My stomach growled until I realized that what I smelled was burned bacon. Someone had probably just tossed it out.
Strangely, this box wasn’t locked. I opened it easily. I didn’t even have to remove my glove. Then I cut the lines, tossed bits of them into the snow, and closed the box again.
I shoved the wire cutters into my all-purpose coat, then picked my way out, stepping in the ice my boots had already broken.
I reached the alley in no time. I bowed my head just enough that I could still see what was ahead of me and on either side, but not enough to look like a guy in a hurry. More like some poor schlub on his way to work, walking to a car he’d parked too far away.
Sinkovich stood near the school’s fence. Even though he wasn’t in uniform, he looked like a cop. His posture, his air of wary watchfulness, his do-not-fuck-with-me attitude, all screamed that he was official, that he was in charge.
When he saw me, he beckoned behind him. The coffee van drove carefully out of the school parking lot and moved to its spot directly in front of the hotel. When the driver saw the rest of us on the sidewalk, she would give the word to her team. They were the ones who would hurry up the stairs.
I waited for Sinkovich on the sidewalk across the street. As the remaining women joined him, he crossed the street like a cop leading a parade. Faces were hard to see in the dim light, and I hoped everyone remembered to keep their heads down as we went under the working streetlight on the corner.
They reached me quickly, and we marched up the rest of the block, me and Sinkovich in the lead. As we rounded the corner, I thought I saw movement in one of the windows across the street. But as I stared at it, I realized that I was probably seeing our reflections as we scurried under that streetlight.
The coffee van blocked the entrance to the hotel. As we approached, the doors opened. I ignored the women and headed straight for the hotel. I pulled open the glass double doors just like I had two days ago, with more strength than I needed.
As per our agreement, I went in first. The guy behind the desk gave me a bleary look, then opened his mouth in surprise. He was the same guy who had been on duty, if that was what you wanted to call it, the day Lacey got hurt.
I reached across the desk, grabbed him by the back of the shirt, and slammed his face into the riser that separated him and me. Then I dragged him over the desk.
He was smaller than he looked, thin and wiry, not that it did him any good. I tossed him on the ground, and held him in place as Sam tied his hands behind his back with the rope the women had brought. They had brought a lot of rope, all cut into good tying length, probably more than we needed.
Then she shoved a scarf in his mouth and tied it tight.
I pulled him upright. His forehead was bruised and bleeding, his eyes frightened. Sinkovich waved a badge in front of his face.
“Police raid, you fucking son of a bitch,” he whispered.
Then Sinkovich headed behind the desk and stuck out his hand. “Wire cutters,” he said to me.
I handed him mine as the women spread out around us, going to their various stations. They crept up the stairs, ski masks on, heads down, moving more quietly than I ever believed possible.
The restaurant crew broke left and headed through the bar. They looked as wiry as the desk clerk, and a whole hell of a lot tougher.
I told myself it was because of the black they wore. But they moved like a unit.
I tried not to worry about them.
Something clattered beside me. Sinkovich tossed what looked like a doorbell on top of the desk.
“Knew they had to have one of these,” he said.
A warning bell that let the upper floors know something was going on. It probably was a doorbell with extra long wires.
He handed me the wire cutters back as Sam finished tying the clerk’s legs. We’d free him as we were leaving, but not before. Sinkovich and I figured he was probably the only guy who had the phone number to the mob, and if he had it, there was a possibility that he had it memorized.
Kim had gone behind the desk, removed a pile of matches, and handed them to me. Then she ripped down papers that contained phone numbers. She started to shove them in her pocket, but Sinkovich took them.
He raised his eyebrows at me, and I understood. He was protecting dirty cops. Or maybe he was keeping them for his own blackmail possibilities.
He shoved the papers in the pocket of his coat, then nodded toward the mirrored wall next to the stairs. He and I went to the wall first. He mimed shattering the glass, but I shook my head. Too loud.
We went down the hallway, saw an unmarked door in the right place, and I tested it. Unlocked. It opened into a small room with a couple of chairs and a table. The room stank of old cigarette smoke. Both ashtrays were full.
We both looked toward the wall. The entire front area opened before us. The clerk was struggling against his ropes. Neither Kim or Sam were visible.
On the counter underneath the one way window were two Polaroid cameras and two high-end cameras with telephoto lenses. Sinkovich knocked the Polaroids off the shelf and stomped on them. I thought those cameras were damn near indestructible, but Sinkovich proved me wrong.
I grabbed film canisters lining the counter. Sinkovich pulled a plastic sandwich bag out of his pocket and held the bag open for me. I dropped the film inside.
I turned.
“What about the cameras?” Sam asked softly.
She meant the ones with the telephoto lenses. Those things were indestructible. I hoped the heat of the fire would destroy anything inside them. As I was about to reply, Kim grabbed one off the shelf and expertly opened the back. She removed
batteries and tossed them to the ground. She also exposed the film, then shut the back.
“Just in case,” she said as she did the same to the other camera.
I nodded, feeling a slight weight lift off me. I wouldn’t have done this nearly thoroughly enough.
Now, if we only got out of here.
We left the first blind mostly intact. The second was behind the bar. I opened the door and discovered no one manned that one, either. This room had two windows, the one overlooking the bar, and the one that showed the men’s bathroom. The one for the men’s room was smaller, but the Polaroid cameras rested on the shelf beneath it.
I suspected the blackmailers who ran these rooms got some of their most candid shots here, showing men in authority who couldn’t quite wait to get upstairs to take advantage of the women around them.
This time, Sam stomped on the Polaroid cameras. Her face was bleak as she did so. She had to stomp twice before destroying them, but she finished as Kim finished disabling the other cameras.
I left first, checking out the rest of the downstairs. I grabbed an entire box of matchbooks from behind the bar. Sam extended her hand so I could give some to her, but I didn’t.
She frowned at me.
Before we went upstairs, I glanced through the swinging door into the restaurant. It looked recently abandoned. Coffee
pots still steamed on their burners and half-eaten breakfasts sat on tables.
In the back, something smashed.
Sinkovich grabbed my arm. “Not our job,” he said softly.
I nodded. I knew that, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to help. I backed away from the door and headed to the stairs. I finally pulled my gun. Sinkovich had his as well.
I could hear voices echoing down the stairs. Female voices, soft but sharp, issuing orders. When we reached the second floor, Sam looked at the elevator, silently asking if that would be better for us.
I didn’t want to get out of a box on the seventh floor, only to have Turner’s muscle waiting for us. It would be a kill zone.
Only I couldn’t tell her that.
I glanced down the hall. All the doors were half open, as if someone had already searched them. I realized then that the hotel staff had probably done so to make sure no girl got left behind. My teams were starting on the fifth floor and working their way down.
Except, of course, for the most important team, trying to free the girls on six.
We crept up another flight. Sinkovich and I checked the floor, looking for our people, and seeing nothing. This one looked as abandoned as the second floor.
Then we went to four. Nothing there either.
On five, closed doors, and women working their way in teams of two down the hallway.
“Empty so far,” one of the women said softly. She was wearing a ski mask. All I could see were her mouth and eyes, making her seem eerily anonymous.
I nodded, mouthed “Thank you,” and went up to the important floor.
Crying, banging, shouting. There was no way the group on seven could ignore this noise. The question was, would they believe it part of every day living in this hellhole or something strange?
For the first time, I realized that there was a subtle side effect to having women rescue these girls. There were no male voices, so the cries probably did sound routine.
Marvella stood at the top of the stairs. Paulette had a gun trained on the elevators. She looked like she knew how to use it.
They were not wearing ski masks.
“Progress?” I asked.
“Only eight rooms with girls inside,” she said. “And Jesus, Bill, they’re in bad shape.”
“Get them out,” I said. “Worry about their condition later.”
She nodded. “We got four out already. But it’s taking a bit to get the rest.”
“You two,” I said to Kim and Sam. “Help them.”
“But—”
“Jack and I are doing this last part alone,” I said.
“You need us,” Sam said. “You have no idea how many—”
“Stop fucking arguing and follow orders,” Sinkovich growled. “Goddamn civilians.”
He started up the stairs. I caught his arm.
“You’re probably not going to want to go, either,” I said.
“Too late,” he said. “I’m already committed.”
I had to hurry to get ahead of him. The calm I had felt earlier had dissipated.
So far, it had been easier than I thought. And that was a very bad sign.