Missing Amanda Page 14

  “Sorry.” Monk said. “I’ve been checking things out. There doesn’t seem to be anybody there. Shall we just do it?”

  “Best done quickly,” Lou said. They got out and Cassidy slipped behind the wheel.

  “Front door,” Lou said. “Ten minutes. If we’re not out, drive away. If there’s shooting and we don’t run out, drive away. Don’t stop to wait for us—we’ll be dead. Got it?”

  She agreed somberly and they walked away, blue collar workers heading for a dull job. When they reached the corner, they ducked into the alley and went directly to a brown wood door. Monk looked around, his body shielding Lou who took out a slender piece of metal. He poked at the door lock for several seconds and said, “Ah.”

  The door slipped open. Inside was dark until Lou flicked a switch and several bare bulbs blinded them. They were in the back room of a typical commercial storefront style building, a bathroom on the right, a workbench on the left. Monk nodded and they moved silently to the front door. Lou took out his gun and they jerked the door open.

  No one. The building had that silent feel of an unoccupied place. They went through swiftly, passing several small offices before finding a closed door that said, “Malcolm Warburton.”

  “That’s it,” said Monk. Lou did his trick on the door and they entered a very well-appointed room. Small brown desk, thick dark leather chair, black metal file cabinets. Monk went directly to those and began rifling through them. In less than a minute he had a manila file folder and a grin. “This is it. Let’s go.” They went out the front door and waved. The big Chevy drifted up, farting smoke. Getting in Lou said, “You really ought to get that fixed.”

  “Nah. Someone’s just going to shoot it anyway.”

  “Here it is.” Monk was in the rear seat, reading from the file. “Malcolm Warburton’s personal residence is at 6347 Oak Brook Drive, in beautiful Evanston.”

  “Swanky,” said Lou. “Is he allowed to be mayor of Chicago if he lives in Evanston?”

  “Who knows? Let’s get the limo. This is the real one.”

  Cassidy drove them around the block and Monk left, waving. They took Michigan Avenue north, catching a glimpse of the big black Caddie as it followed them and eventually they reached the lush green northern suburb of Evanston. By the time they arrived it was nearly eleven and they were hungry. They joined Monk in the limo and Lou mentioned lunch.

  “We don’t have any money.”

  “None?”

  “A couple of bucks, that’s all.”

  Lou thought that was the most depressing thing he’d ever heard. “We’re about to begin a major crime war and we can’t afford lunch? That sucks. It really does.”

  “Wait a second,” Cassidy said. “I think we passed something on the way here. One of those new fast food places. Mac something. It had a yellow sign.”

  “I saw that,” Monk said. “It’s supposed to be cheap.”

  “Cheap’s good.” They drove the limo to a tiny white and red tiled food stand where about fifteen people stood in line. The line moved very quickly, people walking away with white paper bags and wax cups.

  “Shall we?”

  “Sure. What’s there to lose?” They parked the limo at the curb, earning a lot of stares, and stood in line. When they reached the front a middle-aged guy in a white shirt and paper hat asked for their order. They looked at a menu board—not much there, but the prices were low—and ordered hamburgers and fries and chocolate shakes. Seconds later they were handed the order and they walked back to the limo.

  The smell of fried food filled the car, overpowering the rich new leather odor. Lou doled out paper wrapped sandwiches and they fell to it, their expressions showing surprise and delight as they ate.

  “A ten-cent burger,” Monk said. “And did you see how fast they are?”

  “Amazing. They already got ketchup and mustard on them. No condiment stands. That’s a good idea.”

  Cassidy had a small smear of red on her lip and Lou reached over with a paper napkin to wipe it away. She smiled at him a little longer than normal. He pulled his hand back in confusion.

  “This place is going to do well; don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Monk.

  “McDonald’s? Funny name. The food’s good, but do you really think it’s going to catch on?”

  “Probably not.” Lou bunched his wrappers and shoved them into a bag. He got out and deposited them in a clean red trash can at the curb. He got back in.

  “So. Anybody up for robbing a politician?”

  Malcolm Warburton’s place was another of those fake English castle houses that rich people had been flocking to since after the war. Mini-estates the papers called them. The wave of the future. One day soon, they predicted, everyone would live in one. In the meantime, the developers just kept on building the typical suburbs.

  “What do you think? Two thousand square feet? Who needs that kind of space?”

  A car pulled up to the front and two men got out, dressed in black suits with narrow ties. One toted a brown briefcase, the other looked alert.

  Lou said, “They’re carrying.”

  “How can you tell?” Monk asked.

  “I’m a trained professional. And the guy has one in his hand.”

  “Why would they be carrying? And what’s in the case?”

  “Something valuable.” They watched the two men walk up to the door and enter without knocking.

  “They’re expected,” Monk said.

  “We’re not.” Lou smiled as they climbed out of the car and hustled across the street.

  They stood by the door before ringing. “Lou? Let’s hold back the violence, huh?”

  “If possible,” Lou agreed. “It’s not like I enjoy it, you know.”

  “Well, actually, I think you do.”

  Lou laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. It’s just so funny to see their expressions.”

  They rang and an attractive young woman answered. “We’re here to see Mr. Warburton. Is he here?”

  She looked attentive and efficient and like she wasn’t going to let them in. “Is he expecting you?”

  “Probably not.” Lou pushed her aside and they moved swiftly down a short hall which connected to a brightly lit office. Three men looked up in surprise, the two suits and a small neatly dressed man with a mustache and thinning brown hair parted in the middle. He looked like a friendly high school teacher, the one who doubles as a guidance counselor and chaperones the sock hop or Latin club.

  The briefcase was on the wooden desk beneath the glow of a green shaded lamp. The two suits got over their surprise way too quickly and hands went to coat pockets but Lou already had a pistol out and pointed. “Don’t,” he said, and shook his head for emphasis. They stopped in mid move, frozen but watchful.

  The other man said sternly, “what’s the meaning of this intrusion?” sounding exactly like a high school teacher.

  “Malcolm Warburton?”

  “I am he.” The man puffed up like an outraged peacock. “What do you want?”

  “The case,” Monk said. He stepped forward and the two suits and Warburton moved to protect it until Lou waved the gun to get everybody’s attention. They all stepped back again and Monk took the handle, swinging it away from the desk.

  “Thank you,” said Lou pleasantly.

  “You’ll pay for this outrage,” growled Warburton. Frustrated, he resembled a terrier or a rat, teeth gritted and eyes bulging. If he didn’t have to worry about the guys with guns Lou might have laughed out loud. Monk had slipped past him and was already near the door. Lou said, “Give me to the count of sixty. If you step into the hall before then I’ll shoot you.” He walked backwards down the hall, gun leveled, meaning the threat. He left the door open, glanced to be sure Monk was in the car across the street and ran. The car did a neat U-turn and the door opened as he got to it.

  “Drive,” he commanded. Cassidy pulled away quickly and they made the corner with Lou looking out the back. “Here they
come,” he said.

  “Relax,” said Cassidy. She smiled. “I let the air out of their tires.”

  Three quick rights and a sharp left. Cassidy jerked to a stop behind the limo and they raced to it, jumping in and slamming the doors. She twisted the key, the engine roared and they pulled away from the curb, driving straight and slowly.

  They all relaxed. Lou said, “They’ll find the Chevy and trace it to you.”

  “Yep. That way they’ll know who we are.” Monk also smiled. “Just like we planned it.” He looked at Lou. “And no violence. I’m proud of you.”

  “What’s in the case?” asked Cassidy. She’d been eyeing it since they entered the limo. It made her driving erratic.

  “Let’s see.” Monk clicked the little gold latches and opened the case. The smell of leather upholstery and greasy food was overpowered by the new odor of fresh money.

  “What is that?” Cassidy demanded.

  “Hey! Watch the road.” She swerved the wheel and returned to one lane. “Is that—?”

  Monk held up a brick of green currency, brand new and still bank banded. “It seems we have, um... ten, eleven, twelve... twenty... five thousand dollars.”

  Cassidy whooped. Lou stared at the case as if it had performed a magic trick, which in a way it had. “Did you know?” he asked. “Did you plan for this?”

  No,” said Monk. He fanned himself with a sheaf of bills. “But sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”

  Chapter 21

  I’d like to see Braddock’s face about now

  Braddock’s fingers closed on the receiver as if he was strangling a puppy. With every outraged squawk from the phone the news just got worse and worse.

  “They did what?” he said. Increased buzzing.

  “Wait, a minute. They didn’t do anything?”

  Still more noise from the phone. Braddock was getting a tension headache. “The tires were flat? How is that possible?”

  Warburton, the agitated and annoying messenger of bad news—they used to kill the messenger, didn’t they? —said, “Who did you tell?”

  “What?” The word came out a strangled gasp.

  Warburton, the little rat, was accusing him? “I didn’t tell anybody. Why would I do that?”

  But Warburton insisted. “They knew, Duke. They came right in after your guys with guns drawn and everything. How could they know this was the delivery unless you told them?”

  Even the use of ‘Duke’ rather than the normal ‘Mr. Braddock’ didn’t bother him as it would have in different circumstances. “Who did this thing?” he asked in a voice that would do a rattlesnake proud.

  “We don’t know,” insisted Warburton in his snide teacher voice. “That’s just the whole point, isn’t it? Unless these two thugs of yours,” sounds of vehement protests in the background— “deliberately screwed up, there’s no other answer. You had to tell someone.”

  For a moment Braddock remained silent, considering. Adele? Could it be? No; it wasn’t possible. Still, she was always lurking about, like a ghost in a haunted castle. She could have overheard and told... who? She never left the house, never talked to anyone. Braddock dismissed Adele as a suspect.

  “Let me think about this,” he said to the still buzzing phone. “Call me back when you have any further information.

  “But the money. What about the money?”

  “What about it?” Braddock said.

  “Well, it’s...I’m...I don’t have any...”

  “Malcolm, I will replace the money.”

  “Immediately.” That cut short the infernal whining. “Is that satisfactory?”

  “Just don’t send the same people,” said Warburton, further eroding what perilous safety he still possessed.”

  *

  “Just for an hour,” pleaded Cassidy.

  “But I don’t understand what for.” Monk was seated at the elegant wood secretary’s desk in their suite, the case of money between them. “I just don’t understand.”

  “And you don’t need to. C’mon, Monk; just an hour?”

  “Right here?”

  “In that room, over there. With the door closed.”

  Cassidy sensed he was weakening. “And locked.”

  “Umm...”

  “Thanks, you’re a dear.” Cassidy grabbed the case before he could think up another objection and danced to her room. As promised, she closed and locked the door. Better to not let him know, she thought.

  She set the case on her own table, a Louis IV if she had known, or cared; it was just a part of this new opulence she’d fallen into. The latches clicked open, the smell of leather filled her nostrils and she opened the case. There was the money. Crisp piles of green with those white and red bands on them like cigar wrappers or the paper bands around the thick linen napkins at the restaurant last night; just another example of conspicuous wealth.

  She went to the walk-in closet—another luxury—and took out her best new gown, put it on and selected a gold necklace. She paused to pat her hair into place and study her reflection in the floor length mirror.

  Perfect. She returned to the table and took out the piles of hundred-dollar bills, removed the bands carefully and carried the money to the bed. She sat down and began counting out the bills on the bed into little rows. “One hundred... two hundred... three hundred...”

  A sense of giddiness threatened to overwhelm her.

  This was like the lottery and Cinderella and being drunk while still stone cold sober. This was everything she’d ever imagined all at once. The sensation was marvelous.

  “Twenty-seven hundred ...twenty-eight...”

  She felt like laughing and crying. Her emotions were all surface, like she could reach out and scratch them like an itch. “Twenty-two thousand five hundred... twenty-two thousand six hundred...” She fought the urge to run around the room and howl, like she hadn’t felt since she was twelve at that birthday party sleep over, the one with her best friends when she still had best friends and cake and soda, a sugar rush that kept them up until two A.M. when her mother had turned off the lights.

  “Twenty-three thousand one hundred...” The danger was part of it, she realized. Driving the getaway car—a limousine! A god damned Cadillac with blackened windows—she felt like a desperado. The mob was chasing them and this could only end in heartbreak but that just added to the thrill.

  “Twenty...” She paused, bill in hand hovering over the newest pile. Lou Fleener entered her thoughts. Was she falling for him? Was it possible? Or was this just an additional pull of the financial narcotic? How could she tell? Maybe when he was killed, as he was so likely to be, she’d fall over his body screaming. Maybe that was how you knew. Seemed drastic, though, and a little late.

  “Twenty-four thousand nine hundred... twenty-five thousand.” The bills were set out before her in a very pleasant geometric shape, like a mosaic or a pentagram. Cassidy sat on the edge of the bed in her fairy tale clothes in the storybook room and breathed deeply through her nose. She could smell the money, she could smell the faint musk of the room itself, the odor of wealth.

  She scooped up the piles in her arms and hugged them to herself in an orgy of desire. She stood up and hurled them at the twelve-foot ceiling. Some of the bills got caught in the swirl of air from the ceiling fan and were blown, light as feathers, all around the room. It was like being in a green blizzard and Cassidy gave in to the emotion and yelled out loud.

  Ten minutes later, she changed back into her sensible clothes, the money was re-bundled and placed back in the case, she unlocked the door and walked casually back to the secretary’s deck. Without expression, she placed the case in front of the very puzzled Monk and walked back to her room, shoulders back and head high.

  Chapter 22

  We buy a really big television

  “What’s next?” They sat at a frosted glass table on the balcony, far above the heads of the working world. Monk and Lou had finished a breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and were now dri
nking Kona coffee flown in from San Francisco. Cassidy was poking at a thick Florida Grapefruit, as pink as a flamingo and just as out of place above the sooty rooftops of Chicago.

  “So many things,” said Monk. The temperature at eight-thirty was already nearing ninety. “We’re going to have to move very fast to keep the various groups against us off guard and confused. So today, I think, Lou and I should go revisit Rufus Black and Tony Scolio and—”

  “What?” Cassidy gaped, silver spoon halfway to her mouth. “Go back?”

  “Sure.” Monk sipped some coffee and paused to savor the taste. “We need to hit them hard and fast. To do that we need information.”

  “How do we get that?”

  “We ask them.”

  That got Lou’s attention. Oblivious as usual, he’d been reading the sports section of the Tribune. The Sox continued to be in second but the Cubs were faltering. He decided not to mention that to Monk, or to gloat, for the time being.

  “We ask them?” Maybe later.

  “Yep.” Monk seemed clear on the idea, which satisfied Lou but not Cassidy.

  “What do you mean, ‘we ask them?’”

  “We go to see them, just like last time.”

  “And look how well that turned out,” said Lou pleasantly. He turned the page and began reading Li’l Abner. Seemed that somebody was trying to rig the Sadie Hawkins Day race again. Evil Eye Fleegle? Maybe Stupefyin’ Jones. He wondered when Al Capp would bring back Fearless Fosdick, his favorite.

  “I’m not going with,” Cassidy declared firmly.

  “I agree,” said Monk. “I have something even better for you to do.”

  “What?” As suspicious a word as had ever been uttered.

  “You’re going shopping.”

  “Is this really a good idea?” asked Lou.” I mean, I’ll go along with you because you seem to know what you’re doing, but well, do you have any idea of what you’re doing?”

  “I do.”

  “This isn’t like last time, is it? When we barged in and they tried to kill us? ‘Cause I’m not so sure I want to do that again.”

  “It’s not like that. Trust me.”