Michael Harvey - The Third Rail

“No. Hold on, I got another cal.” I clicked over to the other line.

“Mr. Kel y, you cal ed me?”

“Hubert, fuck yes, I cal ed you.”

“Sorry, I was just hashing through the rest of this material on the crash.”

“Hubert, I need you to listen to me.”

The kid shut up.

“I just got a message from this guy. He dropped two addresses we should assume are targets. One was yours.”

I waited. “Hubert, you there?”

“You told me to listen.”

“I’m gonna have them send a team over to your apartment, but it might be a while. For right now, I need you to lock your door, and don’t let anyone in. No one. Unless it’s me or someone with a badge. You got it?”

“Yes.”

“You have a weapon in the house?”

“What does that mean?”

“Just what I said.”

“I have a steak knife.”

“Get it. Lock the door and get the knife. Stay in the house and you’l be fine.”

“This guy is probably playing us, Mr. Kel y. He likes to do that.”

“Stay in the house, Hubert. Wait for the cops.”

“Right. But, listen, I dug up some more interesting stuff…”

“I can’t right now. Put it al on a disk or something and send it to me. But stay in the house until the badge gets there. Okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Kel y.”

“Good kid. I’l talk to you…”

I clicked off and got back on the line with Rodriguez.

“Vince, that was Hubert. He’s okay.”

“I’l get someone over there.”

“Not yet. This guy realizes I’m headed to the cops and maybe he starts kil ing people.”

“He’s already kil ing people, Kel y.”

“There’s a way to play this. But it’s gotta be just me and you.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna find Rachel.”

I fidgeted in the back booth of a carryout place cal ed China Dol while Rodriguez watched images flash across my laptop. Rachel, bruised and beaten, staring into the camera, her eyes tel ing me where she was, her heart wondering when I was going to come get her.

“What are you thinking?” the detective said after he’d finished.

“I told Hubert to lock his doors and sit tight.”

“What about Doherty?”

“Tried his cel and home. No answer.”

“You thinking he’s the target?”

I nodded.

“I can get a squad down there in ten minutes,” Rodriguez said.

“If Jim’s not dead already, anything other than me showing up alone wil likely kil him. And Rachel along with it.” I nodded to the video. “On the other hand, our guy’s not expecting this.”

“What are you talking about?”

I cued up the footage and played it from the top. Rachel’s face came into focus, her hands cupping her chin and partial y obscuring her face.

“See that,” I said and stopped the video.

“See what?”

“She doesn’t start speaking right away.”

“So what?”

“Listen to what’s going on in the background.”

I hit PLAY. First there was nothing but her breathing. Then the echo of a church bel tol ing.

“Now look at her hands,” I said. “She’s showing us the face of her watch.”

Rodriguez took a closer look at the digital readout. “Seven a.m. I’l be damned.”

“Smart girl,” I said. “And that’s not al.”

I hit PLAY again. Rachel started to speak. Underneath her words, a siren ebbed and flowed, sometimes getting closer, then moving away, then coming very close so she had to raise her voice to be heard. Rodriguez glanced across the table.

“That’s a fire engine,” he said. I nodded.

Rodriguez got on his cel phone. Five minutes later, he had a list. And we had some options.

“I took a ten-minute time frame for this morning,” the detective said. “Centered it around seven.” He showed me his list. “There were three firehouse cal s. One in the Loop. One on the Northwest Side and one on the Near North.”

I put my finger on the third address. “This one’s three blocks from Cabrini.”

Rodriguez nodded. “Maria Jackson was grabbed there. Let me see that video again.”

He double-speeded through it until he found the image he wanted. It was a wider shot, revealing a piece of the room behind Rachel.

“The wal behind her.” Rodriguez pointed to a section of crumbling drywal. “At the very edge of the frame, you can just see the hole.”

I looked closely. The detective was right.

“Tunnels,” I said. “You thinking high-rise?”

“If it is, there’s only one left standing in Cabrini.”

I knew we should cal for backup. I knew we should coordinate with the task force. I also knew Rachel was maybe less than a mile away. “Give me an hour before you cal in the troops.”

Rodriguez shook his head. “Fucking Kel y. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. How do we play it once we get inside?”

“If he’s there, he dies.”

“That’s what I figured.” Rodriguez pul ed out a snub-nosed revolver and laid it on the table. “Just in case.”

I slipped on a pair of leather gloves. Then I picked up the gun and put it in my pocket.

“Let’s go.”

The building sat fifteen stories high on an otherwise empty lot near the corner of Division and Halsted. Its outer porches were covered over in steel mesh, its pale concrete skin stitched with graffiti. The lower floors were boarded up, while the top two featured large black holes where windows once stood.

Rodriguez and I approached along Division. A couple of kids watched from a breezeway across the street and then melted into a two-story lowrise.

“Gangs usual y tunnel between apartments on the top two or three floors,” Rodriguez said. “I’m thinking we start there and work down.”

“This place supposed to be empty?” I said.

The detective shrugged. “Don’t count on it.”

We came up on a back entrance. The plywood that covered it over had been pried loose, and we slipped inside. Dim light and a current of warm air greeted us. The high-rise might have been a shel, but the city was stil heating it and providing electricity. We picked our way through the lobby, sectioned off with scratched Plexiglas. Metal mailboxes scored with bul et holes ran along one wal, and the linoleum floor was covered with broken glass and a handful of syringes.

Rodriguez motioned up and took the lead. We climbed the staircase in single file, guns drawn. An elevator door stood open next to the fourth-floor stairwel. I glanced down into the black hole. A set of eyes looked back.

“What the fuck?” A head popped up from the hole, hands already behind his head, gaze fixed on the barrel of my gun. “You guys five-oh?”

Rodriguez pul ed the young man out of the shaft and shoved him up against the wal. The kid was maybe fifteen and held a narrow, angled head atop a precariously long neck. He wore loose baggy jeans and an oversize Chicago Bul s jacket.

“What’s your name?” Rodriguez said.

“Chubby. You five-oh?”

“Shut up.” Rodriguez took out a smal flashlight and shined it into the shaft. Al eighty-five pounds of Chubby had been sitting, or maybe sleeping, on the top of the elevator car that sat just a few feet below us.

“How long you been here?” I said.

“I come in once, maybe twice a week. Get warm. Sleep a little.”

“You seen anyone around?” I said.

“What you mean by ‘anyone’?” Chubby’s voice rose at the prospect of perhaps having a card to play.

“A guy who doesn’t belong,” I said. “And a woman.”

Chubby shook his head. “No woman. Seen a white dude. Maybe yesterday. Don’t think he saw me, but he was coming from upstairs.”