Peter Leonard - Trust Me

A deputy director of MDOC-Michigan Department of Corrections-told O'Clair he should apply for a job. He said, "Inmate labor goes hand in hand with our mission to help you successfully reenter society and become a productive, contributing citizen."

O'Clair wanted to deck the ignorant bureaucrat, thinking he'd been a productive, contributing member of society when he was convicted and sent to this godforsaken shithole.

Just past Jackson he was tired and started to nod off. He stopped at a McDonald's and got two cups of coffee, a sausage McMuffin and hash browns, and ate while he drove. It was 6:05 a.m.

From there it was just O'Clair and a parade of semis. He got to the outskirts of Chicago two hours later, pushing it, cruise control set at ninety, passing through Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, passing woods and farm fields and orange and white construction cones lining the highway on both sides, passing Dowagiac and Holland and Benton Harbor, passing through the top edge of Indiana into Illinois.

He followed the Dan Ryan into town and looked for a parking space on East Walton across from the hotel, but there weren't any. The street was lined with trucks and delivery vehicles at 8:30 in the morning. O'Clair didn't see two guys who looked like the guys Virginia had described. He wasn't sure how to play it from here. Should he go in the Drake and call Karen? And tell her what, her life was in danger?

He took East Walton to Michigan Avenue and went right again. He cruised by the west side of the Drake. There were cars parked to his left in the metered spaces on Oak Street that extended from Michigan Avenue all the way to Lake Shore Drive. He noticed a man sitting behind the wheel of a Jaguar sedan, parked across from the faded canopied Oak Street entrance to the hotel. Just sitting in the car like he was waiting for someone. O'Clair drove around to the front of the hotel. He sat in a "No Parking Zone" for fifteen minutes, watching taxis pull up to the hotel to drop people off and pick people up. He was thinking about the guy in the Jag and went around the hotel again to see if he was still there. He was.

This time he got a better look, studied him and thought he might be one of the Arabs who attacked Virginia. O'Clair drove to the end of the street, saw the bright blue expanse of Lake Michigan in the distance, and made a U-turn and found a parking space halfway up the block. The Jag was about twenty cars down the street. He took the Browning out of his sport coat pocket and screwed the suppressor on the end of the barrel.

Four-thirty in the morning Ricky heard his cell phone ringing. He picked it up and said, "Tell me you've got her."

"We are driving to Chicago, Illinois, in search of Karen Delaney," Tariq said.

He always said her last name too. Ricky thinking, you don't have to say Delaney. She's the only Karen we're looking for. They were a couple of oddball dudes, but he had to admit they were persistent-still on the job at 4:30 in the morning, while everyone else on the payroll was sacked out, snoring. Ricky said, "Where the fuck you at?"

"We are on Interstate 94, approaching Marshall, Michigan," Tariq said in his straightforward, no bullshit way. He sounded like a Middle East robot.

Ricky said, "You don't have to say Michigan. I know where Marshall's at, okay?"

When Tariq told him Karen Delaney was staying at the Drake Hotel on Walton Street in Chicago, Illinois, pronouncing the "s," Ricky said, oh Chicago's in Illinois, huh? I didn't know that, thanks for telling me. He'd decided he'd better get up and go there himself, protect his interest. He wouldn't need the hundred grand from Wadi Nasser now. He'd be able to pay off Samir and be set for life.

Ricky called Northwest and booked a seat on the 7:00 a.m. nonstop to O'Hare, flight 1235, arriving at 7:23. He'd fly in, get there before Karen got out of bed. But it didn't go that way. Ricky was in first class, drinking a screwdriver and the plane was taxiing on the runway when the pilot said I've got good news and bad news. The good news is we're the next plane to take off. The bad news is we have a mechanical problem and have to go back to the terminal. Ricky couldn't believe a pilot would talk like that: good news, bad news. Like it was a fucking joke.

The flight was delayed for an hour while they fixed the plane and Ricky didn't arrive in Chicago till 8:22. He rented a car and called the Iraqis.

Karen woke up at 8:45 and ordered room service: an English muffin and coffee. She drank the coffee and took a couple bites of the muffin, but wasn't hungry. Her nerves were still frazzled. She went in the bathroom to brush her teeth and was surprised to see the face looking at her in the mirror, still not used to her new hair. She got dressed and went down to the lobby. She bought a Chicago Cubs baseball cap in one of the gift shops. She went in the ladies' room and ripped off the tags and adjusted the cap low over her eyes, hiding as much of her face as she could.

Instead of going out the main entrance on Walton, she went out the Oak Street side of the hotel. There was something going on. Two police cars, lights flashing, were parked right there on the street. Karen could see four cops standing next to a Jaguar. She went south and crossed Michigan Avenue and walked a couple blocks to Emporium Luggage and bought a black twenty-six-inch roll-along suitcase that looked like it would hold a million six in banded currency. She stopped at a newsstand and bought a New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily and USA Today. She took a cab back to the hotel and asked the driver to drop her off at the Oak Street entrance, but the street was blocked off, so she got out on Michigan Avenue. The cops were still there and two med techs were putting someone on a gurney in the back of an EMS van.

Karen went in the hotel. She rolled her suitcase along the corridor of shops and got behind a group of conventioneers coming out of a meeting room. She followed the group to the lobby, and took an elevator up to her room. She'd transfer the money in her new bag and leave the Eddie Bauer duffel and a couple of blouses in the closet to make it look like she was still using the room.

The suite had been cleaned while she was out. She went in the bedroom and pulled the covers back on the bed and messed up the pillows. Karen went in the bathroom and wet a couple of bath towels and dropped them on the floor. She left her toothbrush and toiletries on the counter next to the sink. She was tired and stressed from worrying, and wondered if she was going to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

O'Clair got out of the car. He slid the Browning in his belt and buttoned his sport coat that was too small for him. It bulged against his belly and the buttons strained, trying to hold it together. He walked along the row of parked cars toward the Jag. There was a park on his right, bordering Oak Street. The Drake was on his left. Except for an occasional car he didn't see anyone around.

He flashed back to Virginia, the way he found her, all busted up. He could feel himself getting angry, getting pumped again. As he got closer to the Jag, O'Clair could see the guy's face watching him in the side mirror. He walked up to the car, the window was down and he stood behind him-an old cop trick-so the guy had to turn to see him. O'Clair was holding the Browning at arm's length down his right leg. The guy's face was pockmarked and expressionless the way Virginia had described him. The guy's right hand was in his lap, his left was hidden by the door. O'Clair said, "I noticed your license plate. I'm from Michigan too." He grinned. "Where you from?"

The guy looked at him but didn't say anything.

"You don't by any chance know Virginia Delaney, do you?" O'Clair saw him turn in his seat and saw his left hand come up over the doorsill, holding a gun, and shot him three times in the chest and watched him twist and grunt and slump forward, head touching the steering wheel. "I thought that might get your attention," O'Clair said.