An Echo of Death (21 page)
Authors: Mark Richard Zubro
The train pulled out. I eased Scott into a seat. A black woman in a bright yellow shawl and a teenager in an Oakland Raiders jacket stared at us. I stuck the gun in my belt, then sat down next to Scott.
I took out my hankie and dabbed at the places where blood still oozed from Scott's head. I kept murmuring, “Wake up, Scott. Come on, lover, please.” But he didn't revive, and nothing I tried brought him around. His breathing remained ragged and uneven. I felt two inches to the right of his Adam's apple. His pulse was still strong.
The black woman stepped softly close to us. Her breasts were gigantic, and her butt completely filled the aisle. “You all right?” she whispered.
The sight of me as a mud-encrusted, blood-spattered human didn't seem to faze her.
“It's my lover,” I said, not caring what she thought of gay people.
The woman sat on the other side of Scott. She said, “Can I help?”
I cradled Scott's head in my arms. I didn't remember when I started to cry.
She said, “It's going to be all right.” She stood up, patted me on the shoulder, marched to the front of the car, and disappeared through the connecting door to the one in front. Briefly I heard the click of the tracks louder, then softer with the door closed, then again louder moments later when she returned.
She came back and sat next to me. She said, “The motorman's called the police. They'll meet you at the next station.” She put her hand on my shoulder. At the moment, that human warmth from a stranger was all the world to me.
At the next stop, she helped me maneuver Scott off the train. I'd hoped to see a swarm of uniformed cops converging on the area. I didn't want to leave the protection of the moving train with no one here to meet us. What if the drug criminals decided to pursue us from station to station? It wouldn't take them that long to hop in cars and scramble after us, but I noted that the train didn't move. Perhaps the motorman was waiting, as we were, to see what the moment held.
We struggled forward a few steps toward the stairs leading down. I loosened the gun in my belt in case it was needed. Finally I saw the top of a Chicago beat cop's hat begin to emerge from the steps. I'd never been more glad to see members of the local constabulary.
Within seconds, the glow from rotating Mars lights heralded what I chose to view as the tardy-but-welcome cavalry. In minutes, an ambulance arrived and paramedics rushed up.
They worked magnificently. The woman in charge barked a steady stream of sensible commands as the three blue-clad paramedics hunted through their oversized toolbox
for medicines and cures. The rapidity and precision with which they worked gave me confidence.
for medicines and cures. The rapidity and precision with which they worked gave me confidence.
The woman spoke into her hand radio: “Estimated time of arrival at your location eleven minutes.” She requested a number of medical items to be available when they arrived.
Getting the stretcher down the stairs was far easier than I expected. If I'd had time for any thought besides that for Scott's health, I'd have realized that working in Chicago, it would be common for them to have to bring people down flights of stairs from two- and three-story homes and apartments.
The African-American woman held my hand for a few moments as they loaded Scott's unconscious form into the ambulance. At least no one had slipped a sheet or blanket over his face. The woman patted me several times and said, “He's going to be all right, honey.” And then she was gone in the gathering crowd. I was too distracted to stop her. I never got a chance to thank her.
At the ambulance doors, I said, “I'm riding with him.” No one objected. The trip to the hospital was silent except for moments when we passed over a railroad crossing. Then the person riding shotgun would say, “Tracks,” and the people in back would hold Scott more steadily and hang onto an IV bottle which was already dripping into his arm.
At the hospital, they made me wait in the hall. I nearly went berserk at that rule, but the hospital personnel were firm, and the police insisted I tell them what had happened. Even that wouldn't have kept me from my lover, but one of the doctors, a man in his early thirties, said to me, “We're going to do everything we can. You can't help by getting in our way. You'll be able to see him as soon as we can allow it.”
I didn't ask whether Scott would be okay. I didn't want to hear an answer I couldn't live with. The doctor's voice was low and calm and soothing, and he had piercing violet eyes that met mine unflinchingly. He disappeared through the swinging doors of the emergency room.
I got a cursory check from the emergency-room personnel. They cleaned the back of my head where I banged it getting out of the crawl space. They slapped a Band-Aid on it and gave me a tetanus shot.
Cops surrounded me, and one of them began asking questions. What I'd said at the El station had been more
than enough to set them in motion to the three row houses and to guarantee a cop stayed close to me throughout the proceedings. They couldn't know for certain whether I was a suspect or good guy at the moment, and I didn't care. Nothing mattered except Scott. He had to be all right. Every time the doors back to where he was swung open, I began to rise to my feet. I wanted to see the young doctor emerge.
than enough to set them in motion to the three row houses and to guarantee a cop stayed close to me throughout the proceedings. They couldn't know for certain whether I was a suspect or good guy at the moment, and I didn't care. Nothing mattered except Scott. He had to be all right. Every time the doors back to where he was swung open, I began to rise to my feet. I wanted to see the young doctor emerge.
Bolewski and Quinn showed up a half-hour later. “What the hell happened back there?” Bolewski asked.
I stood up, advanced toward him, and gave him a look which would have stopped a herd of rampaging elephants.
He took a step back.
I said, “I saved my lover. Not you two. Not any police. Not anybody. I did.” Then I began to shake. Even though I'd been in the marines, it had been twenty years, and lots of memories get buried very deep. But I had nearly been killed, and several evil people were dead at my hand, and I didn't know if Scott would live.
I sat down and clutched my arms around myself to quell the shaking, but I wasn't through with my belligerence. “Anybody wants to dispute what I say, wants to tell a different side of the story, I don't care! I care about one thing: that Scott lives.”
I couldn't stop shaking. My voice was rising and breaking like a puberty-stricken adolescent. I knew I was beginning to lose it.
Quinn sat next to me. “Tom,” he said, “we'd like you to take everything real slow. Just talk to us about what happened. We need to move as quickly as possible to try to catch any people who may have gotten away.”
“A helicopter,” I said. “They used one to arrive. Must have been somebody important. I heard it starting up as I took Scott to the train.”
Quinn barked several orders to a nearby uniformed cop, who flew out of the room to call the FAA to check on all helicopter reports.
“How did you find them?” Quinn asked.
“Bill Proctor and I found the list of safe houses for Frederico Torres around the world. This was the one in Chicago.”
“Why didn't you bring the information to us?” Quinn asked.
“Bill Proctor was going to. He never got to you guys?”
“No,” Quinn said.
“What happened to my lawyer and the Mexican authorities?”
“Whoever grabbed them was more worried about Scott. They tried to move everybody to different cars near the Cabrini Green housing project this morning. The guards your lawyer hired managed to get everyone away except Scott. They didn't give us a lot to go on. The kidnappers seemed content with having Scott and didn't pursue the rest of them. They're lucky to be alive.”
Quinn asked for more details about our discovery of the materials.
I told him about the post office and the packaging of the relics. I handed him the list, which I'd used to uncover the safe house on the South Side.
Quinn held the list more carefully than a scholar holding a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bolewski looked over his shoulder. After a few seconds' reading, Quinn whistled. “This is incredible,” he said. “How did you know he would be there?”
“I didn't.” I explained about the relics, the computer disks, and the materials on Mr. and Mrs. Proctor. “That stuff on the parents could be very important. When I left him, Bill was supposed to be taking all that material to the authorities. I'm worried about him.”
“Why didn't you bring it to us?” Bolewski asked.
“Because I wasn't going to waste a second waiting for the cops, whether it was warrants, or due process, or assembling SWAT teams to attack. They might have used
Scott as a hostage. You people haven't been the most helpful.”
Scott as a hostage. You people haven't been the most helpful.”
A uniformed cop trundled his bulk into the room. He spoke to Quinn. “Lots of press outside. The Scott Carpenter baseball thing is on the radio. They want information.”
Quinn said, “Maybe a statement later. They'll want to stampede to the crime scene when they get word of that. Gonna be a hell of a day.”
The doctor came out of the emergency room. I rose to my feet. My trembling, which had eased somewhat during the questioning, returned.
“Are you Tom?” the doctor asked.
I nodded.
“He's asking for you. We usually only let family in, but he insisted.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“He should be all right,” the doctor said. “We want to keep him here for observation at least overnight. Besides the obvious external injuries, he's got a concussion and may have other internal injuries. He was beat up pretty bad. You can see him now.”
Quinn and Bolewski left.
The doctor led me through the emergency-room doors to where he pulled back a sliding curtain. Scott's eyes were open. The last quarter-inch of his mouth on the rightâthe only part not puffed and bruisedârose in a slight grin. He lifted two fingers in greeting. The doctor left.
I took his hand and with the other caressed his brow, moving his hair back.
“I don't feel good,” he whispered.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
His hand gripped tighter in mine. “Am I going to be okay?”
“The doctor said yes.”
“What happened?” he asked.
I told him everything that I'd done since he'd been taken, then asked, “What did they do to you?”
He breathed quietly for a minute. He had two small hoses running to his nostrils. They had him hooked up to a couple of machines. One I figured had to be heart rate and one blood pressure but I wasn't sure. A few shelves carried medical paraphernalia of use to someone, but incomprehensible to me.
“Mostly I was at that house, I think,” Scott said. “My arm hurts.”
I looked at the bandages where I'd seen his left arm burned deep with cigarettes.
“Do you want me to get them to give you more painkillers?” I asked.
“I want you to stay close,” he said.
“Do you want anything, need anything?”
He shook his head slightly. His eyelids nodded, closed, then opened abruptly, then began to shut again. While still holding his hand, I gently caressed his arm, shoulder, forehead.
His eyes fought with his brain to drift into sleep.
“Everything's okay now,” I said. “You're safe now.”
He shut his eyes. I felt his body relax, and in a few minutes, the grip on my hand began to loosen. I leaned over and gently kissed his forehead.
Without opening his eyes, he murmured, “I love you.”
I stayed with him for several hours. I found out later that time limits on visiting were pretty flexible. Mostly he slept. During Scott's transfer to intensive care, I had to wait in the hall, but Quinn and Bolewski were back, and they gave me answers to questions that I had. Quinn was actually pretty nice about the whole thing.
I was exhausted from lack of sleep and the physical and emotional exertion. I'd gotten several cans of orange juice from the cafeteria, and so far that had sustained me.
“What did you find on the South Side?” I asked.
“The scene was a mess,” Quinn said. “The crime-lab guys have been at it for hours. We've got five dead bodies, including Frederico and his brother Pedro Torres. One of the ones you shot is dead. The other one will probably live. The helicopter never got off the ground. Three of the survivors have begun to talk.”
“Who kidnapped Scott?” I asked.
“Pedro. It seems that the people chasing you got conflicting orders. Pedro's the one who wanted you alive. That's probably why the people with you when Scott was kidnapped didn't get chased. If it had been Frederico, they'd probably all be dead.”
“Why torture Scott?” I asked.
“They wanted information.”
“Which he couldn't possibly give them,” I said.
“Glen Proctor really screwed things up,” Quinn said. “He must have been awful busy in Mexico to accomplish all this in just a couple of weeks.”
“I bet he'd been planning his schemes for a while,” I said. “Have you found Bill?”
“Not yet.”
“Do his parents know anything?” I asked.
“Neither mother nor father claims to have seen him,” Quinn said.
“Liars!”
“Glen was playing a dangerous game,” Quinn said. “I hope Bill's not caught up in it.”
“What was the big fight about on the South Side?” I asked.
“You started that.”
“I did?”
“You did. That helicopter you heard was the arrival of Frederico Torres himself. He was set to have a big meeting with his brother. Negotiations had been going on since Glen Proctor, posing as Scott Carpenter, had managed to steal the information about all the safe houses, plus other shipments, dealers, and major distributors. Pedro had
thought Glen was just after his brother, but it seems Glen was trying to double-cross him, too. Glen had some information on Pedro, too. Glen was trying to either double-cross both of them or extort money from both. Everybody was after Glen. Frederico just wanted him dead because he'd ruined their plans. He wanted vengeance. He knew he'd have to move his entire operation. He figured that Pedro would have the information in a short time, and probably all the international police jurisdictions. Even somebody that rich has to worry at that point. Pedro wanted Glen alive long enough to talk to him.”
thought Glen was just after his brother, but it seems Glen was trying to double-cross him, too. Glen had some information on Pedro, too. Glen was trying to either double-cross both of them or extort money from both. Everybody was after Glen. Frederico just wanted him dead because he'd ruined their plans. He wanted vengeance. He knew he'd have to move his entire operation. He figured that Pedro would have the information in a short time, and probably all the international police jurisdictions. Even somebody that rich has to worry at that point. Pedro wanted Glen alive long enough to talk to him.”
“So the ones after us who wanted to killâ”
“Were Frederico's men,” Quinn finished for me. “They just wanted you dead.”
“There were two groups of guys trying to chase us outside our place that morning,” I said. “They came from different sides of the building. One crowd didn't shoot because they wanted to talk. The other wanted to kill us.”
“That sounds right,” Quinn said.
“So, if they were shooting, they were Frederico's guys, and if not, they were Pedro's?”
“Sort of,” Quinn said. “Let me finish about the battle,” Quinn said.
I was silent.
“The meeting between them was all set. Negotiations had been delicate because neither side trusted the other, but they knew they had to confront each other. When you started firing while you were rescuing Scott, the bodyguards on both sides figured that the truce was being broken. An enormous firefight broke out.”
“You wouldn't believe what those houses look like,” Bolewski said.
“Combat zone hardly describes it. Those guys have incredible firepower. Think of how much damage you did with the few weapons you had in that room. They let loose at each other with everything they had.”
“We walked through the houses,” Bolewski said. “Walls
sagged because they'd been riddled with so many bullets. Stairways collapsed from having so much lumber shot away. These guys used big guns.” Bolewski seemed to relish the whole concept. “Made the St. Valentine's Day Massacre look like the peanut gallery having a spat.”
sagged because they'd been riddled with so many bullets. Stairways collapsed from having so much lumber shot away. These guys used big guns.” Bolewski seemed to relish the whole concept. “Made the St. Valentine's Day Massacre look like the peanut gallery having a spat.”
Quinn said, “It wasn't pretty. Five dead, like I said. A few wounded, and the three who are talking to us. The fight was winding down when the cops started arriving. Fortunately, the first cops who showed up had the sense not to approach. They knew this wasn't some simple gang war.”
“How did the police put a stop to it?” I asked.
“We didn't,” Quinn said. “By the time we had the area secured, the El trains stopped, the streets blocked, and whatever else was needed, the shooting had stopped. They weren't firing at us to begin with, and what was the point? So many of them were dead, and we had half the cops in the city outside there after a while. Those left alive inside knew it was pointless to try to shoot their way out.”
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