launched himself down the stairs at me, I turned to race back down. Fatigue and injuries slowed me. He got my feet and grabbed my head in a brutal armlock.
“You’re coming with me, Vic. You’re going to kiss your aunt good-bye and then have a farewell party yourself.”
He was sitting on my back. I tried twisting underneath him, biting into his leg. He yelped in pain, but grabbed my hands and cuffed them together. Seizing the handcuffs, he started pulling me down the stairs. I let out a great cry that brought Mr. Contreras and the dog to the door of their apartment.
“I’m going to shoot both of them, Vic,” Furey hissed at me. “Interfering with the police in the performance of their duties. You want to watch? Or stop fighting and come along with me.”
I gulped in air, trying to quiet my heart enough to talk. “Go in,” I quavered at Mr. Contreras. “He’ll shoot Peppy.”
When the old man came into the hall anyway, brandishing his pipe wrench, Furey fired at him. The wrench flew to the floor as the old man crumbled. As we left I saw Peppy race over to lick Mr. Contreras’s face. I was choking on my tears, but I thought I saw him put up an arm to pet her.
45
A Walk on the Wild Side
Furey’s car was parked halfway up the block. He jerked the driver’s door open and shoved me across the gear box into the passenger seat. I flung up my cuffed hands to protect my face as I fell against the door. My left leg was tangled in the gear stick. I was twisted at an awkward angle, unable to kick at Michael when he thrust my leg onto the passenger side.
At least he hadn’t bothered to pat me down. Maybe he didn’t know I sometimes carry a gun. If I kept my wits, I might still be able to use it.
A handful of people were out on the street, but they turned studiously the other way when they saw me struggling against him-no one wants to be involved in domestic quarrels. I kept biting off the cry to call the cops. After all, Michael was the cops. What would the patrol units do when they showed up and Michael told them I was a violent prisoner?
“I’m not taking any chances with you, Vic-Ernie and Ron were right about you all along. You’re not interested in the things a normal girl is-you just play the odds and wait your chance to jump on a guy’s balls.”
I leaned back in the leather seat. “You’re so brave, Furey, shooting a man old enough to be your grandfather. They have special sessions on that at the Police Academy?”
“Shut up, Vic.” He took a hand from the wheel and slapped my face.
“Gosh, Michael, now I
He ignored my request and took off with such a burst that I was flung against the leather. I squirmed awkwardly to fish the seat belt from where it was wedged against the door.
“They kept laughing at me, all the kowtowing I did to you-Ernie said LeAnn talked back to him that way just once and he taught her who was boss. That’s what I should have done with you from the start. Out at Boots’s barbecue they warned me you were acting sweet just so you could nose your way into our business. Carl and Luis took them seriously-but me! I just couldn’t listen!” He pounded the steering wheel, his voice rising and cracking.
I finally managed to snap the metal tongue into its holder. “Three weeks ago, when you told me Elena had been seen soliciting in Uptown, that was a lie, wasn’t it? That’s why you were so insistent I not call Bobby to talk to him about it.”
He turned onto Diversey and moved into the oncoming traffic lane to swoop around the traffic backed up from the light at Southport. “You’re so sharp, Vic. That’s what always attracted me to you. Why couldn’t you be smart and sweet at the same time?”
“Just luck of the draw, I guess.” I tried to brace myself against his sudden braking as he cut back into the right lane. “You said you had my aunt. Where did you find her? Down in one of those abandoned buildings on Cermak?”
He laughed. “She was right under my nose. Can you beat that? Right around the corner in my own neighborhood. Eileen had seen her and told my mother and Mother mentioned it to me at supper last night. She’d gone to hide out with one of her old cronies, but her thirst got to her- she just had to go get herself a bottle. I knew sooner or later, if she wasn’t dead, she wouldn’t be able to put up with that thirst anymore. I just didn’t expect it to be around the corner from me. So I hung out all afternoon and sure enough, round eight o’clock, there she came. I just helped her into the car. She tried sweet-talking me. It was loathsome.”
He did sixty through the park to Lake Shore Drive. I suppose the beat cops knew his license plate, or at least called it in and saw it belonged to a detective. The local traffic didn’t have that inside track and honked ferociously as they had to swerve out of his way.
“Was she loathsome because of her age or her drinking or both?” I asked.
“Women who think they’ve got sexual powers that they don’t are disgusting.”
“She appeals to some guys. Just because she’s not your type doesn’t mean everyone finds her repulsive.”
He turned onto Lake Shore Drive so fast I was flung against him. When I was upright again I said conversationally, “Touching you seems loathsome to me, but I’m sure some women would disagree.”
He didn’t say anything, just took the Corvette up to ninety, diving in and out of lanes around the other cars, making them seem to stand still in a blur of light. I was afraid I was going to throw up when he braked into the curve at the Michigan Avenue exit. He slowed down then-the traffic was too thick for him to keep up so mad a pace.
“You’re cracking, Michael. You’re leaving a trail a mile wide. Even if Roland Montgomery’s your clout in the department, he can’t protect you from the mayhem you’re manufacturing tonight.”
In the streetlamps along the Drive I could see sweat beaded on his forehead. He made a violent gesture with his right hand but the car swerved; he fishtailed and got us back in our lane by a miracle.
“What is it that Roland owes Boots?” I kept my tone level. “And why did he get you to set the fire-why couldn’t he do it himself?”
Furey bared his teeth at me. “You’re not that fucking smart Vic.
“What a good boy,” I said marveling. “Is that when they gave you the Corvette?”
“You don’t understand anything, do you? I was prepared-I was willing-you could have lived like LeAnn and Clara-had whatever you wanted-but you-”
“I have what I want, Michael. My independence and my privacy. You’ve just never understood it, have you, that all those things, those diamonds and stuff, just don’t turn me on.”
He got off at the Grand Avenue exit and whipped around the curves to the Rapelec complex. He parked the Corvette well away from the street, behind one of the wooden walls blocking the site.
He jumped out and came around to the passenger door. I had thought I might be able to kick him as I got out of the car but he’d handled a lot of rough arrests in his time-he stood well away from the frame and waited for me to wrestle with the seat belt and get my legs out myself. He put an arm around me in a savage mockery of chivalry and hustled me into the building.
I shivered involuntarily when we moved into the inky corridors. We were on the plank-covered ramp I’d walked three weeks earlier up to the management offices. Beyond the naked bulbs lay the gaping hole of the complex. I wondered where my aunt was, if she was still alive, what tragic end was destined for us.
Furey hadn’t said a word since we’d gotten to the site. I began to feel boxed in by the silence as much as by my cuffs.
To regain my composure I said conversationally, “Was it because McGonnigal told you I had the bracelet? Is
