A Smudge of Gray (16 page)
Chapter 24
The chirpy custodial worker whistled the
theme song to his second favorite TV show,
The Brady Bunch
. He took his
last swipe of the glass and stood back admiring his reflection. Business
professionals increased on the street exponentially as the custodial worker
knew he had finished just in time. Dress shoes, high heels, trench coats,
scarves, and leather gloves protected the people like boots, moccasins, chaps, handkerchiefs,
and hats on cowboys in a Wild West town. On the street, cabs and buses sped
like horses transporting the animal herders to their respective ranches. In the
mess, the roar of 300 horses filled the road. It was a V8 engine, the sheriff’s
mustang in the Wild West town.
Brian steered his 300-horsepower ride
through the activity. The spiraling light on the roof seemed to clear a path,
but all it really did was extend the disorder. Brian dodged a bus, and then saw
the sun reflecting off the sparkling building he had programmed into his
laptop’s GPS. He looked for a place to park, a place to rest his horse while he
rushed the saloon. Brian saw the entrance to an alley next to the building. He
sped into the tight space and ground his ride to a stop as the animal let out a
bellow.
The detective jumped out into the cold
morning air and clicked his car alarm. He still wore the blue dress shirt, now
covered with nearly 24 hours of sweat and grime, and his hair had lost its
natural volume and the part. Brian rolled up his sleeves again as he darted
toward the building’s entrance. He hugged the glass of the entryway attempting
to avoid the briefcases and handbags of the army of suits. Brian saw an opening
in the crowd. He ran even faster, the cold air pelting his face. After a dozen
strides, Brian kicked a bucket with his brown imitation leather shoes, which
sent soapy water onto his dress slacks. Several in the crowd turned to the explosion,
including the chipper custodial worker who lost his chip. But none of that stopped
Brian’s drive. He continued into the belly of the building.
“Hey! Watch it!” a well-dressed man with
a shaved skull barked.
Brian stopped cold. He wondered whether
he should erect his spiraling light to clear a path, but he realized that the elevators
would not speed up at the sight of the sheriff. He glanced at the side. A door
stood all by itself labeled “Stairs.” Brian conceded and hustled toward the
human-powered elevator.
On the third floor, Brian exploded from
the stairwell door and plowed into a young man with bottle-cap glasses attaching
letters to a door.
“Sorry. Police business,” Brian yelled
as he hustled down the hallway, his shoes pounding the floor.
“Yeah, right, asshole,” the man said,
clutching letters to his chest.
Suites filled the hall. Brian saw “324,”
and then “322.” He realized the numbers were getting smaller. The hallway was
bare except for the body near the stairwell that Brian had taken out. Most of
the offices appeared vacant even though names were displayed on the distorted glass
windows. It was still early, he figured, and the mess in the lobby must have
been for other floors. The stench of cigar smoke hung in the air as Brian
passed suite “320.” He saw the name on the door, “Albert Bernstein – Attorney
at Law,” and knew by the “stein” in the name that the smell probably belonged
to the stogie of an old Jewish lawyer.
Brian turned the corner. He saw the same
hallway except it was darker as if a few lights were out. Brian passed suite “314,”
and then he stopped as his eyes beheld “312.” He lurked toward the door,
careful to conceal his footsteps. He eyed the letters in Times New Roman font
spelling “Malloy Consulting Service.” It was dark behind the door, but that
didn’t slow Brian’s pounding heart. He unbuttoned his holster and placed his
hand on the cold metal of his 9mm. He slid toward the door, and then paused.
Brian waited, listened, but heard the sound of nothing. He gripped the door’s
handle with his left hand. It felt cold like ice from an iceberg buried deep in
the darkest part of the ocean. As Brian held his breath, ready to pounce, he
flexed the muscles in his left hand and twisted, but the handle didn’t budge.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps swirling
through the perpendicular hallway. He pondered whether the rhythmic steps sounded
friendly or deadly. Brian had to think fast. The pulsating increased, louder
and louder. Brian drew his weapon and prepared to see the face of Trevor
Malloy—the face of death. The impending pace reached a breaking point, and then
in a flash, the figure revealed itself. Brian raised his weapon and saw a man
in navy overalls.
“Whoa, I give up!” one of the
building’s custodial workers yelped, holding two fluorescent lights.
“I’m looking for Trevor Malloy,” Brian said
as he holstered his weapon and flipped his badge.
“Uh, who?”
“Trevor Malloy! Do you know where he
is?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The guy in this office.”
“Sorry,” the worker replied.
“Get me in there,” Brian demanded as he
pounded on the door.
“I can’t do that,” the worker said.
Brian waved his gun and badge.
The worker grabbed the ring of keys from
his belt. His hands trembled as he fumbled with the lock. Brian waited as the
jingle mocked him.
“Come on!” Brian yelled.
“None of them work. Maybe the locks were
changed.”
Brian pushed the worker aside and used his
foot to strike the door. The first attempt failed, but Brian dug deeper and
unleashed his anger onto the wood. It cracked as the door flung open.
The darkness hit Brian. He entered as
the smell of flowers tried to slow him, but it didn’t; the thing that caused
Brian to stop, caused his muscles to tense up, was
The Scream
on the
wall. The worker turned on the lights as Brian saw the door to the back office,
which offered the words “Trevor Malloy – President.” Brian looked at the stout
wood protected by a lock far greater than any lock he had ever seen. Brian
glanced at his brown shoes; he knew he would lose.
“What are you looking for?” the
custodial worker asked.
“Him.”
Brian saw the office assistant’s desk
and checked the papers on top. He saw receipts and purchase orders. Brian threw
them aside. He felt lost, trapped inside the confines of a coffin.
“Hey, Bobby. Can you bring me another
squeegee?” the worker’s walkie-talkie said.
“Who’s that?” Brian asked.
“He’s the guy washing the windows in front
of the building.”
Brian grabbed the radio. “Have you seen
Trevor Malloy? He owns Malloy Consulting Service on the third floor.”
“As a matter of fact, I did. Not too
long ago. About twenty minutes.”
“Where was he going?”
“He was walking toward the subway. Said
he had to catch a subway train.”
Brian’s eyes widened. He tossed the
walkie-talkie back. He removed his gaze from the man in blue and focused on the
man in black staring at him in his mind. As the custodial worker stood in
disarray, Brian scampered past him toward the stairwell. This time, the young
man attaching letters moved clear of Brian’s charge.
Moments later, Brian barged through the
door and into the dense crowd. He was tired of the drones blocking his way as
if he were just a blue-collar worker. He waved his badge like the light on the
roof of his SUV.
“Police! Clear a path!”
The suits moved aside as Brian commanded
them like the sheriff. He rushed toward the side alley and saw his SUV still
parked haphazardly. Two men in black work uniforms stood next to it. The one
with the potbelly used both of his hands to look inside as the scrawny one
scowled behind him with his hands crossed. Brian removed his keys and pressed
the unlock button. His SUV chirped twice. The fat man jumped back and into the
skinny one.
“Move!” Brian commanded as he waved
his badge and moved to the driver’s side.
“Sorry, sir,” the chubby man said.
“We get a lot of parking violations
here,” his half-weighted counterpart added.
Brian opened the door and hopped on his
horse, but before he planted himself fully in the saddle, he looked at the
harelip on the chubby worker. “Hey, what’s the best way to get to the subway
from here?”
“Actually, there’s an entrance right
over there. It’s closer to get there on foot,” the chubby man replied gesturing
down the street.
“I’m going to have to leave this here,”
Brian said.
Both men shrugged. Brian got out and
noticed the patch on each man’s chest—“Shipping & Receiving.”
“Hey, man. I don’t wanna mess with the
cops,” the skinny man replied staring at the back of the hustling detective.
Brian enabled the alarm again on his SUV
and removed his cell phone from his belt clip. He entered the middle of the
sidewalk, the heart of the chaos. He flipped open the cell phone with one hand
and held the number “one” key, which speed-dialed his boss.
A quarter mile from Brian’s precinct,
the cell phone signal entered a moving SUV and into the right breast pocket of
Lt. Foster. He grabbed his phone. “This is Foster.”
“Lieutenant, this is Brian. Did you get
the information I left for you?” Brian huffed as he ran through the mess.
“I haven’t been in yet. But I just
called Forensics and they confirmed the shoe polish matches the smudge found at
the past crime scenes, including the elevator door.”
“Well, that corroborates we have the
right guy.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m heading into the subway. Malloy was
just seen on his way there. Whoa!” Brian bumped into a man bundled in a scarf.
“That photo they said you left. I
haven’t seen it yet, but how did you get a picture of the perp?”
“Long story. I need your help,” Brian
asked.
“Shoot.”
“I need some techs to run his face and
check it against the Subway F.R. System,” Brian said as he saw the sign reading
“Subway Entrance.”
“Already done. I have two techs working
on it as we speak,” Lt. Foster whipped back. “Let me patch you into the
tactical room now.” Lt. Foster pressed a few buttons on his phone.
The cell phone signal transferred from
the racing SUV, breached the police station, cut through the musty air, entered
the room with large clear glass labeled “Tactical Room 1,” and then incited the
conference phone on a workbench. Two techs commanded quad-core powered computer
systems. Both looked barely out of high school because they were. Glasses and
pimples covered one and the other suffered from a high metabolism outwardly
apparent with his pencil-thin arms. Two 55” flat-screen monitors hung on the
wall stealing the focus of both techs as wires, bugs, and micro-cameras were scattered
across workbenches. The room was a treasure trove of technology and housed the
state-of-the-art in law enforcement gadgets managed by a team of geeks.
The tech with glasses pressed a button
and connected the call. “Tac Room One.”
“Hey. This is Lieutenant Foster. I have
the pursing detective on the line.”
“This is Detective Brian Boise. Did
you receive the photograph that was checked in this morning?”
“Affirmative. We have it loaded into our
system now, detective.”
“He’s in the subway. I’m on my way under
the city. Find this asshole!” Brian demanded.
“Yes, sir,” the tech replied.
On one of the monitors was the picture
of Brian from the photograph transferred from pigments to pixels. Another had a
grid of the city running from Google Earth. The pimply-faced geek changed the
screen from the city view and launched the intricate program that tapped into
the subway system. His counterpart, the skinny one, kept his focus on tweaking
the image recognition system that was checking Brian’s photograph.
Brian entered the pathway into the subway
system. His nostrils filled with the smell of bodily fluids mixed with stale
air. “I’ll keep my phone on. Call me with updates,” Brian said as he closed his
phone, tossed it for quick access into his shirt pocket, and entered the mouth
of the underground.
Lt. Foster squealed to a stop in a space
outside his precinct. He still held his phone. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Although he had no clue what these two techs were doing, he had faith in them. “Kindergarten’s
over, guys. This is one of the biggest cases this department has ever seen.
Don’t fuck it up because you’re new.”
The two techs were sweating, as if they
were taking their final exams in their hardest computer science class. Live
footage from the subway broken up into eight boxes from eight different feeds
displayed on one of the flat-screens. The place looked like hell, overcrowded
with
Homines sapientes
walking, running, and waiting for trains.