Death of an Escort (20 page)

I had to park half a mile away from the
lakefront to find a spot. I left my car on an "all day" lot for $15
and headed out for the lakefront.

There were a lot of tall buildings all
around, and I wasn't sure which one I wanted.

Someone on the street helped me when I asked.
She pointed the Water Tower Place out.

I walked to the base of it. The obvious
entrances were to the shopping and public areas, but that wasn't
what I wanted.

Noise from the street was constant with
taxis, cars and buses always pushing their way through. I found the
entrance that led to the private condominiums. As expected it was
guarded.

Besides the security guard, I saw a closed
circuit camera pointed at the entrance area as well.

While I was watching, some tradesman walked
up. He was checked against a list or book, given a badge, and waved
through. It seemed like a straight forward enough process.

Another tradesman, with the same kind of
uniform on, came out. They looked like they were HVAC or something
similar. I did my thing, that is, I watched and I waited. Another
stakeout, more or less.

Day turned to dusk. The two tradesmen exited.
One carried a red, plastic toolbox. I followed along behind but at
a safe distance.

They made there way over to Navy Pier. It
seemed they had parked in the parking structure there. They both
went into the garage.

I turned around and saw a taxi rolling by.
Raising my hand, I flagged him over.

"Where to?" the driver asked in a heavy
accent.

"Wait," I said as I climbed in. I shut the
door. "There will be a van coming out of the parking garage."

"Follow the van, sir?"

"Yes," I said.

Chapter 19

A red van pulled out. It had blue lettering
on it saying they did HVAC work all throughout Chicagoland.

We followed them into a more industrial
section. It was like the bad part of town I'd been in before,
except without all the creepy people. This was merely deserted.

The van pulled into a garage. The door closed
automatically behind them.

"What now, sir?"

"I'll get out here," I said and paid what was
owed for the ride.

The taxi drove away and I ran to the corner
and got around it before the two men reappeared. Not long after,
they exited. Both started walking the opposite way. I guessed they
were heading for a bus stop to get home.

After they were gone, I moved back to the
building with the built in garage where they'd parked the van. To
the right of the garage door was a normal glass entry door and some
windows were further to the right of that.

There were no alarm stickers or any
indication that the building was alarmed. That was good news.

I smashed the window with my elbow first and
then with my foot. It cracked, and I kicked a hole large enough for
me to get through.

And I was in. In and on top of a desk, I
discovered. I climbed down off of it, and felt my way through the
darkness to a light switch.

My plan here was to find what I needed to
impersonate one of them. Obviously they were on the list. They were
obviously an approved vendor.

The office was non-descript, and I didn't see
anything that caught my eye.

I headed out into the shop. I noticed the
floor was a sealed, smooth concrete, and after I turned the lights
on, I could see it was heavily oil stained too. There were a bunch
of vans parked back here. Against the wall to my right was a desk.
No computer was on top.

I went to it and rummaged around for an ID
badge or something. There was nothing. That would make sense, but
it wasn't what I hoped to find.

Back in the office, I moved to the computers
and checked each one. All had been locked, and without passwords or
some computer ninja work, I wasn't going to get access. All the way
down at the end of the line, there was a small conference room.

In there was a laptop computer sitting by
itself on the table top. I turned it on and lucky me, it booted
right up. It didn't stop and ask for a password.

Sometimes laptops were forgotten when
computer security things are set up on the desktop computers. That
had happened here, and I was able to access it without being
stopped.

It got even better.

I could access their shared network files
from this computer. I scrolled through them and found the one
marked employees.

Inside were a bunch of folders. Each was
named after someone. Opening one, I found their picture and an
electronic form of their badge. If they had pictures taken, that
meant they had a camera in here somewhere.

I went hunting for it. The receptionist desk,
or whoever sat in the front, had a camera and cord in her desk
drawer. I took it and snapped my own picture.

Then I plugged the camera into the laptop.
Next I went through the employees one by one until I recognized one
of the faces of one of the two I'd seen.

I wanted to do that because I knew for sure
that they were approved to get into the building.

The first one I found was named Jose
Ratticoa. Odd name, but it would work for me.

I opened the file that had his badge, and I
loaded my picture over top, then I sent it to the printer.

In the main office, I heard the printer
whirring to life. If they made badges, they must also have a
laminator, I figured. And I went in search of it too.

Silly me, it sat on the same desk that I got
the camera from; I hadn't been paying attention.

The printer had finished, and I retrieved the
badge. Using scissors from the same desk, I trimmed around the
edges. Then I ran it through the laminator.

When it came out the other end, it looked
great. It was an official employee badge of Top HVAC Chicagoland,
but it had my picture on it and Jose's name.

Very nice.

I also needed a disguise. CCTV cameras would
be everywhere, and in places I couldn't get at them.

In the shop, I found a pair of safety glasses
and a utility knife. With the knife, I cut the side shield parts
out to make them look more like real glasses.

It was amazing how different a pair of
glasses made you look, but I wasn't done yet. On the shop office
desk, I found a stubby pencil. In the shop bathroom, I drew a
shadow mustache on. Except for close inspection, it looked real.
Like I'd forgotten to shave my lip that morning.

I also took a uniform shirt and changed into
it; another uniform shirt was shoved inside to make me look
overweight. It took some adjusting to look right.

Lastly, I hunched over to shorten my already
short frame. I looked like a different person.

I shut the shop lights off. It was time to
go.

With care, I returned the office to the way
it had been. The camera went back in its spot, with my picture
deleted. I returned the laptop to its former condition, and I'd
gotten on top of the desk to climb out the window, when I had a
thought.

What if they were really anal and asked for a
driver's license or something to compare against the badge I had.
Then I'd be stuck.

Not only that, but I'd lose my chance most
likely to ever have a jump on this Richie guy.

They'd know who I was at the Water Tower
Place, and I'd be locked out. Naturally, I didn't have an Illinois
driver's license, but that shouldn't be a huge issue, I
thought.

I turned the office lights back on, and I
booted the laptop back up. Then I began a search of the internet
for Illinois driver's license templates.

I wasn't looking in the normal places that
normal people do when they are on the internet. Rather, I was
looking in the "gray" areas. I was hunting the file sharing sites
and the like.

Within fifteen minutes, I had located what I
was looking for. It was a PDF file loaded on zShare.com. I had it
downloaded in under a minute. I took my picture again, and I loaded
it in the picture section. Then I printed it out.

It had two sides, a front and a back. I cut
it out and laminated it too. But as I held the newly laminated
card, I realized that it wasn't quite right. It felt to flimsy for
a driver's license.

I laminated it again. That was perfect. I had
the proper thickness and feel now. After rounding the corners, it
was perfect.

So with a driver's license from Illinois and
a badge from the HVAC company, I shut the office down, and climbed
out the broken window.

Half an hour later, I stood at the base of
the Water Tower Place. There were several CCTV cameras recording
the area. They were all high up. That was a disadvantage and
advantage all in one. Disadvantage: I couldn't tamper with them
without being really obvious. Advantage: If I kept my face tilted
down and properly disposed of the uniform afterwards, they'd never
be able to trace me. I took a deep breath and walked up to the
little entry and guard.

Inside, the guard looked up at me. He was a
Latino, clean-shaven, and his shirt looked like it had been
starched earlier that day.

"Yes?"

I laid my ID badge on the countertop.

He frowned at it, and then he started looking
at a list. "You're not on the list," he said.

"I am," I said. I knew I'd seen that guy
coming out of here.

He flipped a page back. "Oh, you're on the
daytime list. But you don't have authorization after 6pm.
Sorry."

"I left some tools up there accidentally," I
said. "I've heard I could be going to a different job tomorrow. I
really need to get my tools."

"What did you leave up there?" he asked.

"Some specialized HVAC stuff," I said. "You
wouldn't know the name of it."

"My dad owns an HVAC company. I probably
would," he said. "What did you leave up there?"

Very nice indeed. I didn't know the name of
any specialized HVAC tool, and I had to get a guard that does.
"Okay," I said. "I lied. I thought you'd be more likely to let me
go up for tools, but I didn't leave any tools up there."

"So, what's going on?" he asked.

"My cell phone. I left my personal cell phone
in the condo I was working in."

"What condo were you in?" he asked.

Covertly, I looked down at the list and saw
that Jose was working in 5009. "It was on the fiftieth floor," I
said. "I'm not sure I remember the number."

He looked down. "Oh," he said. "It says right
here you were in 5009. I'm going to let you go up. You gotta
promise that you're going to get right down here again. I'm not
supposed to let you do this."

"Thanks dude!" I said.

Behind him was a giant lockbox. He opened it
up and I saw that there were keys for every condo in there. This
was the jackpot.

I looked up. There was a camera to a closed
circuit TV up there. I jumped and caught it by the base. That
tilted it up.

Then I hoisted myself up on to the counter
top and over into the guard's space.

He turned around. "Hey! What are you
doing?"

I pointed in to the building hall, the locked
portion that I'd soon be in. "There!" I said and stared
intently.

As soon as he looked, my hand went out and I
got my fingers around the key for 7105, Richie's condo.

The keys were organized in rows that
corresponded to floors, and that was how I could grab it so
quickly.

"There's nothing," he said.

"You're right," I said. "I must have been
seeing a reflection off of the glass."

"You mind getting out of my space?"

I jumped back over the counter top and
knocked some papers to the floor on my side. I picked them up for
him.

"Sorry," I said. "Really sorry."

He looked at me strangely. "I'm going to hold
your driver's license till you get back down," he said. "Can I have
it please?"

I fished out the fake driver's license and
handed it over. He gave me the key to the unit on the fiftieth
floor and a contractor badge to wear. I clipped it onto my
shirt.

"You got ten minutes," he said.

I nodded, and he buzzed me through to the
elevator lobby. I quickly walked over to the elevators and pushed
the button. One of the many opened up.

I took it and as soon as the doors closed, my
cell phone rang.

That was good timing.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Ray." It was my wife. "I wanted to
tell you that I'm in Oklahoma now. Everything's okay."

"Good," I said.

"How are you?"

"Fine," I said. I was going to in a moment go
face-to-face with a member of the mob, but other than that I was
fine.

"Be safe, okay?"

"Um, yeah. Sure," I said.

"You sound distracted," she said. "Is
everything okay?"

"I'm working right now," I said.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I'll let you go. I
love you."

"I love you too," I said, and we hung up.

The elevator stopped at the seventy-first
floor. I got out. The hall was ornate. The carpet had gold borders
with a wine colored center. Impressionist artwork hung on the
hallway's walls. Lighting came from wall lamps that had light bulbs
that were made to look like candles.

I wondered if all the floors looked like
this, but there wasn't time to go into that.

I made my way down the hall and found the
door for unit 05. Here it was. No one was posted outside, and that
was a relief.

I drew my weapon, and then I unlocked the
door. It opened and I found myself staring at an Italian guy in a
robe and slippers. His legs were covered in thick, dark hair.

His mouth was open, and before he got a
chance to close it, I was inside and had my gun barrel in his
mouth.

"Are you Richie?" I asked quietly.

He shook his head from side-to-side to
indicate no.

"Who are you?"

His response was unintelligible because of
the gun jammed into his mouth. So, I removed it, but kept the
business end pointed at him, inches away from his face.