The Ambition (17 page)

“Oh, Lord!” Phillip declared.

Immediately, the bandit turned the weapon in the direction of the two men, extending the gun toward Tom — and pausing for the briefest of moments. Both of them could see his eyes narrow in the slits of his mask.

Tom swallowed hard and flinched ever so slightly, and the gunman yanked the trigger twice in rapid succession. The first shot passed cleanly through Tom’s right shoulder into the glass wall behind him, a cracked spiderweb instantly forming at the point of impact.

The second bullet lodged in his heart.

Tom grunted and clutched his chest with both hands and stumbled a few steps backwards, his expression a mix of horror and disbelief. And then his legs gave out and he twisted as he collapsed to the floor, face up, two pools of maroon expanding on his blue shirt. His eyes slowly closed; the muscles in his face relaxed.

Phillip gasped. The girls were hysterical now, plugging their ears as they shrieked uncontrollably. Without a word, the bandit turned his pistol toward them, but then he quickly brought it back to Phillip, who had turned from his crumpled friend to face the killer squarely. Phillip stretched out his arms as if for mercy; his eyes were shut tight in anticipation of impact.

A second passed. Then another. And another. When nothing happened, Phillip hesitantly opened his eyes — just in time to see the back of the gunman as he pushed through the doors and sprinted down the sidewalk, jumping a hedge of bushes before he disappeared.

The girls were still screaming; Alberto remained huddled in the kitchen, quietly cussing in Spanish under his breath; and Phillip just stood there, his face frozen in horror.

“Oh, Lord Jesus,” was all he could manage to mutter.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

I

Dispatch: 911, what’s your emergency?

Caller: I’m driving on Antonio and some guy just ran out of Nikki’s with a gun and he was taking off a ski mask.

Dispatch: Where on Antonio?

Caller: Uh, northbound, almost to Hightower.

Dispatch: Where did he go? Do you still see him?

Caller: He ran across the street, behind my car, through a hedge and into the park. No — he’s gone now.

Dispatch: Was he alone?

Caller: I didn’t see anybody after him.

Dispatch: What was he wearing?

Caller: Uh, jeans and a jacket maybe. It happened so fast. Dark clothes.

Dispatch: Did you see his face?

Caller: Just the back of his head, you know, in my rearview when he ran across the road.

Dispatch: Did you hear any shots or see him fire the gun?

Caller: No, no shots.

Dispatch: Okay, just pull over at your next opportunity and park. A squad car will be right there.

Caller: I’ll park along Antonio here.

As the first squad car came snaking through Antonio Avenue traffic, its blue lights blazing and siren wailing, Phillip Taylor was just emerging from Nikki’s, his white shirt streaked with blood where he had wiped his hands after unsuccessfully trying to resuscitate the two victims.

The patrolman curbed his car and grabbed the shotgun from its dashboard mount before rushing to intercept Phillip, who was gesturing frantically toward the restaurant.

“He shot my friend, he shot the cashier,” Phillip was saying, his eyes wild. “There are two girls still inside. A cook too.”

“Any gunmen in there?”

“No, he ran out. Just one.”

As Taylor spoke, two more squads pulled up, snarling the heavy rush hour traffic as they blocked the four–lane highway, with three officers alighting and sprinting toward Nikki’s, unholstering their pistols as they ran.

“All clear; go in,” the initial officer called out, waving for the others to hustle inside. As they entered Nikki’s, the cop paused to return the shotgun to his car and then continued to quiz Taylor.

“They’re dead. Both of them,” Phillip was saying. “He shot ‘em point blank. It was crazy … senseless …”

“What was he wearing?”

“All black, a ski mask.”

“Height? Weight?”

“Uh, five–nine, five–ten. A hundred and eighty, maybe.”

Suddenly, a gold and white helicopter, emblazed with the name and logo of the Cook County sheriff’s department, came clattering overhead, having been redirected from a traffic accident not more than two miles away. The sun glistened off the bubbled glass of its cockpit as it hovered noisily.

The officer reached up to depress the button on his radio mic/receiver, which was pinned just below his shoulder. “Suspect wearing all black; five–nine or five–ten, one eighty.”

“Roger that.” A few moments later the radio squawked: “All units: witness reports suspect may have gotten on a motorcycle just east of McGuthrie Park, northbound on Highland.”

Immediately, the helicopter banked and churned east as the undulating sirens of two ambulances could be heard approaching down Antonio from the north. Meanwhile, two officers emerged from Nikki’s with their arms around the traumatized girls, ushering them into a patrol car for a trip to the station where they could be reunited with their parents.

“Nobody else in there,” one cop called over.

The initial officer turned to Phillip. “You said there was a cook inside, right?”

“Yeah, there was someone in the back, making fries. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

“No description at all?”

“Couldn’t really see him — just his shoulders and arms.”

Taylor heard the door of the squad car shutting and looked over to see a cop unrolling yellow crime scene tape across the restaurant’s entrance.

“We need to get you to the station to give a formal statement,” the cop told Taylor.

By this point, squad cars from the Diamond Point police, the county sheriff’s department, and two adjacent municipalities were being directed toward the area. The copter made sweeps over the streets just east of the crime scene, scouring the roads for anything suspicious, especially a motorcycle.

And that’s when they saw him: a figure dressed in dark clothes and riding a cycle — it looked like a 250 or 350 cc bike from the copter’s vantage point — headed east on Ridgetrail Avenue in a business district with small shops, stores, and restaurants fronting both sides of the street.

As the copter swooped in for a closer look, the rider, hearing the noise but not looking up, hunched over and took off at a high speed, swerving in and out of traffic.

“That’s him,” said copilot Richard Drane. He quickly radioed the cyclist’s location. There were a couple of squad cars about half a mile away, their lights and sirens scattering cars as they headed for the scene but the congested traffic nevertheless hindered their progress.

The copter kept the cyclist in view, trailing at a comfortable distance. Drane scrutinized the suspect through binoculars. An ABC traffic copter cautiously approached from the south, but Drane warned it off. “We don’t need the media mucking this up,” he snarled.

The biker approached a red light, where cars were backed up for half a block, but he scooted along the fringe of the road, slowed briefly to allow a couple of cars to cross in front of him, and then shot through the intersection against the light. He darted down two more blocks, using the same maneuver to slip through two more intersections.

“Uh–oh,” Drane said.

Looking ahead a few blocks, he could see where the biker was headed: Diamond Point Mall, a bustling shopping mecca with over a million and a half square feet of retail space. Its parking lot, ringed by restaurants, was crowded with cars as people were arriving for dinner and shopping after a long week at work.

Sure enough, as he approached the mall, the biker slowed and then pulled into a five–story cement parking structure — and out of the helicopter’s line of vision.

“We’ve lost visual,” Drane radioed.

Squad cars were still quite a distance away; though there was a police substation at the mall, it was located on the far side of the shopping center. There were a dozen exits leading from the garage into the mall and the surrounding parking lot — most of them shielded from the copter’s view by overhangs. The mall itself had scores of exits.

“We’re not gonna be able to seal the place fast enough,” Drane said to the pilot. “By the time we get enough manpower over here, he’ll be long gone.”

The copter continued to hover, patiently searching for any sign of the biker leaving the parking facility. They never saw him again.

A 250cc Kawasaki cycle, dark red with a black sports faring, was later found abandoned on the first floor of the garage. When he was contacted, the bike’s owner wasn’t even aware that it had been stolen from the breezeway of his house in Lake Zurich.

II

Unaccustomed to having a double homicide in their generally quiet jurisdiction, Diamond Point police turned over the investigation to the Cook County sheriff’s department, which had more manpower as well as experience.

Homicide detectives Mark Bekins and Sarah Crowley, given charge of the case, were questioning the still–shaken Phillip Taylor in a borrowed office at the local department, a mile and a quarter from the scene of the killings. For the fifth time by Phillip’s count, they quizzed him on details of the crime.

No,
I didn’t see his face. He was wearing a black ski mask with some sort of logo on the front. Not sure what it was — it was gold and circular or octagon shaped … Height? About five–nine or five–ten. Weight, maybe one hundred eighty pounds … Black jeans, black shoes, black windbreaker over a dark T–shirt. Latex gloves … The gun was silver, a revolver about the size of a.32, though it sounded louder than that — probably a.38 … No accent I could make out … No accomplices that
I saw. Didn’t see a getaway vehicle … He fled out the east entrance … No, he didn’t ask for our wallets.

Phillip had experienced a lot during his years with the Navy, including a few horrific on–ship accidents that disabled young sailors. But he had never stood beside a friend as his life was violently snuffed. He had never had an erratic killer aim a loaded gun point–blank at his chest. And he had never been so sure he was about to meet his Maker.

“We’re interested in the cook,” Bekins was saying. “He seems to have fled. I’m betting there’s a connection. Maybe the killer used to work there and they conspired together. You never saw the cook’s face?”

“No, just a figure working back there, wearing a white apron, I think.”

“Back to our suspect. What do you think prompted him to shoot the cashier?”

“I don’t know. He was impatient, he was demanding money, and this Nick guy just froze.”

“Do you think the suspect was on drugs?”

“He seemed hyped up, real antsy, but drugs? He might have been. I’m not sure.”

“And your friend — Mr. O’Sullivan — how did he get shot? Did he make a sudden move or attempt to subdue the suspect?”

“No. He might have flinched maybe — that’s all it took.”

Sarah Crowley, wound tight and all–business, a single mother of two who was known as one of the toughest cops in her unit, spoke up.

“Mr. O’Sullivan was a defense attorney. Maybe the shooter recognized him after he shot Mr. Gamos. Maybe he was a former client or friend of a client and was afraid that his mannerisms or voice would give him away, so he decided to get rid of him.”

Phillip looked down at his paper cup of muddy coffee. “That could be. It’s a theory, anyway.”

Bekins seemed to like the hypothesis. “Let’s contact his secretary and see what she thinks. Maybe she’ll recognize the MO. We’ll need a list of his clients, former and current.”

Phillip leaned back against the wall, the front two legs of his wooden chair lifting off the ground. He ran a hand through his gray bristly hair.

“Could someone call the church and let them know that I won’t be leading my group tonight?” he asked. “They’re going to be wondering why I never showed up.”

“Sure,” said Bekins. “And we’ll have someone drive you home. You have someone to be there with you? Better not to be alone.”

“I’ve called my daughter.”

Bekins, whose slight built didn’t hint of his accomplishments in tae kwon do, put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to put a squad outside your house tonight.”

“Why? You think I’ve done something wrong?”

“No, nothing like that. I just figure this case will get a lot of media heat because of the O’Sullivan connection. The papers are going to publish your name. Everyone, including the shooter, will know who you are. You’re the best witness we’ve got; it’s unlikely but conceivable he would want to come after you.”

“So for now,” added Crowley, “we’ll have a squad at your place. But until we find this guy, you’d be smart to stay at a friend or relative’s house.”

Phillip didn’t like it, but their plan made sense. “No leads in finding him yet?”

“We’ve got virtually the entire force looking for him,” said Bekins, crossing his arms across his chest. “He drove into that parking garage and disappeared. Who knows? He might have had an accomplice waiting there and they calmly drove away before we were able to secure the scene. There were cars and trucks all over the place. There are a thousand ways he could have slipped out.”

Phillip shook his head. “I can’t believe he just shot Tom — for no reason.”

III

At 6:28 p.m., a “Breaking News Alert” from the
Examiner
flashed to mobile phones and computers throughout the Chicago area: “Thomas R. O’Sullivan III, youngest member of once–powerful Illinois political family, among two slain in Diamond Point holdup. Lone gunman sought. Click on the
Examiner
website for developing details.”

The news alert chirped Reese McKelvie’s phone as he was walking up a long flight of stairs to a restaurant in suburban Morton Grove, where he was planning to meet some supporters for a strategy discussion over filet mignon and lobster tails. At first, he was going to ignore it; he received so many emails that he had been trying to break the habit of immediately responding to every one as it came in. He was starting to feel like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

But his curiosity won out. He stopped on the top step, withdrew the phone from his pocket, clicked on his email — and his eyebrows shot up and his eyes blinked in disbelief at the news alert. Then he frowned and cocked his head as he studied the phone, as if trying to will more information to emerge.

“What is it?” asked his advisor, Ken Underwood.

A small smile formed on McKelvie’s lips as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket. Then, a full grin. “Just a fortuitous coincidence,” he said lightly.

Underwood pulled open the restaurant door and the two of them strode inside. He didn’t catch the remark that McKelvie muttered under his breath:
“I hope.”

IV

The news found its way to Art Bullock as he was driving home from the church after a ten–hour workday. It was the lead story on WGN radio’s 7:00 p.m. broadcast: “Police in suburban Diamond Point are hunting for the lone bandit who shot to death the owner of a hot dog stand and a customer, who happened to be the member of a formerly powerful Illinois political family.”

The name of his suburb piqued Art’s curiosity; he reached over to turn up the volume.

“Killed were Thomas O’Sullivan III, a defense attorney and son of former political powerhouse Thomas O’Sullivan, Jr., who died a few years ago in the midst of a corruption investigation, and Nick Gamos, owner of Nikki’s Hot Dog Stand at 2392 Hightower Road. The gunman failed to get any money from the failed heist; he escaped on a motorcycle and was last seen entering the parking garage at Diamond Point Mall. Stay tuned for further details.”

Art’s car almost swerved into oncoming traffic; he ignored the angry honks and changed lanes, then turned right onto a quiet tree–lined road and parked. As he was frantically trying to process what had happened, his cell phone rang.