Violence (41 page)

It was Anderson’s turn to be silent. He wasn’t going to play that game.

“Okay, fifty thousand.” Derek settled, not wanting to push his luck. “In twenties. But if you could throw in a few extra grand-”

“Where?” Anderson cut him off.

“Chicago River, South Branch.” Derek instructed. “At the Turn Basin, there’s an open lot. Meet me there tomorrow night. 10 o’clock. No cops or-”

“I want her there alive or you don’t get your money!” Anderson warned.

“I’ll tell you where she is
after
I get the cash.” Derek reminded him.

“You have her there!” Anderson shouted.

“I’m only a one man show.” Derek groused. “You’ll have to trust me.”

“Trust shit! You have her there!” Anderson was livid.

“No way, Jose.” Derek concluded. “But she’ll be alive. And you’ll get to talk to her. It’ll be the next best thing to being there.”

And with that… Derek hung up. For him patience was key now. He only needed a day or so to accomplish and settle his score with Anderson. He decided he would chill in an area where junkies hang out and where there’s little if non-existent police presence. Jeannie could remain tied up and wet or soil her drawers if she had to go to the bathroom. He didn’t want to talk to her because she would probably start begging or she could scream or he would lose control and rape or kill her before he had the dough. He had thought about spending the interim sexually assaulting Jeannie but there was time for that later if he could get his hands cleanly on the money first and get Anderson out of the picture. The plan was to gun Anderson down right away figuring the money would be on him or close at hand in whatever car he was driving. No, he would just wait for now. Prison teaches you abiding patience if nothing else, especially with a prize in sight. It also taught you how to go without sleep. Just have to not be stupid and crank up on some meth
or do any kind of drugs
! That’s what’ll
take you down
if you mix business with pleasure! Derek had learned that much, in his pursuit of evil. He flipped his cell phone on the car seat and drove the Impala away into the hours of darkness where he was most comfortable.

Anderson brought the cell phone down from his ear, lingering on the broken connection. Was Jeannie still alive? Was she unharmed? There was no way of getting away from one fact. He had brought Derek into her life. One way or another. He realized Jeannie was all he cared about now on this earth. He had known he loved her for a long time, but like always, throughout his life, he pushed those feelings to another place to be warehoused and dealt with at a later date. And he had to put all those emotions out of his mind one more time, or guilt threatened to consume him. His heart was bursting. He was only left with decisions and not much else.

CHAPTER 42

         T
he young woman, one of several “Financial Advisor/Personal Banker” representatives greeting customers in the bank lobby, double-checked Anderson’s Driver’s License as she slid the safety deposit box entry log under the opening in the security glass for him to sign. The young woman had walked Anderson down the stairs to the bank’s lower level where the boxes were located. She didn’t know Anderson personally but that didn’t matter for the purpose at hand.

Once Anderson completed signing and dating the log, the young woman used the bank’s “guard key” along with Anderson’s required imprinted key to open the corresponding numbered stainless-steel solid alloy safety deposit door. She then removed his box from the vault wall, handed the large metal drawer efficiently to Anderson who walked it into a private viewing room where he shut the door behind himself for privacy.

Anderson didn’t need much time to remove from his safety deposit box the $50,000 he needed to pay off Derek. Anderson had over half of the required money in the requested “twenties” denomination (still crisply bundled by groups of $2,000 in violet kraft paper cash straps), but it took two more hours and trips to a half dozen additional banks to exchange the other $100’s Anderson had in his possession for the necessary $20’s which were essential to round out the ransom.

When they were switching cars Roman offered to “give” Anderson the $15,000 in cash Roman had on hand in his office safe, along with another $8,000 which he told Anderson he could get from his bank the next day, but Anderson informed Roman that wouldn’t be needed, and said he, Roman, had “done enough already.”

Anderson had ample funds to cover the extortion amount in his checking account but he didn’t know how much personal financial information Crotty had collected on him or how closely Crotty was monitoring his banking activity, if at all. Also, if Anderson took out such a large amount all at once, normally such a hefty cash withdrawal would require some advance notice on his part, ranging from a couple of hours up to several days depending on the size and the policies of the bank branch involved. It would have also, at the very least, triggered Currency Transaction Reports and likely a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), which are mostly useless government paper trails that further erode civil liberties and provide after the fact “aha, here’s what they were doing” moments for investigators once a crime or act of terror had been committed, neither of which would have held up Anderson getting his money, but were parts of a banking compliance process that may have possibly gotten too many extra people involved or perhaps asking questions at an inopportune time. Something that Anderson, after all, fortunately wouldn’t have to deal with in this instance.

Crotty, for his part, was done. And he knew he was out of the picture now. He didn’t have the warrants or manpower to monitor Anderson’s bank accounts in real time or blanket the places Anderson could possibly show up at.

Anderson needn’t have worried about Crotty or the police.

Crotty had another day or two of good graces to wait for a break in the case whereupon higher ups then wanted him back on routine. The only reason Crotty was allowed to “hang around” on the “search” was the fact the situation was still considered fluid and a matter of public safety mostly because of Jeannie’s possible plight and the fresh fugitive warrant on Derek, but that would still only go so far. Warrants are a dime a dozen in law enforcement. Cook County Sheriff’s Police have well over 40,000 active fugitive warrants pending in the county alone at any given time, a high percentage of those are probation violators, and the Central Warrant Unit only averages a few dozen captures or cleared warrants per week.

Derek wasn’t sweating this.

CHAPTER 43

         T
he motel room Anderson found for new temporary lodgings was situated on the south side of the city and actually had water dripping from the black mold on the ceiling as Anderson readied himself for his rendezvous with Derek. On a table in front of Anderson was “the money,” 9mm shell casings, surgical tape and other paraphernalia. Visible under Anderson’s open shirt was what looked like a variation on some Army-issued ESAPI (Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts) body armor. He had been busy.

Presently, Anderson finished loading a 10-round magazine into the Sig Sauer P226 that Ward had given him. He tapped the clip forcefully into place with the heel of his palm and racked the slide to seat a round in the firing chamber.

Anderson grabbed the stacked bundles of $20-dollar-bills, 25 in all, that were sitting on the table and stuffed them into the duffel bag that Ward gave him. He laid the Sig Sauer in the bag on top of the money.

Anderson started to do up his shirt, and the truss-like homemade-looking bullet-proof vest didn’t look nearly so visible or cumbersome once he finished with the last button. He pulled himself into a leather jacket, grabbed the duffel bag and exited the room into the dark of the night.

Derek was backlit by the glow of a flashlight as he squatted down next to the bound, blindfolded and gagged Jeannie who was stuffed sideways in the cement channel of an old trench drain in the floor of this pitch-black abandoned warehouse.

Jeannie was completely immobilized except for one unconstrained finger which extended up near her head where Derek had laid a pre-paid cell phone.

The cell phone answer key was visible and accessible but the rest of the buttons, including the numeric keypad and handset display had been sealed off by a small fashioned steel plate that was secured in place by duct tape. Derek was awfully proud of his ingenuity.

Jeannie whimpered but it was the tearless moan of someone so exhausted and distraught that sobs could no longer be summoned. She’d wet her pants several times. Derek had used a sports bottle to squirt some sustaining water and soda in her mouth a couple of times. He did pull her pants down at one point tying her up. He patted her vagina and told her she had a “nice pussy.” He also yanked her bra up and squeezed her breasts. She thrashed about at all of it, and it made the prospect of using her later as a sex slave for a couple of days after the ransom pickup that much more rousing to Derek. That is if everything went as planned. In any event, he just couldn’t resist getting a preview. He didn’t worry that if it got to Anderson asking Jeannie if she was “all right and did he (Derek) hurt you in any way?” that it might ruin the deal before he got the money, these gropes were indignities she would brush aside and leave unmentioned for the time being, overridden by her desire to just be rescued.

Derek quickly double-checked a small combination of components that he’d set up in the trench channel beside her head. It was crude to be sure but its most obvious workings consisted of a 9-volt battery-operated alarm clock, some wiring, a relay, fuses, a condom filled with lighter fluid and another condom full of gasoline.

“If your boyfriend plays his cards right and does as he’s told…” Derek spoke aloud as he looked over his homemade incendiary device. “…he’ll get you out of here in time. If not, well…”

Derek didn’t finish that thought, but did complete his inspection. He left out one important fact, though: he didn’t tell her he was lying.

Derek edged over and took off her blindfold.

Jeannie gasped, tried to keep her wits as she stared into Derek’s grinning, shadow-streaked face.

“All right, mama, lookin’ good.” Derek sighed, happy to be done with the main work portion of his evil deed. “You know this isn’t your phone…” Derek snarled, indicating the cell phone next to her head (which was obviously smaller than the phone Anderson bought for her: which Derek had destroyed anyway in order to not risk their being located by the phone’s emitted pings). “…now fuckin’ listen to me, I’ve tried this number so I know it works but don’t go tapping the answer button because the only number on there is the number for this phone…” Derek held out his other pre-paid phone. “…and if you fuckin’ call me before I get my ransom money I just might get pissed and not let you talk to your boyfriend. Got it?”

Jeannie nodded, wide-eyed with terror.

“I left you enough power to basically get a call or two.” Derek went on. “So don’t try to use it for light. Don’t try to call nobody! Don’t use it for nothing except to fuckin’ answer it when it rings! Got it?!!”

Jeannie nodded again.

Derek untied the gag, pulled it out of her mouth and tossed it aside.

“Now don’t fuckin’ scream…” Derek warned her. “…because, for one, you’re just gonna fuckin’ wear yourself out. And two, there’s no one to fuckin’ hear you. You got that?!!”

She was really frightened now and didn’t think she could get any more terrified.

Derek stood up, sneering, enjoying her fear. He leaned over, grabbed the edge of a large piece of plywood and stood it up, positioning it over the cavity in the floor where she was laid out.

Jeannie knew what was coming next, and uncontrollably, convulsively her head began to shake. “Oh, please, please…” She pleaded.

Derek was right about her begging. And he was right about advising her not to scream. There was no one to hear her here. Drug addicts and the homeless used to inhabit this space from time to time but, since all the windows were broken out, it was now far too open to the elements. Too decrepit and unsafe. Too filled with birdshit. It was also highly unlikely in the short span Derek needed to procure the ransom and finish his business with Anderson that anyone sober or sane enough would wander by and be able to rescue her. Unless someone actually walked in there and stood directly over the spot where she was located, they wouldn’t hear her, not with all the ambient noise of the city.

Also, Derek had stuffed old insulation and debris in the trench channel leading away from Jeannie’s position in both directions. This further baffled any noise she would make with the trench grates reinserted and the plywood over her. It also kept rodents out for the time being, but they would soon eat through or find a way around the rock and slag wool wadding of the insulation: that’s if it didn’t rain hard in the next half-hour, where then the runoff would probably drown her, or if…

“Relax, don’t use up all your air.” Derek grinned and issued these final instructions as he slid the plywood a few more inches, squaring it up over her. “Watch your fuckin’ head!”

And with that he released the edge of the plywood he was holding, letting it drop into place:

“No-o-o-o-o!!!” Jeannie’s blood-curdling scream was momentarily heard as the plywood slammed down like a heavy lid on a coffin, and then there was… silence.

CHAPTER 44

         T
he open lot next to the Chicago River that Derek designated as their meeting place was near the infamous Bubbly Creek, a part of the inland waterway still toxic due to the mass disposal of animal organs and waste from the stockyards a hundred years earlier.

Derek drove the Impala into the large tract of crumbling concrete and swung around to the end of the expanse where the Ford Expedition sat waiting. He was there a little early. It was not quite ten o’clock. And if this was Anderson’s car, he expected him to be there ahead of time, too.

Derek rolled to a stop and idled the Impala opposite the Expedition, keeping about a hundred feet between the two cars. Was this Anderson? Could be some gangbangers, or mobsters or a security guard. But there wasn’t much to guard here. He chose this place because it was such an open stretch. There was no place to hide. Some overgrown weeds. That was it. He flashed his brights.