The Dead Key Part 40

Something hit the ground with a silvery clink.

"I'll see what I can do," Ramone said.

"You both need to disappear. For good. This warning will only come once. I'm sure you understand. Tell Iris I'm sorry, but I warned her not to disturb the ghosts."

Two minutes later, Ramone pushed Iris, dazed and stumbling, through the loading dock and out onto the sidewalk.

"We gotta move. Keep your head down, Iris."

Iris didn't look up for several blocks. Scenes from the last two hours flashed by with each seam in the concrete-Detective McDonnell's dead eyes, red candles, gold bricks, keys, prayers, jewels, the cracked photograph, the birth certificate, the sound of Randy's body hitting the ground.

Iris's field bag swung heavily from Ramone's shoulder. Back in the vault, she had filled it with cash and jewelry at gunpoint. It was all stolen from the safe deposit boxes. It was Carmichael's reward to them both. It was hush money.

Ramone stopped at Prospect Avenue and waited for the light. Iris looked back over her shoulder. Four blocks behind her, the abandoned First Bank of Cleveland loomed darkly in the sky. For a split second, Iris swore she could see a girl in a window looking back at her.

"Beatrice," Iris whispered.

"Come on." Ramone pulled her forward.

When Iris turned back, the girl was gone.

CHAPTER 76.

Thursday, December 14, 1978 Beatrice pressed her face to the windowpane and gazed down at Euclid Avenue. The street below her was empty, except for the dull glow of the sodium lamps and the factory smog. The muted light barely reached the dark room where she stood. The last time she'd been in the personnel office, she'd been trapped in the file room while Bill had his way with Suzanne. Beatrice reluctantly walked over to Suzanne's desk and sat down with her heavy bag.

Beatrice pulled the baby picture out of the bag and studied it again in the faint light. She hadn't been able to leave it in the vault. Seeing her own blue eyes staring out from the photograph broke her heart all over again. On the back "Beatrice" was written in a scrawling hand. Under it was a note she could barely make out in the dark: Hush-a-bye, don't you cry Go to sleep my little baby When you wake, you shall have All the pretty little horses A tear fell as Beatrice hummed the lullaby she'd known her whole life. Doris must have sung it to her before her memory had formed, before she had left Beatrice behind in Marietta. All the pretty little horses, she thought, looking down at the jewelry in her bag.

Her mind retraced the lines in Doris's ledger. Safe deposit boxes began disappearing the year she was born. Her birth certificate read, "Father: Unknown."

She could still feel Bill's fingernails sc.r.a.ping her palm as he greedily s.n.a.t.c.hed the key. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He might have been one of the men who had beaten Max. Her throat tightened as she thought of her friend down in the tunnel, bleeding. She picked up the phone and dialed.

"Nine-one-one. What's your emergency?" a faraway voice asked.

Beatrice hung up the phone. Max had told her not to call anyone. Beatrice stared at the receiver. One of the b.u.t.tons on Suzanne's call director had a word scrawled under a piece of tape. "Home." She touched it sadly. It was too late to call, but she picked up the receiver anyway.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi. Is this Suzanne?" Beatrice whispered into the phone.

"This is."

"I'm sorry to call so late, but . . ." There were so many things she needed to know. "Did you once know a clerk at the bank named Doris Davis?"

"Who is this?"

"Me? I'm . . . Beatrice." It was too late to lie. "I work up on the ninth floor, and think I found something of hers. Someone thought . . . you might know her."

"G.o.d, I haven't heard from Doris in years. At least ten. She was up in Auditing when I started. Nice enough gal, I guess, but she got into some trouble."

"Trouble?" Beatrice's voice cracked.

"I don't like to gossip, but the way I heard it, she was in the family way and got herself fired. It happens all the time. These poor girls fall for the wrong sort of man and then don't have a soul to turn to. So what did you find, hon?"

"Oh, just an old file. Probably nothing."

Doris had been fired. She'd dumped Beatrice in Marietta and started robbing the vault. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, she had stashed all of the stolen jewelry in Box 256 and registered the box in her daughter's name. Was she saving the money for me, or was she just covering her tracks?

Beatrice cleared her throat. "The department's been auditing the safe deposit boxes. I understand you have one."

"Me? No."

"That's strange. It says here there's one in your name. You might want to look into it. Have a good evening." Beatrice hung up, pulse racing.

She hadn't meant to call or give Suzanne her name, but she needed to talk to someone. Everything had gone wrong, and she didn't know what to do anymore. She reached into her pocket and pulled out Doris's key. The number 547 gleamed in the dim yellow light from the window. Maybe there were reasons Doris did what she did, but Beatrice didn't care. It didn't make it right. She'd abandoned her in Marietta to Ilene and all of the terrible things that had happened there.

Beatrice Baker should never have been born. She slammed the key down and stormed into the file room, snapping on the light. She pulled open the drawer with her personnel file and ripped it out. Her picture, her application, her pay stubs-she stuffed them all into her bag next to the cash and jewelry. She pulled out her shorthand notes describing Jim and Teddy's conversations and her notes on the missing safe deposits and stuffed them into the file drawer, happy to be rid of them. Maybe someone else would make sense of it. She could only hope Tony would find them.

She turned back to Suzanne's desk and slumped down in the chair again. Suzanne and G.o.d knows how many other poor women were still tangled up with Bill. Suzanne had a right to know the truth.

Beatrice rifled through her bag. She set Max's last ring of keys aside and searched through the jewelry until she found the right thing. She opened the center drawer of Suzanne's desk and placed a bracelet inside, then frowned. Suzanne wouldn't know what to make of the diamonds. She might even think Bill had left the bracelet there as another gift. Doris's key was still sitting on the desktop. Beatrice picked it up and set it in the drawer next to the bracelet. Between the key and the phone call, it might be enough for Suzanne to start asking questions.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Beatrice still had work to do. If she wanted to stop Bill and the bank for good, she had to get to the files and find out where Teddy's encrypted records were kept.

She was just sliding Suzanne's drawer closed when voices came echoing down the hall. Beatrice sucked in a breath. They were approaching fast as she ran to Linda's corner office. The department door flung open.

"I cannot f.u.c.king believe you let her get away," a man's voice boomed.

It was Randy Halloran. Beatrice scurried around the desk in the dark and into the washroom. She eased the bathroom door shut.

"What makes you think she'll be in here?" The other voice was Bill's.

"The phone bank lit up on this floor, and look. Someone's been in the filing room. Get your fat a.s.s in there and see if anything's missing."

"That's enough, Randy. I'm still your superior."

"All evidence to the contrary, Bill. Don't you realize what's happening here? The bank is finished! There is no Auditing Department anymore! Now move!"

Beatrice backed up farther. She b.u.mped into something sharp, and stifled a grunt.

"Jesus! Are you out of your mind?"

"Out of my mind? Out of my mind! Yes, a little bit," Randy barked. "The city's going to default in less than an hour, the feds are launching a raid, and you've managed to lose all the f.u.c.king keys to the vault. If we don't come up with something quick, we're both going to end up fish food. Now check the f.u.c.king files!"

Feeling along the wall, she found the metal point she'd backed into was a corner of the vent grille. It was sticking out of the wall. The smell of fresh air drew her closer, and she realized the large grate was loose. Max had said something about an air shaft, Beatrice realized, as she reached out and pulled on the edge.

"There are hundreds of files, Randy. Nothing seems out of place in here. Besides, Bethany gave me the master key."

"What?"

Beatrice wiggled the grate gently. It inched away from the wall with a faint squeak that made her wince, but she kept willing it open, until it clanked softly against the toilet.

"She said she got it from you," Bill said accusingly.

"Bethany? I don't know anyone named Bethany, and I certainly didn't give her a f.u.c.king key. Give me that thing!"

"You know that little blond that works for you? She said you gave it to her."

The door to Linda's office slammed open, shaking the wall.

"And you believed her? What are you, some sort of idiot? The key's worthless. There isn't a mark on it. It probably just opens her gym locker or her G.o.dd.a.m.n diary."

A metallic clink rang out as a key hit the door to the bathroom where she was hiding. Beatrice let out a tiny gasp, then reached into the air shaft. Feeling blindly, she inched her body into the darkness until she grasped a cold steel rung. She pulled herself onto a ladder, carefully balancing her heavy bag on her arm. Then it struck her. She'd left the ring of keys on Suzanne's desk right where the two men were arguing. Her heart dropped. She almost crawled back into the bathroom. Another office door slammed open. Then another.

"Now that's enough," Bill said, clearly shaken. "I'm sure that girl is in here somewhere."

His voice grew louder. Reaching out from the ladder with a shaking hand, Beatrice pulled the grate closed. The door to the bathroom burst open, and the air shaft flooded with light. Beatrice shrank into a shadow.

"Well, where is she?" Randy demanded, ripping back the shower curtain.

"Don't worry. She couldn't have gone far. We'll find her." Bill picked the blank key up off the ground where it had landed and studied it again.

"We'll find her? What if we don't, huh?" Randy yelled, and whacked Bill hard across the face. The unexpected blow knocked Bill to his knees. "Who's going to find us? I saw Carmichael Covelli waltz in here an hour ago. We're f.u.c.ked, Bill!"

"Hey, G.o.ddammit!" Bill bellowed into the floor. "I thought we had a deal."

"Yeah, it was a nice little scam while it lasted, Bill. But everyone knows you've been talking to the feds. Who you gonna sell out? Huh? Not me!" Randy kicked him in the ribs. "I'm not letting you drag me down with you. Fifteen percent isn't f.u.c.king worth it!"

Bill lunged at Randy, knocking him into the sink with a growl. "Everybody's looking to cut a deal, Randy. I've had it with your f.u.c.king blackmail and your bulls.h.i.t! You f.u.c.king parasite!"

"I'm the parasite?" Randy shouted, pushing Bill off of him. He punched Bill squarely in the gut and hit the back of his neck as the older man doubled over. On his way to the ground, Bill knocked his head against the toilet with a loud clank and then fell limply to the floor.

Beatrice gaped at Bill's motionless body lying not four feet from where she hid in the air shaft. Blood was pooling onto the marble tiles.

Randy nudged the body with his foot and muttered, "f.u.c.k."

He stood next to Bill's still body for twenty heartbeats, occasionally rubbing his face with his hand. Finally, he turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The bang of it vibrated in the air shaft, and Beatrice scrambled up the ladder away from the sight of Bill on the ground. The sound of the door crashing back open made her foot slip. The rusted steel sc.r.a.ped her palm as she caught herself with a gasp.

"Sorry this couldn't have ended better, old friend," Randy grunted five feet below her, and there was a faint dragging sound. "Don't worry. They'll all understand. Investments go bad. Deals go bad. Sometimes there just isn't any other way out."

Beatrice covered her mouth and willed herself to not imagine what was happening below her as labored breathing and sc.r.a.ping sounds filtered up to where her feet teetered on a thin steel rail.

"Hang in there, okay?" Randy chuckled uneasily. "It's all going to work out now. You'll see. I'll find a way to get our investment back . . . and then some."

The rattling sound of a ring of keys being waved in the air dragged Beatrice's eyes back down to the square of light below her. Randy had found the key ring.

A second later, the light under her feet went out. Then silence. Beatrice let out a tiny wail and hugged the ladder in the blackness of the air shaft. Her arms trembled against the cold steel as she fought the urge to just let go.

She didn't want to feel anything or hear anything or know anything anymore. There was nothing below her but dead black. Outside the building she had no name, no home, no mother, no father, no life. The heavy bag dug into her shoulder as the weight of it pulled her downward. Randy had found the keys. She'd failed. She'd failed Max and Doris and herself. Her fingers began to slip.

Beatrice clamped her arm around the ladder rung and squeezed her eyes shut. She pictured Randy with the keys, heading into the vault. No. She couldn't let him get away with it. She couldn't let the money men have the keys to everything. There was still time.

Slowly, she climbed back down the ladder, balancing everything Doris had taken from the vault on her shoulder. A burr in the steel dug into her palm, and she jerked her hand away. The sudden movement sent her careening to one side of the ladder, with the heavy bag swinging from her arm. In an instant, it dropped to her wrist, and her feet slipped from the rail.

She cried out, dangling from one hand. The bag fell away from her arm as she reached for the ladder. It plummeted four stories, sending a shock wave through the air shaft, and landed with a faint crash far below her.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" a distant voice demanded.

Beatrice found her footing and bit her lip to keep from making another sound. A flashlight slashed through the air shaft twenty feet above her.

"It was probably just the wind. We shouldn't even be in here, Cunningham. We don't have the proper warrants."

Beatrice steadied herself on the ladder and stared up at the beam of the flashlight. Cunningham?

"I know she's still here," Ms. Cunningham protested. It was her supervisor talking.

"Let CPD worry about it. The bureau doesn't care about some secretary. We need to focus on the investigation."

"What investigation? My star witness is comatose in a hospital bed," Cunningham yelled. She was talking about Doris. Beatrice had overheard conversations about the feds having someone embedded at the bank just that evening. Ms. Cunningham was the mole? Beatrice tightened her grip on the ladder.

"What about Bill? I doubt he'll last the night if we don't find him."

He's dead, Beatrice wanted to scream, but she couldn't find her voice.

The probing flashlight clicked off. "I made a promise to Doris that I'd look out for her daughter. From the moment Beatrice walked into that office, I was responsible. That woman risked her life talking to me, and I owe her that."

"You couldn't help what happened."

"That girl doesn't have a chance. CPD will detain her indefinitely, or worse."

"Could we do much better? She's a G.o.dd.a.m.n juvenile. Our hands are tied."

"The police are compromised. She needs a safe house," Cunningham bellowed.

"Sure. Are you going to take her in? They'll have your a.s.s, and you know it. If she's smart, she'll just disappear."

The voices trailed off.

Tears ran down Beatrice's face in the dark. Doris had turned herself in to the feds. She'd tried to come clean and make things right. She hadn't just sent her to the wolves when she'd suggested Beatrice go work at the bank. Doris had sent her to Ms. Cunningham. She had tried to keep her safe. Her mother wanted her safe. The thought made her hug the metal rail and cry.