"What the fuck is this, Kidd?" she demanded.
"I don't know. We haven't made a move yet."
"You've been doing the computer stuff. Could the cops be monitoring already?"
"No. That's too paranoid," I said. "There are probably a half million data transmissions every day in this town."
She watched the van for another minute. "Well, then what?" she asked impatiently.
"I don't know, but he's breaking off, whoever he is," I said. The van had followed a few blocks, but as we approached a traffic light at a major intersection, it slowed, waited for two additional cars to get between us, then did a U-turn, and headed back toward the apartment.
I took a left, drove a block, took another left, and headed back after it.
"Go past the apartments and come back from the other side. They won't be looking in that direction," LuEllen said.
When we got back, the van was parked on the street directly in front of the building. A tall man in green maintenance coveralls was just getting out of the back and when he slammed the door, the van pulled another half block up the street and stopped.
"So there are two of them," LuEllen said. "The outside guy is a lookout. The inside man has a radio or maybe a beeper."
"So now what?" asked Dace.
LuEllen looked at me. "Our security must be fucked," she said.
"It's not right," I repeated. "For somebody to be onto us, it'd have to be the biggest coincidence in the world."
"So what are we doing?" Dace asked.
"A million bucks," I said. I thought about it. "We don't even know if we're the targets. If we are, and we can take the guy inside, we might find out what's going on. We haven't broken any serious laws yet. If we catch a guy in the place, and talk to him, we might find out exactly where we stand. And he might not be in there at all."
"We better move if we're gonna do it," LuEllen said. "I'd be surprised if he's in there for more than five minutes."
I shook my head. "That's if he's burglarizing the place. If he's tossing it, looking for something specific about us, or if he's putting in bugs, he'll be a little longer. Any ideas about that lookout?"
"Sure. I need a phone," LuEllen said.
There was a phone box on the side of a recreation center two blocks away. LuEllen called the cops and then came running back.
"I told them that the guy in the green van picked up a little girl outside the rec center and took her down the street," she said when she climbed back in the car. "They'll have a car here in a minute. That'd be a top priority call."
The squad car actually arrived less than a minute later. We waited on a side street. When the squad went by, I pulled around the block and went up an alley into the back entrance of the apartment parking lot. The cops had the van driver in the street.
"Dace, you wait here," I said over my shoulder. "If LuEllen doesn't come down in five minutes exactly, you get the cops up there."
"Why don't I come up?" he asked anxiously.
"I don't have time to argue," I said. LuEllen followed me into the building, and we took the steps to the second floor. At the door to the apartment, LuEllen put her finger to her lips, listened for a few seconds, then checked the door lock.
"Scratches," she said, pressing her lips close to my ear. "They weren't there before. They could come from an old-style automated lockpick."
"Can we get inside?" I whispered back.
"He'll hear us coming. If he's armed, we're in trouble."
"Will he take the elevator or the stairway?"
"Stairs."
"Let's go back there."
We walked back to the stairs and shut the steel fire door.
"You better go down and tell Dace we're okay," I said. "I'll wait here and try to take him when he comes through the door."
There was a small, mechanical sound from beyond the fire door. "Too late," LuEllen said. "He's coming."
"Shit. Get down the stairs, out of sight."
LuEllen scrambled down the concrete steps and stopped below the next landing. I stood behind the fire door and waited. If the person coming down the hall was one of the alleged hookers who frequented the place, or a Pentagon general, this would be embarrassing.
But it wasn't. The guy who came through the door was slender, anemic, with thin blond hair and pale, watery eyes. He was wearing coveralls and carrying the toolbox. He pushed the door open with his right hand and his body was into the doorway before he saw me. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, and I pivoted and kicked the door as hard as I could, a good solid karate-style thrust kick that smashed the steel door into his body and the side of his head.
His tool case fell. Its contents spilled over the landing as the door rebounded off him, and he half stumbled. I kicked a leg out from under him and rode him down to the concrete. He put out his hands to break his fall and I got a knee in his back and an arm around his throat.
"Fight and I'll break your fuckin' neck," I said. LuEllen had come back up the stairs, and I said, "Tell Dace." She turned to go, and froze: a rat-faced guy was on the landing. He had eyes like ball bearings and was pointing a small, black pistol at my forehead.
"Let him go, motherfucker," Ratface said. He had a high-pitched, ragged-edged voice like a chalk squeak, but there was nothing ragged or shaky about the black hole at the end of the pistol's barrel. It was cold and round and absolutely steady. I stood up and the guy beneath me got to his hands and knees, sobbing, saying, "Jesus Christ," scooping his gear back into his toolbox. Except for a few pairs of pliers, screwdrivers, and some black plastic tape, the equipment was all electrical, and mostly illegal.
"Who the fuck are you?" I asked Ratface. LuEllen looked like she was ready to make a move, but I put out a hand, and she relaxed.
"Shut up." The hole at the end of the barrel never wavered.
When the tech's box was packed, he stood up, shot me a fearful look, and scurried down the stairs past Ratface. The gunman backed down after him, the gun steady on my face.
"We're walking out," he said. "Don't come after us."
We heard the door slam below, then the fire door opened above us. Dace.
"What happened to you?" I asked him. "The second guy came in right on top of us with a gun."
"Christ, the cops talked to him for a couple seconds, and then they left. I mean, they just got in their car and drove away. About one second later this guy was running over here. I never had a chance to get in front of him; I was too far away. I took the elevator up; I was hoping that if you were inside, he'd stop in the stairwell and wait or something."
"How'd he get in the door?"
"Key," Dace said.
"Probably had keys to the outer door, but not to the apartment. That's how they got into the stairwell, too," LuEllen said. She looked at me. "We all fucked up, it's not Dace's fault."
I said, "Something's really fouled up. This guy wasn't a burglar, he was a wire man. And I can't believe that somebody's already on us. It must come out of Chicago."
In the apartment we packed, and I took the phones apart. They were bugged. The bugs were crude and so was the installation.
"He wasn't in here long enough to do much more," I said. "We could probably sweep the place and we'd be okay."
"Let's check Chicago," LuEllen said. She had packed everything she brought with her. She wasn't planning to come back.
We moved into a Holiday Inn for the night. When I called Chicago, Maggie was vehement about her security.