The Dead Key Part 24

He left Iris staring blindly at the desk while what was left of a dead person lay in the next room. The body had been there all along. Every minute she'd spent in the room, a pile of death had been rotting not ten feet away. She shuddered in her chair. The shadow of a moth flickered outside the window blinds. She stared at it blankly for what could have been hours, unable to bring her mind back.

Sirens rang out in the distance on the street below. She blinked. The police were coming. Ramone had told her to take what she needed. She numbly took an inventory of the desk. It was all company stuff she couldn't care less about. She grabbed her schematic floor plans. She'd worked hard on those. She grabbed her field bag. She looked for her purse for several minutes, until her addled brain remembered it was down in the loading dock with her car. But where were her car keys? She needed her car keys to get home.

Her field bag was full of keys, but none were the ones she needed. Keys to the vault, keys to the building, they were all wrong. She had to get home. She couldn't stay here-not tonight, not another minute. She had to get home.

Iris sprung up from the chair on the verge of hysterics. She smeared the tears across her face, searching the desk and floor for her car keys. It wasn't until she felt a sore spot on her rear end that she thought to check her pockets. They were there. They clinked together as she gripped them in her hand. The metallic clink she'd heard in the bathroom rang out again in her ears. It had come from a small bronze key. She looked down at her shaking hands. It was gone.

She turned her head toward the open door.

On the far wall inside the dead man's room, she could make out the edge of the metal grille of the air vent next to the toilet. Its iron frame cast an odd shadow against the wall tiles, as if it had been pried open ever so slightly. She inched closer to the broken door. The mounting screws for the grille were missing, leaving two empty holes along its edge. The vent was large enough to crawl through. She could hear a voice from the air shaft whisper, "Iris . . ."

Shut up. Iris tore her eyes from the vent and scanned the ground. Where did it go? A dead fly drifted into view. Oh G.o.d. She nearly threw up again. She pressed her back to the wall and slid down, burying her head in her knees, trying to breathe. Something s.h.i.+ny glinted from the carpet at her feet. Inches from her vomit. She squeezed her eyes shut and reached out with her hand until she felt cold metal.

She sucked in a breath and opened her eyes. It was the key.

CHAPTER 46.

Monday, December 11, 1978 It was too late to go back to the bank. Beatrice had no choice but to spend the night in the hospital lobby. The seating area outside Admitting was deserted. She found a bench in the corner and slumped down under the fluorescent lights. She didn't bother closing her eyes. She couldn't possibly sleep after seeing Max. She gazed at the small bronze key in the palm of her hand. There was no writing on either side. It could be the key to anything-a gym locker, a small safe, a motel room. It was a secret, and Max had told her to keep it safe.

Max had dyed her hair and was wearing oversized clothes. She was hiding. She said the hospital was being watched. The signature of R. T. Halloran in the ICU register scrawled itself across Beatrice's mind. An "uncle" had come to visit Doris the week before.

"Doris was different . . ." That's what Max had said. "She had her key."

Beatrice was pulling the safe deposit box key from her purse when she heard an elevator bell ring. At the other end of the lobby, s.h.i.+ny metal doors slid open, and a man in a brown suit stepped out. His gray sideburns and thick waist reminded her of Bill Thompson. She hid her face behind her purse. He turned without looking her way and headed out the hospital doors. She watched him leave and tried to guess from his gait if it was Bill. She couldn't be sure.

Max had said they were watching the room. It then occurred to Beatrice that they might be watching her too. Bill, Teddy, or whoever "they" were could be watching her right then. She was sitting there in the open lobby, surrounded by windows and holding Max's key.

Beatrice stood up with a jolt. She gathered her things and rushed out the front door of the hospital. A taxicab was parked near the hospital entrance with its light on. She jumped in the backseat and slammed the door.

"Wha-?" the cabbie muttered as he was jerked awake. He cleared his throat and looked at her in the rearview mirror. "Uh, sorry. Where to, miss?"

She stared blankly at the dashboard. Its clock read 12:05 a.m. "Um . . . the Theatrical Grille, Ninth and Vincent," she blurted without thinking it through. The bar would be closing soon, and then what?

Christmas lights twinkled from the lampposts as the cab headed downtown. She'd almost forgotten it was nearly Christmas. The lights faded as the car turned down Chester and entered the broken-down Hough neighborhood. Its sidewalks and streets were bleak and empty. A shadow of a person trudged across the snow outside her window, then faded away behind a chain-link fence.

When she arrived at the bar, Carmichael sat alone behind the counter, reading the paper. The rest of the place had cleared out on a Monday night. He looked up at the door and smiled under his thick black mustache.

"Beatrice! How nice to see you," he said, waving her over.

She smiled sheepishly and took a seat at the bar. She was exhausted.

"What in the world is a beautiful girl like you doing down here at this time a night all alone?"

She had no idea. "It's kind of a long story. Could I get a cup of tea?"

"Of course!" He began searching behind the bar for a mug. "A pretty girl like you needs to be more careful."

"You're right. Um . . . I'll be right back." She stood up and walked hastily to the ladies' room in the corner. Once she was alone in a locked stall, she pulled out Max's key from her change purse. Its blank face rested in the palm of her hand like a question mark. Why didn't Max just hide it herself? She could have given it to anyone, but for some reason Max wanted her to have it. Her eyes circled the bathroom stall. Where would she even hide it?

Sighing, Beatrice slid the faceless key onto her own key ring right next to her aunt's bewildering safe deposit box key. Her breath caught as they clinked together. They were nearly identical. Beatrice held them up to the light. They were the same size and shape. Doris's key had a full inscription for the bank and the box number, while Max's key was blank. But they matched. They were both from the bank. She frowned at the blank key, more puzzled than before.

She stuffed them back in her purse and tried to focus on the more pressing question of where she was going to sleep that night. There were no good options.

After what must have been a suspiciously long time in a bathroom, she finally headed back to the bar to drink the warm tea Carmichael had made for her. She nodded in grat.i.tude at him but avoided looking him in the eye. He took the hint and went back to his paper.

If only there was a way to get back into the bank, she mused. It was too late to make up a story about having left something behind. The doors were locked. Then it occurred to her that she probably had the key.

Max's keys were still hiding at the bottom of Beatrice's purse. There were at least thirty keys on the ring. She gulped her tea and left a pile of coins on the counter for Carmichael.

"Thanks, I needed that."

He glanced up from the sports section. "You want for me to call you a cab?"

"Oh, no thanks. I'll be fine."

He frowned, and his eyes followed her as she left the bar.

Icy winds howled down Euclid Avenue. The street was deserted. Even the homeless had found warmer places to huddle for the night. Traffic lights flashed red as she hurried across the empty road. The bank tower where she worked was just a shadow overhead. Its windows were dark, all of them except two on the top floor. She stared at the lonely lights and wondered who could possibly be working at this hour.

She slinked toward the three revolving doors that led to the main lobby of the bank. The front room was dark. There were no signs of a guard at the security desk, but she kept her distance and her face hidden until she was certain the lobby was empty. She looked down both sides of Euclid Avenue. There wasn't a soul or a car in sight, only the blinking Christmas lights. She stepped up to the one side door in the storefront and pulled out Max's keys.

She crouched, trying keys one after the other for what seemed like an eternity. Every rustle of stray newspapers and creak of the streetlights made her heart race faster. Her hot breath fogged the gla.s.s door as she struggled with frozen-stiff fingers to find the right one. Glancing up into the lobby, she was terrified someone would hear the rattle of the key ring against the doorframe. It was still deserted.

A key finally slid into the lock. She held her breath and turned it; the dead bolt slid open and the door swung free.

Beatrice gently pushed the door open and waited. Sirens did not sound. Men with guns did not come running. She shut the door behind her and turned the lock. The lobby floor was streaked with long shadows, and she hid in one of them, listening. She slipped out of her boots and ran in stocking feet to the marble stairs behind the elevators. She took them two at a time, carrying her dripping boots in one hand and her jingling purse in the other. She didn't stop running until she was through the second floor and back to the emergency stair tower.

Beatrice silently closed the emergency exit door and sat down on the landing to catch her breath. Her heart was fluttering like a rabbit's, and her legs were quaking. She couldn't believe what she'd just done. She must be crazy. She put her head between her knees to keep from hyperventilating.

Once her head felt steady, she gazed up at the endless spiral of stairs. She took a deep breath and got back on her feet. It was a long way up.

After five flights of climbing, she still had quite a way to go. Her legs burned. She gripped the railing and took a rest.

A door slammed several stories up, sending a shock wave down the stairwell. Beatrice sucked in a yelp and backed against a wall. She could hear faint voices overhead.

"I don't care what Teddy says. We have to think about relocating the accounts now. The boxes aren't secure."

"It's a temporary glitch. Let's not overreact."

"Keys are missing. The mole hunt is a bust, and we've lost our inside man. This is not a glitch. We have got to move the accounts now before the s.h.i.+t hits the fan."

"What s.h.i.+t exactly?"

"The board isn't ruling out dissolution . . ."

The voices faded, and Beatrice heard another door close. She stared up after them, still frozen to the wall. Mr. Halloran had mentioned something about a mole. When he asked her to spy on Max, he said he was looking for "someone who's trying to sabotage the company from within." But the mole hunt was a bust. The inside man had been lost. What did that mean? She slowly counted to twenty before having the stomach to keep climbing.

She stayed close to the wall as she tiptoed up the rest of the stairs, rus.h.i.+ng past every doorway. The winding stairs spun over her head around and around, until she was dizzy. She grabbed the doork.n.o.b to the eleventh floor to steady herself. Pulling it open, she poked her head out into the corridor. It was perfectly dark and still. She exhaled a sigh and staggered back to the corner office where she slept, wobbly from the climb. She pushed the door to her hiding place open, ready to collapse.

A security guard was crouched on the floor. He held a flashlight and one of her files. A small cry caught in her throat, and she crumpled to her knees. It was Ramone.

She was caught.

CHAPTER 47.

"How do you know Max?" The security guard was holding Max's personnel file. It was the one Beatrice had stolen from the third floor.

Beatrice couldn't find her voice.

He had Max's picture in his hand. "You know you weren't foolin' n.o.body when you said you was her the other night."

Blood was pumping through her at a dizzying pace. She stayed crouched next to the door, clutching the handle.

"Relax. I've been watching you for days. If I wanted to have you arrested, I would have done it already." He waved his hand at her like they were old friends.

Her brain struggled to process the words. He didn't want her arrested. But they were alone in the middle of the night, she had broken the law, and she was completely at his mercy. She instinctively clutched her coat.

"How do you know Max?" he asked again, showing Beatrice the picture he was holding.

"She was my . . . friend," she said slowly, unsure how to even think of Max now.

"She's my friend too," Ramone said, and tucked the picture back in the file. "We grew up together. She helped me get this job. Or at least she told me about it . . . 'Arrest on sight' . . . She's in some real s.h.i.+t now, boy."

Beatrice nodded in agreement and felt her shoulders relax a little. If Max was friends with Ramone, maybe she could trust him. But then again Max had once trusted Bill. From under her lowered lashes, she eyed Ramone's blue collared s.h.i.+rt, worn-out shoes, and dark brown hands. She knew what her mother would think just looking at his skin, but Beatrice searched Ramone's eyes for a threat and found none. They looked worried. He cared about Max.

"She's missing," Beatrice whispered.

"Yeah." Ramone lit a cigarette. "I told her not to go messin' with this s.h.i.+t. She wouldn't listen to me."

"What was she messing with?"

"Big money, man, big money. You go messin' with people that have that kind of money, there's no way you gonna win. I told her that. These bankers here ain't no different than anybody else. They lie, they cheat, they steal. Difference is, they don't get caught. They got the system tied up." Ramone took a hard drag off his cigarette and blew out a thick cloud of smoke. "Max kept talking about bringing people to justice and going to the police. Man, there's no justice. Not in Cleveland anyway. Probably not anywhere."

He was right. Teddy and Jim's conversation about bribes replayed in her head. Even Tony admitted that the police department might be compromised. The money men had friends on city council, and they would be protected.

"She's worried that they're going to try to blame her."

"How they gonna do that exactly?" Ramone demanded, glaring at her.

Beatrice instinctively shrunk away. He might care about Max, but that didn't mean he was above getting angry or possibly violent. Beatrice breathed the wave of panic out slowly. He'd been watching her for days, and if he had wanted to harm her, he could have easily done it already. She was going to have to trust him.

"There's a safe deposit box with her name on it. I think someone has been stas.h.i.+ng stolen money and other things in there. I really don't know how it all works." Beatrice paused. "She's not the only one. It happened to my Aunt Doris too."

Ramone stared at her for a long moment and rubbed his eyes. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h. Well, that explains some things."

"Like what?"

"Like why Max wanted me to make copies of some keys. Like why she was always asking about the vault. Why I caught her red-handed in there at three in the morning the other night." He paused. "She didn't know it was me, so she ran off. I tried to catch up, but I lost her in the tunnels. I haven't seen her since."

Beatrice thought of the huge ring of keys she'd found in the ladies' room. Maybe Max hadn't stolen them. Maybe Ramone had made copies of the keys. "I saw her tonight. She's okay. She was in disguise."

"Disguise?" Relief seemed to wash over him.

"Her hair and clothes were different. She looked awful." She paused, trying to process everything Ramone had said. Max had been in the vault. "Did you say something about tunnels?"

"Yeah, there are old steam tunnels under the building. They connect to all sorts of places downtown." Ramone studied her closely for a moment, his eyes hardening. "If you're gonna keep stayin' here, you need to find a better way to get in and out of the building. I don't know what you was thinkin' using the front door."

Her little mouth fell open. He'd seen her. He'd been watching the door. "Can you help me?"

"Help you do what exactly? Why you here?"

"I didn't have anywhere else to go." She couldn't hold back the tears and hid her face. "I don't know if I can help Max, but my aunt's involved too, and . . . and she's dying, and I can't just leave her. Men from the bank are watching her hospital room. They destroyed her house, and I can't go back."

A huge hand shook her gently by the shoulder. "Okay, okay. I'll help you, but you can't just hang around here forever. You need to figure out a plan. You need to find a way out for good."

She nodded at him, and he helped her stand up.

"First off, what's your real name?"

"Beatrice." She wiped her eyes.

"Okay, Beatrice. I'm Ramone." He shook her hand gently. "I'll help you find your way in and out of the building. I'm not going to ask how you got Max's keys, and I'm not going to tell anyone you're here. But you listen to me."

"Yes?" she asked obediently.

"Stay away from the big money men, okay? You can't win."

CHAPTER 48.