The fourth door that Boldt tried failed to open, and his flashlight revealed a shiny new hasp and padlock at head height. He whistled once, and LaMoia whistled back, and at the same instant a muffled voice came from the other side of the door, and Boldt felt his bowels rumble. When it came to victims, Homicide cops rarely dealt in the living.
The muffled cries continued from the other side of the door.
“You feel the shake and bake?” LaMoia asked in a forced whisper, coming up behind Boldt.
“I did,” Boldt said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves before tugging on the lock.
“Visitors?”
“We knew it was a possibility.” Boldt added, “It could be our own guys trying to catch up to us and update us on Foreman’s status.”
LaMoia nonchalantly located a section of pipe amid the debris as they talked, leveraged the lock and hasp, and split the wooden doorjamb as the screws pulled loose and the hasp gave way. Still locked to itself, the hardware hung from the door. Boldt twisted the doorknob and eased the door open an eighth of an inch, aware there could be trip wires rigged to an explosive or incendiary device. If the work of Foreman, as an investigator he knew to destroy evidence and leave a few surprises for visitors. LaMoia leaned in close as Boldt held the door, and without a word of instruction searched the open space carefully with his flashlight held to the crack.
“Nada,” he said.
Boldt pushed the door open another two inches, and LaMoia reached inside this time, his fingers gently inspecting the gap. He shook his head. “No.”
Both men paused as they heard the unmistakable sound of someone entering the building upstairs.
LaMoia whispered, “You did lock the door behind you, right, Sarge?”
Boldt nodded. “Whoever’s up there had the key.”
“Not our guys,” LaMoia said, trying it out as a joke, or releasing tension, or both. The flip remark bothered Boldt, who pushed and held the door open another three inches, allowing LaMoia’s head to fit through. LaMoia sized up the room’s interior, still looking for booby traps.
“It’s Hayes,” he said softly. “Looks in decent shape.”
“The door?”
“Clear,” LaMoia said, tapping Boldt’s hand and swinging it open further.
Boldt glanced only briefly to confirm it was Hayes. The man was gagged and bound to a metal chair in a room filled with cluttered shelves. His left hand had been roughly bandaged and his mouth and face looked bruised and swollen.
“What about our friends?” LaMoia asked.
“Exits?” Boldt asked. He slipped past LaMoia, leaving him to guard the room. He freed Hayes but did not untie the man’s mouth, unsure whether the man would keep silent.
He heard footfalls overhead and guessed there were at least two of them. He didn’t need or want a confrontation where the prize was a man capable of delivering seventeen million dollars. Those kinds of stakes made men stupid, and stupid men did stupid things.
“I passed one, yeah,” LaMoia informed him, “though I can’t vouch for it.”
“Let’s go.” Boldt pulled Hayes out of the chair by the arm. The man stumbled under cramped legs, and LaMoia stepped inside and took the other arm. The room smelled of excrement and urine, and Boldt realized Hayes had fouled himself long before.
“Motherfucker,” LaMoia said, getting a close whiff as the man came out of the chair.
They guided Hayes through the door, his weight hanging between them like that of an invalid. Boldt saw the first sweep of light on the stairs and motioned LaMoia to lead them. They turned and hurried down an aisle created between the stacks of industrial junk. Boldt could feel the pressure of whoever was back there, knowing they drew closer with every step. He shook his hand vigorously, pointing ahead, trying to pick up their speed, and LaMoia responded by carrying more than his fair share of the weight.
LaMoia steered left at the end of the long aisle.
Boldt checked behind him to see through the tangle of metal what appeared to be two lights. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs and now faced the same indecision that he and LaMoia had faced only minutes before. One light went left, and one right, in a mirror image. Boldt looked ahead hoping for an exit sign, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. LaMoia trained his light toward the concrete floor, as did Boldt, all three of their heads aimed down in order to overstep obstacles and avoid making noise.
The visitor on the left turned the same corner that Boldt had, and when he called out, it was in what sounded like Russian, and Boldt felt his legs suddenly move that much faster. He didn’t consider himself scared of anyone; he’d spent too many years on the job for that-they were usually afraid of him-and yet the sound of that particular language, associated with all means and methods of violence, turned his blood cold and he experienced a pang of fear. LaMoia, no coward to anyone or anything, picked up his pace as well. Perhaps it resulted from the burden of Hayes carried between them, and their vulnerability, but whatever the motivation, they moved in unison. Even Hayes seemed to find his feet with the first echo of that foreign tongue. The three reached a rusted steel door bearing an emergency warning not to open it, and Boldt wondered if it was to be their luck that the one thing that still worked in this building was the emergency exit alarm built into the box attached to the door.
No matter what, their attempt to open this door promised to make noise: Old, rusty steel didn’t move quietly. Presently subterranean, they had to hope the stairwell-that presumably led up into an alley-was not also piled with debris, either blocking the door or preventing them from climbing out once through.
LaMoia checked with Boldt in the dim light, his right hand on the door’s panic bar. He was looking for permission from Boldt, and with the moment of truth at hand, Boldt wondered if this was indeed the best course of action. Without a doubt, their departure would attract attention. To do so unnecessarily seemed a ridiculous risk to take. But as the light to the right flickered and died, far closer to their aisle than Boldt had imagined, he gave the nod and LaMoia shoved on the tarnished panic bar.
The door came open with a horror-movie groan of metal on metal, not merely calling attention, but shouting. LaMoia swung it open, and it stuck. He let go of Hayes, threw a shoulder into it, and won enough room for them to pass. The shouting from behind also rose in Russian, followed immediately by hurried footfalls. Boldt, the last to pass through, braced himself for the sting of a bullet, or the pain of a club to his head.
LaMoia awaited him with a bent and battered discarded trash can that looked like an oversized crushed beer can. He rudely knocked Boldt out of the way and braced the can beneath the door’s outside handle, wedging the door shut.
They hurried up the stairs, the first loud bang on the door and the agonized sound of the trash can’s tin bending. Boldt didn’t like the idea of running from thugs, and he knew without asking that LaMoia felt the same. The thing to do was ditch Hayes and stand their ground and make arrests based on breaking-and-entering. But if these two were backed by two more, if SPD backup failed to arrive quickly, with seventeen million on the line, things could get dicey.
“So?” LaMoia asked hopefully, nowhere near as out of breath as Boldt felt.
“We can’t,” Boldt said.
Hayes got his feet under him and no longer needed much assistance. His mouth remained gagged, silver tape holding the gag in place. Bug-eyed he shouted to communicate but neither Boldt nor LaMoia was interested.
“Where to?” LaMoia asked.
“The Slumberjack,” Boldt proposed, naming a run-of-the-mill motel that SPD used occasionally.
“Lucky you,” LaMoia said, forcibly taking hold of Hayes now by his collar and throwing him ahead to keep him moving. “Free HBO and the taxpayer pays.”