Read Online The Third Rail by Michael Harvey - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Harvey
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Crime, Private Investigators, Hard-Boiled, Chicago (Ill.), Criminal snipers
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got looser that much more quickly. An inexact science, with an inevitable result.
Nelson opened the case and took out one of the two bulbs stored inside. Carefully he screwed it in. One and one-half turns. The bulb was now, essentially, a timing device. Depending on how many trains rattled by, the bulb would loosen itself in anywhere from seven days to a couple ofweeks. Then it would fall and smash on the steel tracks below. Nelson held out his hand again, felt the oily breeze flowing across his fingertips, and looked up at the huge black vents connecting this section to the rest of the subway system. He climbed down the ladder and checked his watch. Robles was supposed to deliver the package at 2:00 a.m. Plenty of time. One more bulb down the line and Nelson would find a good place to hide, a good place from which to hunt.
CHAPTER 17
I opened my eyes and looked around my living room. The sound was small, but certain. I tapped a key on my sleeping computer. The screen pulsed in the dark: 2:06 a.m. I picked up my gun because it felt like the thing to do, walked to my front door, and considered the thin bar of light peeking out from underneath. Then I opened the door. Sitting in the hallway was a plain brown package, no name on it, wrapped in string. I padded down the hall to a small window looking out over Lakewood. The street was empty. I took the stairs softly, found nothing in the lobby, even less in the basement. I went back upstairs, checking each floor in turn. Whoever my messenger was, he was no longer in the building.
I had left the front door ajar. Maggie was in the hall, sniffing at the package.
"Something to eat, Mags?"
She gave me a hopeful look and went back inside. I followed. The package felt like a book. I cut the string and found it to be exactly that. A copy of the
Iliad
. I opened it up and found the poem's opening lines highlighted and circled:
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus's son Achilles and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaeans ...
I felt around inside the package and found two more items. The first was a cardboard cutout of a train on a black set of tracks, running across a background of yellow. The second was a small map of a subway system, with a key taped to it and an address attached. I took a long look at the map and then jumped on the computer. Twenty minutes later, I was driving through Chicago's sleeping streets, brown package on the front seat beside me.
I HELD A FLASHLIGHT in one hand and my gun in the other. The address attached to the key had taken me to the corner of Clinton and Congress. The key opened a CTA access door tucked under the Ike, near the Clinton L station. A couple sets of stairs and a long ramp brought me to a second door and a run of tracks somewhere in Chicago's subway system. The room itself felt vast. Dull ribbons of steel ran off ahead of me. A string of lights kept the dark canopy above me nailed in place.
I found a wall and moved along its edge until I came to a small alcove formed by two concrete pillars. I stepped just inside and crouched, spreading my map on the ground. Best I could tell, the door I had passed through was marked with a star. Due east was a second spot, marked on the map with a black X and the word BODY in blue Magic Marker.
I put the map away, took out my gun again, and nudged forward. I'd expected the L's thunder, imagined maybe even havingto duck a couple of trains, but the place was quiet. As if to underscore the point, a low rumble drifted in and away. I stayed close to the wall, my light playing on the steel to my right. Chicago's trains were powered by an electrified third rail, six hundred volts of direct current. I'd try to keep a healthy distance.
Thirty yards farther, I saw the body. It had been dumped in the middle of a rail bed. I stepped carefully across the tracks and squatted close. The woman was wrapped in plastic, dressed in jeans and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt. Her hands were taped behind
Nelson opened the case and took out one of the two bulbs stored inside. Carefully he screwed it in. One and one-half turns. The bulb was now, essentially, a timing device. Depending on how many trains rattled by, the bulb would loosen itself in anywhere from seven days to a couple ofweeks. Then it would fall and smash on the steel tracks below. Nelson held out his hand again, felt the oily breeze flowing across his fingertips, and looked up at the huge black vents connecting this section to the rest of the subway system. He climbed down the ladder and checked his watch. Robles was supposed to deliver the package at 2:00 a.m. Plenty of time. One more bulb down the line and Nelson would find a good place to hide, a good place from which to hunt.
CHAPTER 17
I opened my eyes and looked around my living room. The sound was small, but certain. I tapped a key on my sleeping computer. The screen pulsed in the dark: 2:06 a.m. I picked up my gun because it felt like the thing to do, walked to my front door, and considered the thin bar of light peeking out from underneath. Then I opened the door. Sitting in the hallway was a plain brown package, no name on it, wrapped in string. I padded down the hall to a small window looking out over Lakewood. The street was empty. I took the stairs softly, found nothing in the lobby, even less in the basement. I went back upstairs, checking each floor in turn. Whoever my messenger was, he was no longer in the building.
I had left the front door ajar. Maggie was in the hall, sniffing at the package.
"Something to eat, Mags?"
She gave me a hopeful look and went back inside. I followed. The package felt like a book. I cut the string and found it to be exactly that. A copy of the
Iliad
. I opened it up and found the poem's opening lines highlighted and circled:
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus's son Achilles and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaeans ...
I felt around inside the package and found two more items. The first was a cardboard cutout of a train on a black set of tracks, running across a background of yellow. The second was a small map of a subway system, with a key taped to it and an address attached. I took a long look at the map and then jumped on the computer. Twenty minutes later, I was driving through Chicago's sleeping streets, brown package on the front seat beside me.
I HELD A FLASHLIGHT in one hand and my gun in the other. The address attached to the key had taken me to the corner of Clinton and Congress. The key opened a CTA access door tucked under the Ike, near the Clinton L station. A couple sets of stairs and a long ramp brought me to a second door and a run of tracks somewhere in Chicago's subway system. The room itself felt vast. Dull ribbons of steel ran off ahead of me. A string of lights kept the dark canopy above me nailed in place.
I found a wall and moved along its edge until I came to a small alcove formed by two concrete pillars. I stepped just inside and crouched, spreading my map on the ground. Best I could tell, the door I had passed through was marked with a star. Due east was a second spot, marked on the map with a black X and the word BODY in blue Magic Marker.
I put the map away, took out my gun again, and nudged forward. I'd expected the L's thunder, imagined maybe even havingto duck a couple of trains, but the place was quiet. As if to underscore the point, a low rumble drifted in and away. I stayed close to the wall, my light playing on the steel to my right. Chicago's trains were powered by an electrified third rail, six hundred volts of direct current. I'd try to keep a healthy distance.
Thirty yards farther, I saw the body. It had been dumped in the middle of a rail bed. I stepped carefully across the tracks and squatted close. The woman was wrapped in plastic, dressed in jeans and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt. Her hands were taped behind
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