Kiss of the Blue Dragon (11 page)

I pulled back, feigning boredom, but not fast enough. Bogie slipped back in the room and caught the tail end of our lip lock.

Marco grinned. “Uh-oh. Here comes your leading man.” He looked down and winked at me, then gently chucked my chin with a fist. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

I smiled, then shook my head as I watched him spin around and leave. So he
had
seen the movie. Damn, that man was playing me like a fiddle.

Marco nodded to Bogie on his way out. The dapper AutoMate sauntered my way. “So who was that?”

“That was trouble,” I said. “Big trouble. With a capital T.”

Cosmo the Magnificent

B
y the time Mike and I left the bar, it was dark outside. As we walked toward the Southport station, I gave him a good tongue-lashing for taking Marco into his confidence. Mike took it with his usual serene expression. I had absolutely no idea what he was thinking, but I didn’t think he was listening.

He clearly trusted Marco. Part of me felt betrayed and part of me was relieved. His confidence in Marco made me feel like I wasn’t being a total idiot. As for swooning in Marco’s arms, what was
that
all about? I couldn’t think about that now.

Just before we reached the station, my lapel phone buzzed. I popped it in my ear.

“Baker here. You’ve got thirty seconds and it better be good.”

“Angel, it’s Hank. Whatever you’re doing, stop and listen.”

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pressed the button more firmly in my ear. “Shoot.”

“Jon called. He was able to make contact with his family. They’ll be looking out for you just north of the Addison station.”

Jon gave us directions to a secret entrance that fed into the underground. That meant we wouldn’t have to start all the way downtown and work our way north. It beat the heck out of meandering through miles of abandoned subway tunnels hoping we wouldn’t run into a band of Shadowmen trotting by in their jack boots. Best of all, the entrance was within walking distance of my apartment.

I thanked Hank profusely and turned to Mike as I pulled the button out of my ear and hung up. “Things are looking up, Mikey. Who would have thunk it? The moles’ secret north side entrance is in the old Cubs stadium. Right under our noses.”

The original home of the Cubs was built in 1914. It was a cozy, natural grass park with low seating close to the diamond and had retained its old-world charm to the end. Now it was a deteriorating relic etching the skyline, a fond memento like the Coliseum in Rome, minus the cats.

The Chicago Cubs baseball team abandoned the site in 2095, moving to TerraForma stadium that floated on Lake Michigan. The team owners said, in essence, build a new stadium and we will come—
or we move to Bali. Mayor Richard J. Daley VI cried uncle and the city financed the project.

Personally, I don’t think the city should have subsidized billionaire players, especially since the team hasn’t won a pennant since 1908. You can only hold your breath so long. But no one asked me. Naturally, the new stadium cost a fortune. The only people who can afford tickets are rich, which is convenient since most of them have yachts they can ride out to the stadium.

So the old bleacher bums who used to get drunk in the outfield and Wrigleyville locals who used to catch a game in the afternoon now come here to reminisce. For the cost of a beer, you can sit in what remains of the stadium and listen to a play-by-play of the division playoffs when the Cubbies had a real shot at victory.

We entered what remained of the oval concrete perimeter on the west side. Baseball fans filed in and out as if a real night game was going on. My heart tripped with excitement when I saw the floodlights filling the great, green oval space that contained the diamond.

I couldn’t resist going up the ramp to get a good look at the action. There was a big crowd, except along the east side, where the seating had crumbled beyond repair. Hundreds of fans ate hot dogs and pretzels, drank beer and soda. They all stared at the empty, brightly lit field as if a game were going on. In their minds’ eyes it was. When the announcer—a Harry Caray hologram—exuberantly shouted “And it’s out of the park!” the crowd jumped to its feet, whooping and hollering in victory.

Mike came up beside me, tucking his entwined hands neatly in the folds of his monk’s robe. He regarded the imaginary game and shook his head, muttering, “Only in America.”

I grinned at him. “You love it and you know it. Come on, let’s go get some cotton candy.”

We wandered back down to the area where there used to be row after row of permanent vendors selling overpriced beer and pretzels and the usual stadium fare. Decades of dust and grime coated the empty stalls and counters, giving it the feel of a ghost town. The action was now in the middle of the wide walkway, where the same kinds of food and souvenirs were sold relatively cheaply at kiosks and rickety tables.

“Step right up, get your all-beef frank, Chicago-style,” called a balding guy dressed in retro bebop. As we walked past, he stepped in front of Mike and practically shoved a hot dog in his face. “Hey, Kung Fu, you hungry?”

“Don’t eat meat, fool,” Mike said. He lifted his arm in a defensive martial arts move and the dog went flying out of the bun. Luckily, it landed back in the vendor’s portable stand. Not so luckily, it splashed his 1950s guitar shirt with greasy water.

“Hey! Easy, man, I’m just trying to make a living.”

“Sorry,” I mouthed to him from behind Mike’s back. “Let’s keep going.”

We wandered past a clown who sold glow-in-the-dark bracelets, an earth mother in tie-dye selling baseball caps and a macrobiotic vendor
who sold brown rice shaped like wieners and hamburgers.

The array was endless. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Jon told Hank the secret passageway was here, but he didn’t exactly give me an address and key. I suppose he trusted I’d figure it out.

From the corner of my eye I noticed a magician in dark sunglasses. He wore a classic silk cape and top hat. He had a big black box, about the size of an upright coffin, apparently used for disappearing acts. He also had a pretty assistant in a tight, sequined outfit. I nudged Mike out of the flow of foot traffic and tugged him toward the magician, who worked under a banner that read Cosmo’s Magic Emporium. “We gotta check this out.”

When I got a closer look at the operation, I realized why business was slow. A sign written in bright red print announced that Cosmo the Magnificent charged a hundred dollars to make people disappear. Small print further explained it would take another grand to reappear. So a ten-minute magic trick would cost eleven hundred smackers, unless you were a masochist who enjoyed being trapped inside the false back of the rigged box. Used to grifters as I was, I had to admire the guy for his chutzpah.

“I want to do it,” I whispered to Mike. “I want to see how he makes me disappear.”

He frowned at me. “You nuts? We keep looking for secret door.”

“I always begged Lola to take me to a magic act, but she never would. She thought magicians were beneath her.”

Just then I got lucky. A family of four, munching caramel corn, strolled up to Cosmo’s Magic Emporium. The father looked like a corporate executive. He had gray hair at his temples, tasseled loafers, a crisp sport coat and a striped open-necked shirt and polished fingernails. And this was obviously his slacker wear. He forked over his cash chip to Cosmo’s assistant and his two giggling daughters went into the box.

“I’m scared, Daddy,” one of the girls giggled.

“It’s okay, honey. You’ll be fine.”

I was as fascinated by the impeccably dressed guy and his perfectly coiffed wife as I was by the magic act. These people obviously came from the suburbs. This was probably their night out to mingle with the common folk.

“You are about to witness, ladies and gentleman, an act so amazing that you will remember it for the rest of your life!” Cosmo began with a patter that he’d obviously given a thousand times before.

As he promised miracles and amazement, his assistant went around to the back of the box, proving my theory that she would help the girls step into a back exit space in time to amaze their parents. It was all a hoax.

“Come, Baker,” Mike whispered. “We must find the entrance. Forget stupid magic trick.”

“Shh-hh. Just a minute.” I smiled as the girls tried to hold back their laughter. Cosmo pulled off the act quickly and flawlessly. When he opened the box to reveal its emptiness, the parents pretended to be surprised and worried about their missing children.
Cosmo reversed the routine before the children became impatient and—
voilà!
—there they were again. The girls rushed out of the tight box, hugged their parents and off they went, excitedly describing their adventure.

“How about you, madam?” Cosmo said, eyeing me almost seductively. “Would you like to know the secrets of the unknown?”

“Not really,” I replied. “The less I know, the better. But I would like to see you make me disappear.”

“Baker!” Mike said.

“Ah, but you don’t seem like a woman who shies away from the truth,” Cosmo murmured, turning so I couldn’t see Mike’s disapproving frown. “A whole world exists inside this box. A world that not many get to see.” He lowered his sunglasses over his nose, as Jon had yesterday, and pierced me with hugely dilated eyes. “A world not many
want
to see.”

At last I understood why a penny-ante street magician would set his prices so high almost no one would ask to see his trick. He was Emerald City’s northside gatekeeper. I turned and gave Mike the thumbs-up sign. “Okay, Cosmo the Magnificent, how do we do this?”

He pushed his glasses up his nose and broke into a broad grin. “One at a time.” When I pulled out my wallet, he waved his white-gloved hands. “No need, madam. I only charge idiots who insist on a real magic trick. My other services are gratis. I’ve been waiting for you.”

He helped me into the tall rectangle and leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed, talking
fast like an airplane flight attendant. “Hold on to the handrails on either side. When the door slides out from under you, don’t panic. Look down and get a glimpse of the ladder. Move down slow until you get your footing, then go fast. The trick floor stays open only fifteen seconds. Be ready or you’ll fall on your derriere. But it’s only an eight-foot drop, so either way you’ll survive. Any questions? No? Good.”

He dusted his hands as if he’d just completed a difficult task.

“See you in a few. I hope.” I gave Mike a little wave and grabbed the side handles as instructed.

Everything went as Cosmo had said it would. The door slid slowly open, I lowered myself until my foot caught on the top rung of the ladder leading down into the underground, and I quickly climbed down the ladder until I found myself standing upright in an oval tunnel that was surprisingly well lit.

What didn’t go as planned was the arrival party. Just as the trick door closed overhead, I felt a shadow crawl over my shoulder and turned to find one very tall and mean-looking sonofabitch looming over me. His skin was pale but covered in ash. He had long black hair held tight to his skull in a black nylon do-rag and muscles that wouldn’t quit. One huge fist curled around a nasty-looking steel pipe with dried blood on the tip.

“Uh, hi.” I looked up with a weak grin. “Let me guess. You’re a Shadowman.”

He grunted and nodded slowly. Quite the conversationalist.

“Well, my name is—” Before I could even finish the sentence he cut me off.

“I know who you are. You’re Dead Meat.”

The Cyclops

I
n a blaze of adrenaline, I twisted sideways and rammed my heel in his groin. When he doubled over, I uppercut my fist into his nose. The impact sent a jolt of pain through my shoulder. When he reeled back, I brought him down with a leaping roundhouse kick to the head.

Mike dropped down from the hatch above and immediately jumped into a dragon pose, ready to strike if the crumpled heap rose once more. “Who is it?”

“A Shadowman,” I replied, panting. I wiped the blood from his nose off my knuckles. “I struck before he could. These guys are like animals. They kill for fun. And they don’t usually travel alone.” I looked in
either direction. “We better get moving. But which way?”

I wished I had the crystal ball. I had no clue. No hunches. Not even a gut instinct.
Use your skills,
Marco had said. But how? I was like a natural golfer who takes her first lesson and suddenly becomes self-conscious and forgets how to swing. So, I resorted to my failsafe: eenie, meanie, minie, moe.

Pointing right, I said, “This way.”

“No,” the dirty brute said as he struggled to recover his breath. He put his forearms on the ground to try to push himself up.

I drew back my foot to wallop him in the gut, but Mike held me back. “Hold off. Listen to him.”

“Don’t go that way,” the guy said as he pressed a fist to his bleeding nose. He looked at us with urgency. “The Shadowmen have a substation south of here. Go north two hundred yards and duck through to the right.”

I knelt down beside him and looked into intelligent eyes. “Who are you?”

“Officer Erik Roper,” he said hoarsely. “Chicago P.D.”

My mouth dropped open. “Some disguise. I thought you were threatening me.”

“No,” he said on a moan, “I was warning you that you’d be dead if you didn’t get out of here fast. The Shadows aren’t far behind me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Undercover ops. I was assigned to follow your tracker.”

“How? My tracker isn’t live.”

“Detective Marco said you wouldn’t bother to engage, so he gave you a Lazarus Model EL. It never dies.”

So Marco had tried to outsmart me. And
this
poor schmuck. “I broke your nose.”

“It’s happened before,” he said, now breathing normally. “I was in the Universal Wrestling Federation before I turned to law.”

The UWF. That would explain his uncanny resemblance to a Shadowman. “Any other police down here I should know about?”

“I’m it as far as the Shadowmen go. Now get moving. They’ll be here soon. Get your quarry and get the hell out. I’ll keep the Shadows away from this launch pad until you can make your exit.”

“Thanks.” I wanted to say I was sorry, but it would sound so lame I didn’t even bother. I’d let him explain to the other Shadowmen how a tough guy like him got a broken nose. I was sure he wouldn’t mention it had happened at the hands of a petite blond chick and a Buddhist monk.

Voices echoed thinly from the south, then grew more distinct. I heard a steady pounding and realized it was the thud of synchronized jackboots hitting the tunnel’s concrete floor. Jon told us the Shadowmen ran in tandem, sometimes ten deep. They ran everywhere with the endurance of marathoners. If you got in their way, they mowed you down and trampled you, unless they wanted to filch your jewelry. Then you got a simple whack on the head with a steel pipe and were left for dead. God help you if you were considered an enemy. Then
they dragged you to their station where the L platform had been wired with pirated juice. They stretched you out on the third rail for a fry job and watched you twitch like bacon on a skillet.

“Go!” Roper urged us.

He didn’t have to say it twice. Mike and I both turned and ran at the same time. I pulled a flashlight out of my Velcro leg organizer and led the way. We were running on hard-packed dirt, and I realized this narrow tunnel was not part of the Chicago Transit Authority’s twenty-first century public transportation system. I guess a century is long enough to build a whole new underground passageway if you have the knowledge and determination. I’d read that over the years a few ministers, ultraliberal types and loners, had voluntarily moved to the Emerald City complex. I suppose some of them might have been architects or engineers.

We veered right as the undercover operations officer had instructed. Quickly, we found ourselves reaching a hive of activity. There were voices, laughter, but before we could get close enough to check it out, two young men stepped out of the shadows with automatic weapons.

Mike and I froze, but when the young sentries called us by name, we relaxed. They motioned us into the large underground station. We stepped out of darkness into a yellow haze created by gas jets blazing against the tile wall near the now-defunct train ticket booth.

“Hello,” a man greeted us with a warm smile. He wore a serviceable brown omni suit that zipped up
the front. He looked like Jon, but with graying hair. “My son said you were coming. Welcome. I hope the Shadowmen didn’t give you any trouble.”

Mike and I exchanged a droll look. “No,” I said, finally breathing easy. “No trouble at all.”

It turned out that Jon’s father was one of the elders who determined policy for five families that lived in and near the Addison station. He was self-educated and had spent his whole life in Emerald City. Cal Moore was the grandson of Jack Wendell Moore, one of the founding fathers of the underground society. He helped organize the homeless who took over when the CTA abandoned the underground lines in 2020 for the aboveground superconductor lines.

Moore had been a very successful engineer who worked at the Stone Container Building on Wacker Drive. He lost his job when American corporations sent white-collar jobs to join the blue-collar positions already overseas.

Overnight Moore lost his Winnetka mansion, his Mercedes, his wife and his faith in the system. But he believed strongly in the American Dream and set out to create a better form of democracy beneath the streets of Chicago. He never achieved his dream but died trying.

Cal proudly displayed a photograph of his grandfather on the wall of his family’s large living quarters in the southeast corner of the station. We sat around a table lit by a candle, sipping water, and studied a map of the underground system.

“I don’t know who down here would want your mother,” Cal said after hearing our story.

He stroked his attractive, clean-shaven face. Like the others, he was pale and his wide, unprotected eyes seemed omniscient. “Most of our folks are good people. Of course, the Shadowmen are savages. Bred in mayhem, they’re raised without consciences, but they do have a strong tribal sense, so they’re organized. Still, I can’t imagine them kidnapping your mother.”

“I believe she was taken by the R.M.O.,” I said. “But then how would she end up down here?”

“Tell me again what clues brought you here?”

“A vision,” Mike said.

I nodded. “I saw Lola someplace very dark, devoid of light. And I heard creaking chains. I saw this…this enormous eyeball. Very creepy.”

I shook off the memory and turned my attention back to Cal. His wide eyes glimmered with something that looked a whole lot like dread.

“What is it?” I leaned forward. “Cal, did I say something wrong?”

He swallowed thickly and pursed his lips. “No. Not really. It’s just…it’s just that what you described can point only to one man.”

That was good, I thought. No running in circles. We could grab Lola and get the hell out. “Who is it?”

“Cy.”

“Cy who?”

“Just Cy. It’s short for Cyclops.”

When we reached Cy’s prison forty-five minutes later, I mentally thanked Cal for great directions.
The path had been incredibly convoluted. We would never have found it without his help. His runners led the way until we almost reached our destination, but they turned back, clearly nervous about wandering so far from home base in the darkened tunnels.

I could well understand why. According to Cal, the so-called Cyclops was a deranged young man who had been badly burned in the gas explosion Hank had talked about. While others in his clan had either died or reluctantly accepted their fate as scarred survivors, this guy had lashed out at the world. He’d built a stone prison, somehow managing to install mechanical wrought-iron gates that he operated on a pulley system.

Cal said sometimes Cy sent his hired Shadowmen in search of someone randomly to imprison. Then he’d rant at his terrified and innocent prisoner, quote Shakespeare and rail against the world that had disfigured him so badly. Usually, however, Cy’s prisoners were people he’d been paid to keep for others. Cy would hold prisoners for a fee, and it was widely known in Emerald City, if not above, that the R.M.O. employed him regularly. There was some speculation that a skeleton in the first cell to the right was all that remained of Chicago’s last powerful Italian don. He’d gone missing two years ago and the moles down here said he would have been better off sleeping with the fishes than spending an eternity listening to Cy’s melodramatic rendition of Shakespeare’s plays.

I didn’t care whose bones I’d find as long as they
weren’t Lola’s. At least I didn’t care until we unexpectedly found the prison after turning a sharp corner.

“This is it,” I whispered.

Mike had already come to a stop beside me. We faced a short hall carved in stone that opened to a big stone support beam. Through the side bars of the first iron prison to our right, I could see an open area beyond that was domed and bore a sign that read: The Globe. I guess that’s why Cy named it after Shakespeare’s round Elizabethan theater. A torch blazed on the support beam, giving the whole area a golden glow. Cal said that Cy had been unwilling to tap into underground gas lines, for obvious reasons.

Mike looked to me for guidance. Should we go forward? What would we face? I sensed no one was here—no one who could harm us, anyway. I jerked my head toward the dome prison, gave a silent follow-me sign and led the way. After a few steps, I could fully see the first cell.

Sure enough, it contained a skeleton propped against the back stone wall, legs straight out, hands on either side, head slumped forward. It was still fully dressed in expensive, though tattered, clothes. A mouse had made a nest in the dead prisoner’s remaining gray hair. Another poked its head out of the dead man’s eye socket to see who had come to visit.

Cold prickled over me and suddenly I didn’t want to be here anymore. Mike stared in dismay at the skeleton, as well. If this person had simply died in that position waiting for another crust of bread and
had decomposed there, the stench must have been unimaginable. Much later Mike and I would debate whether this was a hoax designed to frighten away unwanted visitors or a sign of Cy’s dereliction of duty as a prison warden. Right now all we wanted to do was get Lola and get the hell out.

“It’s now or never,” I whispered. “Let’s go in.”

We were drawn by the soft crackle of a torch adorned with the wrought-iron head of a dragon. The flames licked out of its mouth.

As we drew closer, we could make out more cells—six in all. All were empty save for one that contained a prone figure on the floor, dead to the world. My heart started to race and my throat tightened. No, she couldn’t be dead. She was simply sleeping. While Mike kept watch at the entrance, I walked soundlessly toward the prisoner until I saw a glimpse of brassy red hair and heard soft snoring. Hugely relieved, I rushed the distance.

“Lola,” I called sotto voce. “Wake up!”

I grabbed the black bars that separated us and confirmed in my mind that this crumpled heap in the corner could be no one but my crazy mother. Her hair—chaotic in the best of circumstances—was riotous and knotted. Her brown, flowing shift, gathered around her knees, exposed her wrinkled legs. The shadows deepened the wear and tear on her once beautiful face.

She looked so helpless. And old. She wouldn’t live forever. My hands tightened around the bars and my legs felt weak.
Oh, Mom
.

“Baker,” Mike whispered. “Hurry.”

I nodded, clearing my throat. “Lola. You have to wake up.”

Suddenly her head snapped up in surprise, instantly awake. She looked at me with a blank expression while she struggled to sit up. She made an effort to straighten her hair, which she would do even if the devil himself came to call.
Appearance is everything, Angel
. I’d heard her say that a million times, which she invariably followed up with a cheerful,
Fake it till you make it! Fake it even if you don’t make it
.

Lola sat up and her confusion vanished. She squinted at us against the yellow and black dance of light. Then recognition transformed her face—briefly into the woman I had known and loved when I was about five years old.

“Angel!” she cried.

With tears brimming in my eyes, I reached my hand through the bars. “How can I get you out of here?”

She crawled toward me, then grabbed my hand and pulled herself up. She flung herself to the bars and squeezed one plump arm through to hug me. I wrapped my arm around her. “Oh, honey, I knew you’d come. My baby, my baby, I knew I could count on you.”

Tears burned my eyes. “Lola, we have to go,” I whispered, pulling out of her powerful hold. “How do I operate this thing?”

“Over there.” She pointed against the wall. “Pull the fourth lever from the left and then…then crank that handle.”

I rushed over to the primitive control panel that linked to the chains that raised and lowered iron grates like you see in pictures of castles. I cranked hard and the front of Lola’s cell started to open. At the same time I heard a guttural shout and the slap of fists on skin and the thwomp of feet meeting flesh and bone.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mike fighting a leather- and muscle-clad Shadowman who was a foot taller than him. My first impulse was to run to his side, but the pointy teeth of the iron grate began to lower just as Lola was halfway through on her hands and knees. I grabbed the crank before the leaden arrows impaled her and continued cranking until she scrabbled out. I helped her up and we ran toward the entrance.