The Hurricane Key

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PROLOGUE

“What could be simpler?"

    Nathan Crowe pushed the wet mop back and forth across the lobby floor.  Wrinkling his nose at the sharp ammonia odor of the disinfectant, he moved the bucket back a couple of feet and began slowly mopping another section. 

    It was twenty minutes after six in the morning and the offices of the Adoption Division of the California Department of Social Services were empty.  The front picture window, framed by pea-green curtains and adorned with the State Seal, looked out onto an empty hallway.  In two hours it would begin to fill with state employees, but Crowe was not concerned.  He would be gone long before most of them arrived. 

    On the other side of the lobby counter, Freddy Dillon glanced up and their eyes locked.  His young associate did not look happy to be mopping a floor. 

    According to his file jacket, Freddy had graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard.  Crowe, who had worked his way through community college before graduating from Michigan State, suspected that the younger man had never touched a mop before, much less used one.  He nearly smiled.  A little humility early in Freddy’s career would be good for him.

    With his handsome, angular face, straight black hair and dark tan, Crowe did not look like a janitor.  Nor did he dress like one.  Beneath his white cotton coveralls, which bore the name “Powers Cleaning Service” across the back, he was wearing a light gray Versace shirt and coal-black Prada slacks.  On his feet were a pair of polished black Kenneth Cole oxfords. 

    Crowe had learned long ago that people paid very little attention to your shoes, so he’d forgone wearing work boots and left his matching Prada jacket hanging downstairs in the van.  By the time anyone noticed what kind of shoes he was wearing, if they did at all, it would no longer matter. 

    From the corner of his eye, Crowe saw the building Security Guard strolling up the hallway.  He was making his final check before the shift change, which meant that it was now six forty-five.  Blessed since early childhood by an eerily accurate internal clock, Crowe did not bother to check the time on his gold Tag Heuer watch.

    The guard peered through the glass.  He was a stocky, middle-aged man with thinning gray hair, ruddy skin, and an enormous paunch.  Crowe found him utterly repulsive. 

    The guard grinned and waved.  Crowe returned the greeting, then continued mopping.  He could feel the guard studying them.

    Few things could muck up an operation more quickly than an over enthusiastic rent-a-cop.  Whereas the police were generally predictable, a security guard with a police fetish could often display an alarming lack of self-control.  When they decided to play the hero the results were often messy and inconvenient.  Consequently, Crowe’s policy was to avoid those kinds of complications whenever possible.

    After a few moments the guard moved on, his key ring clanking against his thigh so loudly that Crowe could hear it through the glass.  Sighing in relief, he waited until the guard had moved out of sight before dropping the mop back into the bucket of rancid water with a loud splash.

    Freddy looked up and Crowe nodded.  “Ten minutes,” he said, rolling his bucket behind the counter. 

    Moving quickly, both men pushed their mops to the back of the office, wending their way through row after row of Vietnam-era metal desks piled high with government paperwork. 

    Before stowing the mops in a narrow maintenance closet that stank of mildew and bleach, they peeled off the rubber surgical gloves they wore and stuffed them into the pockets of their coveralls. 

    “Wait in the back office,” Crowe ordered.

    Returning to the lobby, Crowe pulled the curtains across the window.  He was disgusted to find them tinged with dark, sticky residue. Undoubtedly, they had not been cleaned in years and the gummy material was all that remained from decades of second-hand smoke.

    At five minutes until seven, Crowe heard the sound of a key working in the front lock.  Pulling a rag from his pocket, he knelt down on one knee and pretended to shine the scratched surface of the floor in front of the counter.  The door opened and an enormous black woman stood framed by the doorway, her keys still stuck in the lock.  She was balancing an expensive leather briefcase and a stack of file folders in one hand and clutching a Styrofoam cup of 7-Eleven coffee in the other.

    “Mornin’, ma’am” Crowe said with a perfect Alabama accent.  Although he had been born in Iowa and spent most of his childhood in Detroit, anyone from Alabama would have greeted him as a native.

    She was clearly startled to find anyone from the cleaning crew still at work.  Making no effort to step inside, she said, “You ‘bout scared the daylights outta me, young man.” 

    Over the years Crowe had learned that many women found him attractive or, at worst, unthreatening.  A grossly overweight black woman would not even be a challenge.   Smiling affably, he climbed to his feet.  He was careful to move slowly so she would not be intimidated, and to infuse his smile with genuine warmth. 

    “I apologize, ma’am,” Crowe said.  “I was just finishing up.  I’m sorry I startled you.”

    She didn’t ask for his name and Crowe did not need to ask hers.  She was Dorothy Chambers, known affectionately as Dot to the seventy-five clerks she managed in the Adoption Division. 

    Crowe could feel the suspicion radiating from her, a sensation so intense it was almost physical.  He wondered if sometime in her past she been the victim of domestic violence or rape.  There was nothing in her file that indicated this; however experience had shown him that this kind of behavior was often the result of trauma.

    Staring around the empty office, Dot said.  “Aren’t you running awful late?”

    “Our truck broke down over on West Capitol, Ma’am,” Crowe said, “that put us behind a couple of hours.”

    Dot hesitated, obviously still suspicious.

    According to his internal clock, it was now six fifty-nine.  In eight minutes the guards would complete their shift change and the relief guard would make his first round through the building. She could not be standing frozen in the open doorway when that occurred.

    “It’s been a long night,” Crowe said, “but it sure looks like you’re the lucky one.”  He pointed to her coffee cup. “Forgot my thermos this mornin’, so you’ve got a leg up on me in the caffeine department.”

    Confronted by his seemingly genuine smile and pleasant manner, Dot’s eyes softened. 

    Crowe thought, got you!

    Pulling her keys out of the lock, Dot allowed the door to swing shut behind her.  As she walked past him and headed toward the back of the office, she said, “Will you be long?  My chief clerk is due any minute and we’re not used to having anyone here.”

    Crowe walked past her to the front door and turned the lock.  It clicked into place with a solid thunk that was loud enough to cause Dot to stop walking and turn to face him.

    “Well, Dot,” he said, dropping his feigned southern drawl, “as much as I would like to leave here immediately, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

    Dot stared at him, her eyes shining like dark marbles among the ebony creases of her face.  “I’m sorry?”

    She looked confused but not frightened.  Unzipping the top of his coveralls, Crowe reached inside and took out his silenced Walther-PPK.

    “I said,” he repeated, “that leaving isn’t possible at the moment.” 

    Crowe centered the barrel of the gun on her forehead.  “I hope you’ll cooperate, Dot.  I’d hate to shoot you and have that fresh cup of coffee go to waste.”

    She frowned.  To his delight, her eyes narrowed with anger instead of the fear he’d been expecting.  She knew what was happening; her defense, a carefully constructed barrier of paranoia and fear, had been breached and still she had not collapsed into hysterics.  Crowe was impressed despite himself.

    Dot held up the cup of coffee.  “Hell, this ain’t fresh, young man.  It’ll clean a floor better than Lysol will.  But you wouldn’t know that, would you?  Cause you ain’t no floor man.”

    Crowe shrugged.  “You’ve got me there, Dot,” he said.   “I’m not the floor man.  I’ll tell you what, why don’t we move into your office, shall we?”

    She snorted.  “Looks like I ain’t got a choice, don’t it?”

    “As a matter of fact,” Crowe said truthfully, “you don’t.” 

    As they approached the glass-enclosed cubicle that served as her office, Freddy stepped out, his empty, ash gray eyes taking in the scene.  His own silenced pistol hung loosely in his hand.

    “Fetch the Clerk when she comes in, won’t you Freddy?” Crowe said. 

    Freddy nodded once and headed toward the front of the office.  Crowe prodded Dot into the cubicle and directed her to sit in one of the chairs in front of her desk.  He settled into her large, padded office chair and propped his feet up on the corner of the desk.

    “So here we are,” he said.  “I’d offer to entertain you while we wait, but I’m afraid I don’t have any cards and I’m not very good at charades.”

    “I don’t need entertainment,” Dot said.  “But I’d sure like to know who in the hell you are and what you’re doing in my office pointin’ a gun at me.”

    He nodded.  “Understandable.  You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you who I am.  Not that it matters, really.  But it should be apparent what we want.”  He swept his free hand in the air, taking in the expanse of offices.  “This is the State of California Department of Social Services Adoption Division, is it not?”

    “Let me guess,” Dot said dryly, “you two want to adopt a baby.”

    Crowe smiled thinly.  “That’s very amusing, Dot,” he said.  “Not very intelligent, really, but definitely amusing.  You’re actually quite remarkable, I must say.”

    “Really,” Dot said, “and why is that?”

    “Your average person would be crying right about now, or begging for their life, or both.  Generally, they would be making my job that much more difficult.  But somehow, you’ve managed to find the silver lining of the cloud, if you will.  You’re even making jokes.”

    She snorted humorlessly.  “What, I should be doing all that because you’re pointin’ a gun at me?”  She leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees.  “Let me tell you something, mystery man.  I grew up in South Central Los Angeles.  Wasn’t a month gone by that a bullet didn’t come through our house from some drive-by.  The only reason I didn’t get killed or mugged when I walked to school every day was because the gang bangers knew I was from the hood and didn’t have anything worth stealing.”

    She paused to take a breath and stared directly into his face, making no attempt to hide her revulsion for him.

    Although his face remained impassive, Crowe was astonished at her lack of respect she had for the life and death power he held over her. 

    For a moment he felt a surge of anger.  It swept over him with the speed and fury of a tsunami, pushing him close to losing control entirely.  She was powerless but still defied him, made jokes, questioned his fortitude.  His finger reflexively tightened on the trigger and he very nearly shot her before he was able to rein in his temper.

    “So you see,” she continued, unaware of how close she had come to dying, “you aiming a gun don’t really make no difference to me.  All I care about is that you don’t hurt my clerk.  I hope you won’t hurt me, but I still don’t know what you want so I guess that’ll remain to be seen.”

    Just then they heard a woman’s shriek in the outer office, clear and loud.  It was cut off quickly, presumably by Freddy.  Crowe smiled. “I imagine it does remain to be seen, Dot.  So let’s get to it, shall we?  It’s seven fifteen and your clerk is running late, which means we are running late.”

    Dot didn’t respond.  Crowe could see the outrage still simmering in her eyes.  Her enormous body was wound tight with tension and fury, and he could visualize her coming across the desk like a rampaging rhino.  It was not a pretty picture. 

    “That was my clerk,” Dot said.  “What did you do to her?”

    “Please relax,” he said, “your clerk is perfectly fine.  We need both of you, so you have nothing to fear from me or my associate, providing you cooperate.” 

    A moment later Freddy entered the office.  He was holding his gun against the back of a young woman no more than twenty-five years old.  Crowe could see streaks of tears tracking through her makeup, but she wasn’t making any noise.  Freddy had undoubtedly convinced her doing so would not be in her best interest.

    “And so we have the clerk,” Crowe said.  “Welcome!  Please come in and have a seat next to Dot.”

    At the sound of his voice the young woman began to shake, but still did as she was told.  As the smaller woman sank down onto the chair, Dot reached out and put her arm her.  Freddy leaned against the doorframe, his gun once more hanging casually in his hand. 

    “Here’s how this is going to work,” Crowe said.  “Dot, you will remain here.  Freddy will accompany your clerk to the record vault.  We need some very specific records dating back to the late nineteen-sixties, which are stored on microfilm.  Freddy will obtain printouts of those documents, as well as the original films, and then we will be on our way.  What could be simpler?”

    Dot shrugged.  “I’d help you if I could, mystery man, I really would.  But that vault is timed and won’t open ‘till eight thirty.”

    Crowe smiled indulgently.  He was actually impressed by Dot’s attempt to preserve the sanctity of her office.  However, completing the operation as quickly as possible remained his foremost goal.  Still smiling, he moved the barrel to the right just a hair and shot her once in the shoulder.

    Dot’s body was jerked backward by the power of the bullet.  Blood sprayed from the wound, painting the window beside her in  a swath of fine, red mist.  She slumped in the chair and stared at him, her mouth slack with shock and surprise. 

    Because the silenced pistol made only a soft, hissing pop when it fired, it took the clerk a moment to absorb what had happened.  Then she began to scream.

    Without saying a word, Freddy stepped forward and slapped the side of her head.  She instantly stopped screaming and began to whimper.

    “Oh, you shot me,” Dot whispered hoarsely.  “You son-of-a-bitch, you shot me.  Twenty-five years in one of the worst ghettos in L.A., and now I get shot in my own office.”

    “Terribly sorry about that,” Crowe said, “but I’m on a bit of a schedule and I can’t afford to play games.  Your vault has no timer, Dot, which means you’re wasting my time and I can’t allow that.”  He looked up at Freddy who was still standing next to the Clerk.  “Let’s get a move on, Freddy.  Get what we came for and be quick about it.”

    Freddy nodded and took the clerk by the arm.  She stood, still whimpering, and allowed him to lead her from the cubicle.

    “It’s seven twenty-six,” Crowe said.  “We’ll have this resolved and be gone in fifteen minutes or less.”  He smiled, but made no effort to get up and staunch the blood flowing from her wounded shoulder.  “As I said, you’re a remarkable woman, Dot.  Very courageous.  Let’s discuss that in the time we have left, shall we?”  

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