Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,41
himself with booze or drugs or whatever his self-destructive habit of choice may be.
Don’t stray far, Mayday.
“Spare change,” Charlie says as people pass him along the sidewalk. He hardly looks at them, his eyes on the store across the street.
At 6:22 p.m., the security guard, tall enough to play professional basketball but with a gut that hangs over his belt like a sack of potatoes, pulls the chain-link security fencing over the storefront window and locks it. Within half an hour, the two remaining employees at the loan company, a man in shirtsleeves and tie and a woman in a jacket and skirt, leave, turning off the outside lights.
At 7:24 p.m., an armored truck pulls into the alley alongside the moneylending store. The security guard opens the side door, and the cash is transferred into the truck.
At 8:04 p.m., the security guard calls it a night. The store is empty.
The passersby are thinning out too, and Charlie’s stomach growls at the smell of Thai food down the street. That’s okay. He’s nearly done.
It’s time to pay the moneylending store a visit.
38
THE ALLEY that the armored car occupied earlier, adjacent to the moneylending store, is appropriately disgusting and smells of hot, rancid trash. The alley door to the store is large and wide and presumably thick. On the door, in square red letters, are the words THERE IS NO CASH INSIDE THIS STORE AFTER BUSINESS HOURS.
This is true enough, though there is a functioning gas line.
The door has no knob. The only access to the store from the outside is via the keypad next to the door, which has a lid over it.
From his bag, he removes a small, round, black device, a few centimeters wide, with the logo of a company called InterLock Secure. He wheels himself up to the alley wall, locks the wheelchair, and peels the back off the device to reveal an adhesive surface. He reaches up and sticks the device on the lid covering the alarm pad, careful to center it so it appears to be nothing but a harmless logo.
An hour later, after he has settled himself up the street, no longer across from the moneylending store, the cleaning service arrives. The white truck parks by the curb. Two women get out of the truck and carry their supplies into the alley. He can’t see them, but he knows they type in the pass code to enter the store, because a few minutes later, the store’s interior lights up.
Shouldn’t take them more than an hour. He unwraps a power bar and devours it.
It takes them ninety minutes, actually, but then they are gone, the place locked up and dark again.
He returns to the alley, motors his wheelchair up to the wall, reaches up to the alarm pad, and carefully peels off the InterLock Secure device. He flips it over and pushes the tiny button.
The number 5424 smiles back at him.
The street address for the company. Logical enough. An easy password to remember.
“Until tomorrow,” he says.
He returns to his van, parked several blocks away on a residential street that doesn’t have zone parking—a rare thing these days in the Windy City, apparently. He enters through the rear, the hydraulic ramp lowering for him, as always.
The van’s spacious interior is less so tonight. The items he’s purchased are spread out carefully in the back with a tarp thrown over them.
He pulls back the tarp and examines everything: the acetone and sulfuric acid, the bottles of hydrogen peroxide, the bags of salt, the test tubes and glass vials and thermometer, the wristwatch and batteries and wire, and, of course, the aluminum catering pan.
Good enough. Saturday morning will be busy.
Saturday night will be fun.
But the remainder of tonight—Friday night—will be for his new friend Mayday.
“Where did you run off to, old sport?” he whispers.
39
AT FIVE o’clock on Saturday night, the Cash 4U Quick moneylending store closes for the rest of the weekend.
At 6:04 p.m., an armored truck pulls into the alley and removes the cash from the store.
At 6:11 p.m., the security guard locks up the store and leaves for the night.
At 9:26 p.m., the cleaning-service people finish their nightly housekeeping and leave through the side door.
Near midnight, a Dodge Caravan pulls into the alley and goes up to the store’s side entrance. It leaves less than thirty minutes later.
At 2:59 a.m., the wee hours of Sunday, the 5400 block of North Broadway Street is lazy and quiet. Everything is closed and shuttered and dark. Everyone is asleep.