Chapter 10 - The Docks of No Return
The catwalk beneath Pier forty-four was a subterranean nightmare of rusted iron beams, green slime, and crashing black waves.
Every five seconds, an icy surge from Lake Michigan hammered against the concrete pilings, sending freezing spray over my head.
My fingers were completely numb, the skin sticking to the freezing iron rungs as I hauled myself inch by inch through the roaring dark.
Above our heads, the heavy wooden planks of the main pier groaned beneath the weight of arriving vehicles.
Through the gaps in the timber, I could see the harsh yellow headlights of three black Suburbans cutting through the swirling snow.
Arthur was walking twenty yards behind Julian Vance, his long black coat trailing through the slush, the heavy canvas bag in his left hand.
He walked with the calm, measured stride of a king entering his own throne room, showing not a single trace of the agony in his chest.
At the far end of the pier, standing at the base of the towering crane gantry, stood Silas King.
Silas was flanked by eight men in heavy tactical gear, their assault rifles held at the ready, pointed directly at Arthur’s chest.
Above them, forty feet in the freezing air, the crane control booth swayed dangerously in the gale, suspended by three thick steel cables.
Inside the glass box, I could see Elena, her face pressed against the icy pane, weeping as she recognized our employer.
"You look terrible, Arthur," Silas’s booming voice carried over the roar of the surf, thick with mocking satisfaction.
"I expected more dignity from the last surviving son of the great Costello dynasty."
Arthur stopped ten paces from Silas, setting the canvas tool bag down onto the snowy timber with deliberate slowness.
"The dynasty ended when my father’s car hit the guardrail on Lake Shore Drive, Silas," Arthur called back, his voice cutting through the gale like a blade.
"Everything after that was just an extended wake."
"And you brought the family inheritance to pay for the burial?" Silas sneered, gesturing toward the canvas bag with his cigar.
"The original ledgers," Arthur replied.
"Every offshore account, every union kickback, and every payoff made to Harrison Vance's legal defense fund since nineteen eighty-two."
"Cut the girl down, and the bag is yours."
Silas chuckled, a low, rumbling sound of pure predatory triumph.
"You always were an arrogant boy, Arthur."
"You think because you survived Marco’s clumsy attempt in your basement that you still hold cards in this game?"
Silas raised his right hand, revealing a heavy brass remote switch connected by a thick wire to the crane’s release mechanism.
"The moment I take possession of that bag, my man cuts the cables."
"The girl drowns in the ice, you die on this timber, and by Monday morning, I am the sole managing partner of the Chicago docks."
Beneath the pier, my boots found the slippery rungs of the vertical maintenance ladder leading up the rear leg of the gantry.
The metal was coated in a two-inch crust of frozen spray that tore the skin from my palms as I climbed through the howling wind.
Leo stayed below on a concrete footing, leveling his shotgun through a drainage grate to cover my ascent.
My muscles burned with exhaustion, the small revolver heavy in my pocket, the steel shackle clamped between my chattering teeth.
I reached the service platform thirty feet up, crawling on my stomach along the icy steel mesh directly behind the gantry’s release arm.
The heavy counterweight was balanced on a greased brass pivot, held in place by a single three-inch steel shear pin.
A thin braided cable ran from the shear pin down to the electronic solenoid in Silas’s remote switch.
If that solenoid fired, the pin would snap, and Elena’s booth would plummet forty feet straight down into the black water.
I unclasped the heavy steel maintenance shackle from my belt, my hands shaking so violently I nearly dropped the iron bolt.
I sprayed the de-icer across the frosted pivot, watching the chemical hiss and smoke as it melted the ice around the release bracket.
Down below, Silas took three steps toward the canvas bag, his lieutenants fanning out to encircle Arthur.
"Bring the bag to me, Julian," Silas ordered without taking his eyes off Arthur’s face.
Julian scrambled forward on his knees, his hands trembling as he reached for the zipper of the canvas tool bag.
"It's all here, Mr. King!" Julian stammered desperately.
"Every single book... just like Arthur said!"
Julian pulled the top ledger from the bag, opening it under the glare of the suburban headlights to reveal the dense handwriting.
Silas leaned forward, his greedy eyes scanning the faded blue ink, recognizing the meticulous ledger work of Thomas Hayes.
"The old bastard really kept it," Silas whispered in awe, his thumb drifting toward the red button on the remote switch.
"Thank you for the delivery, Arthur."
"Say hello to your father for me."
Silas’s thumb slammed down on the trigger.
At that exact split-second, forty feet above his head, I threw my entire weight forward across the frozen gantry frame.
I jammed the heavy steel shackle directly into the emergency locking slot behind the brass pivot, driving the bolt home with the heel of my boot.
CLANG!
The electronic solenoid fired with a sharp crack, snapping the shear pin in two, but the heavy counterweight slammed into my shackle and stopped dead.
The crane control booth lurched violently, dropping three inches with a deafening groan of steel cables, but it did not fall.
Elena’s scream echoed through the glass, but the platform held firm over the icy abyss.
Silas King looked up at the gantry in stunned, disbelieving horror, seeing the lock held fast by the industrial shackle.
"What the hell is that?!" Silas roared, raising his weapon toward the catwalk.
"That," Arthur’s voice boomed across the pier with the fury of a resurrection,
"is the Hayes family closing your account, Silas."
Arthur drew two heavy pistols from his coat with blinding speed, opening fire before Silas’s bodyguards could bring their carbines to bear.
The pier erupted into a storm of deafening gunfire, muzzle flashes lighting the swirling whiteout like lightning strikes.
Silas’s two lead enforcers dropped instantly into the snow, their weapons discharging wildly into the frozen timber.
From beneath the drainage grate, Leo fired both barrels of his heavy shotgun, the blast shredding the lower legs of two more gunmen.
Julian Vance shrieked in absolute panic, scrambling on all fours toward the edge of the pier to avoid the crossfire.
A stray round from Silas’s automatic caught Julian in the chest, pitching the screaming accountant over the wooden railing into the black, churning lake.
Silas, clutching his shoulder where Arthur’s bullet had grazed him, scrambled backward toward his armored Suburban, roaring in desperate rage.
"Kill them all!" Silas screamed, his face spattered with blood and flying slush.
"Blow the whole pier!"
Arthur moved forward through the hail of lead, his pistols firing with relentless, terrifying rhythm, advancing like an unstoppable engine of death.
High above on the swaying gantry, I pulled the small revolver from my pocket, knowing my sister was still trapped in the shaking glass box.
Two of Silas’s surviving men on the lower deck swung their rifles upward, aiming directly at the steel cables holding Elena’s life.
I leaned over the icy safety railing, the freezing wind whipping my hair across my eyes, and sighted the small revolver downward.
May you like
My hands did not shake anymore.
The basement maid from Chicago was gone, buried under the ice and blood of the men who had destroyed my family.
