CHAPTER THIRTY
She found the tobacco warehouse easily enough and when she got there, she paid the cab driver for the full fare, as she had no idea how long she’d be here waiting. She spent a few minutes staking the building out before even thinking about entering. It sat one building away from the corner of the block, bookended by a shoe repair shop and a vacant property that had once been a grocer.
It was 4:55, not yet late enough for most people who worked daily jobs to start filling the streets on their way home. She started to wonder how long she’d be willing to stay before seeing any sort of movement. She’d like to at least call home to say goodnight to Jeffrey if she was going to be out that long. All she knew was that she wasn’t going anywhere until she saw Spurlock. She had him now; her hunting was over and the killer could very well be heading her way as she waited across the street in front of a woman’s dress shop.
She sat there for roughly half an hour, watching and waiting, growing impatient. And just when she started to wonder if Kenny Sanderson had lied to her just to send her after a false lead, she watched a car pull up in front of the warehouse. It was a newer model, black and so sleek she thought it must have come directly from the dealership. The car remained there for a moment until another one arrived. This one passed by the parked car slowly and then headed to the far end of the block. There, it turned right and Ava could barely see the car as it, too, parked along the edge of the street.
Almost right away, two men got out of the car closest to her and walked over to the one that had just finished parking. Neither man looked familiar, but they were dressed in nice suits. One of them wore a stylish overcoat and a bowler hat—the same sort of hat Jim Spurlock seemed to always wear. This man was clearly not Spurlock, though. He had graying hair and was much taller than Spurlock, whose arrest records indicated that he was five feet, five inches.
The two men paused at the other car, where another man got out. They then walked back up the sidewalk, now a trio, and stopped at the tobacco warehouse. One of the men knocked on the door and it was answered within seconds. When the door opened, the men hurried inside quickly, one of them looking over their shoulder.
Ava put her paper down, not sure if she should go in just yet. And even as she wondered that, another car pulled in where the second had parked. It slowed down to a stop by the other car and then continued on. All of this activity told her that there was at least some degree of truth to what Sanderson had told her. Something was going on at this warehouse and the men involved were being very secretive about it.
As 5:30 came around, two more cars had come by, slowing to look at the other two that had parked. But as the streets were filling with traffic as people made their way home from work, there were no spaces. So the cars would go down the side streets and never appear again. So far, there was no clear sign of Jim Spurlock. But she’d seen enough people going to the other side of the block to assume they were going in through a back entrance. When Ava had come early to get the lay of the land, she’d taken note of an alleyway that cut around behind the first row of buildings, giving way to a small parking lot that sat between both rows of buildings on opposite sides of the block.
Ava felt like she’d wasted enough time. She crossed the street and went around the same corner the other cars had gone behind. She came to the alley and saw two of the other cars she’d seen pulled to the side positioned alongside trash cans and empty crates. One of them was parked directly beside the loading dock of what she assumed was the tobacco warehouse.
Fearing that she might get spotted, she hurried along the alleyway and when she reached the car by the loading dock, she hunkered down behind it. She could hear footsteps treading along a wooden floor to her right and slightly overhead. A man was laughing about something while two others spoke.
Slowly she inched her way along the side of the car, hidden in the thin space between the car and back wall of the warehouse. She didn’t stop until she came to the edge of the loading dock. It was made of wood, with steel underpinnings. While she crouched down, her head was about a foot or so below the floor of the dock and doorway leading inside. If she were to stand up, she’d be able to reach the steel railing and pull herself up onto the dock easily enough. She reached up to do just that when another set of footsteps approached along the dock.
She heard a voice from further in the building saying, “That’s everyone, yeah?”
“Think so,” a much closer voice said. “Want to ask Mr. Spurlock if he’s waiting on anyone else?”
“Yeah, hold on.”
Every muscle in Ava’s body went tense at the confirmation that Jim Spurlock was inside. For a moment, her better sense told her that if she was legitimately going to do this, she should leave her gun out here in the alley. If she went in there and things got out of hand, she’d almost have to use it. And that would probably mean losing her job. That was, of course, unless she could spin a fabricated story as to why she was there in the first place.
She toyed with the idea for a bit longer, but it all came apart when she heard the rest of the conversation.
“Mr. Spurlock says we’re already five minutes over,” someone called from further away. “Lock the door.”
“You got it.”
That was all the convincing Ava needed. Keeping her gun on her, she stood up, grabbed the rail, and vaulted up onto the platform. She did it very quickly and when she stepped to the door, the man who had been speaking closer to her was reaching for it. He looked shocked by the sudden appearance of a woman at the door, but because Ava had been expecting someone where he had not, she easily got the jump on him.
She dished out a right-handed jab that caught him squarely in the mouth. As he opened his mouth to yell, Ava stepped forward, grabbed him by the back of his head, and rammed it into the doorframe. The speed and violence of it even took Ava by surprise but she knew that she couldn’t afford to hesitate. She heard the man groaning as he fell to the dock, but she trusted she hadn’t doled out anything too bad—maybe a busted lip or some chipped teeth at most. And certainly a doozy of a shiner on his head.
She looked ahead right away and saw only a short, dimly lit hallway. It emptied out into what looked like an old storage room. The place smelled of sweet tobacco and pipe smoke. She could hear movement ahead, and a few voices speaking casually, but she could see no one. She reached behind her and drew the door closed, setting the lock to make sure the one man she’d already taken out would stay out of the equation.
As she moved forward down the hallway, more of the room came into view. There was a large poker table set up to the right, and she counted five men sitting around it. She looked them over closely and could see no signs of weapons on them. She wondered if this was by design, making sure some friendly gambling remained as friendly as possible. As a detective, she knew very well that at least two or three men a week died or were seriously injured over gambling arguments. The only man she was unsure of was the one she’d seen in the overcoat. The coat was draped over a chair at the table and she had no way of knowing if there was a gun in there or not.
As she scanned the table closer, she spotted Jim Spurlock. Her heart went cold and she had to restrain herself not to pull out her gun right then and there. No, she needed to play this smart. If she went ahead and—
“Can I help you, sweet thing?”
The man’s voice from her right caused her to jump. In her alarm, she realized that she’d been so transfixed on the poker table and the sight of Jim Spurlock that she hadn’t bothered scanning the rest of the room.
The man beside her was grinning and making a dramatic scene out of looking over her entire body. “Hey, guys, you see thi—”
Ava’s old boxing instincts kicked in. Her feet took their appropriate positions and, like some strange second nature, her left arm blasted out two rapid punches. Both landed true, right on the man’s left cheek. She finished it off with a right hook that dropped the man like a sack of bricks.
Two of the men from the poker table rushed over to her, one drawing a knife from his pocket. Behind them, Jim Spurlock and the others watched with rapt attention. And as the two men came at her, Ava knew that this was not the time for talking. The knife in the man’s hand was proof of that. She was here for Spurlock and she’d get him. She might break her hands from throwing punches and she may very well lose the fight in the end. But the bastard was right there and she had to try.
The first man came at her with the same macho attitude as the one she’d just knocked out. “You got that kind of fire in the bedroom, little lady?”
She faked a punch, which he reflexively tried to block. With his arms going up to block the punch she did not intend to deliver, she kicked him in the crotch. When he howled and dropped to his knees, she sent a hard right cross that connected squarely with his brow. A little jolt of pain went up her arm as this man also fell to the ground.