We continue our efforts at uncovering what’s going on with the missing hookers in Chicago. ”Fat” Tom, Helena and John are recovering from their various endeavors at finding out what’s going when they get a tip that the O’Toole gang is going to be sending a shipment of girls out to their destination.
They load and lock and pick up a couple of Companions, two guys that do work for Tom’s agency, Craig and Frank (last names not revealed for safety reasons). With Craig driving the company sedan and Tom bringing his own personal car they head over to Chinatown where the O’Toole’s are hiding out.
They arrive and send John Redman on a scouting mission. He circles the block and spots four sedans parked in front of the building with a driver in front of each one. In addition there is someone parked by the back door to the building they’re interested in.
This puts the kaibosh on their thought to hijack a single vehicle filled with hookers and they’re forced to improvise. Leaving Craig parked in an alley way across from the sedans with orders to disable the cars at an opportune time and otherwise divert the bad guys, they enter a building on the same block and terrorize the owner of the flooring establishment and head up to the roof leaving the poor guy locked up in a closet on the top floor.
They cross the roof and enter the target building heading down to the 10th floor where they’ve been told the gang is hiding out. Tom tries to stealthily peek down the hall but is spotted by a thug sitting outside a closed set of doors at the far end.
As the guy grabs for the sawed off next to him, Tom puts two .45 calibre slugs through his chest. The double boom of the heavy pistol tears the quiet evening air and the group makes a break for it as commotion starts up inside the room.
On fleet feet John and Frank hit the double doors at the same time and with barely slowing a beat John yoinked them open and dove inside across the room slamming to a halt on the far wall near a large receptionist desk. And directly between two thugs. He unloaded a Colt Peacemaker on the one in the corner hoping someone would take care of the other.
Without much luck as the nearest thug shot him up with another double barreled shotgun.
Helena and Tom showed up as Frank put two barrels into one thug and the room quickly filled with gunsmoke and muzzle flashes.
When the last of the brass tinkled to a stop, John Redman was pretty seriously hurt but the others had emerged victorious.
From ahead a voice was screaming out that he was going to ‘kill the women if you don’t let me go!’ and then the lights went out.
From inside the room the voice died in gurgle and a thud and behind them in the hall came the ding of the elevator as more thugs showed up.
Tom kicked the door in and he and John looked into the darkness, John spotting a shape fleeing by the window and put two rounds into it’s center of mass, blasting it out the window even as a strange dagger flashed past his head to bury itself in the wall behind him.
In the hallway Helena and Frank disposed of two of the three thugs but the third got away fleeing in the elevator.
Using their lighters they discovered a gangster inside the room, his head all but severed and three hysterical women tied up.
Working quickly they freed the girls and as a party swept back up to the roof through the fireescapes, there was no sign of whoever it was that John had shot in the window. They also learned on the roof that there was a fourth woman in the room with them before the lights went out.
Hearing gunfire from the front of the building Tom lumbered that way and capped two thugs from the rooftop that were engaged in fire with Craig in the alley across the street.
Fleeing to safety back across the roofs and down into the street they went back to their vehicles with the three women in tow back to headquarters in the two cars. Helena worked on John’s wounds, plucking a couple of pellets of buckshot out of his shoulder and stitching him up.
[On the last possible attempt of 5 tries she finally managed to heal him up.]
Questioning the women they learned that one had overheard that they were going to be delivered to ‘the nuthouse’.
Tom started making calls and arranged for each of the women to be hauled to the train station and put on a train by Craig and shipped off with a couple of bucks and a new dress.
Tom learned from his police contacts that there was a sanitarium about an hour outside of town and the three of them and Frank headed that way.
The sanitarium was off the main road in a secluded forested area and there they found a massive steel gate and stone wall topped with spikes. The metal all rusted from neglect, the place having been closed for several years. The big chain and fancy european lock on the gate though was quite shiny.
The sophisticated lock proved no barrier to John and he had it open in a flash and they moved in on foot, leaving their car near the gate.
John, out in front of the group by 30 yards was accosted from the darkness by a thug and forced to lay on the ground as the guy had the drop on him.
Tom though, by some miracle was able to sneak his big ass up and get the drop on the thug and the tables were turned.
They questioned him, learning that he didn’t know much but that there were several more guards and dogs at the asylum and he was local talent. They left him tied up off the side of the road.
They proceeded on a little closer together this time and a good thing as a pack of silent hounds burst forward from the underbrush and after John. He was savaged a bit by the dogs and then even worse by the misdirected fire of Frank who was still armed with the shotgun and accidently shot at John during the confusion. With the same shotgun that he’d been shot with a few hours earlier.
Swearing they advanced swiftly to the sanitarium and up inside where they get attacked by bad guys wearing all black and wielding automatic weapons of an unknown nature.
They downed the guys but not without John getting shot up even more.
A search of the sanitarium found several dead women, all blondes and by all signs pregnant when they were shot, once to the head. They also found a surgery with the body of a woman on it and the room all bloody. In the corner a man in scrubs was muttering “What have I done?” over and over. When approached by John he whispred, “Please forgive me.” then slashed his own throat with a scalpel he’d been holding.
Etched in the floor of the surgery they spotted symbols much like those that had been on the body of the woman they’d seen at the city morgue a few days earlier.
Hearing engines they spotted a large truck fleeing the area around the side of the sanitarium. Although they shot at it, it escaped although the license plate was noted.
Fleeing in a car parked in front of the sanitarium they made it to the front gate but not in time to see which way the truck had turned.
Their own car had been raked down one side with gun fire leaving both tires flat. Leaving Frank behind to change the tires they headed back to Chicago. Once again Helena tended to John’s wounds and got him in a working state again.
[And again she managed to fully recover him with the absolute last roll.]
A little bit later Frank showed up with their car and they split up to get some well deserved rest.
