Calumet City (15 page)

I’ve seen this before, EMTs when they see victims falling into the well. Once they’re shocked-out, many don’t come back the same. Julie’s hand grabs my arm and pulls me into a left turn…like we’re on the field and I’ve been coldcocked but still have to play. Okay, sure; I’ve been here before—muddy, dazed, climbing out of the fog.

And it is foggy. She pulls me again, this time back from a car passing. It all seems so normal, being led around by my sleeve. She says, "Another block," and by the fifth one I begin to un-zombie. Three more blocks of crisp fall evening and she stops us at a two-story wall mural. It depicts a man with a book. Only one of the three lights there to illuminate him is lit. Julie tilts her considerable head and smiles.

"Carl Sandburg."

I do a 360 before looking at Carl; my personal safety concerns are returning too. "And he is…?"

"He’s a man who saw hell and decided not to enter. Thought you should know there’s a choice."

Maybe for him. Now she’s looking at me looking at the painted bricks. I have the strong sensation that Julie wants to kiss me, so I don’t look at her. We covered this once before. The man on the bricks doesn’t do anything, but I keep staring. Julie puts one arm around my shoulders, and it’s like mom again, like guys do when they allow their friends the rare proximity.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Huh?" I was lost in the guy who chose not to go to hell, wondering how and why he got to choose. I ask the big blond with her arm around me.

"You’ll know why tomorrow, if you’ll give it till then."

Now it’s my turn to stare.
Cop-stare
would be more accurate.

Julie smiles and unwraps her arm. "See? You’re already on the way."

So we stand there, her, me, and Carl on the wall, while Chicago drives by enjoying 60 degrees and no horns. The maple trees rustle and I smell the lake. The Cubs are only two back of Houston. My fish love me. Julie doesn’t know who I am, but she loves me.

"Yes I do."

"Huh?"

Julie just smiles. "Need to get back to work. You coming?"

"In a minute. Might talk to Carl awhile."

Julie checks me a last time, kisses my cheek, and heads back. Carl doesn’t watch her ass and I like him even better. My hand’s in my pocket with the edge of Harold J. J. Tyree’s business card. Jolt—Little Gwen’s little boy. Focus on that, do something about the horrible here-and-now, the other shit can drown you later.

I pull out the business card and my phone follows. Harold’s number requires two tries to dial. His answering machine says leave a message. I leave my cell number and call Sonny Barrett. He doesn’t sound as good as last time.

"All fucking day, Patti. All day. The G and IAD have lost their fucking minds."

"The hit on the mayor?"

"The whole fuckin’ show. The hit on the mayor, the ASA dead on his lawn, and now all that foster-home kiddie-voodoo-murder bullshit in Calumet City tied to his wife’s real estate. This show even page-2s the Ayatollah and his fucking freedom riders. Hell, the FBI’s making a miniseries out of it; they got one spokesman saying the hit and the ASA are about the Outfit and the casino license—which makes sense to me; and a U.S. Attorney saying it’s the cops running some kinda twenty-year coverup that’s coming apart.
Us
. Like we buried that bitch in the wall. Can you fucking believe that?"

"Us, like CPD?"

"Us, like you, me, Cisco—even the superintendent, anyone who’s been with you since you rolled into Chicago."

Another ugly memory flash—Internal Affairs and the FBI tomorrow after Chief Jesse. And Chief Jesse’s reports I can’t write. Patti Black, murderer.

Carl seems to have turned away from me. "Sonny, I need a favor."

Silence, other than a background TV describing the Richard Rhodes death scene.

"Sonny?"

"I’m here. Just taking a good look at the wife and kids I’ll never have."

Words exit my mouth that shouldn’t. "Danny del Pasco says there’s money out on me, same guys who tried to torch Gilbert Court and the body in the wall." My eyes close tight. Hide in the dark; that’s what I did in Calumet City. Deep breath. "I need to find those guys fast. There’s a Gypsy Viking who might help. Then a meth-lab rat who may have the names and faces."

"This has been reported to your…superiors?"

"Nope."

"And why’s that, considering every boss in this city wants to brace these Gilbert Court assholes?"

"All I want is backup, Sonny. The less you know, the better."

"That’s true in the movies."

More silence and background TV. Carl’s turned his back completely. Cars pass slower since I mentioned the money out on me. In a
very strange
way I feel better—survival instincts might keep me out of the liquor stores tonight, focus me on a mission to stay alive that finds Little Gwen’s son; will her to call back.

"I know I’m asking a lot. But I need it or I wouldn’t." Nothing but TV answers. I frown and answer his silence. "That it? That’s where we are?"

Sonny grumbles, "You owe me forever."

"Naked pictures at a minimum. 111th and Cottage, 0-700."

"That’s their fucking clubhouse, Patti. Two of us ain’t enough."

"7:00 a.m., I’ll bring the pictures," and hang up before he can come to his senses.

Or I can come to mine.
Naked pictures
was a very strange thing to say and so’s calling a guy for help that I’m not sure I trust anymore. An SUV cruises too slow and draws horns. It’s colorless in the dark and then quickly gone. Headlights wash me and Carl. The hair stiffens on my neck. My hand’s on the pistol and…And what? The SUV’s headlights pass and I’m alone again.

The G drives SUVs—they have budgets to match NASA’s. IAD drives Fords. A Chevy SUV kidnapped Richard Rhodes and put me in the hospital—

Calm down. Detroit only makes three SUVs a minute. Couldn’t Roland Ganz have been the driver? The ComEd workers were young, but they’re the accomplices…

Somehow it’s all Roland now. He’s everywhere. Admit it.

No
. Walk away.
Now.

I turn and start back toward the L7. I’ll fake a report or just fall asleep and trust that Carl wasn’t loaded when he decided tomorrow would be better. Four SUVs pass. I watch every one and wonder how long I’ve known who I am. The breeze shifts back to the lake. The last twenty-four hours have been a whirlpool without a bottom. I shortcut across alley asphalt between two three-flats.

Blinding headlights.

An SUV roars down the alley. I stumble back, then sprint. The alley’s narrow. Trash cans bang off the SUV’s bumper. Nowhere to go. Doorway,
shit
, runnnnnnnn. Telephone pole. Hit that and they’re dead too. I jump behind the pole and the SUV roars past, locks the brakes, and skids in the water. The doors pop. I yell,
"POLICE
,
ASSHOLE."
The shapes are fifteen yards away and probably can’t see my pistol two-handed at them.
"DROP. DO IT NOW."

The shape shadows hesitate, then jump back into the SUV. It guns down the alley. My heart pounds. I duck and spin to a trash can rolling behind me. Three floors up, a woman pops out her window. It’s too dark for her to see me. I hold breath I don’t have, waiting for a second pass, or more GD gangsters, or more SUVs.

Headlights again; opposite direction.

Only the pole between me and them. Still nowhere to run. The headlights get halfway to me and stop; they high-beam to brights that don’t quite reach. I can’t see anything but glare.
Run. Dumbshit
. And I do, to the alley’s T, go right, see an open doorway, and pass it for the next one. A long, narrow sidewalk leads to the street. Engine noise, getting louder. I crouch quick and peek. Lights splash the T’s dead end. I check the sidewalk escape again. The lights hesitate at the T, then go left, pick up speed, and make a right onto that street.

I wait for the footfalls. A breeze flutters through the alley, carrying distant bass beats and fried potatoes. My heart’s thumping. The G and IAD don’t run down their suspects…
Shit, Julie!
I run my escape sidewalk to the street. Headlights pass as I approach; it’s a Corvette. I sprint seven blocks to the L7. Julie’s out front with a well-dressed woman who’s playing with her own hair.

I pant, "Sorry," smile at the debutante and hide my Smith too late. Julie looks past my shoulder at where I came from. I add, "Got a little weird back there. Better take her inside. And keep your eyes open."

Julie cuts back to me and the Smith.

"Now would be good." I wink trying to look a lot less spooked than I am, and backpedal ten feet to my car I could only have found by accident. "Call you tomorrow. Remember, eyes open, and thanks for Carl."

The debutante isn’t playing with her hair anymore. I keep the Smith tight to my thigh and rescan the street. The debutante follows my eyes; she’s scared and I don’t blame her.

   Jolt. Upright and awake, and into an upholstered roof.

I’m in a straitjacket. I fight it off and rip at manacles on my wrists that aren’t there. Suddenly I’m not in the crypt with Annabelle and Burton Ottson. The straitjacket is my all-weather car cover. Dawn lights the sky far to the east. I wince at the pain in a sleep-twisted knee. I’m in a parking lot, in the backseat of my Toyota. I fast-glance it in every direction. A leaf blows across my windshield, then another. District 6; I’m at the office, my old office. Headlights pass slow on Halsted.
Okay, okay
.

I remember now—a whole night in the backseat of a Celica. With murdered ghosts and a nest of snakes wrapped around my neck.
What am I doing here?
Plan B. Plan B.
Right, right.
Plan B. You figured your car would be more comfortable in a space it knew. And taking a run at its owner in a cop parking lot would be suicide. I scan the lot for meth-jacked arsonists who wouldn’t understand that in the same terms as standard criminals.

My face is wet; I revisit the dream visions of pompadoured evangelists promising hell and penitentiary cells offering the same. God hates you, Patti Black. You’re a murderer; go to a liquor store.

Good idea. I sneak a glance at my wrist. Elvis has his hands straight up and down: daylight in an hour. My heart eases to regular speed. I palm my .38 and rub one eye at a time. Need to roll before daylight brings out the alderman’s pickets and the inevitable confrontation with second-watch LT Kit Carson; he’ll be all over me because his bosses and the media are all over him. Don’t want to explain the last three days and the new me to my old TAC crew either.

I ease out of the backseat and 360, then remember that I wrote neither report promised to the superintendent. And today is FBI day, IAD too. Today is also Gypsy Viking day, first thing, with Sonny—find the accomplices; they lead you to Gwen’s little boy. Deep breath. And Roland Ganz.

Driving south the ghetto looks the same after three days of being North. I’m not the same and never will be. The PI, Harold J. J. Tyree, has a message on my cell. I play it twice; both times it sounds like a trap, like the SUV in the alley looked. No messages from Gwen and that stiffens my neck. I check the phone again, willing it to make her call. When I was in Animal Control in South Holland I could sometimes will a couple into adopting a puppy before we closed on Thursday, before the killers got there on Friday. I worked Sundays instead of Fridays, never Fridays.

Today’s a Friday, isn’t it? I should be in Chinatown, watching the window for…not pulling into 104th and Western to buy coffee. The coffee tastes bitter and smells the same. The donut is old enough that the sugar has trouble melting. A Harley rumbles past and I check Elvis again: 6:48 a.m., not a great time to visit an outlaw biker clubhouse. Whoever’s awake has probably been up all night. Whoever isn’t, will be unhappy about getting up.

Coffee down, I roll south into Pullman, a gothic red-brick wedge of the far Southside where they used to build the fancy train cars. When the railroad business tanked, the neighborhood died. The local street gangsters moved in and burned down half the historic buildings. A block ahead on Cottage Grove Sonny’s car idles at the corner. I stop broadside, drop the passenger window, and speak to a large, unshaven Irishman who does not seem happy with his situation.

"Hi, Sarge."

"This is fucking stupid, you know that."

"Yeah. I know."

"And we’re doing it anyway?"

Small smile. "I have to do the door alone."

Sonny shakes his head and looks away. Ten seconds pass and he says, "Stay outside, no matter what. Dial my number now and leave your cell on in your pocket. If I hear gunfire I’ll figure it ain’t going well."

I float another small smile and say, "Thanks."

He flips me the bird. We tandem out of semi-civilization and into railroad-warehouse no-man’s-land, home to the Gypsy Vikings and Charlie Moth, psychopath, career felon.

For the record, Chicago has two other outlaw biker gangs: the Hells Angels and the Chicago Outlaws. Both are part of nationwide—
shit
—worldwide criminal organizations. Both have been tried and convicted on every major felony known to mankind from slavery to mass murder. Grading on that scale, the Gypsy Vikings differ only in their colors and their absolute willingness to die for their territory right alongside any adversary dumb enough to try to take it.

As I weave around badly patched asphalt and wavy roadway not designed for the machinery it traffics, I can feel the weight of Sonny’s advice: An approach like this is either made with big firepower backing a calm request, or a tidal wave of bullets, then the calm request.

Like most bad ideas and good advice, both tend to carry more weight the closer one gets. The bad idea in question is two-story brick—an old armory set back way off the street on what will someday be a superfund cleanup site. The building has limestone-block trim at the corners, painted flat black. Sheets of rusted steel plates cover the windows bleeding orange streaks onto the bricks. The arched double door facing me must be the entry; together the doors are eight feet wide at the bottom and barricaded with bolted cross-members.