Random Victim (20 page)

Leal raised his eyebrows, impressed with her dedication, but still wishing he had some butter.

Hart smiled and asked him if he was ready for dessert.

“Sure,” he said. Not realizing that the sliced apple she was putting in front of him was it.

Looks like it’s White Castle on the way home tonight, he thought as he bit into the slice.

After dinner they sat on the living room couch with two cups of herbal tea, and he told her about the new developments.

“So it looks like he left the country?” she asked. “Where does that leave us with the case?”

“I don’t know. I originally thought that Brice was moving too slow on everything. But maybe now, with Walker being gone, it
isn’t such a bad idea to just take our time building a case against him. I’d like to see us get an indictment against him
for the drugs and other stuff we recovered in the raids.

Then maybe let it leak that we’re close to a suspect and that we’re seeking him.” He smiled. “Hopefully, they’ll time the
announcement to coincide with you getting the Medal of Valor.”

Hart looked down suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Leal asked.

It took several seconds for her to answer.

“Frank, I can’t accept that medal.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because,” she said. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Sure you do.”

“No, you’re the one who does, not me.”

“How do you figure that?” He couldn’t understand her reticence. Didn’t she know that most coppers would give their right nut
for a chance to get the Medal of Valor?

But I can’t very well say that to her, can I? he thought.

“All I did was get myself cut to pieces,” she said. Her eyes were glistening now.

“Ollie,” he said, reaching out for her hand.

“Oh, Frank, I can’t accept something like that.”

“You got it coming. You kept me from getting my throat slashed by that asshole.”

“That’s sweet of you to say that, but I think you saved me. I was so lax,” she said. He could hear the crack in her voice.
“I keep going over it and over it in my mind. I almost got us both killed.”

“Bullshit, you weren’t lax. The bastard thought we were coming after him on a warrant. That’s why he fought the way he did.
There was no way you could have known that. Sometimes you get blindsided, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it.”

He heard no response.

“Just like when I got shot,” he said. “And my partner went down. It was unpreventable. Besides, like I said, you saved my
life. He’d kicked me in the groin and was just getting set to cut my throat when you tripped him.”

“I don’t remember it too clearly,” she said. The first tears started to fall.

“Yeah, I know how that is, but in the long run, it’s good. It just might keep your dreams clear at night.”

“I hope so.” She wiped at her face. He offered his handkerchief.

It seemed natural when she came forward, crying and circling his neck with her arms. He held her there on the couch, listening
to her sobs, feeling her powerful shoulders and back quivering under his hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like such a weakling.”

“No, that’s okay, kid,” he said, patting her softly. “Sometimes you just gotta let it all come out.”

The next day Leal was packing two weeks’ worth of dirty laundry into the machine and contemplating how, if things had been
different, he might have ended up in bed with Hart instead of just holding and comforting her. He’d felt the sizzle, all right.
But she needed a friend more than a lover. And a good partner couldn’t be both. Or could he?

The phone rang, intruding on his thoughts, and he picked it up on the third ring.

“Hi,” Sharon said.

“Hi. Where you at? New York?”

“No, I just got back a little while ago. I figured I’d take the shuttle bus back to that place in Alsip if you can pick me
up.”

“You sure you don’t want me to shoot up there?” he asked.

“No, the shuttle is fine,” she said. “Why fight the traffic in this rain? Besides, I need some quiet time to think.”

“Okay,” Leal said. Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good.

An hour later Leal was walking into the Holiday Inn bar, which was just off to the left of the main entrance. He scanned the
sparse group of customers, and saw her almost immediately. Her legs were crossed and he could see her calf making a slow,
rhythmic kicking motion as she smoked and talked with the bartender. He straightened up when he saw Leal approaching them.

Sharon turned and smiled. “Hiya, handsome. Want a drink?” She gave him a light kiss as he sat next to her.

“That depends. You want another one?”

She looked at the amber fluid in her glass, swirled it a couple of times, and then stubbed out her cigarette. “Nah, let’s
just go home.”

Leal grabbed her suitcase from beside the stool, and Sharon gave a little wave to the bartender.

“You bring enough stuff?” Leal asked, hefting the suitcase. “This thing weighs a ton.”

“You don’t think I’d go to New York without doing some heavy-duty shopping, do you?”

As they went outside the rain had been replaced by a fine mist. Leal placed the suitcase in his trunk and slammed the lid.

“Feels more like September should,” she said, getting in the car.

“Yeah, I always thought September should be called the cruelest month, instead of April,” Leal said. He shifted into drive.
“You want to go get something to eat, and you can tell me about your trip?”

But he was wondering if he really wanted to know.

“Sure,” she said. “That place down the road is fine.” She stretched her arms over her head and leaned her head back. “Oooh,
it feels so good to be back.”

That sounds kind of promising, he thought.

“The interview went real well,” she said, looking over at him. “When I got there Thursday night Mr. Feinstein had left this
message at the hotel to join them for his office party. God, was that neat. We were in this real tall build ing in the heart
of Manhattan, with these huge glass windows overlooking all the lights of the city. New York is endless.”

She went on to explain how well the interview went the next day. “Everyone was so nice. I felt totally comfortable. They told
me the work I’ve done in the State’s Attorney’s office was a big plus.”

Uh-oh. Sounds like all systems are go for a relocation, he thought.

“But afterward one of the junior partners, a guy named Tim Fenner, invited me to dinner and the Letterman Show.” Her tone
seemed to change a bit.

A little mist was collecting on the windshield, and Leal flicked on the wipers.

“How’d you like it?” was all he could muster.

“Oh, that part was great. David Letterman is so funny. He’s just like he is on TV, only better.” She took a deep breath. “Things
started to get a little bit strained on the way back to the hotel.”

“Strained?”

“Yeah, you know, friendly little pats on the arm in the taxi. Then he began touching my leg, insisted on seeing me all the
way up to my room—‘New York’s a dangerous place, you know.’ And then the asshole really started pawing me in the elevator.
Finally, I had to tell him to cool it or I’d call hotel security.”

Leal felt his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel.

“He got real insulted and said, ‘What’s the matter, honey? Don’t you want the job?’ Oooh, I hate it when some drunken idiot
who’s all hands calls me ‘honey.’ ”

“So what did you do?”

She laughed. “I told him to go do to himself what he wanted to do to me,” she said. “Only not exactly in those terms. You
should have seen Mr. Lady-killer’s face then. I swear, he should go practice those expressions in a mirror.”

“Swift, decisive, direct,” Leal said, smiling. “Good qualities for a lawyer. So does this mean you’ll be staying for a while?”

“Well, I’m certainly going to tell Steve Megally about it,” she said. “I was so shaken that I had them put me in a new room.
I mean, I want to get to the top of my profession, but not by sleeping with the boss.”

“Sounds like it was a pretty rough trip in a lot of ways,” Leal said, still wondering what her final decision would be.

“Oh, there were some good things,” she said. “Remind me to tell you about them sometime. But right now, all I want to do is
grab something to eat, go home, and hop into a nice hot tub.”

He nodded, making the turn into the restaurant. She reached over and squeezed his arm.

“And I want you to scrub my back, okay?” she said.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Name Games

It was early Sunday morning when Leal’s beeper went off the first time. The intrusive alarm woke him immediately, and he struggled
to extricate himself from Sharon and the sheet in which they’d become entangled. Then he had to stumble around the bedroom
looking for his pants. The beeper, which was still attached to his belt, had transformed into a periodic chirp by the time
he pressed the button and stared at the unfamiliar number.

“Oh, God, what time is it?” Sharon asked, pulling a pillow over her head.

“Quarter after six,” Leal said, wondering who the fuck would be calling him at this hour on a Sunday morning. He punched in
the numbers on his cell phone. Joe Smith answered on the first ring.

“Sarge? I’m sorry to bug you this early, man, but it finally happened.”

Leal rubbed his eyes. “Slow down, Joe. What happened?”

“The baby, Sarge. Just about an hour ago. Took us damn near the whole night, but, man, was it worth it. I got me a son.”

“Hey, that’s great, Joe. You decided on a name yet?”

“Helena wants to call him Joe Junior, but I’m leaning toward Matthew Harold.”

“They both sound good to me,” Leal said. He eased himself back into bed next to Sharon, who was now lying on her side smoking
a cigarette as the conversation came to a close.

“One of the guys on my team,” he said, hanging up the phone. “His wife just had their baby.”

She nodded slowly, her hand propping up her head, and the sheet barely covering the fullness of her breasts.

“Must be nice, having the time for kids,” she said, blowing the smoke up and away from him.

He’d already told her about his daughters and his unhappy first marriage. The look she was giving him now worried him. Was
she starting to think along those lines?

“You look deep in thought,” he said.

“Just thinking.”

“About having kids?”

“Yeah,” she said, taking another drag on the cigarette and then reaching to stub it out. “But I’m not ready to get pregnant
at this point in my life.”

He heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief, hoping to make her smile, but instead she stared him straight in the eye.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m not up for a bit more practicing, though,” she said with a sly smile.

At late breakfast Sharon mentioned that she was going to her parents’ house for dinner and that he was welcome to come along
if he wanted. Then, when she later asked when she was going to get to see his place, he really began to wonder how much Smith’s
phone call that morning had affected her.

Sounds like she’s ready to set up house, he thought. And that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

Changing the subject, he mentioned that the arrival of the baby would start Smith’s two-week vacation.

“He’s been planning it for a while now,” Leal said. “But we’re getting that asshole Murphy to replace him.”

“Ugh,” Sharon said. “I’ve had the misfortune of meeting him a few times. What a pig.”

“Yeah, Brice wanted him to replace Hart when she got hurt, but I told them no way.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Sharon said. “How’s she doing?”

“Good,” Leal said. “Or I guess I should say, as well as could be expected considering the trauma. She’s worried about the
scarring and how it’ll affect her bodybuilding.”

“She’s lucky to have someone like you to support her,” Sharon said, squeezing his arm.

After helping her clean up the dishes, Leal went back to his house, remembering the cleaning that he’d started and needed
to finish. Stacks of dirty dishes waited for him in his kitchen sink. But he spent most of the ride thinking about Sharon
and how much she meant to him. But liking her was one thing. Meeting her family was another, and not something he looked forward
to at this stage in their relationship. Too much like meeting the girl’s dad on a teenage date. The looks, the scrutiny, the
false smiles… He could certainly think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

His reprieve came at two fifteen. His beeper went off again and this time it was headquarters. When he called in, the communication
personnel told him that there’d been a response to his type-three on Martin Walker.

“They got him?” Leal asked.

“No, a Detective Brown in Joliet says they’ve got someone using one of his credit cards.”

“Give me his number,” Leal said, reaching for a pad and pencil.

After he hung up he quickly dialed.

“Detective Brown,” the voice on the other end of the line said, its deeply resonant timbre suggesting a black man.

Leal explained who he was and about the type-threes.

“Yeah, I read them last week,” Brown said. “Here’s what we got. One of our local hypes was charging up a storm at the mall
using a Visa card belonging to Martin Walker. The card wasn’t coming back stolen, or anything, but the credit card company
had some kind of security alert on it. They notified the store security, and they grabbed her and called us. She had a syringe
on her, too. I remembered the name on the type-threes and thought I’d give you a call. Still interested?”

“Am I ever,” Leal said. “My partner and I will be right out.”

After calling Sharon and explaining that he wouldn’t be able to meet her folks for dinner, he called Hart. She answered on
the first ring.

“Hey, pretty lady, you up to doing some police work?”

“Sure. What you got?”

“I’ll fill you in on the way,” he said. “We gotta drive to Joliet. A break in the Walker case.”

Hart was standing in the doorway of her apartment building when he pulled up. She was wearing dressy-looking blue jeans, a
white blouse, and tan jacket. Leal had told her to dress casual and dress quickly. They took I-57 to I-80 and headed west.
It was close to four when they got to Jefferson Street.

Detective Brown met them at the front desk and shook both their hands. He was a black man, as Leal surmised, but he was a
lot bigger and younger. He had the physique of someone who spent a lot of time in the weight room.

“Connie Arpegio,” he said as he led them to the lockup area. “One of our locals. You want anything out of her you can usually
get it.”

The lockup was cinder block walls covered with blue paint. They followed Brown through a corridor with several heavy metal
doors, and finally came to a narrow table.

A twenty-something-looking girl sat on a bench talking on the phone, her dark brown hair drawn back from her face in a frizzy
perm. The heavy mascara gave her eyes a stark look in comparison to her drawn cheeks.

“Come on, Mom, it’s only a hundred fucking dollars,” she yelled into the phone. “Whaddya mean, not this time? I’ll pay you
back with that check I got coming.”

She continued her litany of profanity into the phone until the uniformed officer who’d been sitting across from her snapped
his fingers and motioned for her to hang up.

She nodded but continued to plead. He made the gesture again, and she nodded once more.

“Come on, Mom, I gotta get off the phone. You coming, or what?” She paused, listened, and then yelled into the receiver, “Oh,
Mother, you’re such a fucking bitch.” She slammed down the phone and stared up at Brown. He smiled amiably.

“Connie, these are Detectives Leal and Hart,” he said.

The girl’s feral eyes scanned both of them, lingering longer on Hart than Leal.

“They’d like to talk to you about the card,” Brown said.

“If I want to talk to somebody, it better be about getting the fuck outta here,” Connie said.

“So you want to cooperate then?” asked Leal.

“Fuck you, asshole,” she said. Then added, “Can I have a cigarette?”

“Looks like she’s coming down,” Leal said, pointing to the bruises and scabs where her left forearm met the biceps.

Brown nodded.

“Where’d you get the card, babe?” Leal asked.

“What card? I don’t know nothing about no card.”

“Maybe we should let her sit all night and come back tomorrow,” Leal said.

“We could do that,” Brown said.

“What are you talking about?” Connie said. “You told me I could walk with a hundred.”

Brown shrugged and smiled. “That was before I knew we were holding you for investigation.”

“Investigation?”

“Right, babe,” Leal said. “We got a couple of days before we even have to think about what we want to charge you with.”

“You big pricks,” she said. “Always fucking with people. That’s what you like to do, ain’t it?”

“We live for nothing else,” Leal said.

Connie jumped up suddenly and before Leal could grab her, Hart moved forward and slammed the girl’s back against the wall.

“You just be cool,” Hart said.

“Don’t put your hands on me, bitch,” Connie said, spitting in Hart’s face.

Hart’s fingers seized Connie’s jaw and racked her head back hard against the cinder blocks, making a plunking sound. Connie
emitted what passed for a muffled scream and then sunk back down to the bench. Leal took out his handkerchief and handed it
to Hart.

“This is getting to be a habit,” she said, dabbing at her face.

“I’ll have to buy you one of your own,” Leal said.

“That little bit of bullshit just elevated your charges to a felony,” Brown said. “This is Will County, bitch. Battery to
a police officer is something our state’s attorney takes a real dim view of.” He turned to the uniformed officer. “Go place
her in a cell. I’ll call Felony Review.”

Connie looked up at them, the heavy black lines descending from her eyes and the mucous bubbling from her nose making her
face a grotesque mask.

“You just blew your fucking chances for an I-Bond, babe,” Leal said.

With the mention of the last words, the sobbing abruptly ceased. Connie wiped at her face, and leaned back against the wall.
Brown handed her a paper towel for her nose.

“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked. Brown nodded and the uniformed copper gave her one from his pack.

She sucked on the cigarette so hard, Leal noticed, that he thought she’d take half of it down in one long drag.

“Okay, what is it you wanna know?” she said with a cloudy breath.

“The White Wolves,” Brown said, placing a heavy tan folder on the desk in front of Leal and Hart. Brown seated himself and
began sorting through the papers, some of which had photographs attached.

“They used to hang out on Collins Street, not far from the correctional center. We didn’t originally have them classified
as a one-percent gang,” he said. “That is, most of the members had some kinda jobs and just met on the weekends, instead of
being full-time assholes like the Hell’s Angels.”

Leal nodded.

“They got some hard-core leadership from this guy, though.” Brown handed them a paper with a photograph attached to it. The
face staring back at them from the black-and-white mug shot was a bearded white male with a crazed Charles Manson–type look.
“Raymond Griggs, aka Marauder. All these motorcycle assholes go for these crazy-ass nicknames. He tried to transform them
into a real one-percent club. Got in over his head when he got into a turf war with one of the bigger, tougher established
gangs. Griggs was shot to death. His lieutenant, a guy named Nick Stevens, aka Nick Smith,” he flipped a second sheet onto
the table. This one showed another white guy with a slender face and longish hair. “He went to Stateville for robbery back
about ten years ago at age twenty. Pulled two years, came out looking for a surrogate family and took up with the Wolves.

“Well, him and Griggs hit it off pretty well.” Brown stopped and poured a cup of coffee from the pot behind him. He held the
cup toward Hart, who smiled and took it. Then Brown did the same for Leal. He poured his own cup last.

“There may have been some kind of homosexual bond between the two of them,” he said, tapping the photos. “They both did hard
time together. When Griggs got it trying to make the Wolves into a big power gang, Stevens went down for murder. He killed
the guy who iced his buddy.” Brown put another photo on the table. It was a picture of the same face as the slender, long-haired
boy, but this one was more mature and much more massive-looking.

“This is one of our more recent pictures of him,” Brown said. “Calls himself Nuke.”

“Look at his traps,” Hart said, indicating the sloping bulge on either side of the bull neck. “And his jawline. See that bloat?
He’s on juice.”

Brown nodded and smiled. “Very perceptive. He built up a real jailhouse body, all right. Did four years on the murder rap—typical,
right? Then got out. Nobody’s been able to get anything on him since. A couple arrests for possession of a syringe, and PCS,
but no convictions.”

“A syringe?” Leal asked. “He a hype?”

Brown shook his head.

“He probably injects the steroids,” Hart said. “Less strain on the liver than taking them orally.” Leal noticed her blush
as they both looked at her.

“Can we run his ISB number and get a rap sheet?” Leal asked. “I’d like to see where he’s been arrested lately.”

“Sure,” Brown said. “He’s had some top quality attorneys since he got out. The Wolves kind of went by the wayside after Griggs
got killed and Nuke went to prison. Now our boy kinda just hangs out at a local gym, pushing steroids to the rest of the muscle
heads. Real cautious, though. It’s a members-only thing.”

Leal nodded. “Who’s the one Connie was telling us about?”

“Him,” Brown said, dropping a third picture on the table. “Stanley Willard, one of Nuke’s little asshole buddies. There’s
another young punk that hangs out, too, but we haven’t got anything on him. Only seen him a couple of times. Got something
wrong with one of his eyes.” He pointed off to the side. “Wall-eyed. Calls himself Moose, or something. But Willard I know
from way back. A little fucking burglar. Did a couple of stretches here and in Chicago, but never any hard time.”

“How about the address that shows up on the printout?” Leal asked. “Think it’s current?”

“That’s his mother’s house,” Brown said. “It’s over in the older section of the city. Connie said something about an apartment.
That’s probably where the stuff is.”