The Silent Places (5 page)

Reese said that would be nice. Then he told her he was sorry for imposing. She told him to shut up and then left him alone with her husband.

Reese said, “The children.”

Chang said, “Ben is an engineer in San Francisco. Julie is a senior at NYU.”

“A senior in college?”

“Yes. She’s been accepted to medical school.”

“My God. I remember when she was practically a toddler.”

“It goes fast,” Chang said.

“It does and it doesn’t,” Reese said, thinking, Depending where you are. “I’m sorry to do this.”

“Don’t insult us,” Chang said. “You are our guest. And we are indebted to you.”

“You are not indebted to me. When I helped you, it was for my benefit. I always acted in my own interests. Or my country’s. Your welfare was secondary.”

“You sound like a man trying to persuade himself.” Chang shrugged. “Whatever your purpose was, I and my family are indebted. You are familiar with the expression ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ Perhaps by coming here, you lift a burden from me.”

Reese said, “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I’m a fugitive. Probably wanted for assault and battery.”

“Assault?”

Reese told him about the incident in North Dakota.

Chang frowned and said, “But why? You were locked up. Why did they take you out?”

“They couldn’t kill me while I was in prison. Beyond that, I don’t know. I don’t know why they wanted to kill me. They already had, in a way.”

A moment passed and Chang said, “John. What about your wife?”

“She died. Five years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Chang said.

Reese shook his head, did not make eye contact with his friend. He feared what would happen if he did.

Hastings called the members of his homicide investigation team into his office and gave them the news. The men on his squad at that time were Sgt. Joe Klosterman, Detective Tim Murphy, and Detective Howard Rhodes.

Klosterman said, “So Wulf screwed us, then.”

“He didn’t screw us,” Hastings said. “He’s forced into a place he doesn’t want to be.”

“Sounds like he’s still siding with them,” Klosterman said.

“All right,” Hastings said. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear any more criticism directed at Wulf.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Then Rhodes said he was sorry.

Murph said, “What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rhodes said, “Well, now you’re all being punished because of me.”

“It’s not because of you,” Hastings said. “It’s because of me.”

“Oh, the hell with it,” Klosterman said, “Who cares? It’s done. Are we going to have to work hoot shifts?”

“We might,” Hastings said. “I’ll know more tomorrow after I meet with Captain Anthony. Okay. That’s all for now. Go get your backlog in order. Joe, hang around here for a minute, will you?”

Murph and Rhodes left the office. The door was closed, leaving Hastings and Klosterman alone.

Sgt. Joe Klosterman was probably Hastings’s closest friend. Klosterman was younger than Hastings. A big man with a mustache. Put him in coat and tails and have him dance gracefully to “I’m in Heaven,” he’d still look like a cop. He liked to tell jokes, liked performing. He had been married for nineteen years and was still head over heels in love with his wife, Anne. The father of five children, he refrained from swearing and using vulgarity in front of Anne and the kids. He and his family attended Catholic Mass regularly and were active members of their parish. At work, he employed the cop’s typical vocabulary, which included frequent use of the words
turd, douche, fucker
, and
motherfucker
.

Now, Klosterman looked at Hastings and Hastings looked back at him and made a sort of “Forgive me” gesture. It made Klosterman laugh, and Hastings laughed with him.

“Sorry, man,” Hastings said. “I fucked up.”

Klosterman said, “‘You don’t have the balls to back your own. Racist
fuckers
.’” Using a nerdy white-guy voice to imitate Hastings. It sounded a little like Paul Lynde. Or Richard Simmons.

“Sorry,” said Hastings.

“‘As far as I’m concerned, you can all just go
ffff
uck yourselves,’” Klosterman said, still using the voice.

“I didn’t fucking say that.”

Klosterman laughed and shook his head. “Ah, don’t worry about it, George,” he said. “It’s only ten days.”

“Okay.”

Klosterman said, “Will this clean the slate with the deputy chief?”

“I don’t know. Wulf seems to think so. By the way, don’t go around trashing Wulf or Murray on this. I’ve got enough shit to deal with as it is.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, now that I’ve calmed down, I can kind of see the spot Wulf’s in.”

“What?”

“Well, he wouldn’t tell me, and he probably never will. But I got the feeling the chief and the deputy chief really wanted to hammer me on this, but Ronnie talked them into doing something less severe.”

“Well,” Klosterman said, “I guess I should be grateful. If you got busted to sergeant, I’d have to be supervised directly by Karen. Or some other dipshit lieutenant. And I don’t have your gift for diplomacy.”

“Neither do I, apparently.”

“You ever work stakeout before? Surveillance?”

“No. You did, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. The Henry Commission, six years ago. Back when they were trying to bust the commissioner corruption ring.”

“How was it?”

Klosterman shrugged. “A lot of time in a van or an apartment building, listening to phone taps. I was stuck there with Bill Toomey. You remember him?”

“No. Never worked with him.”

“He retired two years ago. Get this: retired, moved out to this land he had in Tennessee.
Died
a year after that. Poor fucker. Anyway, Bill was kind of a tough guy. Old school. Six foot four, intimidating as hell. Remember Gene Hackman in that bar scene in
The
French Connection
, taking control of all those guys? I’d seen Bill Toomey do that for real. I told you he was from Tennessee. He started out with the PD at a time when cops regularly said
nigger
on the job and didn’t care who heard it. So he had to kind of unlearn that sort of thing later in his career. Anyway, like I said, he was a tough guy. But then I was stuck with him in this van for ten hours a day, kind of getting cabin fever, and, man, he almost drove me crazy. Waxing nostalgic. Talking about his first girlfriend, his childhood experiences, how his mom liked his brothers more than him, how sad he was he never had a son, and on and on. Real gushy, you know. A couple of times, I thought he might start crying on me. Who knew he was such a sensitive man.”

“Any confessions about teenage homosexual encounters?”

“No, but I would not have been surprised.”

“Well, that’s all rather touching.”

“Yeah. If we’d had another week of it, we’d’ve either beat the shit out of each other or gotten married.”

“I guess you learn things about each other, cooped up like that.”

“Oh, too much, homey. Too fucking much.”

Hastings said, “He died a year after retirement?”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t…” Hastings made a gun of his finger and pointed it to his head.

“Oh, no. Heart attack. The man liked his salted meats.”

After dinner, Chang took Reese to the studio behind the house. The studio had been converted from a garage. In the studio were a desk and a couch. The walls were paneled, and high bookshelves lined two of the walls. On another wall were Chang’s degrees from Ohio State University and a banner for the football team. He had become addicted to college football over the years. Chang told Reese there was no phenomenon in the world comparable to American college football. He said it was an excellent way to channel humanity’s tribalism and aggression. He told Reese he had missed some great games, being in prison. Reese nodded politely, not knowing if his friend was being humorous or genuine.

Chang asked Reese to take the other end of the heavy oak desk. Together, they moved it to another part of the room. Then Chang lifted the rug where the desk had been and lifted a door that revealed a stairway. Chang went down the stairs and Reese followed him.

This was where Chang kept his weapons.

There were over fifty of them—handguns, rifles, even a couple of machine guns. A good many of them were antique. He had an English breechloader, made by Rowland in 1720. Two pocket pistols, made by Alexander Forsyth and Company, circa 1815. These were kept in the original wood case with the small boxes containing the percussion powder. He had a brass-barreled flintlock holster pistol, favored by pirates in the early 1800s, and a couple of four-barreled Sharps pistols.

Chang opened a drawer and removed a modern-looking Austrian rifle.

“This is what I was telling you about,” Chang said.

It had been developed in the 1980s. Built in modular form so that several of its parts could be changed. The barrel could be quickly removed and exchanged for one of any four, each with a different length and function—a submachine gun, a carbine, a rifle, or a light machine gun. It had a built-in optical sight and an attached, inverted-V stand.

Chang handed it to Reese. Reese held it, let it become familiar to him. He said, “Okay. But do you have a Winchester Model Seventy?”

“Ah,” Chang said. “The American sniper rifle. I do, in fact.”

Chang went to another compartment, where a rifle hung on two pegs. He took it down and handed it to Reese.

The Model 70 Winchester .30-06 Springfield sniper rifle. Attached to the top was the long and slender Unertl scope. The rifle’s stock was a beautifully crafted walnut with a semi–Monte Carlo hump. It was accurate at eleven hundred yards and had a range beyond that. It was the rifle used by the Marine snipers in Vietnam.

Chang said, “You need handguns, too, I suppose?”

“Yeah. Three, if you can spare them.”

“I have plenty,” Chang said.

Chang opened a panel, revealing a case containing several handguns. Chang pointed to a Colt 1911 and said, “I have a silencer for this.” He handed the gun to Reese while he got the silencer from another drawer.

Reese held the Colt. He said, “I’d like a Ruger three fifty-seven revolver, if you have one.”

“I have one,” Chang said. “Have you tried the Smith & Wesson airweight? It’s the regular snubnose, but a lot lighter.”

“Can you spare one?”

“Yes.”

Chang retrieved a black one. He checked the cylinder to make sure it was not loaded. Then he handed it to Reese.

After a moment, Chang said, “I also have another rifle you’re familiar with. The Russian-made Mosin-Nagant. It’s not as effective as the Winchester, but I remember it working perfectly well on a target in Beijing.”

Chang smiled at Reese, but Reese did not smile back. Reese would never admit to Chang that he’d been the sniper sent to kill the
shan-chu
all those years ago. Or that he’d used a Russian rifle to do it.

The shift came to an end and Hastings walked to his car in the parking lot.

His car was a chocolate brown 1987 Jaguar XJ6. It had been seized by the police department pursuant to the RICO Act and given to him as his work and take-home car. It was a fast car with a Corvette engine that gave off a wonderful snort.

In the car, his cell phone rang. He saw that the call was from his daughter and he answered it.

“Yeah.”

“Daddy?”

“What’s up, pumpkin?”

“I’m at basketball practice. Mom’s supposed to pick me up. But I don’t see her here.”

“Sshh—” Hastings closed off the bad language. “What time was she supposed to pick you up?”

“Six-thirty. It’s six-forty now.”

“Have you called her?”

“Yeah. No answer.”

“Damn it. Is Mrs. McGregor there?”

“Yeah. Do you want me to ask her for a ride?”

“Yeah. … No, wait. Let me talk to her.”

“Hold on.”

Hastings waited and Terry McGregor got on the phone. Terry was a neighbor of theirs. She had a daughter, Randi, who was Amy’s age.

“George?”

“Hi, Terry? I’m in a bind here. Amy’s mother was supposed to pick her up and take her home.”

“Your home?”

“Well, no. Actually, her mother’s home. But, listen, could you take her to my house? Her mother can pick her up there later.”

“Sure.”

“I’m really sorry to impose.”

“George, be quiet. You live around the corner. It’s not an imposition.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“We’ll see you soon.”

“See you.”

Hastings checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant in the Central West End.

He didn’t make it.

Carol was waiting at a table alone. He greeted her, kissing her on the cheek.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was on the phone with Amy. Her mother was—” He stopped. Carol had told him before she was tired of Eileen stories.

Carol said, “Eileen was late or something?”

“Something,” Hastings said. “It’s taken care of.”

Carol didn’t respond to that. She looked down at her menu, a little peeved. Hastings decided that it would pass in time. Then his phone rang again.

“Sorry,” he said.

It was Eileen, his ex-wife.

Hastings walked away from the table before answering it. He sensed then what the conversation was going to be, and his sense was exactly correct.

Eileen said, “George, I’m at the school. Where the hell is Amy?”

“She got a ride home with Mrs. McGregor.”

“What? Well, that was fucking nice. Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“She tried to call you. You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I left it in the car. I was at Wild Oats, buying groceries. I was going to make her dinner.”

“You still can. Just go by my house and pick her up.”

“Shit. I’m supposed to drive all the way to South St. Louis, pick her up, and then drive her to West County?”

“Yes. Eileen, this is your fault.”

Eileen said, “It’ll be eight o’clock before I can make dinner. Now we’ll have to order pizza.”

As Eileen answered him, Hastings made the mistake of looking over at Carol. She gave him a look back that was not friendly.