Choked Up (11 page)

Flynn put a hand on his back. “Towel's in.”

“Ssss not broke,” Rory said, swiping at his nose. “Jes gimme a feckin' minute.”

“He can't go home like this,” I said. “One look and Da won't rest until . . .”

Flynn rubbed his forehead. “Well, what the hell am I gonna do with him?”

“I'll take him,” I said. “Let him sober up in Hank's guest room.”

Flynn jerked a thumb at Ragnar. “You think your
friend
will be okay with that?”

“Absolutely.”

He laid a hand on my head and mussed my hair. “Sometimes I think I don't know you at all anymore.”

 

Ragnar was positively jovial after kicking Rory's ass. And Rory, skunk-drunk and fury spent, was as happy to have taken his licks, as dished them out. They were fast friends by the time we hit the freeway, comparing fight stories.

Fine by me.
I had plenty to think about.

I took the easy one first. “Uh, Rags?” I interrupted. “Got a number for that
pal
of yours, Chris Ledoux? I'm thinking about scoring his extra Sox tickets.”

“Er . . .” It took him a few seconds to catch on. “You bet.” He handed me his cell phone. Rory, blissfully unaware, blarneyed on.

I scrolled through his contacts, clicked on Ledoux, and typed.

Minutes later, Ragnar drove into Hank's driveway. Sentry and dog, nowhere to be seen.

Rory opened the door and slowly climbed out.

I hung back. “Why'd you come into the bar tonight, Ragnar?”

“Mant's ghosted. Got the call to bring you here and tell you Bannon won't be back 'til morning.”

The dashboard clock read 4:05 a.m. “Does that qualify?” “Fuck if I know.” Ragnar shrugged.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for not breaking Rory's nose.”

“What can I say? I'm a classy guy.”

 

Rory slung a heavy arm across my shoulders. I grabbed him around the middle, and we stumble-walked up the sidewalk.

“Thanks, Snap.” He leaned against the door while I typed in the security code.

“Anytime.” I pushed open the door. “All this over a snitch, huh?”

Rory sagged forward into the foyer. “Thass the feckin' thing of it. Kid's only fifteen. A cripple for the rest o' his life now, yeah?”

Political correctness was never your forte.
“Where'd you take him? Lurie Children's?”

“Nah,” he said with surprising frankness. “I called Joy.”

Dr. Joy Schaffer was a pediatric surgeon and Rory's ex-girlfriend. A slinky brunette with an easy smile and the unflappable cool of a frozen lake. No matter how hard he tried—and he tried damn hard—Rory couldn't quite get over her.

I led him to the guest room. He flopped down on the bed.

I pulled the blinds and went into the en suite bath and got towels, spare toothbrush and toothpaste out of the cabinet. “So. You set a juvie snitch up in a private hospital? That's—”

“Safe as I could make it and get him treated. Joy's stretching to gimme three days. After that, I dunno.” He shook his head.

I leaned against the guest bath doorjamb. “Quite a luxury, then, for you to nurse a two-day hangover.”

“Aww, feck.” He threw an arm over his face and groaned. “Bring me a glass of salt water.”

I returned with the salt water, aspirin, and three bottles of Gatorade.

“Thanks.” Rory took the glass and went into the bathroom. He started retching before I made it to the door.

 

I took a shower and sluiced the stink of smoke and wired-up monkey grease from my skin. Afterward, wrapped in a towel, the night's tension melted away beneath the blow-dryer's somnolent heat until I caught my reflection and a brutal dose of conscience in the mirror.

Even the smattering of freckles across my nose was accusatory.

All I ever wanted to do was to make the table club, to be one of them. And now that I was on the job, I was using my brothers for my own ambition. Tonight, I stole Cash's righteous collar and was scheming to heist a maimed teenage snitch from under Flynn and Rory.

It was after four o'clock and Hank still wasn't home. I put on underpants and an Army T-shirt, not letting myself think about his hunt for a psychotic hit man.

“Your worrying,” he said once, after an assignment, while I was lying across his chest in bed, “means you don't trust me or my ability.”

“No.” Tears of frustration blurred my vision. “I don't trust other people.”

He flipped me onto my back, looming over me. “Situational awareness, Peaches.”

“But—”

He pinned my arms over my head, holding me by the wrists. There was nothing better than lying powerless beneath him.

“Trust me.” He nuzzled, his scruffy chin into my collarbone. “Promise me you'll never worry.”

I did.

“I take it back,” I said aloud to the empty room. “Where are you, Hank?”

I crawled into bed, missing him like hell, certain that no matter how tired I was, sleep would never come.

I was wrong.

Face mashed into the pillow, arms over my head, I slept dead to the world.

Rush Limbaugh's theme song blared. I fumbled across the nightstand for my phone. “Leticia?”

“Do you know what goddamn time it is?” she squawked.

“Uh . . .” I rolled over onto my back and looked blearily at the clock. “6:04 a.m.?”

“And what goddamn day it is?”

“Saturday?”

“Since you're all coherent an' shit, enlighten me as to why I'm calling you at the crack of dawn on my day off?”

Oh shit. Cutting my shift.
I got up and started pacing, trying to force blood to my brain. “I'm sorry. I didn't think—”

“Hell right, you din't. Booting a Bentley? This is Chicago. Someone own a car like that, they so connected you think three times before you write the ticket, then you hold up and think again.”

The blood drained from my head into my stomach and roiled. “Whose was it?”

“The Honorable Mrs. Coles,” she said.

“You boot the mayor's wife's car outside a bunch of hoochie clubs? Whee! You kicked the proverbial hell outta that tatted girl's hornets' nest.”

My brain, encased in Jell-O, could form no response.

“McGrane? You there?”

“Yeah.”

“Lemme tell you how this is gonna play out. You gonna bust your tiny white onion down to my desk. In the bottom drawer in a file labeled
Hillsdale College
you're gonna find the North Impound ID swipe cards and keys.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Then you're gonna get your sorry and subservient self to North Impound by 7:00 a.m. sharp so one o' the mayor's crew can pick his Bentley up and erase all goddamn traces of your stupidity.”

“Got it.”

“No, what you got is a temporary suspension. I'll see you in my office first thing Monday morning.” She disconnected.

From bad to worse faster than IRS hard drives spontaneously combusting.

Grinding on two hours' sleep, I raided Hank's medicine cabinet, searching through the go pills and no-go pills. Amphetamines and sleeping pills. Dexedrine and beta-blockers. Modafinil.

“Less speed, more focus,” was how Hank described them. I shook out a couple of tablets, washed them down with water straight from the tap, and put on jeans, a black tee, and a blazer, and armed up with the Kimber Solo, boot knife, and pepper spray.

I went into the kitchen and scribbled a note.

I popped the tab on a Xenergy Cherry Lime and chugged it on the way to the garage. And stopped short. My Accord was at my house. Hank took the G-Wagen and the Super Bee was getting detailed after the stringer and spending the week in the police impound. Which left . . . I looked at the key rack and grinned.

The Indian.

Which came with the added benefit that Chris the sentry wouldn't be faced with the dilemma of staying on duty or chasing me down. He'd never catch me.

I grabbed the keys and a helmet and started the motorcycle before I hit the garage door clicker.

Hank's Modafinil kicked in somewhere on the freeway. I was flying at a steady 85 mph, at one with the bike. Everything seemed to have slowed down. Become clearer. Colors brighter. I felt calm, full of focus, and perfectly alert.

By the time I recovered the keys from Leticia's desk, I had a plan and ten minutes to make it to North Impound.

I parked Hank's bike in front of the office door, cracked my knuckles, and sent my sole ally at Special Unit, Edward Dunne, a text.

 

Edward Dunne:
What do you need?

Edward Dunne:
For how long?

Edward Dunne:
You'll have them in twenty minutes. Coded to erase by noon.

 

I hung up the phone. Quarter after and still no mayoral lackey had shown up. It'd be just like that jerkoff Coles to make me wait until noon.

Come on. Come on.
The clock was ticking.

And so was my Tag Heuer
. Holy cat, it's loud.

I bounced in place, shadow boxing, killing time. It was dying a slow death. I needed to interview Rory's Serb before my brother sobered up, talked to Da, and they dumped the kid into Witness Protection.

Seven thirty. A black-armored limo drove up and parked across three handicapped spots. The door swung open and out stepped an enormous black man wearing the 1920s Hollywood's ideal of a proper driver's ensemble. Cap, double-breasted jacket with brass buttons, jodphurs, and high boots. The whole nine yards. Embarrassing and intimidating at the same time. “Holy shit!” He tipped down his mirrored sunglasses. “Maisie-save-my-ass-McGrane. Who'd you piss off to get this detail?”

“Coles.”

“Oh no. No!” He started laughing. Howling, actually. Covering his mouth, he pointed at me and slapped his leg. “Damn, girl. Thought you'd learned your lesson after you booted his ass the first time.”

“You'd think.” I smiled. “How you been, Dozen?”

“Same ol', new day.”

A chunky Korean mini-me version of Poppa Dozen popped out of the limo's still open driver's door.

Dozen tipped his glasses back up. “Did I tell you to get out of the car?” He snapped twice and pointed at the car. The little man got back in and closed the door.

“Jesus.” Dozen shook his head. “What the hell kind of driver is that?”

He sat down on the hood of the limo and took a crumpled pack of unfiltered Camels from inside his jacket. He lit up while I watched, momentarily entranced by the acrid smell and the slow curl of smoke from his exhale, the diamond studs in his ears, the nick on his cheek from shaving. “You know you gonna lose your job, right?” he said.

“Nah.”

“The hell you ain't.”

“I didn't know it was his car. And I did manage to get his mayoral butt out of Swag before Vice busted him for . . . ah . . .”

“Not a word. Not ever.” Dozen whipped off his glasses, his yellowish whites a bloodshot road map. “You best cut throat right now, a'fore I mop you.”

“Okay, okay.” I forgot how scary Dozen could be. “I get it.”

“The hell you do. Coles hates you so bad, if you was on fire and he had water, the mutherfucker'd drink it, then go piss in the corner.”

I gave a rough chuckle. “Can't we all just get along?”

“You a cold piece, McGrane. You get up in the man's union business, red-face him on TV, then save his skinny-ass neck. Right there you in the shit. But do you want to climb out? Hell no. You dive in like some crunking Jacks Cousteau. Coles offers you a job and you tell him to suck his own dick?” Dozen shook his head and slid the mirrored shades back on. “The man don't want you down, girl. He wants you dead.”

“Gee, when you put it that way . . .”

“Shit.” He flicked his glowing cigarette over my shoulder and stood up. “Where the car at?”

“Come on.” He followed me into the North Impound office. I found the gate keys and the car on the computer, and after an exercise in massive irritation—unlocking and locking and card swiping through three separate gates—got both the Bentley and Poppa Dozen out of Impound.

The Bentley's window slid down and Dozen leaned out. “Coles is a ruthless mutherfucker, McGrane. Watch your back, hear?”

He drove off, followed by the armored limo, and I hustled back into the office. North Impound opened at nine. Assuming a twenty-minute bumper for the early-to-work-ers, which granted, were in short supply at the Traffic Enforcement Bureau, I had a nine-and-a-half-minute window to find the paperwork and delete the files from the computer. Highly illegal and the real reason I suspected Leticia drafted me for this mission.

I cleared all traces in six.