‘Surprise. Was he there?’
‘No. Talked to the landlady, she said he left months ago. Skipped on two months rent.’
It wasn’t a surprise, really. It would have been too easy to expect him to be sitting around waiting for them. Though it would
have been nice for something to go right for a change. She sighed, then thanked the beat cop and hung up.
How to find Playboy without sending him running? The Gangster Disciples would know, but they were his crew, and if they told
him she was looking, he might bolt. Which would leave her in a tough spot. Galway was right – Playboy
would
look good in handcuffs. What ever the truth might be about Michael Palmer, picking up Playboy was a smart first step.
Best to continue looking for him quietly, working her informants. Cruz was the only reason a lot of them stayed out of jail;
hopefully that would keep them from warning him. She swung onto Sixty-third, the paint on the buildings fresher, fewer windows
busted as she neared the El stop. In Chicago, prosperity followed the trains, even in Crenwood. There was a
cluster of small businesses: a party store on the corner, a Popeye’s beside it. Even a coffee house, not a Starbucks, but
the kind with purple couches in the window and a chalkboard listing sandwich specials named after movies. Somebody’s dream,
something they’d scrimped to own, had probably hoped to put in Wicker Park or Lakeview, but couldn’t afford the rent.
She wondered where Jason Palmer was now. He’d been pretty steamed when he stormed out yesterday, had that vigilante eye. There
was something about him that she liked, but something damaged, too. She remembered his distant stare in the fish shop, the
way he’d talked about the devastation he’d seen in Iraq, all the buildings burned out. How people just got used to it, didn’t
even see them anymore –
She almost rear-ended the car in front of her.
Holy shit.
Keanna’s voice rang in her ears.
Shit’s burning down in Crenwood all the time.
Cruz spun toward the Dan Ryan. Had to get back home. She needed her computer, the spreadsheet of crime data. Her head felt
light, that beautiful rush that came of being onto something. When her phone rang again, she was so lost in thought she answered
without glancing at the caller ID. ‘Cruz.’
‘Officer. Are you somewhere you can speak?’
The voice wasn’t familiar. ‘Umm…’ She took a second to check the number, but didn’t recognize it. ‘Sure.’
‘You don’t know me, but I’m a friend.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She leaned back in the seat. A crazy, then. How had he gotten her cell number? ‘What is this about?’
‘Michael Palmer’s death.’
She pulled the car over, right up onto the curb, tires crunching on sun-scorched grass. Flipped her hazards as she threw it
in park, and said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re working on his case, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. But I’m not a detective. You should talk to –’
‘And you’re also in Gang Intelligence.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you discovered that this was more than a simple gang retaliation?’
Who was this guy? ‘I can’t discuss that.’
‘Sorry. Let me be more direct. The Gangster Disciples didn’t kill Michael Palmer.’
Streaks of sunlight prismed on the dashboard. She stared at their liquid pattern.
‘Officer?’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll bite. Who did?’
‘I wish I could tell you.’ His voice had enunciation perfect as a news anchor. ‘But you wouldn’t believe me.’
‘You know, for a mysterious caller, you’re not much help.’
‘The burnt child fears the fire, Officer.’
‘And a rolling stone gathers no moss. What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means, Officer, that I know who killed Michael Palmer. And I’m going to tell you how to find out.’
He took a deep breath and another look at himself in the rearview. His heart felt flittery and his fingers tingled. Bar none,
this had to be the craziest thing he’d ever done. Jason smiled a grin tight enough to make his teeth ache.
The suit fit well, but looked a couple of years out of style, just as he hoped. It’d caught his eye the moment he stepped
into the used-clothing store: double-breasted brown fabric with the faint sheen of too many wearings. A blue tie, Windsor-knotted,
and a silver tie clip he’d seen beside the register.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ he said to his own reflection. Then he took the Ray-Bans from the passenger seat and put them on,
the oversize lenses flashing back a sunset.
He was only three blocks away, but felt every inch of them, the pressure and pop of cracked blacktop beneath the wheels. The
breeze stale and warm as someone breathing in his face. The reactions as he turned down the street, the way one of the men
at the end of the block glared as he unclipped a phone from his belt and spoke into it. The way things seemed to swirl and
resolve, a spiral with himself at the center, the eye of a human hurricane.
He had a moment of panic in his belly, and then he was putting the car into park, and it was too late, the point of no return,
and that gave him the energy he needed, just like it always had on patrol, when they left the relative safety of the FOB and
went into the streets. Jason moved deliberately, trying not to show hurry or nerves. Just another day, another item on his
list. Shuffled papers, took one last breath, then opened the car door and stepped out.
He could feel the stares pressing down. A handful of younger gangbangers sat on the steps of the sagging porch, a radio at
their feet spilling hip-hop like fog. He glanced at them, then casually further up, to the two men who stood in the bungalow’s
doorway. Early twenties, faces composed and steady, poker masks sheened with sweat and hatred.
His veins pumped panic, but he met their gaze, nodded slightly, turned to close the car door. Adjusted his suit jacket as
he did, pulling it up enough that they could see his purchases.
The holster was soft brown leather, stained dark down the center with traces of Hoppes #9. He wore it on his right hip, not
low-slung like a gunfighter, but high on his slacks. He’d left the Beretta cocked, a subtlety he doubted would be noticed
but that might buy him a half second if things went wrong.
He almost laughed. Like he had a prayer of walking if things went wrong.
The handcuffs hung on his belt behind the holster. The Army surplus store had a bunch of different
kinds, most of them for sex play, with quick releases and padding. He’d gone for a classic nickel-finish pair, heavy and
shiny. Beside them, where his coat would cover it most of the time, hung a silver star on a black leather square. He lingered
long enough at the car, retrieving a notebook he’d set on the roof, for the kids on the porch to get a nice long look. Counting
on them seeing it.
At a distance.
Because if anyone saw it up close, he was a corpse. He hadn’t held a police badge, but he felt fairly sure they didn’t have
the words ‘FBI: Female Body Inspector’ etched across the face.
It’s in the attitude,
he thought. That sense of unquestioned entitlement police had, the way they walked the street like they owned everything
on it. The pads of his fingers were numb. He pocketed the car keys and turned slow, jacket falling back to cover the gear
on his belt, leaving only the butt of the pistol still in sight. Notebook in his left hand, fighting the urge to flex the
fingers of his right. Felt a mad urge to run, to just jump in the car and go, knowing he could be back in safe territory in
twenty minutes.
Then he thought of Billy, asleep in an Army T-shirt.
He walked over, trying for swagger. Hit the boys on the porch with his Ray-Bans and a stern expression. Showtime. ‘Which one
of you is going to tell Dion Williams I need to talk to him?’ Jason asked, and flashed a thin smile that said he didn’t have
a worry in his life.
The afternoon sun lay on his shoulders. His demons raged, screamed, sent electricity crackling up and down the lengths of
his nerves. He stood still.
Then the taller of the two in the doorway nudged one of the teenagers with his foot. ‘Bounce on in, tell C-Note a detective
wants to see him.’
Jason tried to look bored, tapping his notebook. Tried not to run the odds on whether or not Playboy would be here, knowing
that if he was, it was certain death. One of the guys on the steps turned up the radio, the music saying there was no such
thing as halfway crooks, scared to death and scared to look. Jason glanced down the block and pretended to stifle a yawn while
fear hollowed out his body.
‘Don’t remember calling no police.’ The man in the doorway wore a striped button-up with a Sean John logo, the lines stretched
across the muscles of his chest and arms. The two bangers stood beside him like bodyguards.
Jason smiled. ‘You don’t call us, Dion. We call you.’
One of the bangers stepped up, head cocked and chest forward. Jason met his gaze. Knew the game, one he’d played plenty of
times in the Army. No weakness, no fear. ‘Best control your boy. Hate to search him, find something that violates his parole.’
‘Go easy, cuz.’ Dion kept his voice level, and the banger stepped back. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Detective Martinez.’ The real Martinez, crazy mother that he’d been, he would have approved of this stunt.
‘You don’t look like no Martinez.’
Jason shielded his eyes from the sun, drawled, ‘Get that all the time.’
‘How come I ain’t seen you before?’
‘Because I only come when shit’s about to get out of hand. We need to talk.’ Gestured to his car. ‘Let’s take a ride.’
Dion’s eyes narrowed. ‘Since when the po-lice drive Cadillacs?
Shit.
He’d wondered about that, but hadn’t seen a way around it. He controlled his expression, said, ‘That’s my personal ride.’
Smiled. ‘Car’s the Virgin Mary. You like the classics?’
‘They ’aight. My boy Brillo used to have an old Monte Carlo, till that shit got disappeared the other night.’ He paused. ‘Why’n’t
you make yourself useful, find Brillo’s whip?’ The boys on the steps laughed at that.
‘Hop in, we’ll go look.’ Waited a beat, saw the hesitation in the other man’s eyes. ‘Unless you want the whole block to know
your business.’
‘You come here to arrest me?’
‘Nope. To invite you.’
‘I ain’t going nowhere.’
Jason shrugged. He felt like his stomach was being slowly tugged away from him. ‘Trying to do you a favor here. You know Cruz,
from Gang Intelligence?’ He waited for the faint nod. ‘She and the lieutenant, they wanted to send in the cavalry. I said
no. Said C-Note’s a smart guy, that we should try to talk to him
first.’ So much came down to the gang leader buying this, getting in the car with him. Taking a drive around the neighborhood,
talking as they went, the Caddy giving Jason a tiny edge in enemy turf. Mobility and security.
A long moment. Then Dion turned and opened the door. ‘My office.’
Jason’s hands went swampy, his heart thudding against his ribs. If he went inside, he was a whisper away from death. One wrong
move, and the gangbangers could do what ever they wanted to him, do it safely and in privacy.
Take as long as they wanted.
Under his jacket, the sleeves of his Oxford were soaked. Dion watched him, measuring. The look in the man’s eyes lit a cold
flame in Jason’s belly. This lowlife had sent men to kill Billy, maybe Michael, too. Was he going to walk away from that?
Jason curled his lips in a sneer, shrugged. ‘Lead the way.’ Stepped up on the porch, brushing by the bodyguards, the skin
on his neck tingling as he passed into the monster’s lair. A strange déjà vu, the same combination of terror and exhilaration
he’d felt every time he cleared a house with the squad, not knowing what he was walking into. A soldier’s rush, the fear present
but controlled, mastered. Except that then he’d been wearing body armor, slinging an M4, and representing the strong arm of
the United States Army.
It was dim inside, and reeked of weed and sweat and Chinese takeout. A constellation of cigarette
burns scarred the carpet. A girl reclined on one couch, a baby asleep on her chest. On the other, two shirtless teenagers
were leaning forward, each furiously punching buttons on a controller. Jason looked up, saw a big plasma TV where the two
were storming a dusty city block under an orange sky. A voice yelled, ‘Fire in the hole’, and a grenade blew on screen, tossing
a digital body like a rag doll. One of the gangbangers hooted. ‘Like that?’ he asked, and then leaned forward to grab a beer
from the table, exposing the gleaming handle of a pistol tucked in his back. ‘Want a little more?’
The office was a small bedroom. Enormous particle-board desk, pleather wing chair, green banker’s lamp. A junior-executive
rig in the middle of a gang house guarded by teenaged killers playing video-games about soldiers. The only things that kept
Jason from laughing were the fear he wouldn’t be able to stop and the knowledge that every step he’d taken forward was one
he might have to fight his way back.
‘All right, Po-lice.’ Dion turned and offered a grin laced with menace. ‘Now we’re all alone. Now we in
my
house.’
A muscle in Jason’s thigh jumped, but he kept his face straight and stepped closer, his chest inches from the other man’s.
They were about the same height, but Dion had an easy thirty pounds of muscle on him. Jason stared, unblinking, feeling the
wetness in his armpits, the tremor in his fingertips. From the moment he’d stepped inside it’d been play hard or die.
He had to make the man believe completely. ‘You think I’m alone?’
‘Don’t see nobody else.’ Dion’s voice had a sort of restless craziness to it.
‘’Cause you ain’t looking. It’s like cowboys and Indians. I’m the scout. You only see me, but the whole tribe’s waiting just
over the hill.’
Dion’s eyes narrowed. ‘What you want?’
‘I want to know why you sent Playboy to kill Jason Palmer.’
‘Don’t know anybody by either name.’
‘You sell crack out of houses on Eggleston and Ross. You run a basement club in a ware house up on Hooker. You got a baby-mama
named Cherise.’ He saw the reaction in Dion’s eyes, and silently thanked Ronald for the details. ‘We’re always watching. I
know more about your business than you do.’ Jason made himself wait a beat, then put a little steel in his voice. ‘You
really
don’t want to piss me off. Now, why did your boys try to hit Jason Palmer?’