‘You’re a cop,’ he said. ‘Call for backup.’
But Cruz turned to look at him, shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ she said, her voice matter of fact but her face slapped, ‘one of those guys
is
a cop.’
It couldn’t be.
It just couldn’t fucking be.
Cruz lay on the ground, the sun-baked dirt painful against her pelvic bone. Stared at the scene, something from a movie, men
with suits and submachine guns doing deals in the ghastly yellow of sodium lights. Only it wasn’t a movie, it was real, and
one of the men was Tom Galway. Her partner.
Earlier she’d had the feeling that this whole case was like a train off the rails and hurtling through space. Now she felt
the impact.
Then from behind came the most precise sound she’d ever heard. Perfect and sharp and clean, like God snapping his fingers.
A pistol cocking.
The veins in her neck throbbed, and the skin on her face seemed to tighten. She looked back, the move pure reflex. A man’s
silhouette blocked the glowing lights of the convention hotels on the other side of the river. She could only make out one
detail, the only one that mattered, the gun held in both hands.
Beside her, Palmer had rolled up on his shoulder, bracing himself against the ground with his knuckles. He looked like coiled
springs about to snap. It reminded
her that she had a gun too, and she started to raise it. Not really thinking, just not wanting to die right here, on the
shitty banks of the shitty Chicago River.
The silhouette said, ‘Don’t.’
She froze. The voice had been cool and unemotional, the kind of voice that belonged to someone comfortable dropping the hammer
on his weapon. Her palms went dry. How deep had she gotten herself in here?
‘Lose the gun.’
She grit her teeth, looked around.
‘Damn it, you stubborn cunt, drop it.’ By the reflected light she could almost make out his features, cruel lips with a white
ridge of scar tissue cutting across his cheek from the corner of his mouth. If he was a cop, she didn’t know him.
She set the Smith down on the dead grass, feeling her whole life falling away with it. Like the earth was tilting and she
was unable to hold on. Arsons. Conspiracies. Mysterious callers. Gangbangers with submachine guns. Dirty cops and deadly voices.
Cruz looked over at Palmer, found him staring back at her. Cursed herself for taking his gun. She’d yanked it from his belt
and tossed it, intent on getting the cuffs on, and there wasn’t enough light to make out where it had fallen.
‘I’m police,’ she said, pleased to hear her own voice come out steady. ‘No matter how bad you think you are, believe me, you
don’t want to be pointing a gun at a cop.’
Scarface snorted. He cleared his throat with a long gargle, then leaned forward and spat phlegm on the grass between her feet.
‘Be quiet, cop.’ He straightened, raised his voice. ‘Hey.’ The sound was lost in the traffic noise from above. ‘Hey!’
‘What?’ Oddly, she could hear the response clearly. The concrete of the cul-de-sac must have bounced and amplified his words.
‘Company.’
‘What?’
‘
Com-pan-y.
’
Cruz risked a glance back. The Italian-looking bruiser in the cheap suit, the one Palmer had said was named Anthony DiRisio,
had the two gangbangers in the killing arc of his submachine gun. His stance was perfect, his posture calm. He reminded her
of a cobra, hood flared, gentle rhythmic sway, ready to strike faster than you could see. Staring down the barrel of all that
death, the gangbangers were posturing children.
Galway, meanwhile, had walked toward the fence, the MP5 still dangling from one hand, the other up to shade his eyes. ‘What
have you got?’ He reached in his pants pocket, then slung the submachine gun over his shoulder by its strap. Fumbled with
something in his hands. A flashlight, a mini Mag-Lite.
The beam lanced out through the fence to stab Scarface in the eyes. He winced, raised one hand to block the light.
Cruz glanced at Palmer, saw the same thought in his face, and then they were scrabbling for their feet.
Scarface whirled, his gun swinging over until she could see right down the black barrel, but she kept moving, twisting her
body as she stood. The roar surprised her, the gunfire much louder than the muffled crack she heard through ear protection
on the firing range. A gout of orange flame tore a chunk of turf not two inches to the right of her thigh. She froze, fear
and sounds and revelation all combining to crush her, saw the gun coming up, this time the man aiming at her chest, a kill
shot, no way he could miss. She watched his finger tighten on the trigger, knew she was dead.
Then Palmer hit Scarface in a rushing tackle, his shoulder driving hard into the man’s gut, the guy gasping, gun flying wide,
Palmer pushing like a linebacker on a tackling dummy, driving him back ten feet to the river’s edge. They hit the railing,
and for a second Galway’s flashlight held them both in its beam, Palmer jumping back as the gunman flipped over the railing,
arms pinwheeling like he was trying to swim upward through the light.
The drop to the river was only about five feet, but it seemed to take a long time for the splash.
The beam of light swerved crazily, spinning off of them, and Cruz wondered why that would be. Then the answer occurred to
her, Galway probably reaching for his MP5 with both hands. She couldn’t believe he would shoot her, that her partner and friend
would fire on them, but didn’t want to find out. She started running, yanking at Palmer’s arm. He turned away
from the water, and she could smell his panic, feel the tension in the muscles of his arms, and then they were sprinting,
her leading the way and him fast behind, pounding up the bike path toward the Michigan Avenue Bridge.
There was a cluster of explosions behind them, like firecrackers.
Jesus
Christ.
No pain. Her breathing came hard, pulse slamming in her wrists and neck, skin tingling. Her footsteps fell firm and true,
and she heard Palmer’s echoing behind her. Another set of firecrackers, but the bike path was good footing, and ahead of them
loomed a stairwell up to the bridge. She took the stairs three at a time, one hand on the railing yanking herself up, knowing
they were safe now. That there was no way their pursuers had been able to get around the fence fast enough to chase them.
Michigan Avenue lay two flights up, and even at midnight, there would be people on the street, cabs prowling. She didn’t slow,
kept pushing, and from behind she heard Jason Palmer, his footfalls heavier, and above the ringing of the breath in her own
ears, she heard him laugh, the guy somehow enjoying this.
‘I guess,’ he said, panting, ‘you won’t be arresting me tonight.’
‘So these three kids, Mexicans, they get it in their head to start robbing nail salons.’ Tom Galway sips his beer and shakes
his head. ‘Fucking
nail
salons. They come in waving shotguns, clear the register, grab jewelry, purses, cell phones from the customers. In and out.
Smart. No security, no cameras, and it’s all women, so they scare easy
–
right, Cruz?’
There’s laughter, but there’s more when she tells her partner to check out her manicure and flips him the bird, so it’s all
good, just cops on their sixth pitcher of Budweiser laughing at the whole goddamn world.
‘Anyway, these innovators, they’re hitting two places a week, but it’s Chicago, so no telling how long that could roll. Except
they have the bad luck to pick the salon where the wife of the state congressman gets her mani-pedi, poor bastards. She wasn’t
even there at the time, but word comes from on high, these three have got to go down, top priority, bar none. I’m not kidding.
Whole area is on the lookout for the goddamn Pedicure Bandits.’ That breaks them up, and Galway pauses to drain half his beer
in a go. ‘So one evening we get a tip that they’ll be in a bar down the West Lawn. We roll in, but we don’t know what these
guys look like, right? They’ve been wearing masks. So my partner and I, we’re in this dump Mex bar, and we’re thinking what,
we’re supposed to search all these steroided
cholos
? No thank you.’
‘Pansy,’ she says, and the table erupts in laughter, and Galway flashes her bird back.
‘So my partner, he asks the bartender, can we borrow the phone. He takes out a list of the numbers of the cell phones stolen
that afternoon and starts dialing. And I’m standing there trying not to crack up at the sheer brilliance of the Chicago Police
Department, when lo and behold,’ Galway’s voice getting louder, coming to the punchline, ‘but the guy I’m standing behind,
I mean right behind, his pocket rings.’ The table breaks into laughter. ‘And you know what this guy does?’ Galway spreads
his arms as if measuring stupidity by the foot. ‘He fucking answers!’
The laughter is an explosion, an upswell of love, love of the job, love of each other, love of the sheer lunacy of the world,
and as she joins in, as loud and hard as all the rest, Cruz thinks to herself that this is it, this is all she wants, just
to run with these men and chase idiot criminals and wear a star, and at the end of the day to drink Budweiser and tell stories,
and then get up the next day and do it all again.
Cheap paneling ran between a carpet dotted with stains she chose not to look too hard at and a ceiling smoked beige. Cigarette
ghosts soured the air. The smell tugged at Cruz; right now, she’d have dug butts out of a bar ashtray. ‘Classy place.’
‘It’ll do.’ Jason closed the door, flipped the dead-bolt, and slid the chain across. Pulled the blinds, concealing the rusting
Dumpster and mismatched junkers in the motel parking lot. He moved with an economy of purpose, and she found herself watching
him with appreciation. The emotion of someone far away. Adrift from the real.
She wandered to the bed, looking at the grungy pillowcases with distaste. Above the fake headboard hung a print of a lily
painted by someone who’d once heard flowers described. She brushed at the mattress, sat on the very corner. ‘You ever listen
to Tom Waits?’
‘Huh?’ He looked away from the break in the curtains.
‘This place reminds me of a song of his, I forget the name. “The rooms smell like diesel, and you take on the dreams of the
ones that have slept there.” ’
He smiled. ‘ “9th and Hennepin”. From
Rain Dogs.
’
‘You’re a fan? Me too. I used to date a guy who got me into it. He’d fall asleep to it.’
‘Jesus.’ Jason laughed. ‘Must’ve made for some black-eyed dreams.’
She nodded. ‘The guy was a waste of time, but at least he introduced me to Waits.’ There was dirt under her nails from laying
on the ground. A memory hit, and she chuckled. ‘One time he played it while we were, you know, in the middle of things.’ A
flash of rumpled sheets and the smell of bourbon. His tattoo, dice showing sixes and a ribbon that read
Its all good,
just like that, no apostrophe. ‘So we’re going, and Waits sings “I knew him when he was nothing, and he hasn’t changed a
bit”, and I burst out giggling. I mean one of those can’t-stop, hurts-too-much fits. Right in the middle of things.’
Palmer laughed through his nose, eyes alight. ‘Was he pissed?’
‘What do you think? One minute he’s king stud, the next I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe.’ She smiled to think of it,
then shook her head. ‘Yeah, he was pissed.’
A loud rumbling from outside caught both their attention, and they sat frozen and listening as it grew louder and passed,
an anonymous semi headed for the freeway.
‘You know the one I love? “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis”. It’s got this line, “I wish I had all the money that
we used to spend on dope –” ’
‘ “I’d buy me a used car lot and I wouldn’t sell any of them”,’ Cruz said.
Jason smiled, stepped away from the curtain. Pulled a ladder-back chair with a broken slat and sat down. Facing forward, which
she liked. She said, ‘How’d you get into him?’
‘My brother.’
The real world flooded in like they’d broken a levee. She winced, crossed her arms. Realized she still had her shoulder holster
on, though her gun was back by the river. Shit. Her gun. ‘I guess we can’t trade song lyrics all night.’
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Too bad, though. First normal conversation I’ve had in days.’
She looked him over, cop instincts taking in detail. Dark circles and needing a shave. His back straight, a lot of strength,
but also that haunted look she sometimes saw flickering through the eyes of men living under the Stevenson overpass. ‘So.’
He nodded, ran a hand through his hair. Straightened. ‘So the guy by the back of the van was Anthony DiRisio. You said the
other was a cop?’
‘Tom Galway.’ She sighed. ‘My partner.’
‘Your
partner
?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
He stood and went to the window. Glanced out. Checked the door again. Turned to her. ‘You remember what Billy said? He told
us that the guys who killed my brother wore suits. One was tall, balding, and muscular. That’s DiRisio. And the other was
thin with black and gray hair.’
It shouldn’t have surprised her after what she’d
seen, after her former partner had fired on her, but it still did. ‘Jesus. Galway.’ A thought struck like a shaft of light
through a cloud. ‘Wait a sec. What if we’re reading this wrong? What if it were someone else in the bar, and Galway was only
pretending to be in on it to night? What if it’s some kind of sting?’
He shook his head. ‘He shot at us.’
‘Maybe he missed on purpose.’ It sounded thin even as she said it. A cop firing a submachine gun in the heart of the city?
A ricochet could have bounced anywhere. And if it was sanctioned, where was the backup? There should have been thirty men,
tactical teams, a chopper, the works. No way they’d let bangers roll away with live SMGs. ‘Okay. So Galway and this DiRisio
guy are selling weapons to the crews.’ She sighed. ‘How’d you find out about it?’