He stiffened, then gave a little laugh, rubbed his neck. ‘I guess it doesn’t make any difference now.’ He sat down. ‘I went
to see a guy named Dion Wallace.’
‘The Gangster Disciple leader?’
‘Yeah. I pretended to be a cop, and convinced him I was going to arrest him if he didn’t give me a name.’
‘You
what?
’ She was on her feet. Unbelievable. The
arrogance
of this guy. ‘That’s a felony.’
He looked at her with a sarcastic smile. ‘Well, seeing as how actual cops are selling heavy weapons, let’s put impersonating
one on the list of things you can arrest me for later, okay? Besides,’ he said, ‘if I hadn’t been there, you’d be lying beside
the river now. Remember?’
Her reply died in her throat. She saw the shadow of Scarface’s gun, the way she’d stood frozen as he lined up for a kill shot.
Macho asshole or not, Palmer had saved her life. She sat, stared at the pattern of stains on the carpet.
He sighed. ‘Look. I’m a very normal guy. This is all new to me. But this thing, it’s real, and we’re in it together.’ He paused.
‘We’re going to have to trust each other.’
‘You say that like it’s nothing.’
‘I was a soldier, remember? I know what it means to trust someone. But what ever is going on, it just keeps getting scarier.
We need to help each other.’
She blew air through her lips. ‘You’re right.’
Palmer nodded, rocked the chair back on two legs. Laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the ceiling. A TV turned
on in the room next door, cartoons playing too loud through thin walls. ‘You know what I still can’t figure? Why Michael?
Why would these guys go after my brother?’
The muscles in her back clenched. She’d asked the same question of him earlier. But after what she’d seen, she realized she
knew the answer. ‘Because of the mysterious caller.’
He cocked an eyebrow.
‘Remember I said someone called me? He wouldn’t tell me his name, but he knew who I was, and said he was a friend of your
brother’s.’ This afternoon seemed a thousand years ago. Strain had been showing at the seams of the world, but at least a
semblance of
normalcy had remained; amazing what a few hours could do. ‘This guy, he told me to go to Lower Wacker and look for a black
Odyssey. That was why I trusted you – I saw the van.’
‘Hmm.’ Palmer leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. ‘So someone else knows what’s going on.’
‘There’s more.’ Cruz massaged her temples. ‘He said…’ She sighed. ‘He said that he had given Michael something that had gotten
him killed. Some sort of evidence.’
Palmer stared at her, rubbed his chin hard enough the five o’clock shadow grated. He looked like he was considering putting
the chair through the window. She waited. Finally, he said, ‘The briefcase.’ He leaned forward, buried his head in his hands,
groaned.
‘What briefcase?’
He spoke through his fingers. ‘When I saw Michael the other day, he had this briefcase, just a regular leather case, but he
kept fidgeting with it. Set it down one place, talked for a minute, moved it somewhere else. I didn’t think anything of it
at the time. But whatever was in that briefcase is the reason my brother was killed.’ He looked up. ‘I was three feet away,
and I didn’t know a goddamn thing about it.’
‘Where is it now?’ If they could get hold of that, everything could change.
He smiled grimly. ‘They have it. Galway and DiRisio. Don’t you see? That’s why they came to the bar, for the briefcase. It
must have evidence about what’s going on, dirty cops selling weapons to the
gangbangers. If Michael had gone public with it, they’d have been ruined.’
Cruz nodded, the pieces clicking into place. ‘And after they got what they came for, killing your brother would have been
the best way to cover it. Kill him and burn down his bar, and everybody blames it on the gangs.’
It was such a simple thing, once all the facts were in place. Simple and ruthless and terrifying.
‘Any idea who the caller was?’
‘Not really, no. He knew a lot about the department. Could be a cop.’ She concentrated, trying to think of anything else that
could help them. ‘By the way he talked, I’d say he’s educated. He spoke precisely, like a news anchor. And he used some weird
expressions.’
‘Weird?’
‘I pointed out he wasn’t giving me much specific information, and he said something like “the burnt child fears fire”.’
‘The burnt child fears fire? What does that mean?’
‘Apparently,’ she said, ‘it means his way or the highway.’
He looked like he was doing long division in his head. ‘He told you not to tell anyone.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Actually, more than that. He told me not to tell any of my colleagues.’ She though back, remembering the
play of sunlight through the window, the feel of the phone in her hand. Felt a shiver down her core. Jesus. Oh, Jesus. She
looked up at
Palmer. ‘He specifically said not to tell a guy named James Donlan.’
‘Who’s he?’
Her body felt heavy. ‘He’s the head of the Area One Detective Division.’
Palmer’s mouth fell open. ‘My god.’
‘Yeah.’
They sat for a moment and listened to the cartoons coming through the wall. Her shoulder holster pinched, and she undid it,
set it on the bed beside her. Rubbed at her eyes, remembering Donlan as she used to know him, a friend, then a confidant,
then a lover. ‘It might not mean anything. The guy could just have been making a point.’
‘Hell of a point.’
She nodded.
‘What about calling Internal Affairs? Couldn’t they help?’ Palmer said it like a civilian, somebody who’d watched cop shows
but never worn a star.
‘IAD?’ She winced. Coming out against another Officer was betraying the brotherhood. Besides, it wasn’t that simple. ‘We’ve
got no evidence.’
‘We’d tell the same story, though.’
She laughed. ‘Sure. It’d go like this: “While neglecting my assigned duties in order to work a case I’d been ordered off,
I had an anonymous caller tip me about a secret meet where I saw my former partner, a decorated sergeant and twenty-year veteran,
sell submachine guns to gangbangers. No, I don’t know where he got them, or where they are now. No, I don’t have any
pictures or physical evidence of any kind. On the up side, I did manage to lose my service weapon – does that count for something?”’
‘We know DiRisio’s name.’
‘You extorted it from a gangbanger. Not too useful. If it’s even his real name.’
‘We’d have Billy. He could identify them.’
‘Our ace in the hole is the eyewitness testimony of an eight-year-old?’
‘So what, you want to just quit?’ His voice had that tone men only got when speaking to women.
‘No, coach,’ she said. ‘Stay in my face and I’ll win the big game.’
He stared at her, anger in his eyes, and then something broke, and he ducked his head and laughed. ‘Right. Sorry.’ He blew
a breath. ‘Been a long couple of days.’
‘Yeah.’ She paused. ‘Look, you’re right. Your nephew’s testimony is something. But it’s not enough. Not nearly.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘I believe the technical term,’ she said, ‘is “up shit creek”.’
Their TV had a porn channel.
They’d talked round and round until they were worn out. No evidence, and no way to know who was clean and who was dirty, so
they couldn’t go to the cops. No lead on DiRisio. Working Galway was their best bet, but he would know that. He’d surely protect
himself. And the mere thought that Donlan might be involved was enough to make her consider fleeing the country.
Finally, in frustration, they’d decided to take a break, clear their heads. He was in the shower, and she’d flopped on the
bed looking for local news, see if by any chance there was mention of automatic weapon fire in downtown Chicago. A deep exhaustion
had begun to settle, a hollowed-out feeling from the spent adrenaline. The dingy mattress felt better than it had a right
to, and she was channel-surfing, the volume muted. Click, sports. Click, sitcom. Click, two blondes with fake tans and fake
tits doing unlikely things to one another with an enormous pink dildo.
It was like a nature film, bugs filmed in extreme close-up. This turned men on?
She shook her head, clicked again. The water stopped, and she heard the curtain slide and a towel pulled from the rack. It
was a strangely intimate sound, and put her back in another hotel bedroom. Cramped and dim, a threadbare robe and the smell
of red wine spilled on the sheets. Burning shame as she listened to James Donlan in the shower, whistling as he washed her
off his body before going home to his wife.
Stop
, she thought automatically. But it never worked.
She remembered their awkward breakfast. The pressure he’d put on her, telling her not to screw this up. Was it a message that
he was involved? Or was it exactly as it appeared on the surface, a politician’s desire not to see a simple case get complicated?
No idea. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. Her mother had warned her not to be a cop, said that it would only lead to trouble.
Lately it seemed like she was right. Cruz had loved the first nine, ten years, being on the street, running down bad guys.
Sure, over and over she’d needed to prove herself, but over and over she had managed to. But ever since her mistake with Donlan,
things had gone downhill. First the respect she’d fought to earn had disappeared like smoke. Then the order had come to tie
her to a desk, and she’d spent month after endless month working the database, entering reports and interviews other cops
gathered. Seeing the street from a distance, a collection of stats. Just a secretary of horror, a reporter of gang crimes
and murder scenes and arsons –
Cruz was on her feet before she realized she was moving. She rounded the bed, hit the closed bathroom door, didn’t even hesitate.
Shoved through.
‘Whoa!’ Palmer was bent just inside the door drying his legs, but as she came in, he jerked upright, yanking the towel in
front of him. His body was tan, his chest lean and muscular, spare, with the puckered ridge of a scar trailing down his left
pectoral to where metal dog tags dangled. ‘What the hell?’
She smiled. ‘I know what we need to do.’
Goddamn amateur.
Anthony grit his teeth, the line of his jaw hard, that muscle jumping. He had the windows half-open, and a warm breeze blew
through the car, tugging at his tie, rifling the
Sun-Times
on the passenger seat. He’d brought it thinking he might read a little to calm down, but the paper lay untouched. His SIG
sat on top of it, an ugly suppressor screwed onto the barrel. In the movies everybody had a suppressor, like you could buy
one at the corner store, but he’d never had any luck getting a line on them, even with his contacts. Had to build his himself:
steel tube, drill-pressed holes, springs and washers. Used a metal lathe to machine a threaded bit that matched the SIG, then
silver-soldered the pieces together. He’d heard you could buy suppressors over the counter in Finland, have to get there someday.
But to night the SIG was just in case there were any more surprises.
The thought set his jaw jumping again. Galway. Amateur. First he wouldn’t acknowledge what had to be done to silence the Billy
Palmer brat. Anthony had been forced to plead the case like a first-time trigger-man, and Galway had still found a way to
screw that
up, using gangbangers to do the deed. And to night, when Jason Palmer delivered himself up dead to rights, Galway managed
to let him get away.
So now here Anthony was, two in the fucking morning, sitting in this fucking jig neighborhood like he had nothing better to
fucking do. A fucking custodian, just mopping up the fucking mess.
Headlights glowed in his rearview. About fucking time. He wriggled low in the seat, took up the SIG, held it close to his
chest, barrel up, just in case. But the Jaguar passed, the engine smooth and soft as it paused outside a garage, the door
rolling up. The garage was surprisingly orderly, no clutter, clean swept, even a pegboard with tools neatly hung. The guy
had probably never used them, bought them out of a catalog ’cause that’s what you were supposed to have in your garage.
Anthony smiled. Felt that tingle in his bladder that meant play time.
He counted one hundred, then got out of the car, leaving behind his SIG in favor of the cop’s Smith. He’d busted the porch
lights when he first arrived – it took three shots for two lights, which pissed him off a little, but the suppressor threw
off accuracy – and so he walked tall to the front door. He wondered idly if the guy would have company to night. Galway wouldn’t
like that. Weakling amateur, no stomach for the work at hand.
Two locks, one an up-model Schlage that cost an extra twenty seconds, and he was inside, mouth open,
listening. A hunter. Let his mind feel his way through the dark as his eyes adjusted. Sleek furniture coming into focus,
a black leather couch, a low glass coffee table, a painting of an African woman fighting a tiger, only her head tilted back
and her tits exposed, like maybe they weren’t actually fighting, maybe the tiger was tearing off a piece. It wasn’t clear,
let you decide. He kind of liked it.
Thick white carpeting covered the floor, and he moved easy, his passage barely a rustle. Eased up the steps as music started
above, something softer than Anthony would have expected. Brown sugar beats and a woman’s voice, singing how when she first
met him, he was the sweetest thing, a Sade tape in the cold of spring, and then Anthony kicked the door open, the wood swinging
fast to crack off the opposite wall, Dion Wallace frozen in tableaux in the middle of his bedroom, perfect, no cover, no weapons,
a snifter in one hand, a bottle of Courvoisier in the other, paisley silk robe open and his junk exposed.
‘Hiya, C-Note. I’d ask how it’s hanging, but I can see for myself.’ Anthony smiled, stepped in. ‘You know, I’d always heard
you boys packed extra weight. Must be cold in here, huh?’
Dion had the panicked look of an animal surprised, eyes darting left and right, like he wanted to dive back in his hole. ‘Man,
what you about?’