The Snow Angel (5 page)

“Mr. Vitale will see you now,” announced a servant girl.

Kane rose and followed her. She was vaguely pretty. He made a mental note to find out what he could about her, to see if there was some ugly secret in her life, something he could use to squeeze her. You couldn't ask for a better-placed snitch.

Then he remembered that soon he would be a dead man.
Stick to this caper. You're in the last act.

They walked down a block-long marble corridor. “He's in the study,” the girl said. Study, my ass. The only thing this puke ever studied was the sports book. But today, Kane told himself, he'd play the game with Vito. For a change, the police needed the Mafia.

“Officer Kane, a pleasure,” Vitale said as the girl opened the door. He stood before a crackling fire, wearing a smoking jacket, of all things. Kane shook the old capo's hand, suppressing his cynical amusement.
This bastard's seen too many movies.

Vitale gestured for the girl to close the door. He poured two brandies. “It must be something important for you to come to my home unannounced the Sunday before Christmas.”

“It is.” Kane accepted the brandy and filled the old mobster in on the kidnapping.

“What makes you think we had anything to do with this?” Vitale asked.

“I don't. But you might be able to find out who did.”

The
capo
examined the picture of Darryl Childress for a long moment. “Sweet-looking child,” he said finally. “For a nigger.”

“A person can't help what he's born.”

Vitale studied his old nemesis. He looked again at the child's photo. There actually seemed to be a spark of humanity in the old killer's eyes. “Any man does something bad to a kid, he should have his balls cut off and stuffed in his mouth.”

“I figured you'd see it that way.”

“How can I help you, Ralph?”

“You have people wired in everywhere, all over town,” Kane said. “I
know who they are, where they are and what they do.”

Vitale smiled. “So you want us to report whatever we hear.”

“I want more than that. Put the word on the wire that we want this kid back—alive.”

“We?”

“You and us. The outfit and the cops.” He took another sip of the brandy. “We'll consider it a marker. A big one.”

Vitale thought about that, then smiled. “Fuck markers. It's Christmas. This one's on the house.”

“You're getting generous in your old age.”

“We all have kids, Ralph.” He studied the tough little detective. “Hell, we all
were
kids.” He pointed to Darryl's photo. “Give me a dozen of those pictures.”

I
ke Bell pulled up to the Red Bird Pool Hall, across the street from Amos Brown's Barbecue Shack and adjacent to a Main Line subway stop. He parked the Ford at a hydrant, then got out slowly, checking the street for hostiles. He noted the Christmas lights on the front window of the pool hall, and the wreath on the door. Then he trudged through the snow and into the place.

Rap music pounded from the jukebox. Bell stopped at the door and searched in vain for Dizzy Dean Jackson, the proprietor.

Then, sure enough, he spotted Willis Henry, aka “Killer Willis,” aka “Big Gun.” Henry, the buffed-out shotcaller for the Eastside Rolling Crips, was orbiting a pool table, lining up an eight ball. Half a dozen Eastside homies stood around basking in reflected glory. Unseen, Bell stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets, watching.

Henry, now pushing thirty, was an “OG”—”Original Gangsta”—with the Rollers, the gang's leader by dint of muscle and longevity. A cigarette dangled from his lips, dropping ashes on his baggy pants. But Henry, oblivious to the ashes, was riveted on the shot. He rammed the ball home. Grinning, he slapped the hands of his followers. “Yo, Willis,” Bell finally called out in a booming voice.

Henry spun around. “Aw, man! What the fuck
you
doin' here?”

“Put that much attention into something righteous, you could be a millionaire.”

“It's Sunday, Deacon. Why you hasslin' me?”

“My badge don't say nothin' about days of the week.” He smiled. “Chill out, Willis. I just want to talk to you.”

Two of the Crips moved closer to Henry, protectively. The OG waved them away. “I'll take care of this shit,” he said.

“Let's go outside,” Bell said.

“It's cold outside.”

Bell shrugged. “Have it your way.” He pointed to a booth. Henry grabbed his bottle and they sat down.

“You want a beer?” Henry asked. Bell shook his head. “Still on the wagon?”

“Almost two years,” Bell replied.

“You go to those meetings?”

“Sometimes. Why you askin'?”

“My momma's back in the program. She strugglin'.”

“I hope she makes it.”

“Hear you had a little run-in with some Treys.”

“News travels.”

“Bell-man, I got people watchin' ever-thang. We better than the fuckin' CIA.”

“That ain't saying much. I worked with those fools in Vietnam.”

Henry thought about that. “My daddy was in Vietnam.”

“Never knew you
had
a daddy, Willis.”

“He got his black ass killed over there. ‘Friendly fire,' they called it.”

“Sorry, man,” Bell said sincerely. “There was a lot of that shit.”

“Don't make me no mind,” Henry shrugged. “Didn't even know the nigger. Motherfucker knocked up my mama—she was just a
teenager—
then ran off to war to get away from what he did.”

“People make mistakes.”

“That's for goddamned sure.” Henry fired up a joint and inhaled deeply, testing the limits. “You didn't come out in this weather to talk about fathers and sons.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” Bell said, ignoring the dope. He pulled out the picture of Darryl Childress. “This child is someone's son.”

Henry studied the picture. “I seen that kid on TV. Pizza King commercial, that's what it was.”

“Someone kidnapped him this morning while he was building a snowman, snatched him right out of his front yard. Black dude, white dude, working together.”

“What you leanin' on me for? I would
never
mess with no kid. Besides, my people don't hang with white motherfuckers. We sure as shit don't caper with them.”

Bell lit a cigarette. “I wasn't accusing you. I just want your help. You and your homies.”

Henry just stared at the old detective. “Help the
po-lice?”
Then he laughed. “Man, that's the goddamnedest thing I ever heard! What you gon' do, man, give us honorary deputy badges?”

“Willis, you got a little brother around that age? A cousin, maybe?”

“Man, I got a
chile
that age.”

“Well, how would the
chile's
mama feel if some strangers grabbed him?”

“I know how
I'd
feel about it.”

Bell leaned forward and looked Henry deep in the eyes. “Then help us, for God's sake.”

Henry pondered that. “You gon' ax the Bloods, too?”

“Maybe. We need all the help we can get.” He pointed to Darryl's photo. “This baby's too young to know about all that red and blue bullshit.”

Henry studied the picture. “Got some white blood in him, don't he?”

“Who doesn't?”

Henry thought about it. “I'll see what I can find out,” he said finally.

“Thanks, Willis.”

“You owe me one, Bell-man.”

“Only if we find the boy.”

Henry pointed to the picture. “Gimme ten copies. For the
honorary deputies.”

Trudging back to his car, Bell thought about the anonymous, long-dead soldier who had fathered Willis Henry before being killed by his own comrades. He tried to picture what the man might look like now had he survived the war, but all he could see was the face of an old African
American master sergeant named Mathers.

Then it suddenly occurred to Bell:
Willis Henry looks just like a younger version of Mathers. In fact, the fucker could be his son.

Bell stopped to take a breath, blindsided by this sudden connection. Mathers had been a lifer, the grizzled NCO who first explained to young Bell the realities of military life for a black man.

On Bell's first classified mission in ‘Nam after special weapons training, he had found himself ferried out to the boonies in an unmarked chopper, a Huey assigned to the First Air Cav but loaned to the CIA. He found himself sitting across from a very young and very small Viet Cong prisoner, who was bound and blindfolded.

An ARVN intelligence officer, a major, started interrogating the VC as the chopper lifted off the ground. He was backed by a pair of South Vietnamese thugs in civilian clothes. They left the door open on the starboard side.

Young Bell and old Mathers were sitting next to each other, watching, trying to comprehend the questioning. Mathers was returning to the field after being treated for minor wounds. They were the only Americans aboard, other than the pilot. They watched the Vietnamese major grow more and more animated as the helicopter ascended, but the VC said nothing whatsoever. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, Bell reckoned.

Suddenly, with no warning whatever, the two thugs grabbed the kid, ripped off the blindfold and casually shoved him out the door. Bell caught a glimpse of his eyes as he dropped to his death. It sickened him like nothing ever had before.

After they had safely landed, Bell approached the old sergeant and told him he was disturbed by what they had witnessed.

“Kid, keep your fucking mouth shut,” Mathers commanded. “That's just the way these people do things. You'll get your black ass in deep shit if you say anything.”

“In training, they told us to report shit like that,” young Bell insisted.

“Are you that naïve? The Pentagon puts that bullshit out so the press will think we're policing ourselves. So the average white American in the suburbs can keep believing we're the noble saviors of mankind.” The old master sergeant leaned close to Bell and spoke urgently. “Listen, slick, you know how easy it is for a black man to disappear over here? Keep
your yap shut about this or you're just another dead nigger.”

Two weeks later, Mathers himself was killed in an ambush. So Bell put the incident out of his mind, for the most part. He heeded Mathers' counsel and said nothing. But now, all these years later, it still bothered him.

Bell reached the Ford. Fuck it, he told himself as he opened the door. That was then, this is now. Mathers was right. Quit thinking about that shit.

T
he makeshift command post had been expanded. The gymnasium now was filled with card tables, folding chairs, telephones and computers.

Roberta Easterly sat in a corner with two detectives from the Criminal Conspiracy Bureau, Forrest and McEwan. Forrest was white, McEwan black. “What do you think the odds are?” she asked somberly.

“There shoulda been a ransom demand by now,” said McEwan.

“Could be these punks aren't as smart as we think they are,” Forrest said. “The phone's unlisted.”

“Maybe we should break silence, publicize our hot line,” Easterly said. “They have to know the Childress home is full of cops, that we have a bug on the phone.”

“Also could be they're just fucking with us,” said McEwan. “You know, for sport.”

Then a phone did ring, a few feet from Easterly. Jablonski grabbed it and turned to her. “Ralph Kane checking in.” Easterly shook her head. “Nothing new at this end,” Jablonski told Kane. “We're combing the neighborhood, coming up with zilch.”

Kane sat talking on his cell phone in his idling Pontiac on a block splotched with graffiti. He watched the snow start to fall again. Dusk was approaching. “The media blackout still on?”

“For the time being,” replied Jablonski. “But the citizens we've talked to—those people watch the news. When they don't see a story at six, someone's sure to tip off the vultures.”

“That's the way it goes in a democracy,” Kane said sarcastically. He
signed off and pulled away from the curb. He continued slowly down the slippery street to a closed auto repair garage under an El overpass. The presence of a dozen old cars at the curb told him the West End Outlaws were holding their usual Sunday gathering. In dry weather, the vehicles would be Harleys.

Kane considered the firepower that was likely cached inside. The Anti-Terrorism Squad had been leaning heavily on these scrotes lately, ever since the firebombing of the Spanish Pagans' clubhouse two months ago. Right at the moment, police-Outlaw relations were at an all time low.

Fuck it. These guys have no beef with me. I've always been square business. And even these assholes were kids once.

Kane was grateful that Vito Vitale had reminded him of that elementary fact. He tried to picture Tiny Lawless, the Outlaws' leader, as a baby. The thought amused him.

Kane took another belt from the flask, then drove around to the slushy alley. Burglar bars covered both rear windows.

Kane got out of the car, dodging puddles. It was turning cold again. In a couple of hours, this alley would be solid ice.
Fuck this weather!
He pulled up the collar on his mackinaw and felt the reassuring weight of the Beretta in the shoulder rig. He banged on the steel door.

“Who the fuck's there?” boomed Lawless' surly voice.

“Your friendly neighborhood po-lice,” Kane called back. “Open up, Tiny.”

It took a full minute for Lawless to comply. The Outlaws, Kane suspected, were hurriedly stashing whatever dope they'd been consuming. Meantime, an El train clattered overhead.

Sure enough, when the door creaked open, Kane could smell marijuana. Tiny Lawless' immense, tattooed body blocked the doorway. “Since when you working Sundays?” he demanded.