by Thomas Laird
There’s still nothing I can read in her face. I have to believe all this business about law school was in her plans for a lot longer than just recently. She knew she was going to take off and do something else, and any anger I have with her lies in the fact that she was never really honest with me about her “future.”
“I wish you the best, Rita,” I say.
I stand up just when the barman arrives with her red wine.
*
Steven James is on the phone to me on late Monday afternoon. He says it’s urgent, so I drive over to the apartment he’s sharing with his fiancée.
She’s not there, he explains as soon as I enter his flat.
“She’s over at her sister’s. They’re picking out crap for the wedding.”
He smiles, and then we sit down in his front room.
“Evan Azrael showed up at the Academy after my classes were over. He invited me to take a ride with him—at the point of a .22 pistol.”
“And I see he didn’t shoot you.”
Steven laughs. I’m glad he sees the humor in it.
“He told me I could stop worrying about him coming after me. He said all bets were off, that he was done with us, now that he’s wasted five of us. I’m off his hook, he says.”
“Do you believe him?”
James’ face grows a little somber, a little gray.
“I don’t know how I can trust him or believe him, but I do. But he’s going to try for Costello, this time for real. He said you already knew it, but he didn’t care. He said some stuff about choosing to live. He said he’d had enough of death, after Tommy Costello was taken care of.”
“Where’d all this talk take place?”
“He made me drive out to Rainbow Beach. I parked my car at the lot out there.”
“He had just the .22?”
“He took my two pieces, also. A .38 and a .32, but he dropped them off in the garbage can in the parking lot. He told me to come back in twenty minutes to pick them up, and they were right where he said they’d be, in the trashcan.”
“He could’ve popped you there and he didn’t, so maybe he’s telling you the truth. Maybe he’s off you, finally.”
“Jimmy, he didn’t sound nuts. I mean he sounded like a guy at a task. Like he was going to install a garage door no matter what problems the goddam door gave him. He’ll be at that hospital, or outside it, but he’s going to try to make it happen tomorrow. He isn’t section eight. I really believe he’s sane. He was executing war criminals, at least in his own head. I don’t think he’s a psycho killer, but he’s just cold and resolute. But there’s something else going on with him. I think it’s a woman. He said something about there being two of them now, but one is dead.”
“That would be the Vietnamese girl, Li, the one Willy clipped.”
“So it has to mean there’s someone with him now.”
“Nobody saw Azrael at the Academy except for you?”
“The guy at the desk, Sergeant Radley, said someone asked for me. He said it didn’t click in his head that it was Evan. He didn’t remember the face until he was long gone. He told me about it when I got back to the building. I tried to get a hold of you then, but they said you weren’t around and that you weren’t in the office, and it took until the call to you at your house before I could get you.”
“You’re wrong about Evan not being crazy. He’s got to be whacked. That hospital will be secure enough for a president of the United States. He’ll never get near Costello.”
“Maybe that’s what he figures, too. If he lets Tommy live, Costello will never stop coming after him, and Evan knows it. If there’s a woman, there’s no chance they’ll get away together if Tommy lives, if that’s what Azrael’s thinking.”
“Shit, he can’t do this, Steven. The odds are ridiculous.”
“The odds were pretty steep about everything he’s done so far, and we’re still holding our dicks in our hands while he’s loose.”
*
Doc concurs about Evan Azrael’s chances of getting through us and getting through to Tommy.
“He’s doing it for the woman, if there really is one,” Doc says. “This guy Azrael is a hard core romantic, Jimmy.”
We’re sitting in my cubicle. The window is at Doc’s back. It’s late Monday night, and we’ve made all the preparations we can think of. We added some State Police support outside St. John’s, and that hospital will be like a fortress. Nobody can fight his way through all that manpower.
Earlier in the day we went back to the Academy building and nosed around the neighborhood, asking if anyone else had seen Azrael, but there was no word on a sighting. The guy is a spook. He just shows up and goes away, like Houdini in chains inside a box.
We’re not waiting to set up against the ex-Ranger. Doc and I are foregoing any sleep tonight, and we’re going to camp out right in front of Costello’s door. I’m not leaving it to some uniform who may or not be sleepy at a post in front of a mobster’s door when the same cop might really think Azrael is just trying to throw out the trash by putting a slug at the base of Tommy’s skull.
Doc and I go into his room about 1 a.m., and Costello’s still awake.
“You come to babysit me, both of you?”
“No one comes in here but your nurse and your doctor. No one. We’ll be right outside the door.”
He looks at me. Doc is peering up at the silent TV screen with some old movie playing on it.
“Why are you two personally waiting outside?” he wants to know.
I tell him what Steven James told me.
“How is it that no one can locate this man?” Costello says angrily. His face grows scarlet, suddenly.
“It’s personal, Sonny,” Doc smiles.
“The hell are you talking about?” Costello bellers.
“You had your brother go for Azrael, and Willy killed the girl and she was pregnant with his kid. Am I telling you something you didn’t already know?” Doc says with a grin.
“I had nothing to do with it. His beef was with Willy, not me.”
“Willy couldn’t wipe his hindquarters if the order didn’t come from you,” Doc retorts.
“Why don’t you guys just stay outside and let me sleep.”
“Pleasant dreams, sweetheart,” Doc says and takes a step toward Costello’s hospital bed.
I grab hold of my partner before something bad happens.
Outside, we plant ourselves on folding chairs.
“We both don’t need to sit here all night. Why don’t you go lie down in the lounge, Jimmy?”
“I’ll stay here awhile. Maybe a little later. You haven’t slept, either.”
“So I’m sorry about Rita,” he says, staring at the white tile of the floor.
“Yeah, well.”
“Two bad knocks in a row. First Erin, now this. The third time’s got to be the charm for you.. I can feel it.”
“How’s your love life, you old goat?”
“If it was any more inactive, it’d be dormant. My cat’s ass is starting to look real good.”
“I’ve seen the cat, Doc. Jesus Christ. Call someone up at Vice. They’ll fix you up.”
“Yeah, with a triple dose of the clap, those bastards. They think they’re very humorous in that division. Girly-man coppers.”
“He’ll be here, you know.”
He looks over at me and smiles.
“He may be a ghost, but he’ll be overweight in lead if he comes calling on that piece of shit inside there.”
“He has a habit of getting his man, Doc. He’s like the Mounties.”
“Maybe he’ll come dressed in a red suit and a Smoky the Bear hat, just to make it easier for us.”
“Did you bring your little battery radio?” I ask him.
He takes it out of his summer-weight jacket’s pocket.
Then he tunes it in to the all-night jazz on WLS, with Daddy O’Daly.
The tune playing is “Blue Rondo à la Turk” by Dave Brubeck, from the Time Out album
. I have it at home.
We listen to the strange rhythm of the piece, and then I tell Doc I’m going down to the vending machines to get us a couple of Cokes.
The hospital is vacant, except for the midnights’ staff and a few janitors and about thirty Chicago policemen, including Doc and me.
I stocked my pockets with quarters from the change machine at the first floor where the vending machines are here. I insert the change and get two overly expensive cans of Coke, and then I head back toward the fourth floor via the elevator that took me down for the pop.
When I get there, Doc is still listening to his pocket radio, and this time they’re playing something by the pianist, Ahmad Jamal. I think it’s the love theme from Spartacus.
“I’m Spartacus!” Doc smiles. “Was Tony Curtis a hoot in that flick or not? A Brooklyn accent coming out of a slave in ancient Rome. Made me laugh out loud.”
“Anybody in or out while I was gone?”
Doc shakes his head.
“They never let you sleep in these places. I hope we both die at home, old, crusty fellows who’re too tired for one more day.”
“I’m an old crusty thing as we speak, Jimmy… You really think Azrael has the balls to try to pull this off?”
I look at him for an extended moment.
“Check out his track record,” I say to my partner.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Orland Park, 1985
I’ve got all my money in a duffel bag in her closet. She doesn’t know it’s there, but I’ll leave a note on the nightstand in the bedroom after we leave in the morning. She won’t see it until she gets back, and the note will explain that I wanted to leave it all to her.
It’s 2 a.m., and neither of us can sleep. She knows she’s taking me into Emergency just before dawn. They’re supposed to let Costello out of St. John’s early today, but of course they didn’t announce the exact time because they know I’ll be there. If we go early enough, I’ll have time to get ready for what I’m going to do.
I’m going to kill Tommy Costello, of course, but I’ll need time to get inside the hospital and get myself in position to meet him on his way out.
All Diana knows is that she’s supposed to wait for me in the Emergency parking lot. I told her I’d be coming to her as soon as it was done, and there was straight out fear on her face when I told her I’d meet her at the lot. She asked me again to let it go with Costello, but I explained one more time that he’d never leave us alone, he’d never stop coming, and eventually he’d kill us both. There’d be no escape, then. It would only be one more flight away from him and from everything else I’ve been running away from for the last few years.
There are small towns on the west coast of Mexico in Sinaloa. I read about them in some book at the tiny Orland Park Library, just yesterday. It had this one particular village called Dorado—population of three thousand or so. It’s a farming town. I think they do corn. It’s also close to the water, the Gulf of California. We could find somewhere to live on the edge of that small outpost, and maybe no one would find us there. But all that bucolic shit appeals to me. I’m tired of cities and I’m tired of overcrowding and all this elbow-to-elbow existence.
I told Diana about it, and she looked genuinely excited to go.
Greenberg’s contacts can get us across the border somewhere, and we can drive all the way in her Bug. No one knows about Diana. No one’s spotted me here or there would have been battalions of coppers in front of her building by now. I’m sure Parisi’s still looking, but if he knew my location, he’d already have me on my way to the joint.
There’s still hope, I keep telling myself. In a few hours it’ll be over with, one way or the other, and with the money in my old Army duffel bag in her closet, at least I know that Diana will be secure. She’s got money of her own, but if this all goes wrong, she’ll be able to see some of the world, get out of here, maybe even meet someone else, if I’m gone. Everyone’s replaceable. You learn that in the military. One man goes down, there’s always another popping up to take his place.
I can’t tell Diana any of that, but I remember thinking I’d never give a damn about anyone else after Willy killed Li. Here I am, with Diana, in love again. And what passed? Maybe a few months? It makes me feel very traitorous to Li, sometimes, but I know she wouldn’t want me to be alone, and I don’t want Diana to fly solo any longer. Whatever happens, I want her to be happy somewhere.
“Why don’t we just stay here in bed? No one’s found us yet, Evan. Maybe we’re lucky, maybe our luck will hold out. Costello will go away. You scared him off at the ballpark. He’s the one who thinks he’s hunted, not you. Can’t we just stay? Or we could go to Mexico today, to that place you talked about. To anywhere. We don’t have to go to that hospital. It isn’t necessary.”
I roll toward her and I kiss her.
“He won’t go away. The world won’t go away. I have to do this thing.”
She kisses me intensely. She presses her body tight against mine and I feel her heat warming my flesh.
“You’re going to drive me to Emergency. You’re going to check me in. And then you’re going to go wait in the parking lot until I come out.”
“And how are you going to get close to him, Evan? They’ll shoot you. They won’t even try to take you.”
“I’ll meet you in the parking lot. But you have to promise me one thing, Diana.”
“What?”
“If you see a lot of flashing lights converging on St. John’s, you get yourself out of that parking lot and go straight back here.”
“I’m not going to—”
“You have to. If they come all at once it means that something’s wrong. You’re not going to jail as an accessory. Do you hear me?”
There isn’t much light in the room. Just a glow from the adjoining bathroom where she keeps a nightlight on all the time at night so we don’t trip over anything in the middle of the darkness.
“Why are you telling me all this, Evan?”
“Because you have to be prepared for anything, that’s why. We’ve been over this again and again, haven’t we?”
“Yes.”
“You want to stay with me, don’t you?”
She nods.
“Then this is the only way it’s going to happen, Diana. I know what I’m talking about. There’s no other option.”
I kiss her, and she holds me tight.
“You should sleep a little,” I tell her.
“I can’t.”
“Neither can I.”
I brush my hand against her left breast, and she shivers. She reaches down for me and finds that I’m ready again. She lifts her leg over my side and then we begin again, slowly. I want to feel her body, inside and out, over and over endlessly, but it’s almost three now, and we’ll have to get up in an hour and make the drive in to the hospital.
She moans as I go deeper inside her.
“I hope we did make a baby,” she whispers hoarsely.
“I hope so, too.”
And I hope this one lives. The other one didn’t.
“I want something of you that I can keep always,” she says.
Then I thrust into her until we are coupled completely.
She smiles hazily.
“I love you, Evan. Don’t ever leave me.”
“I’ll never go away. I’ll always be with you. I promise you, I’ll never leave you.”
When the spasms cease, we don’t break the embrace for a very long time.
*
The ride in is quick because there are few vehicles on Southwest Highway. We take the route to Mannheim, and then we take the Stevenson east exit and head for the Loop. Traffic remains sparse, and we cruise in her Bug all the way to the Outer Drive and the lakefront. When we get to the Hospital on the north side, she drives us toward Emergency. She lets me out of the Volkswagen, and then I point for her to head right to the lot. Her window is down, so I lean in to her.
“This may take a long time, but I’m be
tting they’re going to dismiss him in the early morning before the traffic snarls up and before the hospital gets really busy.”
“Please don’t go. Please get back in the—”
I lean in and kiss her.
“I think I really am pregnant.”
I look at her with a long stare.
“I’m not saying it to get you to go back with me, Evan. I just wanted you to know. I think I really am.”
She leans over to me and kisses me again.
“Go. Go and do it. Go and get back to me. I’ll be right over there, waiting.”
She turns away as I straighten up, and then she drives off to the adjacent parking lot for Emergency.
I’ve got the .22 stuck in the back of my pants, and I’m wearing jeans and a white tee shirt and a light jacket to keep the bulge from showing in the back. There’s a guard at the door, but when I get up next to him, I don’t see recognition in his face.
He opens the glass door for me.
“Registration’s straight ahead. Can you make it okay on your own?”
I nod and smile and hurry inside.
I walk up to the desk. There are perhaps five women stationed here.
I didn’t notice any uniformed cops at the entrance here, and it’s beginning to make me anxious.
“Can I help you?” the brunette asks.
“I … I’ve been having dizzy spells. My balance … I’ve been getting nauseated.”
“You fill these out and we’ll get you going right away. You picked a good time. All the excitement’s at the other side of the building.”
“Excitement?”
“Never mind. You just sit down and we’ll be with you in just a minute.”
About ten minutes later, I’m still sitting in the waiting room when I hear her call for Matthew Carson. As I go forward to her desk, I turn and look out the entrance and I see three uniformed policemen talking to the guard, and the guard is pointing inside.
“The nurse will take you now, Mr. Carson.”
A middle-aged blonde woman escorts me to one of the exam rooms. I turn twice to see if those police are coming in, but I don’t see anyone enter behind me.