Bone-tired from extra shifts triggered by the violent crime wave, he sat down on a brown vinyl sofa next to a forever-green plastic fig tree impaling a wooden container box. Too agitated to sleep, he closed his eyes and rested his head on the corner of the sofa. His free-floating thoughts refused to leave Commander Jack Cronin.
After the Justice Department’s prosecution against the commander for public corruption and violation of civil rights went viral, Cronin’s closet of sordid secrets tumbled open to public view. Among sundry crimes, he and others under his direction had robbed drug dealers, used bats to beat arrestees on their heads cushioned with Styrofoam to prevent telltale bruises, and dangled suspects out upper-story windows until they confessed. During the constant drumbeat of media revelations and in the midst of his trial, the commander collapsed in the courtroom during the arraignment proceeding. The part of the press corps that knew him best suspected he was faking. He wasn’t. The federal judge postponed the trial until defendant Cronin recovered from a heart attack under hospital care.
Who was this man he thought he knew?
His father and the commander had once been partners, as the commander never ceased to remind him. After Patrick Murphy discovered the commander had slipped his wife money to get the family through hard times, his father ended any relationship with Cronin. Patrick Murphy was not the same afterward. Jim’s own relationship with his father tumbled downhill as his father’s Alzheimer’s spiraled out of control. The dementia patient now stung his son with a denial of paternity.
Jack Cronin escalated up the CPD hierarchy to commander, while Patrick Murphy retired as a patrolman. The meek may inherit the earth, but the date of inheritance remained a long way off. No matter how much municipal corruption the media bloodhounds exposed, a rat who would not rat on other rats had an underground respect in the bars and businesses of the city that an honest cop like his father would never have. After all, this was the city that cheered when Al Capone entered Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play.
He had rarely seen Katie, his sister, as angry as when he told her of his fatalistic interpretation of city life. You had better quit if you’re burned-out because a self-pitying cop is a useless mope to himself and others. Sign for the team of your choice and play your heart out, she’d said. Or get your butt off the playing field. It’s called life. The only losers are those who think themselves so. And Dad never did. He was a tough turkey who never cared how others labeled him.
Sure, the commander was on the take, she said during his meeting with his sister the night before, but he was once a friend to Dad and had helped the family in those days. Whatever he had become, Jack Cronin helped a lot of people in the old neighborhood. Remember how he took you under his wing and protected you from the blowup over the Millennial assassination? You can’t turn your back on him. Love the sinner and not the sin, like Father Malachy used to say.
The words of their heated conversation had burned into him.
He would have let Marco be shot to death.
Let it go, Jimmy. He denied knowing what the Outfit was up to. You’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt. You owe him. Go see him tomorrow.
Katie had a point. The commander was a Mafia flunky. That didn’t mean he knew what they intended. He just followed an order to make his godson leave the Taylor Street area. They didn’t have to tell their errand boy the reason why. A good flunky doesn’t ask why. Who could say for sure he knew about the hit before it happened?
It didn’t matter. He’d had enough of Commander Jack Cronin.
He opened his eyes and shook his head to clear it.
He got up to leave when the commander, stomping along the hallway on a walker, stopped at the sunroom entrance with a peroxide blonde on his arm. Looking half the commander’s age, the blonde wore a white smock and black trousers. Her outfit helped him remember her as a Bridgeport manicurist and the commander’s on-again, off-again Polish girlfriend. The commander waved.
He couldn’t bring himself to either wave back or leave. So he stood glued to the spot until the commander hobbled over in his pajamas and bathrobe. The manicurist girlfriend helped him onto the end of the sofa so he could bask in the sunlight.
The blonde set up her portable manicure table next to the sofa where the commander sat. She unfolded her camp stool and sat down facing him, placing his left hand on a cushioned handrest fastened to the table. They smiled at each other. She unpacked the tools of her trade from a leather kit.
“Thanks for comin’, Jim.”
“I only came because Katie asked.” He folded his arms. “I was about to leave.”
“Don’t matter none.” The commander’s right hand trembled. “It does my heart good just to see you . . . and Lord knows, the old ticker needs some good.”
“What about your heart?”
“Not good.” He rested the trembling hand on his knee. “This trial will be the death of me.” The sunlight on the commander’s pale face under a shock of silver hair exposed him drained of this life and at the door of the next.
“Why did you want to see me?”
“Is it true you ratted me out to the feds?”
“I told them what I knew when they asked.” He clutched the back of the sofa with his hand. “Is that why you wanted me here? To tell me what a rat I am?”
The girlfriend manicurist looked up, startled, with a nail clipper in hand.
“Should she be here?” Murphy asked.
“I’ve got nothing to hide from her.”
She looked at the commander. He pointed to his hand on the cushioned handrest. She went back to clipping his nails.
“I can’t blame you.” The commander stopped until a fit of coughing ended. “How could you tell them what an angel I was?” He forced a hollow laugh.
“If I’m not here to be chewed out,” he said, “tell me why I’m here.”
She deposited the fingernail clippings in a gold-spangled toiletry bag.
“Take care of those clippings, honey, like I told you,” he said. He shifted back to face Murphy. “You are my son.”
“You mean godson.”
“No. I mean my son.”
“I thought my father was the one with Alzheimer’s.” Murphy leaned in and raised his voice. “It turns out you’re sicker in the head than him.”
“Hear me out, lad.”
“Before you rave on, get rid of her. I’m not comfortable with her around.”
“Honey,” the commander said, “you’d best get crackin’.” She packed up and left.
“When your father and me were partners, your mother and him were goin’ through a rough patch in their marriage. They weren’t talkin’. She thought of leavin’. We had a fling, about a month, when she called it off. She found out she was pregnant and came to me, sayin’ it was mine. She bein’ a good Catholic girl and all, abortion was out of the question. I knew it was mine, so I volunteered to take care of the situation, like financial issues, you see, and—”
“You dirtbag.”
With one hand he grabbed the commander by the top of his terry-cloth robe. “Take it back.”
“I can’t.” Cronin’s eyes reddened. “No one can take back the past.”
“It could have been my father’s baby.” He raised a fist. “You just want to make me your child, because you have no one and no one . . . outside of that blonde bimbo . . . wants you, you pathetic con man.”
“Use your head, lad.” The commander tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Why would a con man like me slip her money for the tyke if he didn’t know it was his?” He stuck out his chin as if it were a dare for Murphy to shoot a jab. “Are you calling your mother, that saint of a woman . . . if ever there was one . . . a liar?”
“Are you calling her a whore?” He pulled himself together. “I don’t believe it.” He lowered his fist and let go of the robe.
“It’s not a matter of belief.”
“I don’t trust you. How do I know you’re not screwing with me?”
“You’re looking at the proof and you don’t know it yet.”
“Enough of the crazy talk.”
“Talk to Katie, then.” The commander smoothed out the top of his robe and shooed away a visitor who asked if he needed help. “Right before your mother died she told Katie. She said tellin’ your father was a big mistake. It killed their marriage. She stayed with him for you kids.”
“You bet your ass I’ll talk to Katie.” He felt numb and struggled for words, but all he could do was say, “You bet your ass.”
“I’m sorry for a lot of things, but not that you’re my son.”
“I’d be as sorry as hell if I were your son.” To relieve his turmoil, he sprang up for a complimentary cup of coffee at a self-serve station.
With his back to the commander, he took a deep breath and a swig of stale coffee. Was Cronin losing it? Was he getting even for Murphy talking to the FBI? His head told him what his heart didn’t want to hear. The truth and not the motive alone counted. He couldn’t head out the door in retreat. He had to shove its falsity into the commander’s face. With cup in hand he returned to the sofa.
“I can’t be your son.” He rotated the coffee cup in his hands. “I’m not like you at all . . . whatever physical likeness we share.”
“Do you think I was always what I am?” The commander tightened the robe around his shoulders. “I graduated, bright and shiny, from DePaul University and full of ideas about how the world was supposed to work. I came from a family of Irish cops. By golly, I was goin’ to be the best of the best. But I slipped in the slime of the city’s underbelly.” His forehead wrinkling, he looked down at the floor. “And I couldn’t raise myself up.”
“Confess to a priest, not me.” The commander wanted connection but Murphy felt none.
“If I could change things I would . . . but I can’t.”
“You could flip and help clean slime from Chicago.”
“I’m not a snitch or a rat or whatever you want to call it.” Cronin straightened up. “I’m only loyal to family, friends, and tribe in that order . . . and there’s no negotiating that.”
“Are the mobsters and political hacks your friends?”
“They helped me. So I help them. They don’t rat on me; I don’t rat on them.” The commander tightened the sash on his robe. “The law of reciprocal favors is the currency that makes this city go round. It is the only moral commandment. What the favor is has no more significance than how a robber or a reverend got the dollar bills he uses to pay his debts.” Cronin shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. That’s the way it is, lad.”
“What civilians call the blue wall of police silence, right?” He rose and buttoned up his leather jacket. “The wall that enclosed your mind before prison walls enclose your body.”
“You are my son. Nothin’ can change that.”
“I don’t want to meet again. We can’t be related.”
“Who’s buildin’ walls in his mind now?” The commander waved to an orderly who entered the room. “I’m done for. I know that. So, I whispered your name to the superintendent to take over District Thirteen when I’m gone.”
“Don’t BS me. The captain is next in line.”
“That doofus can’t do it. He’s goin’ on medical leave anyway.”
The orderly helped the commander up from the sofa onto his walker. “Would you like,” the orderly asked, “to share a lunch with Commander Cronin in his private room?”
“Afraid not. I’d get indigestion.”
Chapter Forty-Four
“If it is true, why didn’t you tell me before?” Jim Murphy asked. “We never hid anything from each other.” He slid off the barstool at Dugan’s Irish pub. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Stress made him hungry, or maybe he was afraid of her answer. He walked over to the popcorn machine.
Ever since the commander had taken a protective shine to Katie as a little girl, she had stars in her eyes whenever she mentioned the white knight of Bridgeport. He’d always bring her a treat when their father invited the commander home to share a meal after finishing a police shift together. Jim Murphy thought that where the commander was concerned, his sister was too biased to be believed. He filled the chipped plastic bowl with popcorn to quell his gnawing stomach and returned to the bar.
“I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you. That’s why I didn’t tell.” Katie’s eyes turned teary. “I knew this would rip your insides up. You and Bryan are at each other’s throats, as it is, without making things worse.”
“He told you I was his son to get even with me.”
“Mom told me.”
Spilling some on the counter, he popped a handful of popcorn into his mouth. That had to be it. The commander had every motive to hoodwink him because he had ratted . . . informed . . . really only confirmed what the FBI already knew . . . at least mostly knew about Commander Cronin’s trail of corruption. Jack Cronin wanted revenge. What better way to take revenge on him than to claim he was that douchebag’s son?
He swallowed, almost choking, but washed the popcorn down with a bit of Guinness. The commander wanted to stick it to him for being a rat . . . and maybe he was a bit of a rat. He hated doing it, but he had to. The choice was either protecting his career or telling the truth when the FBI came calling. He chose the truth. The truth will set you free, the Gospel reported, but the truth had also made him miserable. He hadn’t fully escaped the upside-down ethics of Chicago’s DNA.
“He said what he did for revenge. Even if he smeared our mother.”
“You’re not listening.” She tapped her ear. “Or you don’t want to.” She spoke as though to a child. “I said Mom told me about the affair. He didn’t.”
“Mom wouldn’t do that.”
“She said she did. With him. She was human, like you and me.”
“I refuse to believe it.” He hunched over, resting his elbows on the bar, and ground his knuckles into his cheeks. “Dad never said anything to me.”
“Jimmy.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Remember how we couldn’t understand why Dad started cold-shouldering you?”
“Not a mystery.” His shoulders slumped. “He got tired of his lovable-loser son, first dropping out of the priesthood, then—”
“That wasn’t it.” She gave him a tap on the arm. “Around that time, Mom told him what she had done. About her pregnancy with you. She told me that aside from her affair with the commander, telling our father was the biggest mistake of her life. He couldn’t handle it. It soured him on life, on her . . . and on you, the commander’s son.”
He grabbed for another handful of popcorn but stopped. The image of Angelo Mora guzzling popcorn, his mouth greasy-yellow with oil, trying to eat his troubles away. He pushed the bowl down the bar counter. It overturned and spilled its contents.
“I could have been Dad’s son, even if she was having an affair.”
“I suggested that too.” She shook her head. “Mom told me they hadn’t had conjugal relations, as she put it, for a long time because of their marriage problems. They even slept in separate beds then, Jimmy. You know that.”
“Mom wasn’t thinking right.” He wiped his hand across his forehead. “The cancer—”
“She told me before the cancer.”
“They didn’t give her enough pain pills. She didn’t know what she was saying.”
“Are you feeling alright? You’re not listening. It was before the pains, before the cancer.” Katie picked up the popcorn on the counter and replaced it in the bowl. “It’s no use, Jimmy. You’ve got to accept it.”
She took his hands into hers.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” he asked.
“Tell who?”
“Bryan.”
> “Of course not, you ninny.”
Ever since they were kids, she would only call him that when he had pushed her to the limit of her patience. He backed off and turned his attention to the overhead TV.
“Think it over.” She buttoned her cloth coat and left a tip for her shandy. “I’ve got to get back to work at the blood bank.”
“I have thought it over. I’m not buying it.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Waiting for the telephone call from the Chinese minister of foreign affairs, President Dallas Taylor had never felt more alone than sitting by herself in the Oval Office at seven in the morning on her second day in office and wondering what she had gotten into.
If her formal condolences weren’t enough to satisfy him, she’d have an international incident on her hands. The flare-up of COVID-28 in China had angered Chinese citizens against the government for what looked like a repeat of the COVID-19 disaster. The president of the People’s Republic of China felt cornered by domestic unrest. He might be tempted to lash out against the United States for the incident and turn the anger against him into xenophobia against Americans.
She shook her head in sorrow at the report on her desk, manufactured from the timbers of the British frigate, HMS Resolute. An ex-student armed with semiautomatic weapons had slaughtered five students, including a Chinese exchange student, at the University of Illinois at Chicago and injured three more before taking his own life.
The killing of a Chinese student elevated the domestic tragedy into an international flash point. Sebastian Senex aggravated her discontent by offering free and immediate blood donations to surviving victims in Chicago hospitals. He coupled his offer with public carping about her slowness in organizing a federal response to the tragedy. The man had done everything he could to undercut her bid for high office. He would now do whatever it took to remove her from the Oval Office.
Any minute her staff would connect her to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to learn whether she could dissuade the Chinese from blacklisting American communities with high gun-crime rates by not approving universities in those areas for study-abroad programs. The European Union piled on by issuing a travel advisory about gun violence to its students studying in the United States.
American Conspiracy Page 17