Trouble in Mind

by Michael Wiley

  Johnson cut hard around a corner and headed for Lake Shore Drive, rolling through stop signs and punching the gas between intersections.

  Peters kept his eyes on the streets and buildings.

  When they reached Harrison Street Police Station, Johnson got out, scanned the surroundings, and nodded at Peters. Peters said, ‘Go,’ and he pushed his door open.

  Kelson followed them as they ran into the station.

  ‘What the hell?’ he said again.

  The detectives drew him into a hallway leading to a suite of interior rooms. He’d never been to the rooms even when working on the narcotics squad. He knew about them, though. Investigators took especially violent suspects and particularly vulnerable witnesses there. Only the chief and the department heads kept keys to them.

  They went into one. Two other men already sat at a table – the narcotics division commander Darrin Malinowski and Kelson’s lawyer Edward Davies.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind that we called him,’ Peters said of Davies.

  ‘What the hell?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Malinowski said. ‘You need anything? Water? Coffee?’

  ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  Peters and Johnson sat, and when Kelson sat too, next to his lawyer, Peters said, ‘One of our own is trying to kill you.’

  Kelson tried to process the thought. ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’ Peters said.

  The wires in Kelson’s thinking crossed. ‘You?’

  ‘No. Why would you think that?’

  ‘You seem to have a hard-on for me.’

  ‘I—’

  Darrin Malinowski said, ‘Greg Toselli.’

  Kelson knew it was true but said, ‘He saved my life.’

  ‘Now he wants to take it.’

  FORTY-SIX

  ‘When Bicho Rodriguez’s junkie mom was dying of hepatitis, Toselli promised he’d take care of him,’ Peters said. ‘He took care of him a little too good.’

  Kelson shook his head.

  His lawyer said, ‘Toselli turned dirty five or six years ago, when he was on narcotics with you. Internal Affairs has been investigating him since you got shot. A lot of missing drugs.’

  Venus Johnson said, ‘Toselli grabbed them off the street, but they never made it to the evidence room.’

  Kelson kept shaking his head.

  ‘They’ve got video,’ his lawyer said. ‘I watched it.’

  ‘Toselli’s one of the good ones,’ Kelson said.

  ‘He told a CI it’s like dumpster diving,’ Peters said. ‘Reselling drugs headed for the incinerator.’

  ‘Dammit,’ Kelson said. ‘He brought me a Frisbee.’

  Peters looked perplexed. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘In rehab. He brought me a Frisbee. We threw it outside the center. He smuggled in beer. Nancy and Sue Ellen bought snacks from the machine. Sue Ellen calls him Uncle Greg.’

  Malinowski said, ‘I know this is—’

  Kelson was sweating. ‘We had a party.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s over,’ his lawyer said.

  Kelson shook his head. ‘Bicho’s mom was Toselli’s sister?’

  ‘Half-sister,’ Peters said. ‘Five years older.’

  ‘But she was like a second mom to Toselli,’ Venus Johnson said.

  ‘How long have you known about his connection to Bicho?’ Kelson asked.

  Malinowski said, ‘It didn’t seem like it would do you any good to know right after you got shot. Toselli looked like the hero in this. We needed one. You did. We figured he didn’t get to choose his family, and this kind of thing could be poison.’

  ‘How long have you known? Before I got shot, you had me investigate Bicho without telling Toselli. Did you know then?’

  ‘This thing tore Toselli up,’ Peters said. ‘I did the interviews after the shooting. Toselli’s nephew was dead, and you were dying almost. His loyalty was clear. He buried his nephew in a nice little ceremony, but he seemed more worried about you. Seemed like he couldn’t do enough for you.’

  ‘He helped when I needed it,’ Kelson said.

  ‘We thought he was a good cop,’ Malinowski said. ‘Tough but clean.’

  Kelson’s lawyer said, ‘After Bicho shot you and Internal Affairs looked into Toselli’s relationship to him, they found piles of evidence.’

  ‘They found traces,’ Malinowski said. ‘They’re still putting together a case. In the meantime, we transferred him from narcotics to vice.’

  ‘Where he continued his drug dealing,’ the lawyer said. ‘And now, with his contacts in vice, he’s started a sideline of extorting pimps and massage parlors. He’s a busy man. Hard to believe he has time to pin on his badge.’

  Kelson asked, ‘Is that how he met Doreen Felbanks?’

  ‘Seems likely,’ his lawyer said.

  Malinowski glared at him. ‘You’re here at our invitation, Mr Davies.’

  ‘No,’ Davies said, ‘my client’s here at my say-so. I can advise him against cooperating at any time. If you try to bury the facts, that time is now.’

  Kelson turned to Peters. ‘Why are you telling me all of this?’

  Peters said, ‘You’ve done undercover work. You know how to handle yourself in the line of fire.’

  ‘So you’ve got a couple of options,’ Malinowski said. ‘We can put you up in a hotel room, keep you safe …’

  ‘Or,’ Peters said, ‘you can step back into the line of fire. We’ll be watching from a hundred yards away. Like when you worked undercover. We’ll be there in a second if things go bad.’

  Kelson stared at him. ‘You mean like if someone shoots me in the head …’

  Malinowski said, ‘We’d understand if you say no.’

  Kelson’s lawyer said, ‘That’s my advice. Walk away.’

  ‘We hope you’ll agree to help,’ said Venus Johnson.

  Kelson said, ‘You’ve had me in and out of the station for the last week and a half. You’ve pinned me to the wall. What made you change your mind?’

  Peters said, ‘When I brought you to Dominick Stevens’s house this morning, I was making sure about you. We needed to know about you before we moved against another cop.’

  ‘I was a cop too.’

  ‘You left the department under suspicious circumstances,’ Peters said.

  ‘Because I got shot?’

  ‘Because,’ Peters said, ‘you shot first.’

  The words slammed Kelson. ‘Says who?’

  His lawyer looked at Peters with scorn. ‘Toselli.’

  ‘It’s what he said at the time of the shooting,’ Malinowski said. He had the even voice of a man who never admits personal embarrassment. ‘We buried it. We didn’t want it to hurt you. We didn’t want it to hurt the department.’

  ‘Did I shoot first?’ Kelson asked.

  None of the cops answered. His lawyer said, ‘They don’t know. They only had it from Toselli. He was the only witness.’

  Malinowski said, ‘We didn’t know he was dirty yet. We made our decisions based on who we thought he was. The damage was done.’

  ‘To me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Malinowski said.

  ‘Have you gone after him now?’

  ‘We tried,’ Malinowski said. ‘We raided his house this morning.’

  ‘But missed him?’

  ‘He rigged a shotgun to the front door,’ Malinowski said. ‘The lead man took a chestful of buckshot. Toselli went out the back in the confusion.’

  ‘So now he knows you’re coming?’

  ‘We think he hooked up with another bad cop,’ Malinowski said. ‘Or an almost cop. A guy from your academy class – big guy, smart, strong, but a bad attitude. Name was DeMarcus Rodman. Dropped out. We’ve got him on security footage with Dominick Stevens outside the Omni.’

  Kelson laughed. ‘What about Stevens’s call to WBEZ?’

  Peters said, ‘We think Toselli and Rodman forced him to make it. If not, he would’ve called us.’

  ‘Maybe he knows yo
u could trace the call and he wants to stay in hiding,’ Kelson said. ‘Maybe he knows there’s dirt in the department. Maybe he wonders who he can trust.’

  ‘Rodman’s dangerous,’ Peters said. ‘He grabbed Stevens. He’s capable of—’

  ‘Rodman’s the gentlest man I’ve ever known,’ Kelson said, then said to his lawyer, ‘Get me the hell out of here, will you?’

  ‘You’re at risk,’ Venus Johnson said. ‘So are Nancy and your daughter. When we raided Toselli’s house, we found a notebook.’

  That stung Kelson. ‘What kind of notebook?’

  ‘Schedules. Sue Ellen’s school. Nancy’s work. When they come and go.’

  ‘I’ve got someone watching them. Don’t ask who because I’ll tell you and I don’t want to.’

  ‘Who?’ Johnson asked.

  ‘A little one-armed man named Marty.’

  ‘Don’t be an asshole,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a bad situation. Do you want us to pick them up and put them in a hotel?’

  ‘Nancy won’t go. Too hardheaded.’

  ‘We can try.’

  ‘You can.’

  Peters said, ‘Work with us and we’ll watch you, or let us put you in a hotel too.’

  ‘Why don’t you give Toselli’s picture to the news?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘The higher-ups want him in our hands before the news hits.’

  ‘Control the story?’

  ‘A bad cop in custody is big news,’ Malinowski said. ‘A bad cop on the run is international.’

  Kelson looked to his lawyer. Davies gave him the smallest head shake. ‘No,’ Kelson said, ‘I won’t play. You’ve had this wrong every step, and every time you stumble, I get a bullet in the head or you throw me in jail.’

  ‘Good choice,’ Davies said.

  ‘I understand,’ said Malinowski. ‘We’ll arrange for a hotel room and a guard. Keep you safe until we find Toselli.’

  ‘No,’ Kelson said again. ‘I’m out. You do what you need to do, but leave me alone.’

  ‘Bad choice,’ Davies said.

  ‘Stupid,’ Johnson said.

  ‘You’ve got the right to refuse,’ Malinowski said, ‘but we aren’t responsible if you do.’

  ‘I don’t like your idea of responsibility,’ Kelson said.

  So Malinowski and Johnson left, followed by Peters, who said he’d arrange a ride back for Kelson. Davies tried to convince him to take protection and said he could file a civil suit for harassment and intimidation. Kelson told him again he just wanted to be left alone, and Davies left too.

  For twenty minutes, Kelson waited alone for his ride. The overhead fluorescent lights buzzed. The windowless walls felt tight and tighter. Kelson looked for an air vent and saw none.

  He waited another five minutes. ‘Forgotten already?’ he asked. He stared at the walls. ‘Closing in?’

  Another three minutes. No one came. The fluorescent light buzzed. Kelson said, ‘Feels like a horsefly eating into my head.’

  ‘Huh?’ he asked himself.

  ‘Couldn’t they let me sit in the dark?’

  ‘Where I’ve always been.’

  ‘Percocet?’

  ‘Screw it.’ He got up and tried the door. Unlocked. He walked through the halls and out of the station.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  A wet March wind was blowing. It smelled of the lake and of the old clay soil under the city and of the people who lived on top of it. Kelson flagged a cab and rode back to his office. He ran upstairs, grabbed his KelTec, and checked the magazine. Then he called Rodman and told him about Greg Toselli.

  ‘I never liked that boy,’ Rodman said.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Nothing surprises me anymore.’

  So Kelson went downstairs again and drove home.

  As he passed the front door of his building, the blue Buick Regal was idling at the curb. This time he saw the driver and a passenger – the two men from Hugo Nuñez’s office.

  Kelson stopped a few car lengths beyond the Buick. ‘Tracking me like an animal,’ he said. He set his KelTec in his lap and shifted into reverse. He stopped again when his passenger window faced the other driver. The man stared at him with cold eyes, made his finger and thumb into a gun, and pointed at Kelson.

  Kelson lowered his passenger window and signaled the man to roll his down. When the man did, Kelson said, ‘Never pretend to shoot at someone with impulse control issues.’

  So the man picked up a pistol from the side of his seat and aimed it at Kelson. He said, ‘I’d love to do it, but Hugo wants you for himself.’

  Kelson scooped the KelTec from his lap and aimed back.

  ‘Hilarious,’ the driver said, and rolled back up his window.

  So Kelson parked in the lot and sprinted to the building vestibule. He checked the lobby and mailroom before getting on the elevator. On his floor, he wiggled his door handle before putting his key in the lock.

  He opened the door and slipped inside.

  And he shrieked.

  Doreen Felbanks lay on his bed, petting Painter’s Lane. Payday was curled against her belly, purring loudly.

  ‘What the hell,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Shh,’ Doreen said. She was lying on her side, her head propped on an elbow, like an old painting of a whore, except she wore black Capri pants and a black cashmere sweater. A pair of red high heels lay on the carpet.

  Kelson scanned the apartment for other intruders. He forced himself to go to the kitchen doorway. He forced himself to look into the bathroom and behind the shower curtain.

  He went back into the main room with his KelTec in his hand.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Oh, put that away. You aren’t going to shoot me.’ She sounded drunk or high.

  ‘Watch me. Where is he?’

  ‘What if you hit the cat?’

  ‘I’ll risk it. Where’s Toselli?’

  ‘So you do know. A lot of people underestimate you. I did at first. Then the cops broke down his door this morning. He said you must’ve tipped them to who he was.’

  ‘The cops told me about him. Where is he?’ He stood away from the window and kept his back to the wall.

  ‘That’s the funny thing,’ she said. ‘After the raid, he came to my apartment and said it was time to clean up. That meant getting rid of me – and you too, though I think he always planned to kill us sooner or later.’ Something in her expression seemed pained or sick. ‘I ran into my bathroom and went out the window to the fire escape. He shot up the bathroom door.’ Her lips quivered, though she could’ve been faking it.

  ‘Nope. Not this time.’ Kelson laughed at her – a forced laugh. ‘You’ve lied and set me up. You’ve almost gotten me killed. Why would I believe you? Where is he?’

  Slowly and with effort, she rolled away from him on to her back. Blood stained the bedspread. Her black sweater looked wet.

  Kelson moved toward her involuntarily. ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I said. I almost got out the window.’

  He stopped inches from the bed. ‘Let me see.’

  She peeled her sweater up from her hip and shuddered. Blood spread from her ribcage and belly around her back.

  ‘Why?’ Kelson asked.

  ‘Same reason as every man I’ve ever known. He was done with me.’

  ‘You need help.’

  ‘You know what, he never lied to me. Never pretended I was anyone else. If I did what he told me to, he kept his word. We had an understanding – he never hung Christian’s or Raima Minhas’s killings on me. I didn’t think he’d shoot me, though.’

  Kelson pulled out his phone and started dialing 911.

  ‘No,’ she said, with strange urgency.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

  ‘Good eyes.’

  ‘You’ll die.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He started dialing again.

  She pushed herself up to sitting, though she almost collapsed into herself. ‘I’m leaving
.’

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘To warn you,’ she said.

  ‘Liar.’

  She tried to stand. Couldn’t.

  ‘Dammit,’ he said, and shoved his phone in his pocket. He went into the bathroom, soaked a towel, and returned. ‘Lie down.’

  She did, with a faint smile. ‘I knew this about you.’

  ‘Shut up.’ He cleaned under her ribcage.

  ‘I knew you were a sucker.’

  ‘I said, shut up.’ He went back to the bathroom, wrung the towel over the sink, and wet it again. Then he cleaned her hip and back. The cloth tugged against a flap of skin on her back, and she groaned. The bullet had gone straight through from her belly.

  When she caught her breath, she said, ‘People keep hurting me if I let them.’

  The wound bled freely. He cleaned it with the towel again and made a compress.

  She said, ‘And you scared Greg. You’ve got half a brain, and you scared him.’ She winced as he pushed the towel into the wound. ‘By surviving,’ she said. ‘By staying … clean. By being’ – she gasped when he put more pressure on the compress – ‘a sucker.’

  He bandaged her as well as he could, and then he took out his phone again and started dialing.

  ‘I’ll walk out of here before they come,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t make it to the elevator.’

  ‘I made it here.’

  ‘You had more blood in you then.’

  ‘No hospital,’ she said. ‘Nowhere Greg or anyone else can get me. I’ll give you what you want. You give me what I want.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Depends. You think I’ll live?’

  ‘I’ve seen people come through worse,’ he said.

  ‘You, for instance.’

  ‘Me. But I also knew a dealer with a flesh wound who died of sepsis. He refused to go to a hospital too.’

  ‘Help me get out of Chicago. That’s all I want.’

  ‘Back to Sioux City?’

  ‘If you make me laugh, I’ll die right here.’

  ‘And what do you think I want?’

  ‘Don’t you even know?’ Again the faint smile. ‘You want to make things happen,’ she said. ‘You want to outsmart people. You want them to love you.’

  ‘And you can make that happen?’

  ‘Maybe a little, if I help you catch Greg.’