“Assuming he was the shooter,” I say.
Sosh winks at me. “Guess what we found in a false floor in his closet?”
“Tell me.”
“Heroin,” he says. “About fifty bags.”
I nod. Not what I was hoping for. “That could be why he ran.”
“Maybe,” says Sosh, holding back a grin. “Or maybe he ran because of the SIG pistol and suppressor we found under his mattress.”
Chapter 28
LIFE IS good again. Disco soaks up every word on his phone.
The online Sun-Times says, POLICE NAB SHOOTERS.
According to the Tribune, LATISHA MORELAND SHOOTERS CAPTURED, KILLED.
The story: Damien “Junior” Peppers and Prince Valentine, known enforcers for the Imperial Gangster Nation, performed the shooting in K-Town that claimed the life of LaTisha Moreland and three others. Prince then killed Junior, worried about the intense police manhunt, worried that Junior might implicate him. The police raided Prince’s apartment, where Prince ultimately died after a shoot-out with police.
Perfect. Just as Porter called it.
Well, not the last part. It was just dumb luck that this Prince person died in the shoot-out with police. Still, Porter directed this to perfection.
Disco wasn’t so bad himself, now that he thinks about it. He cuts out his phone, feeling high with relief, as he pulls his car off 122nd Street and turns into the old industrial park. It was once owned by an auto-parts company in the fifties, an entire city block of factories and buildings connected by an underground tunnel. The general, through a sham corporation, has kept the electricity on in this place for the occasions when Disco needs it.
Like tonight. With a new arrival.
Augustina, middle-aged and heavyset, with tiny eyes and cheeks like small balloons, her hair dyed fire-engine red and pulled back tight, meets him at the heavy doors, sucking on the straw of a McDonald’s coffee drink and holding a thin manila folder.
He opens the folder and reads the contents. The girl is fourteen years old. From an orphanage in northeastern Moldova. A brother, still there, two years younger. The photo is promising. “When did she arrive?” he asks. Back to English only. Now that things are normal again, the old rules apply.
“Three hours ago.”
“Has Nicolas seen her yet?”
“No, he wait for you.”
“Good.” He moves past Augustina into the back room, unbolts the door. When he opens it, a young woman seated on an overturned crate startles to attention. She is wearing a tattered coat buttoned to her neck, an equally tattered suitcase next to her.
She looks younger than fourteen. Most of them look older when they come over, scarred and weathered from a difficult life. It’s nice when you can get them before life ages their faces. They’re so much more valuable when they look young and pure.
She is trembling, despite the coat, despite the stuffiness of this cramped staff-only room. Her eyes, wide and piercing blue, look up at Disco with a combination of worry and hope.
He can’t see much of her body yet, only that angelic face, a nice swan neck.
Men will fall in love with that face. They’ll want to protect her. They’ll pay handsomely. Fifteen hundred a night? Certainly possible, but he can’t use the hotel, not with a girl that obviously young. It will have to be the condo building, which tends to draw the lower-paying clientele. Or the ones who like them young.
“Does she speak English?” he asks Augustina, who joins him.
“Only a little.”
“Tell her to take her clothes off.”
Augustina speaks to the girl in Romanian. The girl doesn’t seem as surprised as Disco might have expected, but she shakes her head, not so much defiantly but as if there’s been a misunderstanding. She answers in Romanian, then says one word in English: “House…keeper?”
It’s all Disco can do not to laugh. “Tell her again,” he says.
Augustina and the girl speak some more. The girl’s eyes well up.
Disco walks over and kicks the crate on which she’s sitting. The girl is forced to her feet. Disco makes a gesture. “Off,” he says.
She says, “Please,” in English.
He grabs her coat and works the buttons. She doesn’t resist. She stares off into the distance as a single tear falls down her cheek.
He pulls the coat off her. Underneath, she’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, gray. He grabs it and raises it up. She stiffens in response but again doesn’t resist, ultimately even raising her arms to allow him to take it off. This can’t be her first time, not if she’s been raised in that orphanage.
That leaves only her bra and jeans. Disco steps back. Her breasts are underdeveloped, but that works fine.
He was going to name her Cassandra. But seeing her in person, that doesn’t work. Too voluptuous. Up close, she looks much more like the young girl she is than a slutty vamp. What would be a good name?
“Tell her…her name is Katie,” he decides.
Augustina does. The girl says her real name back, only now her voice contains more than a quiver, closer to panic.
Disco reaches out and takes her face in his hand, pinching each cheek like an angry parent giving a scolding. “Katie,” he says. “Katie. Yes?”
One of her tears drips onto his finger. He pushes her back and wipes his finger on his suit jacket.
“Tell her she owes us twenty-five thousand dollars for getting her out of Soroca and bringing her here, plus the lodging and other expenses. Tell her she needs to repay the debt. Tell her the housekeeping work will come later—after she pays off her debt.”
Augustina translates to the girl, who has shrunk now, slightly bent at the waist, trying to cover her upper body with her hands. But she responds to Augustina. Disco doesn’t speak much Romanian, but he can grab bits and pieces, mostly about her brother.
“Tell her we will send for her brother after she pays off this debt,” he says.
Augustina does. The girl bursts into tears, spilling out words in a high pitch, pleading. Augustina starts to translate. “She says she had agreement—”
“Why do I care what she says?” He starts for the door as the girl crumbles to the floor, shoulders heaving, crying so hard she chokes up.
“Nicolas should come in now?”
When Nicolas breaks her in, she’ll understand her new line of work. Her customers will seem nice by comparison. She’ll be an addict within two weeks, if not sooner, and then she’ll do anything they want for another score. She’ll be making them good money within a month.
“Yes, send Nicolas in,” he says. “But tell him not to touch that face.”
Chapter 29
BETWEEN THE interviews that come with any officer-involved shooting and a mandatory trip to the emergency room in a hospital in Oak Park—mandatory because Wizniewski ordered Carla to drive me there—I don’t return to the station until close to five in the afternoon.
When I walk in, Wizniewski is out of his office, in the squad room. He puts his unlit cigar in his mouth and starts clapping. Before I know it, the whole room erupts in applause. Wizniewski puts a hand on my shoulder, beaming. I haven’t seen him this happy since he arrested me for murder once upon a time.
High fives all around, deflections by me about a team effort. It feels good. I can’t deny it. A week ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be a cop again. I wasn’t sure I’d still have what it takes, even if they let me back. And I didn’t know if my brothers and sisters on the force would ever welcome me back.
Fast-forward a few days, and everyone in the squad room is shaking my hand, beaming at me, applauding me. This was my case. I was the lead. They dropped the heater of all heaters in my lap. And we solved it in less than two days.
“Ballistics came back on the SIG in Prince’s apartment,” says the Wiz. “It was used on Junior.”
Soscia throws an arm around my neck. Every part of my body hurts, but I don’t feel it. There’s no better painkiller than this—this adula
tion, this palpable sense of relief, this feeling that I am finally back, really back, really a cop again in every sense.
So right now, I don’t feel the stabbing in my ribs. I don’t feel the shooting pain down my back. I don’t feel the bell ringing between my ears.
I don’t feel that itch I can’t quite scratch, that sense that something just doesn’t feel right here.
Chapter 30
I COLLAPSE in the chair, my head swimming, everyone drunk with relief, feeling suddenly exhausted. There will be paperwork to do tonight, then festivities later, no doubt, at the Hole.
A bottle of Maker’s Mark is passed around, which probably isn’t the best idea. Soscia hands it to Carla, who turns away, puts up a stop signal with her hand. “I don’t drink,” she says.
“You don’t drink?”
Apparently not. She looks like she’s about to puke.
Which reminds me. The pill I found on Carla’s chair this morning, before everything happened. Feels like a lifetime ago now.
I head over to the coffee station to give myself a little space and pull out the pill. It’s an oval gelcap, the word VIT-A-GIN on it.
I stuff it back in my pocket and do a search on my phone. Vit-a-gin is a gelcap of purified ginger root extract.
I take a breath, relieved. I had it all wrong. I was afraid she was on Oxy or something. But she’s no addict. She’s taking ginger pills. My wife took ginger to battle nausea when—
Oh. Oh.
That explains the nausea, the haggard look, the no drinking, even her attitude. It’s hard to be in a good mood when you have morning sickness.
My partner is pregnant.
Chapter 31
DRINKS AT the Hole. We probably started around seven, coming straight from the city hall press conference announcing our solve. The Hole is wall to wall with cops. Everybody wants a piece of this. Everybody deserves it, as much as we get shat on.
Even Superintendent Driscoll, at the press conference, shook my hand and told me, “Well done, Detective,” before he took credit for the whole thing in front of the bank of microphones.
I’ve turned down more shots tonight than I’ve drunk, but I’ve drunk plenty. Why not? Last time I was here, half the coppers turned their backs on me or mumbled something under their breath. Now I’m the man of the hour. That’s fine. It makes the job easier if you’re on good paper with other cops. But I won’t forget who my friends are, the ones who were there during the rough patches.
I spot Carla, who’s basically standing alone. Not drinking (of course) and not really socializing. Looking like someone who feels like she’s supposed to be there but doesn’t really want to be. Valerie always retired early during her pregnancy and slept in fits.
Maybe I’ll never get Carla Griffin. But at least I have some window into her life now, whether I’m supposed to or not. And thinking of her jumping down onto that roof to stay with me, to do the job, even though she’s carrying a child, and feeling like crap—I’ve got to cut her a lot more slack.
I tap her on the shoulder. She turns and tries to smile. It just isn’t really her. “Good work today,” she shouts to me, the only way we could hear each other. “If I didn’t say so already. Great work, actually.” She doesn’t look me in the eye as she speaks. It must have taken a lot for her to say that.
“Right back atcha,” I say. “A good team effort.”
She nods, but she’s not done. She looks at her feet. “I…sometimes, y’know, take a while to—”
And then I’m mugged, lifted from my feet, carried away as a chant starts in the room, Har-ney! Har-ney!, and suddenly I’m back on the stage in the corner, someone shoving the mike in my hand, just like old times, Billy Harney in the house.
The crowd goes quiet. I wasn’t really up for this, but what the hell.
“First of all, I’d like to thank the entire team that made this happen,” I say into the mike. “Lanny Soscia—where are you, Sosh? There he is.” Sosh raises a pint. “I’d like to thank Soscia for getting us through that door with a battering ram. It only took him six or seven tries.”
Everyone seems to like that.
“I’m not saying we lost the element of surprise, but the offender showered, packed a suitcase, and did his taxes before we got in.”
I wait for the laughter to subside. “That’s not to say Sosh is out of shape, but the guy breaks out in a sweat if he jumps to a conclusion. I’ve seen turtles with better lateral movement.
“Rodriguez still here? Mat?” Rodriguez shouts out from the crowd, hand cupped around his mouth. “There he is. Your wife let you stay out tonight?” He waves me off with a smirk. The crowd likes it.
“I’m not saying Mat’s henpecked. The other night, his wife told him to be home by eight. But she wasn’t gonna tell him what to do. No, sir. He was home by seven.
“But seriously,” I say after the laugh. “Mat’s an assertive guy. He comes right out and says exactly what his wife tells him to think.” Someone puts Mat in a headlock. I’m not the first one with this observation. “But no matter how much he argues with his wife, Mat always, always has the last word.” I lower the mike, nod at Rodriguez, then bring it back up. “That word is, Sorry!
“You know why Mat goes to a female dentist? It’s a nice change to have a woman tell him to open his mouth instead of shut it.”
I make an attempt to bow, but it doesn’t go so well. I’ve had better balance on a pogo stick. Someone figures out that it’s time to get me off the stage. Maybe this would be a good point in the night to slow down on the booze.
At ten o’clock, everyone shushes as the local news comes on. The stunning anchor breathlessly relates the “breaking news” as a photo of little LaTisha pops up alongside her. Within seconds, the screen cuts to the press conference from earlier today—the mayor and the superintendent, several leaders of the African American community, and behind them, our team: the Wiz, Carla, Rodriguez, and the two pale white guys, Sosh and me, as the bookends.
A cheer goes up. Elbows thrown my way. Sosh hollers out about the camera adding ten pounds. Someone asks if I lost my comb. They show us a couple of clips from the presser, the mayor taking credit for starting the Special Operations Section and saying it’s “time to heal,” a minister telling us “there’s more work to be done.” Then the anchor’s talking again as they run some footage without audio of Superintendent Driscoll at the mike.
Sosh doesn’t miss the opportunity to mimic the supe, his best Poindexter voice: “I’d just like everyone to know that I had absolutely nothing to do with the solving of this crime, and that I’m currently wearing ladies’ undergarments.”
I spot Joe Bostwick among the revelers, throwing back a pint with the lads. I grab his arm. “First of all,” I say, “great work today, Joe.”
He shakes my hand. “Learned a lot from you today, Detective. It’s been an honor.”
“Bright and early tomorrow morning,” I say, “we recanvass.”
“For real?” Patrol officers don’t usually question orders. He seems to realize he stepped over the line. “I mean, we got our—”
“Coulda been more than two people in the car,” I say. “Probably was.”
“But we talked to practically every person in the neighborhood.”
“Is practically every person the same as every person?”
The next story on the news: PROTEST RALLY CANCELED, and I can’t really hear what they’re saying, but apparently the solve of the case has led the community to change the rally from a protest downtown to a “peace vigil” outside one of the South Side churches.
Jeez, I guess that makes all this a happy ending.
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe.
Chapter 32
LATHAM JACKSON’S eyes are open before his alarm goes off Friday morning. Feels like he hardly slept. His stomach is still churning, and not from hunger or from the two or three bites of his mother’s hamburger pizza he forced down last night.
No, he’s hardly eaten, har
dly slept since he saw the shooting outside Shiv’s house two days ago.
He assumed it would be another run-of-the-mill drug buy. He handled it same as always. He started the video rolling as a vehicle turned from Van Buren onto Kilbourn, used the toggle on his computer to move his video camera, hidden inside the window AC unit. Followed the car until it stopped outside Shiv’s house, where Frisk casually approached the vehicle to get the customer’s order.
Then zoomed in on the license plate. Then upward, into the vehicle, the front-seat occupants.
The windows were partially tinted, meaning that a lesser, grainier camera wouldn’t capture them. But Latham has the best equipment, one of the perks of working at Best Buy. He could see them well enough.
The guys in the front seat were white. They wore baseball caps and kept their chins down, but they were white.
He remembers the small adrenaline burst when he zeroed in on them. White people, so there was a better chance they had money, and tinted windows, meaning they were particularly careful about being seen. Latham was seeing dollar signs. These people, he was sure, would pay good money to keep this video a secret.
And then everything went wrong. With the camera toggled in nice and close on the occupants, Latham couldn’t see anything at first, but he could hear it out his window, the unmistakable rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire.
Without thinking, he pressed down on the toggle, widened the frame, to see a flame shooting out from the car’s back-seat window. The occupants on the porch—Shiv and some white girl—rattled with bullets, the surrounding wood splintering from gunshots. Frisk, the courier in his Bears jersey, momentarily stunned, then turning to run. Gunfire hitting him, his back arching from the bullets as he fell face-first to the sidewalk.
It all happened so fast. Before Latham could process what he’d seen, the car was gone. And he’d captured a thirty-second horror movie on his laptop.
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